The Goggle Box Thread

[BillyDee]

(but another one in our year did, luck of the draw)

Tell me about it... My class got Great Expectations and Romeo & Juliet, the other class got Of Mice and Men and Hamlet...

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Oh, that was another one at uni. A course that was mostly French female writers but they chucked Jane Austen into the mix as well for some reason (I can't remember now if it was one that spanned MFL/English students, maybe it was). Absolutely fucking shite to read.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Tell me about it... My class got Great Expectations and Romeo & Juliet, the other class got Of Mice and Men and Hamlet...

We did Of Mice & Men. Great stuff.

Romeo and Juliet is wetter than Boundary Park in January. Rubbish.

 

[b3h]

Tell me about it... My class got Great Expectations and Romeo & Juliet, the other class got Of Mice and Men and Hamlet...

My class was generally a bunch of rowdy idiots (me included) and would always play up. For some reason everyone loved Of Mice and Men - reading and watching. Surprised they didn't do it until we left to keep us quiet. We turned into well behaved students just for George and Lennie

 

[Tyrannosaurus Dan]

I had to read Hard Times as part of my History degree. I thought it was good but haven’t read any other Dickens.

 

[Alan]

My class got to watch Romeo + Juliet after reading the play, so it all evened out in the end.

 

[Tyrannosaurus Dan]

I also weirdly really enjoyed Paradise Lost when we read that at English A Level.

 

[BillyDee]

My class got to watch Romeo + Juliet after reading the play, so it all evened out in the end.

That hadn't been made yet, we got the Zeffirelli version with the underage nudity.
(Yes, actual underage nudity screened in a school lesson. And you Yanks get upset about Michelangelo's David in school, snowflakes...)

 

[Alan]

Could give me the next 60 years and I still wouldn't have all the time I need to unpack the American relationship with sex and nudity...

"That thing we do to keep the species going? Don't talk about it. Don't do it. Definitely don't think about it. Ever."

 

[Langers]

Went to my daughter's school concert last week - she was in a group who previewed a few scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She was genuinely awesome, such great presence on stage, clear, loud and concise but I hadn't a fucking clue what they were talking about or what was happening.

It was like I was watching an enthralling cricket match. With commentary in Ancient Greek.

 

[The Bear]

Could give me the next 60 years and I still wouldn't have all the time I need to unpack the American relationship with sex and nudity...

"That thing we do to keep the species going? Don't talk about it. Don't do it. Definitely don't think about it. Ever."

No time needed. As with all American values, it's dominated and controlled by religion. Sex outside of marriage for any reason other than procreation = bad.

It was the same in medieval Europe where the Church controlled everyone's public attitude towards sex, though it went on rampantly behind closed doors. Even prostitution was out in the open in designated areas in cities across Europe.

Europe has moved on in the centuries since. America hasn't been around long enough to do that yet.

 

[Alan]

No time needed. As with all American values, it's dominated and controlled by religion. Sex outside of marriage for any reason other than procreation = bad.

It was the same in medieval Europe where the Church controlled everyone's public attitude towards sex. Even though it went on rampantly behind closed doors, and even prostitution was out in the open in designated areas in cities across Europe.

Europe has moved on since. America hasn't been around long enough to do that yet.

What "American values" are you referring to?

Religion plays a big part over here but you've missed the biggest American value of all: money. The election of Trump also shows the power religion actually has here: not much. People will toss aside their faith quite readily when push comes to shove.

At least we beat Ireland to the punch on divorce.

 

[Tredman]

No time needed. As with all American values, it's dominated and controlled by religion. Sex outside of marriage for any reason other than procreation = bad.

It was the same in medieval Europe where the Church controlled everyone's public attitude towards sex, though it went on rampantly behind closed doors. Even prostitution was out in the open in designated areas in cities across Europe.

Europe has moved on in the centuries since. America hasn't been around long enough to do that yet.

That’s a really simplistic way of looking at a very non-homogenous society

 

[Alan]

That’s a really simplistic way of looking at a very non-homogenous society

We really are more like 8 countries than 1 in that way. There was some British personality recently that I saw say that "America is too big to know itself" or something like that. I think that was an astute observation.

 

[Paul]

We did Of Mice & Men. Great stuff.

Romeo and Juliet is wetter than Boundary Park in January. Rubbish.

We did the Importance of being Earnest which I conclude started my lifetime of sarcasm, and class myself as 'losing one parent may be regarded as a misfortune'

 

[The Bear]

That’s a really simplistic way of looking at a very non-homogenous society

Maybe it's a generalisation, but you can't even hold office in America if you're in any way agnostic or atheistic.

 

[Tredman]

Maybe it's a generalisation, but you can't even hold office in America if you're in any way agnostic or atheistic.

At least until next year I think we’ve only ever had one avowedly atheist as PM in UK ever. And that was a very long time ago.

 

[Alan]

It's the same as most public religious discourse in this country: lip service. People say they're religious to appeal to a certain moral code, and others support it to show that they, too, live by an "upright" moral code. But it's all spurious. It's socio-political marketing.

I can say I'm a Lutheran until I'm blue in the face; that doesn't make it true behind closed doors.

 

[Tredman]

It's the same as most public religious discourse in this country: lip service. People say they're religious to appeal to a certain moral code, and others support it to show that they, too, live by an "upright" moral code. But it's all spurious. It's socio-political marketing.

I can say I'm a Lutheran until I'm blue in the face; that doesn't make it true behind closed doors.

It does go a little beyond lip service there though - there’s a phenomenal amount of regular churchgoers for example.

 

[Tony Towner]

It's only 20 years ago that our Prime Minister took us to war because God told him to