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Fame is indeed a fickle thing, and I've been reminded of that by the death of Gerald Harper on the 2nd July this year...I didn't e... -
The western can be many things - any kind of story can be told within a western setting and the genre can be relevant to this tarnished mode... -
The Tainted Archive is a place of highbrow reading, and so when paparazzi photographers recently caught a snap of Catwoman herself, Ann...
1 comment:
Like you, Gary, I was born into a working class community with socialist leanings in politics.
I haven't lived in the UK since 1967, so I'm not qualified to add to others' comments on the present situation, apart from saying that what I read here and elsewhere -- and hear from relatives -- is depressing.
I would add, though, that the writing was on the wall in the mid 1960s and did play a small part in my decision to emigrate. I am a great believer in the exercise of non-criminal personal freedoms that don't endanger other people's safety or infringe on their rights.
One small, probably forgotten incident from the '60s is the Harold Wilson Labour Government's crackdown on the offshore private radio stations that had been set up to challenge the BBC's position as the then sole provider of radio programming and propaganda to the British population.
Sensible people suggested the "pirate" stations should be licensed and brought on to dry land. The Labour government wouldn't have a bar of it. Instead, they put out the lie that no radio frequencies were available and suggested with no proof that pirates' broadcasts jammed emergency signals. It was made illegal for Britons to work for, supply, assist or advertise on the stations.
It seems freedoms have been steadily eroded ever since. I'm told readers of westerns in the UK can now borrow from the public libraries only those books deemed acceptable to morally conservative librarians!
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