BBC News – Vintage 80s: Life on the streets

Time passes and society and places change, yet we often don’t notice or overlook the visual clues we see everyday.

But, by always carrying a camera and recording those daily encounters, Johnny Stiletto managed to capture a very personal view of life on the streets of London in the 1980s.

Those of you who follow this blog may remember a post on Johnny Stiletto’s book, Shots from the Hip back in 2009; well now there’s a new collection of his work, a book entitled Vintage 80s which brings together about 160 street shots.

As before though, the photographs are interspersed with his comments and thoughts on the moment, or the wider situation.

His work links together the news events of the time with the personal. To me they seem like frames from black and white dreams rather than someone else’s photographs.

The pictures depict a time when London cast off the final remnants of post-war grey where you could still find, and indeed park on, former bomb sites, to the beginning of what was to become modern London.

via BBC News – Vintage 80s: Life on the streets.

Strange Random 80s Quote:

You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans. – Ronald Reagan

Related articles

• VIDEO: Notting Hill Carnival draws to a close – BBC News (news.google.com)
• Halil: BBC News – The rise and fall of the launderette (bbc.co.uk)
• Banksy with a camera (telegraph.co.uk)

007 & “M” promote equality on International Women’s Day

The film, commissioned by a coalition of charities campaigning on equality issues and produced by Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, is the first film featuring the character to be directed by a woman, even if it runs only to two minutes.

“Bond is challenged by M to think about gender inequality, and I hope that the film encourages viewers to do the same,” said [director, Sam] Taylor-Wood.

via http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/07/james-bond-video-womens-day

 

Strange Random Equality Quote:

“I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there” – Maureen Reagan (daughter of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan).

Related articles

• James Bond video for international women’s day shows 007′s feminine side (guardian.co.uk)
• Daniel Craig appears in drag for short film – video (mirror.co.uk)
• Daniel Craig In Drag for International Women’s Day Ad (justjared.buzznet.com)
• Daniel Craig dons drag, is interrogated by ‘M’ about gender equality (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• Bond star Craig in drag for Women’s Day film (reuters.com)

Spitting Image, global-style (II)

Image via Wikipedia

In the first part of this look at satirical TV shows based on the style of the famous UK programme Spitting Image, we talked about how the idea was taking root in Africa with The XYZ Show in Kenya and the internet-only ZA News in South Africa. Let’s go back now and see where the idea began.

SPITTING IMAGE 1984-1996

(In)famous for their treatment of the world leaders of the time (Ronald Reagan & Margaret Thatcher above all), the show also made fun of the British Royal Family in a way that few people, if anyone, had dared to do before. As an example, this version of Blur’s hit Park Life.

There are too many great moments to mention here, but you can find a lot of videos on YouTube and this article from Wikipedia has a great deal of information about the show. Personal favourite musical moments have to be Michael Jackson‘s “MAD” and the video made for the Genesis song LAND OF CONFUSION.

Image via Wikipedia

LAS NOTICIAS DEL GUIÑOL 1995-2008

One of the most famous programmes to come from the part-encrypted Canal+, although it ended its days on the free-to-air Cuatro channel. The daily 10-minute  programme focused on politicians and sporting figures (perhaps not surprising if you live here) and included memorable puppets ranging from Felipe González, Zapatero (Superhero ZP), Rajoy, Berlusconi or Putin to Joan Laporta, Louis Van Gaal, David Beckham or Raúl.

Here’s a selection of items from the day Pope Benedict XVI was appointed:

KUKLY 1995 (?) – 2002

I know very little about this, so here’s some info from Wikipedia:

Image via Wikipedia

Kukly (Russian: Куклы, lit. “puppets”) was a weekly Russian TV show of political satire, produced by Vasily Grigoryev and shown on Saturdays on the TV channel NTV. It used puppets to represent celebrities, mainly the major politicians.

The show was well-loved in Russia and has inspired spinoffs in other countries. President Vladimir Putin was frequently represented in the show and NTV was forced to close it down in 2002 after pressure from the Kremlin.

In this sketch, the Prince / King (Putin) has gathered his friends and allies (Bill Clinton and many others) around him to celebrate his wedding to a mysterious woman who we only find out more about at the end. That’s about as much as I can tell you – can anyone else help me out with a short summary of what they’re actually saying?

LES GUIGNOLS DE L’INFO 1988 –

Image via Wikipedia

The sole survivor of the European series in this article, the programme started life as the News Arena, but only became popular after the start of the first Gulf War, when it began to follow the news stories of the moment. Given that the show was broadcast on Canal + in France, the format is clearly very similar to what would be the Notícias del Guiñol, including a puppet version of a famous newsreader. In this episode  we see Sarko and Bruni enjoying the simple life in the country …

So that’s it – go to You Tube and have a search around for more episodes of all of these series (and no doubt many others I didn’t have the space to cover)!

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Strange Random Language Fact:

The language in which a government conducts business is the official language of that country.