The struggle to elect a Speaker of the House of Representatives this past week eventually arrived at the point where it was compared with the breakdowns in congressional governance of the 1850s is instructive. The last time there were more than this many ballots for Speaker was in 1860.We are now back to pre-Civil War territory, as several observers noted when McCarthy failed for an eleventh time to get elected and we officially entered that rarified territory.
TC, this formulation for understanding the events of, essentially, our lifetimes is key to restoring a nation of laws poised for the development of our people. “Southernist” is an apt descriptor for the retrograde politicians who exposed themselves over the past week. Did you see Georgie Santos throwing the upside down OK white power sign in the House chamber? Dude isn’t even white. These reactionaries ape the old Confederates notwithstanding their origins. Southernist captures their mindset (“mind” used figuratively, of course).
Matt Gaetz statement is terrifying. I am sick thinking we must endure another two years of crazies.Liberals will win out in 2024 which is none to soon for me as I am seventy five. On one level I look back at my life and think I should have done more to keep this pestilence at bay.
We all should have. But we can all thank Donald Trump for coming along and kicking us harder than Admiral Yamamoto did at Pearl Harbor, waking us from our fat dumb and happy slumber and letting us know that It Can Happen Here. Better late than never.
I thought the same. Almost as if it was a good thing------it is lasting way too long. Another thought is I believed that by 2023 most of the trouble in the world would be solved. I think some have as example medical science is spot on. Although lot is still on the table such as climate, China, Russia, guns, pandemic and do not discount the UFO admission by the Pentagon.
OR the "problems solved" get even more thoroughly screwed up - look at these nutjobs!
Watching a clip of Repubs walking out on Gaetz speech? Isnt that telling of exactly how much gumption these people have? Walking out - really? Disgusting.
I think a lot of the folks here tended to be whiggish, assuming that ultimately, things were on the right path. and if someone lived through the '60s (at least until '68), what with all those Great Society programs, thinking that way was understandable.
aside from being shocking, disorienting, disgusting, enraging...(add any adjectives you like) all of this is just so fucking SAD.
I had the “honor” of having a best friend whose whole family was addicted to Rupert from the mid-nineties. I saw first hand the insanity of “MAGAt” devotion before chump. I thought the majority was smarter. Silly me
I’ve got to admit I wasn’t “present” politically during so much of what led up to where we are today. I’m 80, so benefited from so much of the New Deal while growing up. My “waking up” came during Newt Gingrich’s term. That’s when I switched from Republican to Democrat. I can remember having a discussion with a co-worker after the passing of the de-segregation bill about what it would mean in the south. (I attended segregated schools in Louisiana through the fifth grade when we moved to North Dakota. Cultural shock!!). Anyway, my point was that a law couldn’t and wouldn’t change the cultural mindset of the people that lived there. My co-worker was all about everything is fine now that we have a law. As the years have passed, I have often thought of that conversation and, unfortunately, have seen that I was so correct. It takes more than laws. The laws are so important, but then we need to educate “the masses” as to what happened to cause those laws to be made. My soapbox has been and will continue to be EDUCATION.
But wait...didn't the "Southernists" want to lower the price of prescription drugs...especially for seniors? Are you saying they need to exact pounds of flesh before they attempt to serve the people that elected them? Say it isn't so!
Don't they want people to be "law abiding" and pay their legally required taxes? What...no bill to support local police departments with "funding"? And no attempt to work on the "immigration problem". No walls, no special forces deployment? No continuous airlifts dumping people back into their original countries to die? No roundup of the 11 million people who do all the hard work they are too lazy to do?
Are you suggesting, TC, that all that these "Southernists" simply want to do is re-fight old battles that they keep losing? All they want is vengeance? WHODATHUNK? The lack of creativity is disappointing.
Oh and the use of the words "weaponization of the government" is so pathetically ironic. Umm, let me think, where have I seen weapons used? Insurrectionists? In churches, malls, schools and grocery stores? And the very first thing we notice when the "Southernists" take over Congress is that the "mags" are removed. And yeah, let's investigate the "lack of security" surrounding January 6th. The madness and inconsistencies of these lowlifes are mind blowing. I guess that is their strategy. Just make Americans crazy. Chaos theory rewritten.
If I had written this as a novel or you had created a screenplay with these characters, the rejection notices would have been painfully insulting. "Send us something that attempts to approach reality and the potential actions of real people, please. These stories are over the top - not salable."
