Status:

Mostly watching telly today. We finished off Dear England this evening which had a bit too much football for me but given the subject matter I’ll allow it. Where it really worked for me was as a history of the last decade, from Brexit through Covid to whatever the fuck is going on now, and how even to an apostate like me it actually did feel like the Gareth Southgate was the only sane person in charge of anything, even if it was just a football team.

The other telly was the first episode of Tip Toe, the new Russell Davies drama which I’d been reading about. Fi had watched it already and wanted me to catch up so we could watch the rest together. I knew it was going to be angry and a little dark but I didn’t anticipate how much it would affect me.

I don’t tend to get emotional watching films and TV. I enjoy the manipulation of my feelings and such but I tend to just admire the craft than actually feel affected. It happens occasionally, of course, but very rarely. Tip Toe left me feeling angry and upset and with a tightness in my throat that never bodes well. And also a little confused and uncertain.

I’m bascially a shut-in now and I’m very aware that I get most of my information about the outside world second hand, either from friends or on screens. I hope that awareness means I can be a little critical of what I receive, and I’m sure my bubble would be just as filtered however active I was in the world — that’s how perceptions and biases work. But I felt watching this that all my fears about the future were being confirmed.

This fucking scene. My god.

To be clear, I’m not part of the gay community, though I have plenty of friends who are. I don’t face any of the risks and dangers they do. But if a storm is coming they’re going to be among the first to be hit, and I will be standing with them as much as I’m able.

Davies reckons the storm is here.

There are still four episodes to go and it is a polemic scripted drama which is supposed to elicit a response, so we’ll see how I feel once it’s all over. I’m just a little surprised at what it provoked in me, like it was amplifying something already there. Not sure what to do with that right now, just wanted to get it out.

Reading:

• Links I would Gchat you if we were friends #772: Gratuitous pandering — A really good issue of this roundup newsletter that I’m struggling to pull just one link from, so have the whole thing.
• The best Steven Spielberg films, chosen by directors, critics and super-fans — A piece of fluff, for sure, but notable because the final review, of Jaws, is by my old compadre Cat, and before I realised she’s written it I thought it was the best. (The turgid Bradshaw introduction is utterly skippable.)
• What is drystone? — When I was a kid in the 80s my mum would pack me off to “outward bounds” holidays in the summer. Sometimes the big PGL or YHA places, sometimes something smaller. Once I was on this farm run by hippies where we did drystone walling, so I have the vaguest of memories of how it works. This piece goes into much more detail and I’ve subscribed for more as it’s super interesting. I wonder if my bit of wall is still standing…