Brideshead Revisited, Again

Charles and Sebastian nod off in a gondola during a sun-kissed trip to Venice.

This week I was looking around on Netflix for something nice to watch in the evenings while getting ready for bed, and I rediscovered the original 1981 version of Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh's story of love, sex, guilt, religion, and redemption in the golden years of prewar Britain - and like a fine bottle of wine, this portrayal by a superb cast has only improved with age since I last saw it years ago. M.P. and I saw the 2008 film version with Emma Thompson as the iron-lady matriarch when that came out, and it is very good too - but the original TV series is done across eleven episodes, allowing much more time to savor the atmosphere and absorb all the nuances of character development.

Much of the series was filmed at the magnificent Castle Howard in Yorkshire.

Anthony Andrews is charming as the haunted Lord Sebastian, and Jeremy Irons is touchingly naive as his admiring middle-class lover. Nor must I omit to mention the late, great Sir Laurence Olivier as the middle-aged but still quite studly paterfamilias in exile. And many more fine characterizations by a first-rate ensemble. If you've never seen it before, I highly recommend you pour yourself a nice glass of wine, cuddle your teddy bear, and settle in for a delicious treat. If you don't have Netflix, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube - here's a teaser with some skin to entice you, from Episode 2:



PS - I see from googling around that some reviewers are still debating whether these boys had a homosexual relationship, or were just "good friends." OMG. What do you say, fellas?

Aloysius joins the boys in a dapper pose beside the fountain at Brideshead.

Marriage Equality Advances in Britain and France

Demonstrators led by longtime gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell (center) rallied outside Parliament last night as the historic vote was taken on same-sex marriage.

Last night, the bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Britain passed its second reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 400-175, making it a near certainty that the bill - after being fine-tuned by a Commons committee and passing review by the House of Lords before returning to the lower house for a final vote - will become law before the end of this year.  The Telegraph reports:



Channel 4 News gives a brief history of changing attitudes in Britain since the 1950's:



And last Saturday, the lower house of the French Parliament likewise passed the key section of an equal-marriage bill by 249-97; further debate will take place this week before the bill is sent on to the Senate.



As in Britain, political observers expect that France will also have legalized same-sex marriage before year's end. Kudos to Prime Minister Cameron and to President Hollande, who have both taken a bold stand for equality in the face of the usual bigoted opposition and vituperation from the reactionary elements in their respective countries.

Meanwhile, Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights gives an update on progress in this country:

Royal Baby News Caps Queen's Diamond Jubilee Year

First comes love, then comes marriage,
Then comes baby in a baby carriage!

It's official: HRH the Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby, who will likely be born next June or July. Britain is rightly agog with the happy news, and felicitations are pouring in from all corners of the world.

Here's the Telegraph's editorial, which appeared under the headline "Delightful News":

Just the right word to describe the reaction of the Royal family and the Duchess of Cambridge’s family to the news that she is expecting a baby is “delighted”. It is a delight the nation can share, as we shared the joy of the wedding of the new Duke and Duchess on an April morning last year. Who would not be delighted at the prospect of a mother’s first child, especially a mother who has won affection with her natural beauty and straightforward character?

It is sad that the Duchess has an extreme form of morning sickness, though she is in good hands. The best medical technology will doubtless be placed at her disposal; indeed, such have been the advances since the birth of the present Queen, and so hardy is our ruling dynasty, that the new heir to the throne could see the Windsors into the 22nd century. The thought itself is comforting – and delightful.

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It does give one a rather warm, jolly feeling - something our republic has no counterpart of. Not a necessary thing, of course; but a nice one.

More coverage from the Telegraph:





As a side note, it is expected that before the baby is born, Parliament will have passed a bill allowing the couple's firstborn child to become monarch, regardless of sex.

Worth Watching: Edwardian Country House

There being a dearth of anything else worth posting about this week - I'm sure you guys are all up to date on the latest political gaffes and foreign affairs - I'm going to share with you an excellent documentary I watched several years ago and am now working though again: The Edwardian Country House, filmed in the fall of 2001 by Britain's Channel 4, and subsequently broadcast there and in the U.S. on PBS, which retitled it as Manor House. I'm enjoying it just as much this time around as I did the first time I saw it; it really is very well done, and if you haven't seen it yourself, do give it a try.



