That Interview

‘Oprah with Meghan & Harry’ (ITV 8/3/21 Harpo Productions)

I watched the interview in the same room as I watched the Bill Grundy interview with the Sex Pistols. It was one of those landmark TV interviews that come along only every few years. Of course the Diana Panorama with Martin Bashir in 1995 (An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales) was another such interview, of which Oprah’s is a direct descendent. 

The best piece I’ve read about it was this one by historian David Olusoga in The Guardian – he singles out the wedding of Harry & Meghan and the London 2012 Olympic Games (for which I worked as a volunteer in the media operation, specifically the website – the best summer of my adult life) as two great opportunities to take Britain forwards, two moments when the country projected itself as “effortlessly global and at ease with its multiculturalism” and then argues that the monarchy, Establishment and country have failed to live up to this vision. Frankly the world is better left to the likes of Danny Boyle (creator of the brilliant 2012 Opening Ceremony) when it comes to realising visions.

Oprah’s dropped jaw above was in response to the point Meghan Markle made in the interview about race: 

Meghan: “In those months when I was pregnant … we have in tandem the conversation of ‘He won’t be given security. He’s not going to be given a title.’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”

Oprah: “Who is having that conversation?”

Meghan: “That was relayed to me from Harry from conversations that family had with him.”

 

It’s the main thing that was picked up from the interview, underscored by Oprah’s jaw-dropping. It is quite a nuanced discussion point, particularly with the limited context. However the broad brush effect is to paint the monarchy and by extension the country as imperial racists to the global audience.

 

So it is important to put some perspective around this. Trevor Phillips, former chairman of the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC), head of the Commission for Racial Equality 2003-2006, deputy chairman of the board of the National Equality Standard, and director of Pepper Productions, did this effectively in a piece in The Times this week.

 

Oprah, who made her name acting in the The Color Purple, would be more aware than most of the fact that she lives in a country essentially built on slavery and genocide. As Islington-born Phillips puts it:

 

“Britain now stands in the dock internationally as a breeding ground for casual racial bigotry. Brits will see some irony here. Most of the finger pointing comes from the United Staes, a country where young black men are frequently gunned down by white police officers; where black families on average have one tenth of the wealth of white households; and where, outside work, people of different colours seldom mix.”

 

He reminds us that:

• people of colour are more likely to report racial harassment in every other EU country (apart from Malta)
• rates are twice as high in Ireland, Germany and Italy
• UK has more people of colour in high ministerial office than the whole of the EU put together
• The current Cabinet includes Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak & Alok Sharma (making up over 17%) among its number, Sunak being strongly fancied as the next Prime Minister.

Trevor Phillips & his partner Helen Veale of Outline Productions

David Olusoga

Coincidences No.s 288, 289 & 290

No. 288 Black Lives Matter

I finish a documentary entitled ‘Black Rainbow‘. All through the production it has reminded me of a film I worked on a couple of years ago entitled ‘Black Star‘. The former is about black and trans rights. The latter about voluntary repatriation of an Afro-American musician from California to Ghana. They both are firmly in the realm of Black Lives Matter.

I am scrolling through Instagram the same day and I come across a post by the main contributor to ‘Black Star’, Sunru. His Insta name (unbeknownst to me) is blackrainbow333.

(2018)

No. 289 Friedlander

I am talking to my nephew about his Photography GCSE. He has been inspired on his main project by Lee Friedlander, American photographer and artist (b. 1934).

I am moving my whole library and in the process there is one picture book I decide to chuck. It’s because it is so big it doesn’t really fit in the bookcase. It was given to me a few years ago by an old friend who now lives in California. I helped her with a documentary she was working on – the book was my reward. It is a lovely copy – a signed, numbered, limited edition. It is of photographs by a photographer I had never heard of before receiving the book. A certain Lee Friedlander.

