News from the Front

From the man who brings you the dissappearing article here is the appearing film.  Metamorphosis:The Science of Change. BBC4 tonight (Wed) 9pm.

Time Out rather kindly previewed it with,

Wonderfully thought-provoking TV and exactly the kind of personal yet universal musing that BBC4 does best.

So this score this morning is – a storm in Belgium growing nicely, enforced silence in Austria and a film on the BBC. Is that me winning or losing? I can’t tell.

 

 

32 thoughts on “News from the Front”

  1. The Dork of Cork.

    I enjoyed the previous video – yee lads are doing great work.

    I thought the Killorglin farmer interview at 42.m was quite funny & very typical. (there is OK agri land bordering the river Laune)

    He has become a hobby farmer with 19 cows after he made a killing but his cash flow is now down as a result of capital destruction.
    He therefore needs to speculate to make money almost like a city person.
    Infact he has become a card carrying member of the suburban class with just a few cows to fall back on.

    His final destination – Valentia Island was a busy fishing place for Lobster & crab back in the early 80s…………now not so much
    Fishing is now a small sector of Irish Primary industry.

    Valentia island has some interesting almost English looking villages for that far west.
    This is a result of the undersea cable link in this location.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightstown,_County_Kerry

    In truth unlike Iceland Kerry cannot sell its scenery like it did in the past as the landscape in much more compromised then in Iceland.
    Its a greener Spain , once a impressive ancient landscape , now mostly bulldozed on repeated occasions.

    Its all very sad really.

    Walking and thumbing around Kerry these past few weeks and have got lifts from local hobby farmers with only a dozen suckler cattle to fall back on now the construction & pub work is gone the way of the dodo.

    The lack of inter village traffic was scary ……. it was almost like how I imagined Ireland in the 50s…………everything was milk & eggs local traffic.

  2. The Dork of Cork.

    Another interesting video from Betty Ford.

    A interesting juxtaposition of the medieval , 18th /19th century and the modern burbs.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CStoigxextc

    What a mess ,what a mess…………

    My country is completely fractured……….

    You get the impression from the video that the population is declining , but its not.

    Its in classic Easter Island or Irish 1820s mode ………..a declining energy density and growing population.

    The rednecks from Kerry are leaving alright but a new multinational urban poor is filling in the cracks.

    The banks see us as the extreme end of their social experiments ……..it could turn into something wonderful but I doubt it.

    Birmingham England or maybe Birmingham Alabama here we come.

  3. The Dork of Cork.

    A Canadian couple that seems to be making a go of living on Valentia Island………

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuphfQmpp5U&list=UUnlOwuC-ek-Nbocg6hPOeWw&index=45

    I guess its a nice place to bring up kids.

    This was taken a couple of years ago but cashing out of the Canadian Goldman housing bubble and moving to cheap housing in Kerry is a option for people with even limited sub 1 million ~ means.

    Making friends with the local retired collie.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdwV9VYhbhI&list=UUnlOwuC-ek-Nbocg6hPOeWw&index=87

  4. Your ‘Metamorphosis’ on BBC4 last night was fascinating: brilliantly researched and presented. As I watched it, I tried to work out why I ‘recognized’ you. ‘Children’ kept coming to mind, as did ‘sadness’. Then I remembered that you made that terrifically moving documentary ‘about the mind’ in which you told us – on a beach, as I recall – of your wife’s ill-health. I very much hope that her health’s now improved, although I understand that hers is a lifetime condition.

    I’ve no idea what your references above to Belgium and Austria are, but just to make the films you make means that, in important ways, you’re “winning”. I don’t understand any of the Dork of Cork stuff above, either; suspect I needn’t. Just wanted to tell you that your TV work and writing is very much appreciated and you should remember all the positive ‘reviews’ whenever you’re in doubt. With very best wishes.

    1. Ruth

      I think what the ‘Dork of Cork’ is commenting on is the current metamorphosis that the World is going through. This blog is devoted to these changes which David expertly examines, as thoroughly as he scutinized the life forms in the film.

      If David were allowed to make a documentary film about the current state of the planet & how this situation developed, would you feel that you needed to watch this film & therefore find out something that you might really need to know ?