Not only would they reject the screenplay, they would call our agents and tell them to drop us and would tell their friends we were crazy and they shouldn't deal with us.
I've been using the "over-the-top script metaphor" for YEARS now, hoping I'd get a chance to stop, but I haven't gotten that chance yet. if anything, it just gets crazier.
Speaking of weaponizing the government, who did it better than chump and his crazies. Goebbels best strategy, accuse the opposition of what you do. And the MAGAts rejoice
rather fortuitously, this article appears in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. it echoes many of the issues we've been dealing with here for awhile, and is especially important because the always-intensely dysfunctional Senate just became a very slender reed on which we're gonna have to lean for--at very least--the next few years. I sure hope there's no paywall.
I'll come back to this entry tomorrow, when I've had more time to digest it (getting to be two am in these parts and it's a lot to chew on, especially for someone who's just been sampling his new assortment of cannabis preparations). but initially, it strikes me that reproducing the long passage from Alexander Stephens is pretty fucking brilliant because it reads like something somebody could have said this past week.
again, I sure hope this link works. if it doesn't, checking the NYRB website might be worth a shot.
"Democrats may never appeal to the segments of Trump’s base that are animated most intensely by feelings of racial resentment or male self-pity." Sounds about right to me. Especially the "male self-pity" part. Terrified white guys got us here.
Very informative article - no subscription so just read the first part. I would guess the book is a good one - much more information than the current "tell all" garbage. ALWAYS telling it all AFTER the fact when its too late to do anything productive! Nice to hear Obama's opinion - as always!!! Yeah, I realize he didnt magically make all things perfect BUT exactly what President ever did? He certainly tried to do the right thing. As always, after the former Repubs left office - the list of right things was just a bit too long - as it is now.
On target TC. More in the AM. We are in for difficult times with these critters in Congress---and yes the Old South has risen, and risen with power. The GOP is dead.
The bad thing about parasites is that any medicine that can kill the parasite has the potential of also killing the host. The GOP is toast now and any remaining sane, sensible Republicans should make common cause with the Dems pronto because the infestation is going to poison the remnants of the GOP. Whether they do this (if there are any sane, sensible Republicans left) is up in the air, so we’ll have to watch what happens, but it doesn’t look good for the GOP or for the rest of the country right now…
The people who are doing that (making common cause) are the never-Trumpers. I never thought I would find myself agreeing with Bill Kristol about *anything* but the man has not only talked the talk but walked the walk.
same here. and the same with David Frum. and, in the meantime, John Podheretz and the Usual Suspects at "Commentary" are the same dumb assholes they've always been. at least his dad, the dreadful Norman, came from someplace real that he later rejected. John was born in these waters and knows nothing else. pathetic.
and oh yeah, Tom. this is unrelated to the immediate issues at hand, but since it's on my mind, I want to ask if you're aware of Peter Trachtenberg's book "Another Insane Devotion." Peter's an old friend from CCNY days; we share a birthday, although he's four years younger. more to the point, he's a terrific writer whose work has tended to be more on the "confessional" side of things, but he's also a cat lover and the book is his examination of his own relationships with his cats and his musings on the larger implications of cat love.
obviously, right up your alley. which could almost be a silly play on words.
and since I'm in my recommendation head, let me alert everybody to two excellent new series on various streaming services. they're both English imports. one is "Slow Horses," about a dysfunctional crew of MI5 agents led by Gary Oldman, doing a brilliant job at being FUNNY, which is not something I usually associate with his work. it's also very exciting, based on a series of novels by Mick Herron. I've started reading the novels, and they're just as good, sort of like Le Carre, but with laughs.
the other series is "Rogue Heroes," based on Ben McIntire's best-seller about the beginnings of the SAS in the North Africa campaign. it's from the same guys who did "Peaky Blinders." initially, I'd thought that using hard rock as background music for a show about WWII was a bad idea, but this first season has changed my mind. going back to McIntire's book (and the PBS documentary based on it), the amazing thing is that the stuff these SAS guys are shown doing on the series is no more insanely outrageous than the reality. I'd be surprised if you (Tom) haven't already discovered these two shows, but this post is just in case you haven't. this obviously applies to anybody out there who reads this.
and which of us can't benefit from some escapist fare?
Where is "slow Horses"? Oh - I see, Apple TV. I don't watch Apple TV.