No. 290 Olympic Park

I am moving house and the new place is a new build constructed by Barratt Homes. I noticed in the contract that the sales operation was based somewhere in East London. Today, to distract myself from the drawn-out process of purchasing the place I go for a walk along the canal in Hackney. 

At the end of the walk I get to the old Broadcast Centre from London 2012 Olympics. I worked as a volunteer (Games Maker) in the summer of 2012 in the Press Centre. I cycled along that canal in the early morning to get to work there. I decide to go look at the Press Centre for old times’ sake – it was the best summer of my adult life. I look to see what businesses have moved into the building in its new phase. Barratt Homes have.

 

Thanks for the warm-up

Some cheekiness from Channel 4, literally picking up from where the first #Superhumans trailer for the London 2012 Paralympics left off…

How wonderful is it to see a pretty much sold out Paralympics? London, you’re a star

My Olympics: I’ll see you (and raise you too)

“There’s sport going on out there” was the wry, teasing observation of Sebastian Coe as he walked into the London2012.com website office this afternoon shortly after I clocked on at 3pm. Within eight hours he was handing up a bunch of flowers to Jessica Ennis on the top step of the Heptathlon medal podium. Her performance in the last discipline of the 800m was electric – from looking to be falling just behind in the last 250m, she put on the after-burners, fuelled by the noise of the crowd, and blasted to a famous victory. And if that wasn’t enough, within the hour Mo Farah did similar in a perfectly run 10,000m, staying on the shoulder of the front-runners until the last lap where he too kicked off and drove in on the energy of the 80,000 filling the stadium, doing that last lap in 53 seconds.

Before starting work this afternoon I took a wander across the Olympic Park to the far corner behind the Olympic Stadium by the River Lea canal. As it has been since I started in earnest a week ago today the vibe in the packed Park was festive, friendly and enthusiastic. This must go down as an Olympic Games characterised by these three things, as well as the creativity I wrote about in my first My Olympics post. London 2012 will be remembered I hope as the Friendly Games. And it’s not by accident. I did the training for the Gamesmaker programme, the London 2012 volunteer programme, and was really struck by two things: how being yourself and welcoming, with your individual personality, the visitors to London 2012 to make it a brilliant experience for them was very much stressed; also, the whole training programme was shot through with the promises London made in its bid – to inspire young people and to create a genuine legacy for the Games.

From the first day I cycled down the Lea canal to the Main Press Office in the Hackney Wick corner of the Olympic Park, tied up my trusty steed on the railings of the Transport Centre and walked into the complex the Gamesmakers have been super-friendly, with a real connection and camaraderie. The soldiers manning the security have been noticeably polite and displayed a well judged sense of humour. There is a real sense of goodwill which must make it one of the best implementations of volunteering ever.

It’s a total kick to think you’ve contributed in some small way to such a wonderful event. I’m totally buzzing from a day like no other. I took the photo below when I got home as a little souvenir of this 6 Gold Medal day. The crowd bursting into a spontaneous rendition of Hey Jude in the Velodrome thanks to the presence of Paul McCartney among them, in the wake of the Team GB women’s Track Cycling Team Pursuit team catching up their USA rivals as they won by an amazing margin setting their 6th world record in six runs. Jessica Ennis and her six-pack taking her rivals on the outside of the last bend and raising her arms in triumph and relief. Mo Farah embracing his daughter (and Wenlock, the mascot). The power of Greg Rutherford on his run-up. Andy Murray’s sudden lightness in the Mixed Doubles. The youthful potential of Adam Gemili executing an excellent 100m against major league opposition, undaunted. It’s been a day rammed with memories and inspiration to raise the spirits.

