Hungry? C4 to create comedy series...about the famine

Jawgap

evo2000 wrote: »

Or british soldiers getting blown up in afghan! or maybe isis, makin lols out of beheadings an all that good stuff childrens schools getting blown up be hilarious altogether! when that runs dry they could do a spin off about the school shootings in the USA because hey... its only a laugh and nothing should be off limits!

Bluestone 42 - funny as fcuk....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kFXkGHhucU

evo2000

Hande hoche! wrote: »

That was a quality film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOCpLLOG8yE

That actually looks fair funny gonna give that a watch

Mardy Bum

The reaction to this is very like the reaction to the Playboy of the Western World. Mind you at least those who rioted had actually seen the play and not just made an ignorant presumption that it will be offensive without understanding the rich history of comedy in Ireland and how even Irish playwrights took artistic risks in order to better the art. Also the irony of large amounts of the populace looking to censor something is very ironic considering Ireland's/ Catholic Church penchant for censorship in the past despite our divergence from the Church.

Donkey Oaty

So, how would everyone like it if a professional humourist made a joke about today's Paris shootings?

Too soon? Shocking? Bad taste?

None of the above - context is everything. David Pope's cartoon tribute is an inspired example of how you have to see it before you can judge. I agree with the twitter comment that said "Breathtaking and flawless".

What does everyone else think?

https://twitter.com/davpope/status/552844593046097920

Karl Stein

Jawgap wrote: »

I always wonder why the Famine of 1740/41 doesn't get the same attention as the Great Famine.

The Famine of the mid 19th Century was not caused primarily by lack of food but by government inaction and a lassez-faire capitalist doctrine often underpinned by racist attitudes. See Charles Trevelyan.

You go ahead though on your bizarre crusade to downplay the role of those who were supposed to be in control.

Jawgap wrote: »

Bluestone 42 - funny as fcuk....

Na it's shit. I think it's a little disturbing myself how it trivialises conflict, plays up the 'lads just having a laugh, lol, war' aspect. From the once or twice I watched it I saw no critical depth in it at all.

Jawgap

Karl Stein wrote: »

The Famine of the mid 19th Century was not caused primarily by lack of food but by government inaction and a lassez-faire capitalist doctrine often underpinned by racist attitudes. See Charles Trevelyan.

You go ahead though on your bizarre crusade to downplay the role of those who were supposed to be in control.



Na it's shit. I think it's a little disturbing myself how it trivialises conflict, plays up the 'lads just having a laugh' and from the once or twice I watched it there was no critical depth in it at all.

I'm not downplaying at all, merely 'standing on the shoulders of giants' and pointing to the historical literature on the topic researched, prepared, analysed and written about by far better minds than mine, namely.....

O'Grada

• The Comparative History of Famines
• The Great Irish Famine
• Black '47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory

Donnelly

• The Great Irish Potato Famine

and,

Tóibín and Ferriter
The Irish Famine

....and it wasn't the want of food that caused the famine it was the inaccessibility of it, exacerbated by Trevelyan's ideas of forcing the Irish economy to shift from barter to money as the medium of exchange, compounded by ideas about how relief should be 'best' provided.

Karl Stein

Jawgap wrote: »

I'm not downplaying at all..

Oh you are. It's theme with you.

....and it wasn't the want of food that caused the famine

In more modern times famine almost never is caused by a lack of food but by a lack of action and/or how food is being distributed.

it was the inaccessibility of it

There you go with your usual form. You call the shipping out of food while people starved to death as 'inaccessibility' you're sugar-coating ****é as per usual.

"Ireland must in return behold her best flour, her wheat, her bacon, her butter, her live cattle, all going to England day after day. She dare not ask the cause of this fatal discrepancy – the existence of famine in a country whose staple commodity is food – food – food of the best – and of the most exquisite quality". (The Chronicle and Munster Advertiser, May 1846)

exacerbated by Trevelyan's ideas of forcing the Irish economy to shift from barter to money as the medium of exchange, compounded by ideas about how relief should be 'best' provided.

A laissez-faire economic dogma bordering on fanaticism enforced by people with vile racist attitudes towards those who they were supposed to be governing. It's okay these days to be critical of our former colonists - it doesn't mean you'll be accused of being in the PIRA or anything.

Jawgap

Karl Stein wrote: »

Oh you are. It's theme with you.



In more modern times famine almost never is caused by a lack of food but by a lack of action and/or how food is being distributed.



There you go with your usual form. You call the shipping out of food while people starved to death as 'inaccessibility' you're sugar-coating ****é as per usual.





A laissez-faire economic dogma bordering on fanaticism enforced by people with vile racist attitudes towards those who they were supposed to be governing. It's okay these days to be critical of our former colonists - it doesn't mean you'll be accused of being in the PIRA or anything.

Yes food was shipped out and much more food was shipped in than out.

According to O'Grada between 1846 and 1850 Ireland had available 15.7 billion kcal of food per day for human consumption - an amount equivalent to 3.1 billion kcal per day was exported - but an amount equivalent to 5.5 billion kcal per day were imported, yielding a surplus of 2.4 billion kcal per day of imports over exports.

