#digging for Britain

[bookymcbookface]

‘Ancestors: The Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials’, by Professor Alice Roberts

[sirgawin]

Johnny Flynn & Robert Macfarlane // Coins for the Eyes

And dig for those whose stories lie With buried pasts and futures won And dig for us as we have done To lay the dead out in the sun To lay us dead out in the sun

Features in BBC 2's Digging for Britain with Dr Alice Roberts.

[charmoly]

The beautiful and very clever Professor Alice Roberts.

[ummick]

"Okay Mick, you can do the donuts now. 🔥" - july 16, 2023 📷 @.mercedesamgf1 / twitter

[infiniteglitterfall]

jewish shower thoughts

A Reddit comment I can't stop thinking about: "If you think whiteness is bad, Jews are white to you. If you think whiteness is good, Jews aren't white to you."

[kaleschmidt]

actually yeah i can release this 4 his bday

[pynkhues]

I’m the anon who asked you for your take on Jeremy Strong’s awards no-show. I straight up LOVED that answer! And your point re. Kieran and Jeremy probably annoying each other, I hear that and understand it and agree! But in all seriousness, I think this is one of the things that kind of narcs me about the discourse around Jeremy’s ‘process’ and how disruptive it is, and how Kieran has to make allowances for him. It’s a two-way street! Jeremy would have been making allowances for and adjusting to his colleagues, too. I’m not sure why one style of disruption is more acceptable than the other tbh. Anyway ty for your reply, love your blog and your Succession thoughts and your industry insights!

(x)

You're very welcome, anon! And yeah, I think people just have a kneejerk reaction to method acting tbh, which I do kind of get? A lot of actors I think do use it in a way that lets them get away with bad behaviour, after all, and it's certainly an approach that's had a body count, but I think at its core, method acting is an immersive technique that, when done well, can be immensely useful for actors feeling their way into worlds that are really foreign to their own.

Benedict Cumberbatch actually talked about it in a pretty interesting way during The Power of the Dog's press tour. Jane Campion had actually encouraged him to do it, and for him it really became about using his hands in a way that he'd never really had to before, in particular in cigarette rolling, banjo playing and taxidermy, all of which are crucial to the character he plays.

But yes, that's a whole other thing, haha. I do think some of the criticism of method acting is about it's room for bad behaviour, but I also do think a bit of it can sometimes be a deliberate diminishment of the craft of acting. There does seem to be a popular sentiment that acting is just people who just get to play make believe all day, but good acting is an art form in and of itself, and of course there'd be different techniques and methods to excel at that.

I don't know! Day jobbing at a theatre company means I'm around actors a lot these days, and I kinda love just going to watch them workshop. There are so many different ways into roles, and I think the only thing to really remember is that when it comes to actors, they're all insane, haha.

[ssaalexblake]

it's funny bc, i was thinking about that letter baby peter capaldi wrote about wanting to be an actor to help the doctor when he got older, and how when he was the doctor they dug it up again.

Then I thought how, it's unlikely anybody born somewhere between like 85-95 would ever have that happen to them bc said sentiments would probably have been posted online when tweens or teens, and people born between said years were taught the dangers of the internet and would have been conscious of anonymity.

Then i thought how, people born after that in the years of facebook's normalisation campaign to have you put your whole name and face and personal details online means that we've probably sprung right back round to being able to dig up stuff said as children or teenagers and say it on tv.

I know i, on one of my 'you'd never know it was me bc i practiced internet safety' accounts, when i was 14, spoke about loving doctor who on the internet. Was probably obnoxiously 14 and sappy about it. Would bother me if it got out. Account still exists. I could become the next doctor and you'd never know, though.

[oops-ibrokereality]

Ik Johnny Flynn's music is the stereotypical archaeology music but the way he writes does something to me that I cant explain

[alanshemper]

“Nobody has forgiven Britain for that.”

—Abdel Razzag Takriti in “Thawra Ep. 4 From the Nakba to Nasser” on The Dig

[mr-ladystardust]

I was literally just falling asleep on the couch but now that I'm in bed sleep is a foreign concept??? wtf brain

[tenth-sentence]

Like Britain's Dig For Victory efforts, Detroit (and much of the United States) also did amazingly well to feed itself during the Second World War.

"Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy" - Matthew Evans

[thespamman24]

DOn't turn british people into cats unless you're sure their tea can be drunk by cats. Otherwise they will die, and there is no more land left in Britain to dig a grave.

[miss-guided-ghosts]

2/4 of archeology memes: “haha lol we do not dig dinosaurs”

1/4 of archeology memes: “pottery shard no. 5,019”

1/4 of archeology memes: “no one died in iron age britain.”

[eccedeus]

The quoted text above is from 1872, which is just three years after the British Second Reform Act came into effect which lowered property qualifications and extended suffrage to clerks/artisans/other skilled workers, as well as increasing representation for urban areas. At this same time, Germany was an authoritarian and imperialistic state. Technically, there was universal male suffrage for the lower house, but Bismarck did not care for democracy or constitutions, he simply used them to unify Germany and preserve Prussia. Prussia had limited suffrage and significant power over the Bundesrat, and thus over legislation as well.

