Coincidence No. 541 – J’accuse

When I look at Facebook this morning the first thing I see is a post from the past (2015) on its anniversary. It was a reminder that today’s the day (13th January in 1898) that Émile Zola accused the French government/establishment of anti-semitism in the letter J’Accuse. Yesterday was the day (in 2015) the French government sent armed troops in to guard Jewish schools. I also published a second post on the subject that same day 5 years ago (the Charlie Hebdo shooting had been the previous week on 7th January 2015): Today’s the day (in 1898) Émile Zola published the letter J’Accuse in a French newspaper. He was convicted of libel. Then took refuge in London. #jesuischarlie


I am watching the 1969 British film The Magic Christian this evening. It contains a Who’s Who of the 60s of swinging London including Peter Sellers, Ringo Starr, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Spike Milligan, Christopher Lee, Roman Polanski and Raquel Welch. Raquel plays a bikinied Amazon (echoes of her fur bikini in One Million Years BC, 1966) in a scene parodying the slave galley scene in Spartacus). Among the first words out of her mouth are “J’accuse!”.
Priestess of the Whip (Raquel Welch):
In, out.
[Groaning]
In, out!
[Groaning continues]
In, out. In…
During my reign as Priestess of the Whip, I’ve never seen such unmitigated sloth.
Passenger: My god! What’s going on here?
Priestess of the Whip:
J’accuse!
How dare this intrusion? Who are these people?
Youngman Grand (Ringo Starr): Oh, these are me mates.
Priestess of the Whip: Out! Out!
[Groans]
Passenger: Oh, I say! Do that again.
Priestess of the Whip: Out! Out! Out of my galley!
I was watching the film because tomorrow night Entertainment Attorney and Executive Producer Vinca Jarrett, who I met last year in Duluth, Minnesota when I was doing a speech on diversity in TV entitled Not The Usual Suspects, is putting on an online film discussion group which I’m really looking forward to. These kinds of online communal activity, like Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties, at their best are one of the silver linings of Covid Lockdown, generating a genuine sense of shared experience and contact.
While I was at it I made an edit to the Magic Christian entry on Wikipedia, noting the fleeting appearance of John & Yoko in the movie. My first ever article published on Wikipedia was the one on User-Generated Content. And here we are some two decades later with WordPress and its over-refined self-publishing service with these difficult to manipulate Blocks and generally over-boiled interface. In two days’ time it is the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia – launched 15th January 2001. The scale, accuracy and relative lack of conflict around this pooling of the world’s knowledge online is a testimony to what people can do together for no money. In contrast to the theme explored by The Magic Christian, which is that everyone has their price.

What I learnt from Michael Apted

It was sad to hear of the passing of Michael Apted on Saturday. His ‘Up’ series is one of the great achievements of documentary film and could never be replicated in the industry and the world as it is now. This is what I learnt from him when we crossed paths in Rome two years ago.
Bowie revelation

Listening to lots of David Bowie music over his birthday weekend (Friday was his birthday, 8th January) I had a bit of a revelation. One of my favourite LPs of all time – The Talking Heads’ Remain in the Light – I suspect was very heavily influenced by Bowie’s Lodger. I remember the release of Lodger, his third Berlin album, well, him explaining on some BBC radio show the background to the world sounds drawn from Turkey, Africa and other diverse places. Lodger was released in May 1979 (one of the great years for music) and Remain in the Light in October of the following year. The connection should have been obvious because both were produced by Brian Eno and he has proven himself one of the creative greats of our times.

Eno’s impact on Bowie’s work on Lodger and the other two Berlin records is very well captured in David Bowie: Verbatim, the archive programme made by my friend Des Shaw at Zinc in January 2016, which was repeated last night to mark the 5th anniversary of Bowie’s passing in that month – you can listen to it here.
Best of 2020
Work in Progress

