Yesterday's Election Results; A Digest You Won't See From The Biased Broadcasting Corporation.

First of all, cards on the table; I'd hoped for a better show for Labour, of course I did. But we shouldn't be disheartened. It's clear that the BBC are up to their old tricks again reporting Fake News. 

Let's look at Scotland, their claim that the SNP have lost seats is utterly false, whilst their repeated statement that the Scottish Tory Party have had a huge success when they've only secured around 24% of the vote is ludicrous when you consider how they label Labour's 28% of the vote an abject failure. This is all to push the message that Scotland are no longer interested in independence, that the SNP have had their day and that Scotland are in tune with Theresa May's overall message and stance on unity, stability and a hard Brexit. Are they bollocks!

Now for some really heartening, interesting news; in recent polls, the Tories have been on 47-48%, consistently, a marked improvement on the 40% they had at the 2015 elections. What the media are singularly refusing to report here is that the vote share for the Tories across the UK now stands at only 38% – that's a whopping 10% below their polling results from earlier this week and 2% down on the election two years ago. 

A 10% drop at this stage in the game, combined with great wins in Liverpool and Manchester for the metro mayor positions is great news for any Labour supporter. Let's ignore the fact that, to appease the Tory party line, the BBC are trying to make something out of Liverpool having reservations regarding Steve Rotherham and Labour. They're saying this because Rotherham is a Corbynite and are trying to suggest a poor turnout somehow proves the point that his message isn't playing to the 'heartlands'. It's nonsense; there was a poor turnout overall and, as someone who lives on the outskirts of that region, I know that many in my town didn't vote because they don't like to be considered part of Liverpool and would rather be Lancashire, which is where our town truthfully lies but was moved during Tory boundary changes in the '70s.

The BBC are refusing to acknowledge any of this, preferring to act like the mirror in Snow White and tell the Wicked Ice Queen that she's the fairest of them all.

Also, those who would like to see a fairer system based on proportional representation might like to sign this open letter to all major parties. 

RIP Daliah Lavi

I'm really saddened to learn of the death of the wonderful Daliah Lavi who was, for my money, the best of the '60's Euro Cuties and one of my first crushes. The Israeli actress, model and singer was 74 when she died at home in Asheville, North Carolina on the 3rd May. Her funeral is to be held in Israel. 

I have previously blogged about this divine woman and her life and career in more detail here.

Such a beautiful woman. 

RIP

Out On Blue Six: Gorillaz

In the heady days of Britpop and the Blur/Oasis rivalry, the odds on Noel Gallagher working with Damon Albarn must have been pretty stratospherically high - wish I'd have had a punt on it anyway, I'd've been quids in now.

It was Paul Simonon's birthday bash in 2015 that finally brought them together and now, Noel performs on the track, We Got The Power, on the latest Gorillaz album, Humanz

However what was easy to predict is Liam's reaction to this unlikely love-in. The younger Gallagher brother took to Twitter to vent spleen;

"Now that dick out of Blur and the creepy 1 out of Oasis need to hang their heads in shame as it's no dancing in the streets as you were LG x"

and,

"That gobshite out of Blur might have turned Noel Gallagher into a massive girl but believe you me next time I see him there's gonna be war"

End Transmission

RIP Moray Watson

The actor Moray Watson has died at the age of 88.

Eton-educated Watson was a familiar face for a number of particularly English drama series, often playing landed gentry or retired military officers. Miss Marple, Campion, The House of Elliot, Paul Temple, Upstairs, Downstairs, and The Pallisers, Watson appeared in them all at one time or another, as well as having regular roles on Catweazle, Rumpole of the Bailey and The Darling Buds of May, as well as playing Mr Bennett in the 1980 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. He also appeared in many a cult TV programme including Doctor Who, in the Peter Davison, wholly historical 1920s set two parter Black Orchid, The Quatermass Experiment, in which he made his TV debut, both The Saint and The Return of the Saint, The Avengers, The Professionals, Tales of the Unexpected, and Star Cops, and in films such as the Marty Feldman vehicle Every Home Should Have One, WWII action flicks Operation Crossbow and The Sea Wolves opposite Cary Grant, Jean Simmons, Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum in The Grass Is Always Greener.