However, as he points out the supply was readily forthcoming until after 1847 [emphasis added]

Comparing the two periods, 1840-5 and 1846-50, captures the fall in production but also suggests that imports largely made up for the shortfall in production.

However, this ignores the lag between the failures of the potato in 1845 and 1846 and the arrival of large quantities of imports of Indian corn in the spring of 1847. Treating the 1846-50 period as a block muffles the serious supply problems in 1846-7 in particular (Solar 1989; Ó Gráda 1994: 200-1).

During the famine Ireland switched from being one of Britain's bread-baskets to being a net importer of food-grains. However, in the winter and spring of 1846-7 more was exports still exceeded imports, presumably because the poor in Ireland lacked the purchasing power to buy the wheat and oats that were being shipped out.

Likewise here's some data from Brunt & Cannon quantifying the amounts of each commodity exported and imported showing how we moved from being a net exporter to importer of food in 1846/47 - if you want I can send you the whole dataset.

Donkey Oaty

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

What does everyone else think?

https://twitter.com/davpope/status/552844593046097920

I think that was both beautifully succinct, and succinctly beautiful. A perfect comment and a perfect tribute.

Karl Stein

Jawgap wrote: »

....

You're following a familiar pattern. You're muddying the waters by posting reams of minutiae that ignores the outcome i.e. mass starvation and subsequent migration.

Even if it could be conclusively proved that 10 times more Kcals* was imported than exported it still wouldn't downplay the fact that there was mass starvation, it would not excuse the gross incompetence and racist attitudes of people like Charles Trevelyn and his peers.

Are you now going to now try to deny there was mass starvation?

I found this little bit of academic genius particularly ****ing stupid:

However, in the winter and spring of 1846-7 more was exports still exceeded imports, presumably because the poor in Ireland lacked the purchasing power to buy the wheat and oats that were being shipped out.

Yes you clown**, people who are starving and who are wandering the country looking for food don't tend to be able to afford to buy food.


*he focuses on Kcals and grain.. was the grain used to fatten the cattle that were being exported to Britain? As I've said above numbers can be misleading.

** For clarity I was directing that at the 'scholar' who wrote the sentence.

hotmail.com

Won't the programme bring attention to the event to the British people. Is that not a good thing?

Jawgap

Karl Stein wrote: »

.......



Yes you clown, people who are starving and who are wandering the country looking for food don't tend to be able to afford to buy food.


*he focuses on Kcals and grain.. was the grain used to fatten the cattle that were being exported to Britain? As I've said above numbers can be misleading.

And with that, I'm out of this conversation with you.

Karl Stein

Jawgap wrote: »

And with that, I'm out of this conversation with you.

*sigh*

I wasn't calling you a clown I was describing the scholar who wrote it as a clown.

twinytwo

hotmail.com wrote: »

Won't the programme bring attention to the event to the British people. Is that not a good thing?

Id rather bring to their attention that not one british solider has stood trial for murder during their time in NI, slightly more important in this day and age.

Timberrrrrrrr

twinytwo wrote: »

Id rather bring to their attention that not one british solider has stood trial for murder during their time in NI, slightly more important in this day and age.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Clegg

Sergeant Lee Clegg is a British Army soldier who was convicted of murder for his involvement in the shooting dead of two teenage joyriders in West Belfast, Northern Ireland. His conviction was later overturned

Bootros Bootros

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The reaction to this is very like the reaction to the Playboy of the Western World. Mind you at least those who rioted had actually seen the play and not just made an ignorant presumption that it will be offensive without understanding the rich history of comedy in Ireland and how even Irish playwrights took artistic risks in order to better the art. Also the irony of large amounts of the populace looking to censor something is very ironic considering Ireland's/ Catholic Church penchant for censorship in the past despite our divergence from the Church.

Criticism is not censorship. And no it wouldn't be "ironic" for irish people to criticise even the idea of a famine series "based on shameless" ( which clearly blames poor people not the surrounding system for fecklessness) just because ireland, like many counties (including the U.S.), censored "immoral" books in a different era.

I'll go out on a limb and say a shameless type comedy about the 1980's Ethiopian famine based on the exploits and doings of some Shameless type working class blacks, before they die of starvation would generate a fair amount of criticism. What larks.

I'll further go out on a limb and say that had that been what been suggested the ch4 producers would be now working in McDonalds.

Bootros Bootros

Jawgap wrote: »

I'm not downplaying at all, merely 'standing on the shoulders of giants' and pointing to the historical literature on the topic researched, prepared, analysed and written about by far better minds than mine, namely.....

O'Grada

• The Comparative History of Famines
• The Great Irish Famine
• Black '47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory

Donnelly

• The Great Irish Potato Famine

and,

Tóibín and Ferriter
The Irish Famine

....and it wasn't the want of food that caused the famine it was the inaccessibility of it, exacerbated by Trevelyan's ideas of forcing the Irish economy to shift from barter to money as the medium of exchange, compounded by ideas about how relief should be 'best' provided.

