Ben Adams, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matt Wrather are joined by special guest Tim Swann to overthink the British perspective on 24: Live Another Day, and wrap up Eurovision 2014.
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Your Panel
- Ben Adams: @badamsnavy
- Peter Fenzel: @fenzelian
- Mark Lee: @goestotwelve
- Matthew Wrather: @mwrather
- And special guest Tim Swann: @tetrarchangel
Further Reading
- Starwhal
- London Agent Lady Penelope
- TV Recaps Podcast on iTunes and via RSS
- Five Eyes on Wikipedia
- The United Kingdom Explained on YouTube
- Conchita Wurst, “Rise Like a Phoenix” (Austria) on YouTube
- Psycomedia Podcast
I hope I’m not the only listener waiting for Hannibal recaps…
Holy Moley!
Yay, an anglophilic podcast!
According to Douglas Adams, putting the milk in after the tea will scald the milk. To quote from his posthumous collection of essays and sundries:
“The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It’s worth bearing this in mind when visiting.”
Listening to Tim describe the typical English copper hero, it struck me that they are basically all deconstructions of Sherlock Holmes. He was a bit anti-social in his polite 19th century way, he had his intellectual hobby of the violin (in addition to his meticulously cataloged dirt collection, and all the other things that were actually useful to him forensically), and he had his substance abuse problem of cocaine (which only ever had negative consequences in fan fiction like “The Seven Per-cent Solution”).
Modern heroes are just more realistic elaborations on the theme, on a scale from Morse (crosswords, lager, general prickliness) to Luther (UNSTOPPABLE RAGE).
This is a really good point, I wonder if there’s any way to track whether this influence more formally.
Sadly, Timothy Swan’s “psychopath test” seems to have been debunked by Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/sister.asp
Oh man, I was told that by an Oxford med student who had heard it from her professor! The other ‘informal’ psychopath test that I have been told is that if you can make the hand sequence chop, flat, fist on your knee, and do it in rhythm, then you’re not a psychopath. I’d be sceptical, if it wasn’t for the fact that you definitely CAN detect psychopaths through their weakened sense of smell (for more on that: http://psycomedia.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/psycomedia-demi-episode-50ish-laughs-with-psychopaths/ )
My mom doesn’t watch singing competition shows. She does however watch Louie, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Luther, Sherlock, etc and sends me Louis CK and Stephen Fry videos constantly. The mommyiest thing she watches would be Perception I guess, though I like it cause it has Will from Will&Grace, the girl from She’s All That and Seth’s mom from the OC in it.
Anyway, this was my “my mom’s cooler than yours” and British crossover post.
Still musing on what I can be the world’s foremost expert in so I can finally make an appearance on the podcast.
My parents never refer to celebrities by first name only. It’s usually a given name and surname kind of thing. Actually, either the given name or the surname is usually wrong and then I usually get 5 or so clues to try and guess who they’re referring to. They watch lots of parent-oriented programming like CSI, Law & Order: SVU (the worst of the Law & Order’s), Grimm, and Revenge. My dad has been getting into more prestigious shows lately. He binge watched Dexter, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, and Game of Thrones.
I was taught to only drink loose leaf tea and I can’t imagine ever putting milk or sugar in my tea.
As a European living in the UK, the most shocking thing I can admit to is that I take sugar but no milk in my tea. It provokes outrage. But I am glad to finally get to the bottom of the afternoon tea/high tea mystery.
I was of the opinion that “high” tea was so called, and was later and more substantial than afternoon tea, because it was “high time” we had something to eat.
I just wanted to include all my notes that I made watching the episodes to show I really did pay attention:
“Eastenders crossover? Could Jack hide out on Albert Square?
The Five Eyes and co-operation
Everyone turns traitor right, why not Jack?
Drones discourse – Britain has them and uses them too.
Traitor and psychopath – did they do a formal diagnosis?
Aren’t we bored of Prisoner gambits?
Pilot Tanner and His X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter Machine of Death
The CIA can’t afford British energy bills. Or spent all the money on gas. The movies never show modern design.
Jack as a force of rightness regardless of context.
“3 Blocks away” in London – nothing is block shaped in London.
Was Chloe always Lisbeth Salander?
I’d rather more Met Police were corrupt with the CIA
Bad guy in an Oxford College room – Catelyn Stark!
The Prime Minister is the ACTUAL Stephen Fry
Parliament – “It’s Brutal” – it’s childish!
“Members whose names…” – Chekov’s obvious thing that will be forgotten
Very little point to being in Britain – contrast Spooks – international – views of position in the world
Jack Bauer doesn’t safely remove USB.
The WORST tech bit
How are we supposed to know who’s a villain if they don’t whisper Hail Hydra?”