All six episodes are viewable on YouTube. For more on the series, including exit interviews with the participants, check out the PBS website for the show. Also, if you're planning a visit to Scotland and would like to rent the exquisitely lovely Manderston House for an overnight stay with yourself and up to 18 of your closest friends, check out the house's website.

There were several of these period-recreation shows done in this country and in Britain in the last decade, and I've seen most of them, and enjoyed them all. Apart from the historical and artistic interest, these types of shows are fascinating for the psychological insights they provide: how much of our attitudes and behaviors are a product of living in one time or another? And it's amusing, too, to see which participants can make the change back to another time, and which ones just can't let go of the 21st century - which produces predictable conflicts with the others.

I won't say anything more about this series so as not to prejudice you - except that I think it's important to keep in mind that all the participants, upstairs and down, are constrained by following a well-marked "script" of how to behave with one another. But of course your realize that real life, in any period including our own, is infinitely variable, and does not always follow the script we think it should! But watch it and see what you think. If you like Downton Abbey, you'll get a kick out of this. Enjoy.


Bonus: The following documentary produced by PBS in early 2012 isn't nearly so good - it follows the dishonest modern style of using ominous music and a certain intonation of the narrator's voice to project a feeling of creepiness, fear, and sinister doings, when they are talking about clearly ordinary things. Still, beginning at the 6:00 mark, it has a short interview with the current owner of Manderston, Lord Palmer, his Texas-born wife, and their butler, along with some new shots of the interior and exterior.

Worth Watching: The History of the Home

Lucy Worsley

What may or may not be the first in a series of documentaries that your Head Trucker has enjoyed on YouTube:  from BBC4, If Walls Could Talk:  The History of the Home, presented by Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, London. 

Worsley takes viewers through the 800-year evolution of the living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, with visits to historic houses in various parts of England.  Pretty fascinating, and full of many enlightening historical tidbits - from cooking a hedgehog to roasting with a dog-powered spit. Here's the first part of the episode on the kitchen.




BTW - the hit counter in the sidebar tells me that the Blue Truck has now had over 400,000 views. Thanks for the support, guys.

World's First Color Film Found

Along about 1902, a young British photographer named Edward Turner came up with a way to film movies in natural color.  Unfortunately, Turner died a couple of years later, and his technique was forgotten, along with his pioneering films.  But now researchers at the National Media Museum in Bradford, England, have reprocessed the 110-year-old film found in their vaults, with amazing results:



Read more about the discovery at the museum's website.

All I Want for Christmas Is You, Sailor

Okay, back to the question of the younger generation:  how fucking gay is this?  Performed by the crew of HMS Ocean, pride of the Royal Navy:

This Is Our Year

Young gay lovers in Britain.  One made this video as a Christmas present for the other.  So sweet.


this is our year. from Joe M on Vimeo.

This is what I wish for all the younger generation, and many more years like it.

Newsbites

A mix of interesting articles I came across this evening, thought my truckbuddies might like to see them too:

Why Progressives Are Losing the National Debate -

Americans are grappling with struggling markets, captured regulators, languishing employment, and rising inequality. Self-identified progressives, mostly found on or to the left of the Democratic Party, have for years made these issues central to their agenda. The moment seems ripe for the popular embrace of progressive policies. Instead, progressives find themselves embattled. "Voters feel ever more estranged from government -- and . . . they associate Democrats with government," explains Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. The result is that "a crisis of government legitimacy is a crisis of liberalism."

Lasers for the Dead: A Story About Gravestone Technology -

Death doesn't change. But that doesn't mean that death escapes its time or culture. The older sections of Washington Cemetery have an identifiable style, too, Ciamaga said. The new stones are just the latest one. But if that's true, then these stones say something about the times in which we now live and die.

Our death stones are shiny and global and technologized to display high-resolution portraits of our loved ones. Our death stones are not quite as durable as the gray granite of the 20th century, but they are stitched between the rocks that came before.