I tried Rogue Heroes but its method of storytelling turned me off - not just the music, but quite a bit of the rest. I say that having wanted to like it and being familiar with the source material.
Just to be clear: I don't watch Apple TV because of the way Apple does business, which harms most of the people in the creative community by what it takes away. Also the way they stream sucks. Their stuff LOOKS terrible on-screen. I wish this wasn't so, but at least I don't have to worry about missing anything from how Spielberg and Hanks finally decided to do "Masters of the Air."
hey, I feel the same way about Apple writ large, but there ways to subscribe for the free week, watch what you like, then cancel...I've done this quite a bit and all it requires is the ability to remember when to suspend your subscription. I loathe Apple as a company, and also hate doing business with them, but "Slow Horses," with the first two seasons now available, is well worth your time.
for what it's worth, I boycott Apple for most things because of their shitty business model, and find the memory of Steve Jobs (a brilliant huckster, but huckster still) to be a disgusting one.
but you're gonna really dig "Slow Horses." start with the books if you like.
I'm with you there. I've never bought an Apple product, always thought they were poorly performing and very overpriced. I was originally a Commodore Amiga computer owner in the 80s before also building x86 (MSDOS/Linux/Windows) machines.
I actually DID buy the 160gb ipod, but only because Apple's the only company that made one so big, and I'm as much a hoarder of digital media as I am of anything else. not so long after I bought it, Apple stopped supporting it (and when they stop, they STOP), my itunes crashed so that I had to reinstall every individual file. so...no more Apple for me. they're such assholes about building planned obsolescence into their products. at school, I had a choice between Apple desktops and Windows desktops. all windows issues acknowledged, I'd rather use it. and I'll NEVER buy an iphone.
and my first computer, which I used for twelve years was a Kaypro 2X. 64kb of RAM and no more. I used Wordstar (totally command-driven)and zipped along unbelievably quickly because I didn't have to drop everything and use a mouse.
years after I stopped using it, I still had it in my closet and some friends of my wife came who were programmers during the day (dancers and opera singers at night). when they heard I had a CPM machine, they begged me to let them examine it. "wow," one of them said, "this is, like, REAL HISTORY."
As someone who remembers writing all those commands in DOS, the one Apple invention I love is the mouse, and I am glad Bill Gates stole, er, I mean imitated, it - imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.
My wife is a die-hard DOS commands person. I have to admit (as not an instinctive computer user) two things: one is that DOS commands save me when my laptop decides it can't do the things (it can); the other is that Apple products are NOT "intuitive". I tried and failed miserably to learn how to use the Apple platform. NopeNopeNope.
I think I'm more on the other side...I LIKED learning all those commands. actually, I think that CPM was older than even DOS. in fact, I know it was...no "environment" at all...just command lines. but I sure did zip along. Rochelle could do over 110 wpm in Wordstar. but once she got used to the mouse, she was pretty speedy on THAT. but she was great at EVERYTHING.
Jeri, you can get most of Jon Stewart on UTube AND even the older show which was just absolutely excellent! I dont get Apple but I have been able to watch his podcasts etc on UTube - check it out.
you should give "Rogue Heroes" another shot. the first episode or two turned me off as well, but it became very absorbing a bit later on. and I like Jack O'Connell a lot as an actor. he starred in that really good Netflix western, "Godless" about five years ago...the one in which Jeff Daniels, usually Mr. Affability, played a completely terrifying Old West psychopath and got an Emmy for it (not that I've ever actually watched an Emmy Show).
Cheers for your tip David, I'll try to find Slow Horses.
I second your nomination for Rogue Heroes too. Expecting it to be a rather corny fictionalisation, I was very pleasantly surprised by the portrayal of the Englishman with daddy issues and the mad Irishman who physically created the SAS. The prominent use of rock music (1970-80s Australian pub rock included) did work extremely well, didn't it?
TC, this formulation for understanding the events of, essentially, our lifetimes is key to restoring a nation of laws poised for the development of our people. “Southernist” is an apt descriptor for the retrograde politicians who exposed themselves over the past week. Did you see Georgie Santos throwing the upside down OK white power sign in the House chamber? Dude isn’t even white. These reactionaries ape the old Confederates notwithstanding their origins. Southernist captures their mindset (“mind” used figuratively, of course).
I think I’m going to be sick🤢
for some unaccountable reason, I left out "nauseating."
Matt Gaetz statement is terrifying. I am sick thinking we must endure another two years of crazies.Liberals will win out in 2024 which is none to soon for me as I am seventy five. On one level I look back at my life and think I should have done more to keep this pestilence at bay.