Gamesmakers in the Olympic Park today

On arrival at London 2012 this afternoon – dramatic lighting for dramatic sport

My Olympics: Isle see you (and raise you one)

The Moment

When I got to work this (Monday) morning and everyone was talking about the Opening Ceremony I was struck by how long ago it seems – it was only on Friday night and yet a lot of water seems to have passed under the proverbial. It was exactly a week ago that I sped down to Stratford after work to watch the first full Technical Dress rehearsal of the ceremony thanks to a last minute ticket courtesy of London 2012 digital boss Alex Balfour. I was bowled over by what I saw and heard. It was clearly designed as a television event – you could sense many of the camera angles to come – so I was more than happy to experience the real thing via that medium five days later. I found the structure very interesting too – it seemed to revolve around an iconic moment right in the middle – the coming together of the five Olympic rings in a shower of steel mill sparks. We did not see the other iconic moment at the end – the lighting of Thomas Heatherwick’s 204 petal fire flower – which shifts the structure to something more balanced across the whole event. Danny Boyle’s Isles of Wonder proved to be a panoramic vision of what and who this country is, was and will be. It had a natural diversity and balance – ethnically, generationally, geographically, culturally – which reflect the greatness of Britain.

I’ve thought for a long time that Englishness (I’ll switch perspective for a moment) is characterised by these four things in particular:

• Eccentricity – we always have been an odd, outlandish bunch: the world will think so all the more now (no bad thing), with the striking contrast with Beijing 2008’s bombastic opening ceremony which I wrote about back in July 2008 in this very blog here
• Humour – we have a sense of humour that undermines authority, sometimes in a self-deprecating way (but different from New York humor in that regard)
• Tolerance – basically these isles have tended to absorb other peoples in a constructive way
• Creativity of a particular hard-edged brutal sort – I’ve written about this elsewhere in this blog, Creativity being one of the two the main themes, but to reiterate I believe the combination of Norman refinedness and Saxon warrior tendencies has brought about the kind of culture where a beautiful feminine dress is finished with a pair of DMs, that constant undermining of the conventional.

Danny Boyle’s ceremony was infused with all of these: Eccentricity in turning a sports stadium into a bucolic world from the past complete with farm animals and rugby players, that very eccentric game created when some maverick picked up the ball and ran with it; Humour well captured in that modern day Chaplin, mute and recognised the world over, Mr Bean, dreaming of Chariots of Fire (yes, it pains me to bracket him with Chaplin but there is that common universality) and in getting the reigning monarch to be shoved out of a helicopter to make her entrance (I loved the quotation in The Telegraph the next day: “With the words ‘Good evening, Mr Bond’ the Queen secured the monarchy for the next thousand years.”); Tolerance in the easy racial mix of the whole cast and story-telling, like the modern phone-centric romance of the Digital Revolution sequence, as well as the inclusion of the choir of blind, deaf and other children; and of course Creativity in every fibre of its being. I’m not a huge fan of Boyle’s films but I can’t really fault anything in his conception or direction on this occasion – real vision and insight.

Whilst writing this I had a quick look back at that blog post from the time of the Beijing Opening Ceremony and it read as surprisingly prescient:

In 2012 to follow these people making a spectacle of themselves, partying to the tune of the Party, London must be itself, tune in to its idiosyncratic, eccentric, spirited creativity (one thing that cannot be manufactured); its rich mix of cultures and peoples; its unique, particular, genuine handmade in Britain talent; its individual dreams which thread the tapestry of its Jerusalem spirit.

I even got the opening song right – that beautiful rendition of Jerusalem which really should be our national anthem (or the English one at least). That child’s voice, and children throughout the event, were included with a genuine warmth and respect.

What was brilliant about the whole thing was how, despite the regime under which it was created, it raised an almighty finger to the Tory establishment and other right-wingers (including the US of A) by showcasing the NHS, the workers who built this country (and the Olympic Park itself, forming the honour guard when the torch finally entered the stadium), Johnny Rotten and the Pistols, Tim Berners-Lee who gave everything away in a very non-Capitalist way, ravers, lesbian kissing, volunteers, the works – all this, without aggression and in good spirit, plugging in to the energy of creative ideas and imagination.

