Anyone who is old enough to remember the impact of the BBC play “Cathy Come Home” will understand the potential impact of top-class TV drama.
My maternal grandfather was my original conduit into the outside world where such matters were debated.
He was of the opinion that “something should be done” for ordinary working people.
I have a fuzzy memory of watching it as a child and being scared at the final scene in the railway station.
Social services turn up and take Cathy’s kids from her.
The eight-year-old me put myself in the place of the kids.
It frightened me.
Shot in a documentary-style by director Ken Loach it sparked a debate in Britain about the plight of people who found themselves homeless.
By the time I was a doing a post-graduate course in social policy in the late 1980s a mention of Jeremy Sandford’s play was guaranteed in any lecture about homelessness in Britain.
In this Republic, we are certainly overdue something similar from RTE.
Then again, that might embarrass the government…
Of course, in 1966 the schedule ruled supreme and if you missed the broadcast then you missed it.
Now, in the age of iPlayer and Netflix, you watch when you want.
Consequently, I have been aware of some shows that have been recommended to me by friends.
As ever, I got to the party late.
Now, I was convinced that I wouldn’t like Breaking Bad.
However, I eventually decided, rather half-heartedly, to give it a go.
Wow, I was immediately drawn into the chaotic world of Walter White.
I cared about him and wanted to know what would happen next.
The denouement was heroically breath-taking.
It gave me a new take on the term “Heisenberg Principle”.
Uncertainty is at the heart of all great drama.
We haven’t got there yet with Tommy Shelby, but I’m utterly hooked on Peaky Blinders.
Just like Breaking Bad the idea of a criminal gang in Birmingham immediately after the Great War didn’t inspire me to binge.
Perhaps it was the childhood trauma of Crossroads Motel.
I just couldn’t imagine Benny morphing into Michael Corleone.
However, the saga of the Selby clan was suggested to me enough times for me to dip my toe in.
My addiction quickly followed…
I have written before that when it comes to TV drama the Brits are not in the same league as their cousins across the Pond.
I was convinced that there would never be a character on the British small screen as multi-layered and fascinating as Anthony Soprano.
Well, Tommy Shelby might well prove me wrong on that.
It is now Series 5.
Spoilers beyond this point!
By the end of the second episode of the new series, the setup is complete.
Oswald Mosley has introduced himself to Thomas Selby OBE MP in the House of Commons.
Yeah, Tommy has done well for himself.
Then, in a brilliantly dramatic entrance, we hear another echo of Britain’s fascist past:
“Hello hello we are the Billy Boys…”
They emerge from the undergrowth singing about “Fenian blood” before crucifying and murdering a young man of Gypsy heritage.
The year is 1929 and the fascist street gang from Glasgow will clearly be the main antagonist in this season that Tommy and his clan will have to deal with.
Now, a UK wide audience can see the chaps that are lovingly remembered in song every time the Ibrox klan get together.
This is an open goal for anyone in the Stenography Crops who wants to step up and press home the point.
I’m guessing they won’t.
Therefore, I will do it for them.
Is there another football club in Britain with supporters who venerates in song the memory of a fascist street gang?
Moreover, one that was led by a member of the Ku Klux Klan and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists?
Is there?
I can’t think of one.
I’m sure that the Billy Boys might be heard when Linfield play in Norn Iron.
That was certainly the case in the past.
I would appreciate the input of readers if they could educate me on whether or not this fascist anthem is sung at any grounds in England.
As this series of Peaky Blinders unfolds there is an opportunity for sports journalists in Scotland to examine the origins of the Ibrox subculture.
This is happening on their watch.
They should step up instead of regurgitating PR pish about mystery billionaires and a liquidated club that, unlike Bury FC, miraculously survived.
Spoiler alert.
They didn’t!
In the age of “Everyone Anyone” I’m sure that the Sevco High Command will also take part in outlining that the fascist karaoke is not welcome anytime that the basket of assets is in action.
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I liked the bit where everything sevco touch turns to dust.
Trouble at the Garrison…
“Rangers will not ask for any tickets for their next European away game after receiving another Uefa charge for sectarian singing, the club say.
The Ibrox club are “liaising” with Uefa after being sanctioned for “racist behaviour” during the first leg of their Europa League play-off tie with Legia Warsaw in Poland last Thursday.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49503683
Sake mate on about rangers again get a grip grow up said the other day if it wasn’t for rangers u would have nothing to write about fact
The Truth always hurts!!! Keep them coming Phil and expose them for what they really are, Racist Bigoted Knuckledraggers 💪💚💚
You are seriously mistaken if you think rangers are the only club that sing songs about organisations that have done extreme wrongs. Just look at the other side of Glasgow. A club who’s supporters idolise a terrorist group that caused the deaths of many British people and they are aloud to sing about them in Britain. And as for rangers dying. Come back and tell me their dead after 12 o’clock this Sunday. Peaky blinders is a TV show how about you just watch and enjoy it without insulting thousands because of a song
Celtic have never been reported for “racist” singing, ever. We have received charges and fines for displaying Palestinian flags one time, know what we did?