I would say, the English constitutional reforms at the time showed a willingness and space to increase workers rights and representation, whereas Germany showed it was willing to use any ideologies to further its imperial power and military strength. In case of the latter, we can see how that turned out some decades later.

From an article on Marxist Theory on Revolution and Violence:

"In 1891, in his criticism of the Erfurt program, Engels admitted the possibility of a peaceful development of a socialist revolution in such countries with an advanced parliamentary system as England, America, and France. He claimed that it could be imagined that an old society could turn into a new one in those countries in which popular representation has all the power in its hands, where everything can be achieved constitutionally if one is supported by the majority of the nation; this applied to such democratic republics as France and America, and to such monarchies as England. "

Of course the following paragraph is important to add:

"Lenin in the same work stated that a violent revolution was a neces-

sity, since the exceptional conditions in England and in the United

States, referred to by Marx, had ceased to exist, but nevertheless in

his polemics with Otto Bauer he admitted a possibility of a peaceful

transition to socialism in a capitalist country surrounded by socialist

countries."

Schaff, Adam. “Marxist Theory on Revolution and Violence.” Journal of the History of Ideas 34, no. 2 (1973): 263–70. https://doi.org/10.2307/2708729.

The worker must one day capture political power in order to found the new organisation of labour. He must reverse the old policy, which the old institutions maintain, if he will not, like the Christians of old who despised and neglected such things, renounce the things of this world.

But we do not assert that the way to reach this goal is the same everywhere.

We know that the institutions, the manners and the customs of the various countries must be considered, and we do not deny that there are countries like England and America, and, if I understood your arrangements better, I might even add Holland, where the worker may attain his object by peaceful means. But not in all countries is this the case.

Karl marx said imperialist england and usamerikkka specifically can just do reformism with no need for revolution. Revisionists cope and seethe

[tea-earl-grey]

i do think it's really interesting to compare the ways Star Trek and Doctor Who succeed and fail as pieces of progressive media because they almost have the opposite problem.

both of the shows are progressive, let's make that clear. while there are exceptions, both shows and worlds consistently critique capitalism, value compassion, solve problems without violence, and at least try to be diverse. there will always be individual episodes (and even eras/arcs) that contradict those values but in general, they are progressive compared to your average procedural or whatnot. but they, by the very nature of their premise, often fail to live up to fully realizing those progressive values. and yes, individual instances of racism or misogyny or any type of bigotry is a product of the bigotry of the writers/creators, but Star Trek and Doctor Who ultimately fail and will always fail to fully embody progressivism.

Star Trek is trapped in its own system of the Federation & Starfleet. for any of the shows to work, we the audience have to believe that the Federation is almost always a good & benevolent force and while criticisms of it are made, those criticisms are the exception and not the rule. the Federation/Starfleet can be criticized but at the end of the story, we must reaffirm that our characters are still good people and it's individual corruption that's the problem. the system can be portrayed as flawed but it must always be better than the alternative. if there is a Star Trek show that would truly dig far enough into how the Federation is a product of imperialism and how the nature of exploring & going where no one has gone before is inherently rooted in racism & orientalism then the franchise would collapse because nearly everything to this point relies on the belief in that a fundamentally good utopian system is possible.

now there's Doctor Who. Doctor Who has a quite different premise in that it is never rooted to one place or time the way Star Trek is attached to Starfleet/the Federation. (there could be an argument that Doctor Who is ultimately rooted in Britain but despite the 2005 series and the UNIT era in classic who, there are large swathes of classic who and the EU that never visit Britain. it's been made an important part of the show (as the show is an important part of British culture) but it's not inherent to the basic premise.) however, because Doctor Who is focused on traveling and seeing the wonders of the universe, its premise essentially becomes "some people turn up to fix a problem and then disappear". again, there are exceptions to this (especially in early classic who), but the formula of the show is almost trapped in the belief of individual action and power to solve systemic problems which... is not how most problems or solutions behave in reality. and just as Star Trek can criticize the Federation but must ultimately forgive it, Doctor Who can criticize the Doctor and portray them as flawed but must still reaffirm their status as a hero.

so we have Star Trek too caught up in its own systems to be able to critique them and Doctor Who too focused on running to portray how complex, long term solutions are needed to solve deeply entrenched problems.

and honestly... i don't think either of these are bad. they're simply the limitations of the shows as they exist and it would be far more worthwhile to develop new premises & find other media that incorporate those types of leftist political values from the start than to try to graft them onto 60 year old media franchises and pretend like they've always been there.

and they do serve a purpose! Star Trek might not be able to adequately portray the flaws of a system but it does give you hope for a better utopian future where people are taken care of and allowed to live however they choose, where there's infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Doctor Who might not be able to portray the complicated solutions to complicated problems that we face today but it tells you that every life matters, that kindness is the most important quality, and that everyone can make a difference in some way.