We all should have. But we can all thank Donald Trump for coming along and kicking us harder than Admiral Yamamoto did at Pearl Harbor, waking us from our fat dumb and happy slumber and letting us know that It Can Happen Here. Better late than never.
I thought the same. Almost as if it was a good thing------it is lasting way too long. Another thought is I believed that by 2023 most of the trouble in the world would be solved. I think some have as example medical science is spot on. Although lot is still on the table such as climate, China, Russia, guns, pandemic and do not discount the UFO admission by the Pentagon.
The one thing I have learned from my study of history is that "the world's problems" are *never* solved. The old ones get replaced by new ones.
Great historical perspective. Always learning…thanks
OR the "problems solved" get even more thoroughly screwed up - look at these nutjobs!
Watching a clip of Repubs walking out on Gaetz speech? Isnt that telling of exactly how much gumption these people have? Walking out - really? Disgusting.
There are always vipers waiting , having been taught by the retiring vipers
I think a lot of the folks here tended to be whiggish, assuming that ultimately, things were on the right path. and if someone lived through the '60s (at least until '68), what with all those Great Society programs, thinking that way was understandable.
aside from being shocking, disorienting, disgusting, enraging...(add any adjectives you like) all of this is just so fucking SAD.
I had the “honor” of having a best friend whose whole family was addicted to Rupert from the mid-nineties. I saw first hand the insanity of “MAGAt” devotion before chump. I thought the majority was smarter. Silly me
Absolute waste of human intelligence, energy and earths resources.
I’ve got to admit I wasn’t “present” politically during so much of what led up to where we are today. I’m 80, so benefited from so much of the New Deal while growing up. My “waking up” came during Newt Gingrich’s term. That’s when I switched from Republican to Democrat. I can remember having a discussion with a co-worker after the passing of the de-segregation bill about what it would mean in the south. (I attended segregated schools in Louisiana through the fifth grade when we moved to North Dakota. Cultural shock!!). Anyway, my point was that a law couldn’t and wouldn’t change the cultural mindset of the people that lived there. My co-worker was all about everything is fine now that we have a law. As the years have passed, I have often thought of that conversation and, unfortunately, have seen that I was so correct. It takes more than laws. The laws are so important, but then we need to educate “the masses” as to what happened to cause those laws to be made. My soapbox has been and will continue to be EDUCATION.
I did what I could. I still do what I can. The MSM has followed the propaganda profit motive and let us down. Hence, legions of ignoramuses
Clicked on Huffpost link on my newsfeed yesterday..Story/video of Laura Ingram interviewing author about ( she thought ) NFL/ player safety.
He trolled her ! “Your entire economic model is to scare your viewers. That’s your whole gig.”
But wait...didn't the "Southernists" want to lower the price of prescription drugs...especially for seniors? Are you saying they need to exact pounds of flesh before they attempt to serve the people that elected them? Say it isn't so!
Don't they want people to be "law abiding" and pay their legally required taxes? What...no bill to support local police departments with "funding"? And no attempt to work on the "immigration problem". No walls, no special forces deployment? No continuous airlifts dumping people back into their original countries to die? No roundup of the 11 million people who do all the hard work they are too lazy to do?
Are you suggesting, TC, that all that these "Southernists" simply want to do is re-fight old battles that they keep losing? All they want is vengeance? WHODATHUNK? The lack of creativity is disappointing.
Oh and the use of the words "weaponization of the government" is so pathetically ironic. Umm, let me think, where have I seen weapons used? Insurrectionists? In churches, malls, schools and grocery stores? And the very first thing we notice when the "Southernists" take over Congress is that the "mags" are removed. And yeah, let's investigate the "lack of security" surrounding January 6th. The madness and inconsistencies of these lowlifes are mind blowing. I guess that is their strategy. Just make Americans crazy. Chaos theory rewritten.
If I had written this as a novel or you had created a screenplay with these characters, the rejection notices would have been painfully insulting. "Send us something that attempts to approach reality and the potential actions of real people, please. These stories are over the top - not salable."
Not only would they reject the screenplay, they would call our agents and tell them to drop us and would tell their friends we were crazy and they shouldn't deal with us.
I've been using the "over-the-top script metaphor" for YEARS now, hoping I'd get a chance to stop, but I haven't gotten that chance yet. if anything, it just gets crazier.