RIP  

Wordless Wednesday: We Are All Daniel Blake

Out On Blue Six: UB40

End Transmission

The Frontline (1993)

The Frontline is the debut feature film from Boston Kickout director Paul Hills. Aged just 21 and armed with enthusiasm and naivety Hills wrote, produced, directed and edited The Frontline, a film which took three years to complete from 1990 to 1993.

Vincent Phillips stars as James King, a young man newly released from a psychiatric hospital in London. Given his freedom, he hitches a ride up to Manchester, and the run down and tumultuous Moss Side area, keen to look up an old flame in the shape of local pirate radio DJ, Marion (Amanda Noar). At first she's reluctant to reignite their passion, but eventually the pair resume their love affair - an affair that runs the risk of breaking down when Marion's drug addiction becomes apparent. James makes it his mission to help Marion kick the habit and get clean and just when the future is looking rosy for them both, Marion winds up dead and her murder seems to point towards a man with some considerable power in the region; local MP, William Armstrong (Renny Krupinski).

The eponymous 'Frontline' itself refers to Moss Side and Hulme. Back in the '80s and early '90s, this was an impoverished no-go area in which gangs were profligate and danger lurked around every corner. Left more or less to fend for themselves, the residents created their own resources, including pirate radio and it was here that the tightrope between 'Madchester' and 'Gunchester' was walked. As a time capsule it's quite a worthwhile document, capturing as it does the urban decay and destruction from a decades worth of Tory rule in what proved to be the dying days of their regime, as well as attempting to highlight the cities creative and eccentric culture and the cross-over in casting Factory Records impresario Tony Wilson in his day job as a TV journalist with Granada Reports, there on the scene for the film's bloody denouement. Even John Mundy from BBC's Northwest Tonight pops up in a film that isn't blessed with familiar faces or star names. In fact reliable character actors Geoffrey Leesley (Bergerac, Casualty and Brookside) and a young Tim Dantay (Alan Partridge's builder friend) are probably the most recognisable faces for audiences, and if you're familiar with your Mancunian rock from the period, you'll see some live footage from the New Fast Automatic Daffodils performing in a club scene.

The key theme in Hills' feature is the notion of insanity being both condemned and condoned depending on your class and status; Moss Side is essentially an example of  that old adage about 'the lunatics taking over the asylum' and it is ironic that the newly released James sets up home there. But the real psychotic in the plot is Renny Krupinski's killer, the privileged William Armstrong MP, a man whose dangerous mental health is kept largely hidden and ignored.

However this is an extremely low budget debut feature and one that was extremely difficult to create, so it's not surprising that the overall result is a bit of a noble failure. Hills himself has described the three year long process as an absolute nightmare; in the film's initial stages, he was sleeping rough in Manchester Piccadilly and subsequently progressed to sleeping on the floors of cast and crew once he had assembled them, basically for no money whatsoever. Each day's filming ran the risk of running out of film at any given moment, meaning often only two takes were ever done. It makes for an amateurish, rough and ready end product and, by Hills' own admittance, he was perhaps to young and naive to attempt such a film in the first place. It's true that the essential message of 'drugs are bad, and so is the establishment' is a painfully earnest and sketchy one from a young filmmaker and he seems to struggle between a straight attempt at social realism and something more heightened (the scenes featuring the police are especially heightened and fit awkwardly around everything else). The on-the-hoof nature of the shoot means that it's sometimes hard to make sense of some sequences and I'm not sure the plot holds up to much scrutiny either, but what cannot be denied is that this is quite an impressive effort from a first time filmmaker with zero budget and a myriad of pressures. Hills' next feature, Boston Kickout, was a marked improvement that was no doubt achieved by the lessons he learnt here.