It also captured the intergenerational aspect of the Olympics perfectly, no more so then when transferring that flame from the elder statesman of sport that is now five-time Gold Medal winner Steve Redgrave, via a generation of highly accomplished British Olympians who mentored and selected them, to the 7 emerging talents who carried those distinctive perforated metallic torches (one of which I’d seen from a few feet away two days before as it jogged across my manor by Victoria Park London N3) to light the petals of the cauldron which rose and were united in a single flame in a perfectly judged moment of symbolism.

On the Friday of the Opening ceremony I did my first shift at the Main Press Centre as a Gamesmaker (London 2012 volunteer). That I was working there is testimony to the narrowness of my skills – you didn’t apply for any particular job, you told them what you could do and they assigned you to a role, so I got the website and related social media. I woke up that Friday morning, in another well judged moment of symbolism, at dawn – excited like a child. And like a child I got on my bike (after first having driven it in the back of the car to Stamford Hill, site of my own raving in my 20s at Watermint Quay by the canal) and cycled along the self-same canal in the deserted early morning to the Hackney Wick corner of the Olympic Park. I clocked on at the MPC in good time, joined in the bell ringing at 8:12 (All the Bells by Martin Creed) and then got to it. Seb Coe wandered in during the morning to watch the Jacques Rogge press conference on our telly. He wandered in again exactly 24 hours later  the morning after the Ceremony. He looked tired but content. (I’d had only 4 hours sleep myself, and I’m a basket case without at least 16.) I took the opportunity to congratulate him (his speech alone must have been nerve-wracking to a global TV audience of that magnitude) and talk about the reaction so far. He was delighted with the UK press reaction and felt that international coverage was equally positive. We then talked for a bit about what the approach signified for the future of the country, how it was emblematic of the edge our unique British creativity can give in a world dominated by huge populations and their cheap labour. What a telling comparison between the conscripted soldiers making up the serried ranks of the Beijing ceremony and the volunteer health workers and the like who populated the Isles of Wonder.

Paralympics 2012 #3: 21 Jump Street

Helen Freeman brings the Paralympics close to home – born in Watford (where we snuck in as kids to Vicarage Road for the second half of Elton’s boys’ home matches) and trained in Stanmore (where Laurence Gould threw a bunch of skinheads down the stairs of the Tube). She made her national Paralympic debut at the 2008 Games in Beijing, where she was the youngest athlete to be selected for the GB women’s Wheelchair Basketball team. She subsequently moved to the USA in order to play at a more competitive level and now trains alongside players from the States and Canada at the University of Illinois. She was top scorer for GB at the Paralympic World Cup in 2010 with 21 points. Helen started playing Wheelchair Basketball when she was just 12 years old – she is 21 as the London 2012 Paralympic Games approaches and is tipped as one of the top three players in the world.

{Photo courtesy of Adam Pretty}

Forget Everything You Thought You Knew About The Paralympics

This 90 seconds of video is one of the best things that’s been made since I started at Channel 4 nine years ago (rivalled only by a dance in DV8’s Cost of Living and perhaps some moments in Jump London). It perfectly captures the spirit of Channel 4 and therefore why I work here.

I couldn’t have been prouder when it premiered last night simultaneously across 76 channels and got reactions like this (via Twitter):

Meet the Superhumans. C4 just made the Paralympics the most inspirational and important event this Summer

What an incredible promo #goosebumps #superhumans

Channel 4 just put down a big marker for best ad of #london2012 there with the #superhumans trail for the Paralympics

Oof. This trailer makes me want to watch the Paralympics much more than the Olympics.

Just seen the Channel 4 Paralympic ad. Great piece of work. Puts the very average BBC “Pixar” trailers to shame.

The Channel 4 Paralympic advert is something special! So much better than BBC!

what an inspirational advert about the paralympic games #Strength #Superhumans !!!

Stunning spot from channel 4 #superhumans. Very welcome to interrupt my viewing anytime…..