Speaking of weaponizing the government, who did it better than chump and his crazies. Goebbels best strategy, accuse the opposition of what you do. And the MAGAts rejoice
rather fortuitously, this article appears in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. it echoes many of the issues we've been dealing with here for awhile, and is especially important because the always-intensely dysfunctional Senate just became a very slender reed on which we're gonna have to lean for--at very least--the next few years. I sure hope there's no paywall.
I'll come back to this entry tomorrow, when I've had more time to digest it (getting to be two am in these parts and it's a lot to chew on, especially for someone who's just been sampling his new assortment of cannabis preparations). but initially, it strikes me that reproducing the long passage from Alexander Stephens is pretty fucking brilliant because it reads like something somebody could have said this past week.
again, I sure hope this link works. if it doesn't, checking the NYRB website might be worth a shot.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/01/19/making-the-senate-work-for-democrats-arc-of-power/
This is an excellent article that David has brought over. I recommend it strongly.
"Democrats may never appeal to the segments of Trump’s base that are animated most intensely by feelings of racial resentment or male self-pity." Sounds about right to me. Especially the "male self-pity" part. Terrified white guys got us here.
I blush...
Very informative article - no subscription so just read the first part. I would guess the book is a good one - much more information than the current "tell all" garbage. ALWAYS telling it all AFTER the fact when its too late to do anything productive! Nice to hear Obama's opinion - as always!!! Yeah, I realize he didnt magically make all things perfect BUT exactly what President ever did? He certainly tried to do the right thing. As always, after the former Repubs left office - the list of right things was just a bit too long - as it is now.
On target TC. More in the AM. We are in for difficult times with these critters in Congress---and yes the Old South has risen, and risen with power. The GOP is dead.
The bad thing about parasites is that any medicine that can kill the parasite has the potential of also killing the host. The GOP is toast now and any remaining sane, sensible Republicans should make common cause with the Dems pronto because the infestation is going to poison the remnants of the GOP. Whether they do this (if there are any sane, sensible Republicans left) is up in the air, so we’ll have to watch what happens, but it doesn’t look good for the GOP or for the rest of the country right now…
The people who are doing that (making common cause) are the never-Trumpers. I never thought I would find myself agreeing with Bill Kristol about *anything* but the man has not only talked the talk but walked the walk.
same here. and the same with David Frum. and, in the meantime, John Podheretz and the Usual Suspects at "Commentary" are the same dumb assholes they've always been. at least his dad, the dreadful Norman, came from someplace real that he later rejected. John was born in these waters and knows nothing else. pathetic.
Yes, Frum turns out to actually be quite intelligent. Who knew?
He pretty much walks alone these days
Yes, this is the great worry. And, since the “Southern Party” is spread across the country, fighting against them will be more difficult.
That's why I call them "Southernist." The virus isn't merely regional any more.
he's so stupid and maladroit in every conceivable way that he probably thinks he's holding up the right finger.
And when the host dies, so does that particular parasite, but not the parasites in general.
The Lost Cause rides again. In spades. Just not confined geographically.
You got it.
and oh yeah, Tom. this is unrelated to the immediate issues at hand, but since it's on my mind, I want to ask if you're aware of Peter Trachtenberg's book "Another Insane Devotion." Peter's an old friend from CCNY days; we share a birthday, although he's four years younger. more to the point, he's a terrific writer whose work has tended to be more on the "confessional" side of things, but he's also a cat lover and the book is his examination of his own relationships with his cats and his musings on the larger implications of cat love.
obviously, right up your alley. which could almost be a silly play on words.
and since I'm in my recommendation head, let me alert everybody to two excellent new series on various streaming services. they're both English imports. one is "Slow Horses," about a dysfunctional crew of MI5 agents led by Gary Oldman, doing a brilliant job at being FUNNY, which is not something I usually associate with his work. it's also very exciting, based on a series of novels by Mick Herron. I've started reading the novels, and they're just as good, sort of like Le Carre, but with laughs.
the other series is "Rogue Heroes," based on Ben McIntire's best-seller about the beginnings of the SAS in the North Africa campaign. it's from the same guys who did "Peaky Blinders." initially, I'd thought that using hard rock as background music for a show about WWII was a bad idea, but this first season has changed my mind. going back to McIntire's book (and the PBS documentary based on it), the amazing thing is that the stuff these SAS guys are shown doing on the series is no more insanely outrageous than the reality. I'd be surprised if you (Tom) haven't already discovered these two shows, but this post is just in case you haven't. this obviously applies to anybody out there who reads this.
and which of us can't benefit from some escapist fare?