World War II: The American Home Front in Color -

In 1942, soon after the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order creating the Office of War Information (OWI). The new agency was tasked with releasing war news, promoting patriotic activities, and providing news outlets with audio, film, and photos of the government's war efforts. Between 1939 and 1944, the OWI and the Farm Security Administration made thousands of photographs, approximately 1,600 of them in color. OWI photographers Alfred Palmer and Howard Hollem produced some exceptional Kodachrome transparencies in the early war years depicting military preparedness, factory operations, and women in the work force. While most of the scenes were posed, the subjects were the real thing -- soldiers and workers preparing for a long fight. (45 photos)

Riots in London -

Riots that erupted in London neighborhoods over the weekend spread to four other cities yesterday, as hundreds were arrested and at least one person was killed. What began as a protest against the police shooting of Tottenham resident Mark Duggan spread quickly into general rioting and opportunistic looting -- what Prime Minister David Cameron has called "criminality pure and simple." For three days now, buildings and vehicles have been smashed and set on fire, while stores and warehouses were looted. Police have been unable to do much to slow the mayhem. Tonight, some 16,000 police officers will be deployed to London's streets in an effort to quash the worst unrest in the city in decades. Collected here are images of the violence in the U.K. from the past several days. (41 photos)

The Chav Revolt -

"Why are there so many kids who have no ambition but to be horrible, criminal people that don't want to do anything other than cause misery for others? Their only aspiration in life is to be like someone in a rap video or to win the Lottery. All they want is a quick fix and that's fuelled by the media and by advertising.

And then there's all the good people out there who work hard and break our backs and do our best, and stay within the boundaries of what is right. I'm attempting to start my own small business but that's going to be even harder in this area now. I don't blame the police for not reacting fast enough. There are just thousands of scumbag criminals out there and not enough police," - Jon Davis, 32, an outraged resident of Croydon, South London.

Looters mugging an injured man:



Londoners volunteers turned out en masse today for cleanup duty in the debris-strewn streets:

photo via the Atlantic

photo via Joe.My.God.

WTF: English Cowboy

He sure looks the part, starting at about the 4:00 mark.  Seems strange at first, hearing a British accent coming out of his mouth instead of a Texas twang.  But I could get used to it.  I tell you what.

Change Dribbles In

Republican women seem to be getting it; you remember John McCain's wife took part in a photo shoot supporting equal marriage a few months ago.  Now this from Laura Bush:



Where the women go, the men always follow.  Eventually.  It's a straight thing.

People who say Laura should have spoken up while her husband was in the White House are simply immature, juvenile in judgment - and probably have never been married.  It wasn't her job to pick a public fight with her husband over any political issue, was it? 

You know guys, we need to take our allies wherever and whenever we find them, and not be overrighteous, ungrateful, bitchy queens about it.  You want to have a friend, you have to be a friend, my mama always said.

And across the water, this startling fact from Andrew Sullivan:  11 members of the now-governing Conservative party are gay and out.  Here we have only 3 openly gay congresspeeps, all Dems.  Wonder when we will ever see the first out gay Republican in national office?

There'll Always Be an England

They have wardrobe malfunctions over there, too.



Of course, you fellas know, don't you, what we say in Texas -

British, or gay?  Who can tell?

Prince William Does the Pauper Thing

Prince William has spent a night sleeping on the streets, finding out what poverty and homelessness are like. 

A cold alley in central London is a far cry from a palace – but it was the spot Prince William chose to sleep to highlight the plight of homeless British teenagers.  He spent a chilly night near Blackfriars Bridge last week with Seyi Obakin, the chief executive of British homeless charity Centrepoint. William has been the charity's patron since 2005.

"I cannot, after one night, even begin to imagine what it must be like to sleep rough on London's streets night after night," William said Tuesday. "Poverty, mental illness, drug and alcohol dependency and family breakdown cause people to become and then stay homeless.  I hope that by deepening my understanding of the issue, I can help do my bit to help the most vulnerable on our streets."

William, second in line to the throne, was exposed to some of the hardships found on London's streets when his mother, Princess Diana, took him to a shelter in 1996. Just 13 at the time, William spent an hour at the facility with his younger brother, Harry.  Diana was well-known for her charitable work and the homeless was a group she was particularly close to. She had also served as Centrepoint's patron, a position she held at the time of her death in 1997.

Takes after his mother, he does.  He's a good-hearted kid, he'll make a good king one of these days.  If the monarchy lasts that long.  Both he and brother Harry are involved in a number of charities in Britain and overseas; check out their website for more details.

BTW, the boy looks good with a beard.  Woof.

Raw Deal in Britain

Imagine finding six naked guys in your neighborhood convenience store . . . I wish.  British cops are looking for the six streakers, who were dumb enough to pull this prank without wearing masks or anything.  Surveillance video here.