Film:
Lovers Rock
Queen & Slim
Nomadland
Le Corbeau, Vertigo
Last year: Joker, Mid90s
Foreign-Language Film:
?
Last year: Parasite
Documentary:
Crip Camp
Dick Johnson is Dead
Last year: Rolling Thunder Review
Male Lead:
Tom Hanks – News of the World
Ralph Fiennes – The Dig
Last year: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker)
Female Lead:
Frances McDormand – Nomadland
Jodie Turner-Smith – Queen & Slim
Last year: Elizabeth Debicki (Virginia, Vita & Virginia)
Male Support:
?
Last year: Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin in Joker
Female Support:
Helena Zengel – News of the World
Glenn Close – Hillbilly Elegy
Last year: Kaitlyn Dever as Amy in Booksmart
Director:
Steve McQueen – Lovers Rock
Last year: Todd Phillips (Joker), Jonah Hill (Mid 90s)
Writer:
?
Last year: Jonah Hill (Mid 90s)
Editing:
?
Last year: ?
Cinematography:
Dariusz Wolski – News of the World
Hoyte van Hoytema – Tenet
Last year: Roger Deakins – 1917
Film Music:
Lovers Rock
Last year: Rolling Thunder Review
Single/Song:
Long Tailed Winter Bird – Paul McCartney
Reborn a Queen – Naughty Alice
Kunta Kinte Dub – The Revolutionaries
Last year: Lately – Celeste
Album:
McCartney III – Paul McCartney
Letter to You – Bruce Springsteen
Last year: Ghosteen – Nick Cave
Gig:
Sarah Jane Morris – Ronnie Scott’s
ROE – The Waiting Room
A Bowie Celebration – Empire, Shepherd’s Bush
Last year: Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets (Roundhouse)
Play:
0
Last year: A Taste of Honey (Trafalgar Studios)
Art Exhibition:
London Calling (Museum of London) – the only one I got to this year 😦
A Surge of Power by Marc Quinn going up on the base of the deposed Colston statue, Bristol
Boy & Bear – Brandon Hill, Bristol (thanks to Dylan on my birthday)
Last year: Van Gogh in Britain (Tate B)
Book:
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free – Andrew Miller
The Plague – Albert Camus
Summer – Ali Smith
Last year: A Woman of No Importance – Sonia Purnell; The Quiet American
TV:
Lovers Rock (BBC)
The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)
The Crown – S4 (Amazon)
The Romantics and Us (BBC2)
The Bridge S1
Last year: After Life (Netflix)
Podcast:
Heavyweight
Adam Buxton
The Happiness Lab
Last Year: 13 Minutes to the Moon
Sport:
Spurs 2 – Arsenal 1 (11.7.20)
Dance:
Mam (Sadlers Wells)
Last Year: The Red Shoes (Sadlers Wells)
Event:
Statue of Edward Colston being chucked in Bristol harbour
The Winter Solstice at Newgrange, Ireland
Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties
Dearly departed:
- Andy Taylor (with whom I worked at Little Dot and Channel 4)
- Albert Uderzo
- Jimmy Cobb
- Alan Parker
- Terry Jones
- Carl Reiner
- Kirk Douglas
- Sean Connery
- John Hume
- Ruth Bader Ginsberg
- Terence Conran
- JJ Williams
- Nobby Stiles
- Nicholas Parsons
- Tim Brooke Taylor

Best of 2019 and links to earlier Bests Of
Winter Solstice at Newgrange
In this era of video streaming here is a particularly brilliant (literally) application – sharing the Winter Solstice at the Newgrange passage tomb in Co. Meath, Ireland. I first went there in the early 80s when there was no visitor centre or formality and the nearby tombs of Knowth and Dowth were largely overgrown. Now it is (very deservedly) a World Heritage Site and this morning’s live broadcast via YouTube was brought to the world by Brú na Bóinne / World Heritage Ireland and Oifig na nOibreacha Poiblí / the Irish Office of Public Works (OPW). Starting as the sun rose over the horizon behind the loop of the River Boyne we were enabled through live streaming to witness the entrance of the sunlight into the passage of this neolithic tomb and watch its advance down the passage to illuminate this house of spirits and mark the rebirth of the sun after the darkest days of winter. Particularly resonant of course this year.
The live commentary by two authoritative and warm Irish experts explained that this area is an”inland island” being separated by a huge loop of the river. The whole area is rich in neolithic remains and traces. They showed some aerial photos from 2018, enabled by that other important new camera technology, drones, revealing crop marks and patterns in the countryside in drought showing the presence of huge perfectly circular constructions (a henge) on a grand scale, unknown until that driest of summers.
The ability to share in real time sights which are not otherwise accessible to the world at large is one of the fundamental benefits of streaming video.













Wishing Simple Pleasures Part 4 readers and the world at large light after the darkness and Simple Pleasures galore in 2021.
Andy Taylor – Little Dot Studios
Some cherished memories of an exceptional man who played a big part in my career, first at Channel 4, then at Little Dot Studios. Above all he was a mensch (the highest any of us can aspire to).



