If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The railway arch is enjoying something of a renaissance. Far from being a glorified cupboard, it now has more uses than probably any single piece of architecture out there.
100 years ago one of the biggest calamities of our century happened. A disaster of Titan proportions.
Unlike the iceberg, of course, we could have seen Titanic's problems a mile off. It's clear from Fellowes' most recent creation Downton Abbey that he believes the mere proximity of people from different social classes is enough to make a decent drama. Forget character, story, emotion...
April 2012 marks the centenary of a disaster that still haunts us. Shortly before midnight on 14 April 1912, the maiden voyage of the White Star Line's beacon of luxury and progress, RMS Titanic, ended in tragedy when she struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of 1,517 lives.
Everyone gets nostalgic sometimes. Whether it's because it's raining outside and you can't imagine summer ever coming again, or just because everything seems more difficult now you're no longer five-years-old, it happens to us all. Like the permanent feeling that anything we're not doing is far better than what we are doing, it's part of the human condition.
My brother, Stijn and I could have never imagined that the music of our Belgian Indie choir would be used in a trailer of a real Hollywood movie.
If we are to believe Tolstoy, happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. This is certainly true of the famil...
The Sun reports Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes was "virtually mobbed" by film executives after the show picked up a major award at the Golden Globes on Sunday. From the tone of the article, it sounds like a movie version of the ITV drama is pretty much a certainty... Well, you can count me out.
So long 2011 television, it's been emotional. Alfred Hitchcock once said that television "has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it". Now, he may well have said this during the previous century, but if you told me he said it having just watched an episode of Desperate Scousewives I'd totally believe you.
I'm using Christmas downtime, hope it's not perverse, to look back at the last year, entirely in rhyme.
The Downton Abbey special, to be screened on Christmas Day, has already come under fire for its misrepresentation of '20s fashions. Former editor of the Shooting Times, Tony Jackson has publicly berated the episode in the Daily Telegraph over a promotional still which shows a shooting party wearing leather gaiters. Disgusting, right?
If you could write to a Santa that existed, one who might reward you for being good, what would you ask for? Would you ask for a flat in Sloane Square? Someone to love and care for? Reassurance that we're doing ok, all things considered?
Indeed there is no shying away from the parallels in this exhibition with so much modern entertainment. Celebrity worship is another human constant; and with celebrity, as any Hugh Grant or Steve Coogan knows, comes sex, obsession and the baying British press.
Lady Mary and her frightfully common suitor are now engaged. Muddying these clear, business-like waters however is Lady Mary's longing for Downton Abbey's heir, Matthew Crawley. Which raises the question - what happened back then when one party wanted to break off an engagement?
The issue of whether girls are entitled to inherit - be it the throne, a title, or a whacking great pile somewhere in the heart of Berkshire floggable to passing film crews - isn't one that'll affect most of us on a personal level. And yet I still find it shocking that it's taken until 2011 for it to come up as a parliamentary issue.
For many of us - especially perhaps Liam Fox this week - escapism is everything. From boredom. From endless Loose Women. From feelings of being as vastly unfulfilled as a Little Chef chef. Downton Abbey is one such retreat. It looks nice, it sounds nice and I bet it would smell nice too.
Most Popular