Just seen the premiere of the advert for the Paralympics  made me cry. Can’t think of a better word for those inspiring people #superhumans

Just got little bit emotional over Paralympics advert #inspirational

The channel four adverts are making me more excited for the paralympics than the olympics.

Advert for the Paralympics on Channel 4 is better than anything I’ve seen for the Olympics so far Oh  & I love that Public Enemy tune

And the choice of music is inspired – giving the trailer real attitude. Here’s the Public Enemy track Harder Than You Think and here’s where Chuck D and crew got that great brass sample from, close to home – of all places Shirley Bassey’s 1972 vintage Jezahel, so NYC meets …Cardiff.

Attitude is the key to this film and to C4. My favourite shots are the second one of the swimmer under the shower at 0:21 (her face is glowing with attitude) and the other swimmer adjusting her hair at 0:26. The trail was directed by Tom Tagholm of 4Creative.

When Team GB Paralympic team  got a preview of this trailer at a dinner on Saturday night they were delighted that their sport had finally been given the cool treatment and captured their spirit.

One world, one nightmare

[written and published elsewhere shortly after the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony; published here the day before the closing ceremony including an 8-minute hand-over slot to London 2012]

Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi - face and voice

I dreamt I saw thousands of people moving in unison in circles. I dreamt they were so numerous that the incredible spectacle looked as ultimately unconvincing as CGI. I dreamt I saw children singing songs so simple (so not made up by children) they were bland and charmless – We plant trees, we sow seeds, the land turns green. The air turns brown. We wear masks. I dreamt I saw teenage girls swaying for hour after hour as country after country filed past, filming the filmers on their made in China handycams. Getting tired? Keep swaying happily girls or it’s the labour camp for you. Meanwhile back in the labour camp, some months earlier: OK, lads, here’s the choice – break rocks or learn this little dance. I dreamt I saw some other lads goose-stepping in black boots. Tanks filing past, missile launchers, fly-bys. One world, one dream. One tank, one student. Meanwhile, some miles away: 150 tanks roll into Georgia. Georgian army 11,320 – Russian army 395,000. Georgian population 4.63m – Russian population 140.7m (though due to halve by 2050). Georgian annual military expenditure $380m – Russian military expenditure $59,100m. How much did this spectacle cost? How much does China spend on education per year? I dreamt I saw no flag from Tibet. I dreamt I saw unison not unity. I dreamt I saw bird cages in a bird’s nest. People moving in small circles. I dreamt of the Mordillo cartoon I cut out as a kid. “We’re all different!” shout out the identical looking mass of people. “I’m not!” shouts out one of them. One party, one line. I dreamt I saw something which sub-consciously summarised what others fear.

In 2012 to follow these people making a spectacle of themselves, partying to the tune of the Party, London must be itself, tune in to its idiosyncratic, eccentric, spirited creativity (one thing that cannot be manufactured); its rich mix of cultures and peoples; its unique, particular, genuine handmade in Britain talent; its individual dreams which thread the tapestry of its Jerusalem spirit.

Post-script 23.08.08:

As it turned out, some of it was CGI (the footprints across the city sequence as shown on TV across the globe). The ‘lovely children’s singing’ turned out to be voiced by the little girl with crooked teeth whilst the pretty little girl provided the acceptable face. And those various ethnic groups represented by children dressed up in various ethnic costumes turned out to be not very ethnically mixed at all. So after two weeks of great sport, it still looks like a bit of authenticity, eccentricity, diversity and deep-down creativity should go a long way.

Post-script 26.8.08:

Went to Trafalgar Square on Sunday to watch the Olympics hand-over communally. Within the 8 minute British 2012 intro perhaps the most interesting moment was when David Beckham kicked the football into the serried ranks of the Chinese performers (seemingly not where it was planned to go – how very England FC of him). For just a moment the fine-tuned order was disrupted as a lone individual nabbed the ball and showed a brief glimpse of genuine delight.