Jonathan Meades

Robbo

Caught the concluding part of Magnetic North this evening; his superb televisual essay on the nature of being Northern, the Hanseatic cities, North European culture and architecture.

Firstly, does anyone else worship this man as a god, like I do? There's simply no one out there making documentaries of this calibre and craftsmanship. Everything about the programmes exudes quality, the camera work, the music, the grandiloquent pieces to camera. Even when he takes a wilfully contrarian stance, he argues it in a powerful and persuasive manner.

When the general standard of TV documentaries is along the lines of My Big Boobs and Me, Meades must be seen as one of the few TV essayists left. It's a shame these last 2 programes were on BBC7, they deserve to be on proper BBC.

Finally, there's a collection of the Abroad series coming out in April. Go. Buy. Become a better person.

mike65

Jonathan Meades is a reminder that all is not yet quite lost.

I've seen everything he has produced for the small screen I reckon, even in new slimmed down form he dominates the screen I saw part one of Magnetic North and have set up the vid for part two at 1 am (Ashes to Ashes had my attention at 9) so I'll comment on that when I see it.

His dissertations arrive from a different angle and you never quite know by what route he is taking you but it almost always worth staying to find out.

Oh yeah it was BBC4 (thank God 4...)

Mike.

MoominPapa

Everything I've seen of his has been so rewarding but his uber-brain take on Nazi architecture, Jerry Building, is as brilliant deconstruction of the banality and hollowness of fascism as you will find. Hope Magnetic North is repeated

mike65

If you havn't got BBC4 it'll turn up on BBC2 in the next few months.

Mike.

mike65

Outrageous bump

Meades is back on BBC2 this week with his three part look at aspects of the Scottish built environment

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
11:20pm to 12:20am

Architecture critic Jonathan Meades takes a quixotic tour of Scotland, a country which has intrigued him since he first encountered lists of towns only known from football coupons. He celebrates Aberdeen, the granite city full of 'brand new' 300-year-old buildings.

rubensni

Good news fellow Meades fans. The suited one who has done more for my vocabulary than a college education is now on Twitter of all places! Says he's filming a new show. The premise sounds similar to Remember the Future, which is one of my all time favourites of his films. Can't wait.
I must say I never saw Meades as part of the twitterati, but he's involved the media and they're obligatory for hacks, so it makes sense that he'd cave. Here's the address, if you want to follow:
twitter.com/JonathanMeades

rubensni

Oh and there's a YouTube channel with most of his stuff. You just have to search for MeadesShrine.