Where is "slow Horses"? Oh - I see, Apple TV. I don't watch Apple TV.
I tried Rogue Heroes but its method of storytelling turned me off - not just the music, but quite a bit of the rest. I say that having wanted to like it and being familiar with the source material.
Just to be clear: I don't watch Apple TV because of the way Apple does business, which harms most of the people in the creative community by what it takes away. Also the way they stream sucks. Their stuff LOOKS terrible on-screen. I wish this wasn't so, but at least I don't have to worry about missing anything from how Spielberg and Hanks finally decided to do "Masters of the Air."
you're right about how bad the stuff looks on Apple. why is that?
They over-compress it to make it "easy to stream."
hey, I feel the same way about Apple writ large, but there ways to subscribe for the free week, watch what you like, then cancel...I've done this quite a bit and all it requires is the ability to remember when to suspend your subscription. I loathe Apple as a company, and also hate doing business with them, but "Slow Horses," with the first two seasons now available, is well worth your time.
for what it's worth, I boycott Apple for most things because of their shitty business model, and find the memory of Steve Jobs (a brilliant huckster, but huckster still) to be a disgusting one.
but you're gonna really dig "Slow Horses." start with the books if you like.
I may just do that.
I'm with you there. I've never bought an Apple product, always thought they were poorly performing and very overpriced. I was originally a Commodore Amiga computer owner in the 80s before also building x86 (MSDOS/Linux/Windows) machines.
I actually DID buy the 160gb ipod, but only because Apple's the only company that made one so big, and I'm as much a hoarder of digital media as I am of anything else. not so long after I bought it, Apple stopped supporting it (and when they stop, they STOP), my itunes crashed so that I had to reinstall every individual file. so...no more Apple for me. they're such assholes about building planned obsolescence into their products. at school, I had a choice between Apple desktops and Windows desktops. all windows issues acknowledged, I'd rather use it. and I'll NEVER buy an iphone.
and my first computer, which I used for twelve years was a Kaypro 2X. 64kb of RAM and no more. I used Wordstar (totally command-driven)and zipped along unbelievably quickly because I didn't have to drop everything and use a mouse.
years after I stopped using it, I still had it in my closet and some friends of my wife came who were programmers during the day (dancers and opera singers at night). when they heard I had a CPM machine, they begged me to let them examine it. "wow," one of them said, "this is, like, REAL HISTORY."
As someone who remembers writing all those commands in DOS, the one Apple invention I love is the mouse, and I am glad Bill Gates stole, er, I mean imitated, it - imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.
My wife is a die-hard DOS commands person. I have to admit (as not an instinctive computer user) two things: one is that DOS commands save me when my laptop decides it can't do the things (it can); the other is that Apple products are NOT "intuitive". I tried and failed miserably to learn how to use the Apple platform. NopeNopeNope.
I think I'm more on the other side...I LIKED learning all those commands. actually, I think that CPM was older than even DOS. in fact, I know it was...no "environment" at all...just command lines. but I sure did zip along. Rochelle could do over 110 wpm in Wordstar. but once she got used to the mouse, she was pretty speedy on THAT. but she was great at EVERYTHING.
Sad because I need to see Jon Stewart
Jeri, you can get most of Jon Stewart on UTube AND even the older show which was just absolutely excellent! I dont get Apple but I have been able to watch his podcasts etc on UTube - check it out.
you should give "Rogue Heroes" another shot. the first episode or two turned me off as well, but it became very absorbing a bit later on. and I like Jack O'Connell a lot as an actor. he starred in that really good Netflix western, "Godless" about five years ago...the one in which Jeff Daniels, usually Mr. Affability, played a completely terrifying Old West psychopath and got an Emmy for it (not that I've ever actually watched an Emmy Show).
Apple TV is the only streaming service I've been able to locate it on so far. Guess I won't be watching that series for a few years.
Yep.
Cheers for your tip David, I'll try to find Slow Horses.
I second your nomination for Rogue Heroes too. Expecting it to be a rather corny fictionalisation, I was very pleasantly surprised by the portrayal of the Englishman with daddy issues and the mad Irishman who physically created the SAS. The prominent use of rock music (1970-80s Australian pub rock included) did work extremely well, didn't it?