We crowdfunded and not only matched what the club was fined bit we far exceeded it and sent the money to Palestinian charities.
We tempered our songs when warned, we had sections of the ground closed by the club ourselves and were never forced by UEFA we swept our own side of the street.
Maybe if Rankers had follow followed our lead your racist, bigoted, sectarian, misogyny riddled blazer wearing Klan would’ve been able to go watch your team away in Europe.
I doubt there is much if any self reflection on the stands from the idiots and real fans suffer, football fans.
Very good reply shame Scottish media cant or will not report the truth
Your ‘moniker ‘ says everything about your cultural standpoint… but of course irony doesn’t register with the ‘peepul’.
I’m not in favour of many of the Celtic songs and would rather they were excised from the match day soundtrack…. but the big difference is that they are political … NOT sectarian or bigoted.
Singing about a redundant and now irrelevant cause can be viewed as misguided and pointless.
Singing about the persecution of and death of a race or religion is nothing but sectarian and racist.
———————————-
There – a place or position (adverb) . Eg. Look at all those empty blue seats over there.
Their – belong to (possessive pronoun). Eg. Uefa exercised their governing powers over Sevco, unlike the spineless SFA.
They’re – (contraction). Eg. They’re going to win a 9th consecutive league title this year.
Th’air – what you breathe in Yorkshire. 🙂
John Knoxx-are you f*****g serious?-your club is now and forever deid;deceased;a carcass, liquidated. Capisce? HH
I know Mark! Soon they’ll not be an entity at all then what is he going to write about?!!!!! Ah, I know THIRD ” The Rangers” you’ll soon be at the hallowed 55, raised from the dead 55 times!!!!!!! Mwah hah hah hah.
Rangers the turd as they would say in Ulster scots
Haha, nicely put mate👍☘☘☘
And you’d clearly have nothing to read…
…But well done! Reading and responding in writing (no matter how confused) indicates some degree of understanding.
Rangers however…. died in 2012.
How did you know that Phil drinks Japanese rice wine? Furthermore, if you lot would stop singing your poisonous filth, Phil would also have no need to write about it. It is not the reportage of the various “celtic” bloggers that have landed you in the shit with UEFA – it is your own fascist views that got you there!
Let that sink in for a wee while then, if you hear a dull metallic thud, that will be the penny having dropped with you.
It was not an old company, that died but an incorporated entity (with no separation of club/company) that went into liquidation in 2102. You can’t liquidate part of something.
The old club is dead, with no possibility of a miraculous or otherwise resurrection.
What is it people don’t understand about this?
Bhoys and Ghirls…what do you reckon for Sunday. I know I’m getting ahead of myself but here’s my team:4-4-2:Gordon/Foster:Hayes Jozo Ayer El hammed: Sinclair Christie Calmac Forrest: and any two from Griffifths/Eddie/Bayo. Obviously, a lot depends on how things go tomorrow, but fingers crossed. HH.
FYI, Phil, the stenography corp in full flow this morning on BBC Radio Scotland news, as part of the sports update, the Bury story was being compared to events in Scotland over the past few years, clubs mentioned at the start “Dunfermline, Dundee, and in 2012…. Hearts” Went on to an interview with the administrator Bryan Jackson, who also failed to mention a most notable former club; probably because at the end of the interview he was proud to advise that all the clubs were saved ! Remarkable whitewash case I thought 🙂
The official narrative is that Rangers did not die in 2012.
It is an Orwellian lie.
Any journalist playing along with it is an enemy of the truth.
The most damning indictment of their lie is that they cannot bring themselves to mention the notable club in the same bracket. If they truly believed – and it truly was the case – that Rangers were saved, then they would be the first name on the list. It’s confirmation they died by omission.
“We are certainly overdue something like this from RTE” we have been due something like this for a very long time…..it’s not coming, our national station is a basket case full of unsackable lazy civil servants who wouldn’t recognize quality if it landed on their desks….. they wouldn’t even see it as they’d be out sick on full pay, just look at the amount of 10th rate shite broadcast and repeated on a daily basis….utterly depressing. There are a small minority of people in that organisation who are talented and committed and it’s these that keep that sinking ship afloat but it’s time to scuttle it.
I don’t watch RTE but watched “Love/Hate” when it was on over here and I’d but that up there with “Peaky Blinders”.
The Irish Revolution was very well made
They argue that the Herald headline was referring to the old company that died in 2012. However, I could never accept this. Same club, same debts
TED
What was your personal highlight during the death of the old rangers?
Charles Green handing out cups of tea to fans queuing to buy tickets was my highlight Chris
My favourite was them chasing away the yank (actually had some real money,and it was his) cos he never wore a tie ……