The people who died had access to food. They were growing it. Their own food was potatoes their cash crop was other food. Given the feudalist structure of the state food was in fact transfered from areas of production to areas of deficit (like for instance South Dublin and London).

In famines where there is a real food shortage and a breakdown in food transfers non producing population centres ( cities ) die off, not the food producing countryside

Donkey Oaty

twinytwo wrote: »

Id rather bring to their attention that not one british solider has stood trial for murder during their time in NI, slightly more important in this day and age.

That is not true.

Where did you get that information from?

whisky_galore

Bootros Bootros wrote: »

Criticism is not censorship.

There's an online petition doing the rounds being signed by people who want it canned, if that's not an attempt at censorship, albeit a rather lame one, I don't know what is.

(Well, most online petitions are about as effective as a fart in a hurricane, but there you go. Think controversy will be a lot of free advertising for C4 imho. )

Let it roll, if it's no good it will be either forgotten like last weeks newspaper that your fish supper was wrapped in, or added to lists of 'Worst Sitcoms Ever Produced' to suffer for all eternity in Internet Hell.

Jawgap

whisky_galore wrote: »

There's an online petition doing the rounds being signed by people who want it canned, if that's not an attempt at censorship, albeit a rather lame one, I don't know what is.

(Well, most online petitions are about as effective as a fart in a hurricane, but there you go. Think controversy will be a lot of free advertising for C4 imho. )

Let it roll, if it's no good it will be either forgotten like last weeks newspaper that your fish supper was wrapped in, or added to lists of 'Worst Sitcoms Ever Produced' to suffer for all eternity in Internet Hell.

True. With all this free publicity, they'll not have to promote the series, if it goes into production.

Karl Stein

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Clegg

He served two years and was back in the BA when he got out. His conviction for murder was quashed in 1998. 150 men women and children (civilians) were directly killed by the BA during the Troubles. 100's more civilians were killed by Loyalists who were aided with weapons and intelligence supplied by the BA.

To date not one person who opened fire on Bloody Sunday has been charged. That is just the latest chapter in the long history of British 'justice' on this island.

Timberrrrrrrr

Karl Stein wrote: »

He served two years and was back in the BA when he got out. His conviction for murder was quashed in 1998. 150 men women and children (civilians) were directly killed by the BA during the Troubles. 100's more civilians were killed by Loyalists who were aided with weapons and intelligence supplied by the BA.

To date not one person who opened fire on Bloody Sunday has been charged. That is just the latest chapter in the long history of British 'justice' on this island.

He stated

twinytwo wrote: »

Id rather bring to their attention that not one british solider has stood trial for murder during their time in NI, slightly more important in this day and age.

I was just pointing out that his information was wrong.

MadsL

Karl Stein wrote: »

He served two years and was back in the BA when he got out. His conviction for murder was quashed in 1998. 150 men women and children (civilians) were directly killed by the BA during the Troubles. 100's more civilians were killed by Loyalists who were aided with weapons and intelligence supplied by the BA.

To date not one person who opened fire on Bloody Sunday has been charged. That is just the latest chapter in the long history of British 'justice' on this island.

Bit one sided...I assume you deliberately left out the numbers of people killed by Republican paramilitaries. Why is that?

Billy86

Bootros Bootros wrote: »

I'll go out on a limb and say a shameless type comedy about the 1980's Ethiopian famine based on the exploits and doings of some Shameless type working class blacks, before they die of starvation would generate a fair amount of criticism. What larks.

I'll further go out on a limb and say that had that been what been suggested the ch4 producers would be now working in McDonalds.

Actually it would generate a fair amount of don't-give-a-f***, because it wouldn't be marketable to or create interest in the UK/Irish public.

Mardy Bum

Bootros Bootros wrote: »

Criticism is not censorship.
.

You are criticising a show you have never seen. And yes people want it censored.

Karl Stein

MadsL wrote: »

Bit one sided...I assume you deliberately left out the numbers of people killed by Republican paramilitaries. Why is that?

Because we weren't talking about Republican paramilitaries?

Bootros Bootros

Billy86 wrote: »

Actually it would generate a fair amount of don't-give-a-f***, because it wouldn't be marketable to or create interest in the UK/Irish public.

Oh I'd say there would be a sh1t storm. And why would a famine unknown by most english people in ireland be any more or less of a draw than Ethiopia?

MadsL

Karl Stein wrote: »

Because we weren't talking about Republican paramilitaries?

Oh...nice airbrush you have.

Bootros Bootros

Mardy Bum wrote: »

You are criticising a show you have never seen. And yes people want it censored.

You seem to have deliberately left out the rest of my post where I explained exactly why criticism of an unseen show is legitimate. Famine can't really be funny.

Karl Stein

MadsL wrote: »

Oh...nice airbrush you have.

What on Earth are you on about? Where have I airbrushed anything?