      This blog totally changed my perception of the World, even more so than Metamorphosis changed my understanding of a tadpole & that is really saying something.

      1. “This blog totally changed my perception of the World”. Well said, SF. Eye-opening is the adjective which springs to mind.

  5. I would like to ask if this production – or any others – are available to those not living in the UK and therefore not able to receive UK broadcasts.

    Another minor difficulty is the lack of a TV. I suppose there has to be one disadvantage to not having one …

    1. For reasons known only to them none of my films is available from the broadcasters. BUT I can sell you some and make you free copies of others.

      Those I have are:

      Metamorphosis,
      Heart,
      Waves,
      High Anxieties: The mathematics of change.
      Dangerous Knowledge
      Soul Searching
      Testing God
      Stem Cells

      And one or two others.
      And a few others

      1. Thanks also from me and Mrs Hawkeye for another enjoyable and informative film.

        Don’t forget “Icon Earth”, though, which is one of my favourites.

        P.S. Any chance of a nice Box Set one day??

        Will pay accordingly, of course!

      2. I would appreciate that very much. You can contact me through this (comment) email address or can you post them on your website here?

        I am very interested in anybody who is looking into the way we live and act.

  6. Great documentary. Reminds me of Robert Pirsig’s great book Lila, where he discusses dynamic and static qualities as the basic duality of all life and experience, and how we value both of these qualities -a more fundamental duality than subject and objects Pirsig suggests. Interesting how we both fear and value change and metamorphosis, depends how much you like your curent self perhaps, if you have had enough of your depression or want to change sex, then metamorphosis will perhaps be very appealing, if you value your life and past perhaps change will give rise to anxiety and fear. Change brings both hope and possibility but also potentially loss, all depends on what is good and bad and on what you value.

  7. Liked your film very much. I find it fascinating that the more we look at other life forms the more we learn of our own.

    O/T I hope you all enjoyed as much as me, Cameron’s sublime comment on the fact that Money doesnt grow on the Money tree!

    I just wanted a quick cut to a QE printing press cranking out at full spate.

    Now I know the drivers of the train have one of those plastic play stick on driving wheels with a little hooter too. Beep Beep.

  8. Just caught up with Metamorphosis on iPlayer. It’s captivating, thought-provoking, subtle and moving. All the things that seem to be missing in so much else broadcast by the BBC now. I suspect that the idea that you can delight in and be awed by science, and at the same time use that to explore what it means to be human is just unimaginable to those who see the natural world as simply another source of entertainment.

    Although not mentioned in the film, it made me reflect on the changes humans experience as they go through adolescence and develop from child to adult – the unsettling and daunting experience everyone faces as they negotiate rapid physical and emotional change. People of course, unlike tadpoles I assume, can reflect on the childhood they are leaving behind, and on the challenges ahead in adulthood. One view of anorexia, the eating disorder that often occurs in adolescence, is that it is a way of avoiding this change: starvation into low weight maintains the body chemistry in a prepubescent state and even alters the way people think (an ironic twist to the ‘food for thought’ phrase). So this could be one way in which individuals exercise a grim sort of control over their world.

  9. Public talk in Manchester:

    Inequality, Crime and the Banks: a talk with former Scotland Yard Fraud Squad Officer Rowan Bosworth-Davies

    Thursday 4th April, 7pm @ Friends Meeting House

    Rowan will focus on:

    – the changes in the financial sector’s culture following the era of the 1986 Big Bang deregulation
    – the dangerous disconnect between those who invest money and those who handle it
    – how greed has become a badge of honour for City financiers
    – how bankers have significantly increased their take of the wealth created in the UK, and how these developments have led to a significant increase in the gap between the obscenely rich and the ordinary citizen
    – how the regime of extreme inequality being created will lead to greater social unrest, public disorder and civic disobedience

    and most importantly how simply enforcing the law can stop it

    Book tickets here:

    http://robbingbanks.eventbrite.co.uk/#

  10. I am wondering if the partial financial assassination of Cypriot & Russian bank depositors is in effect a kind of Archduke Ferdinand moment.

    http://www.theautomaticearth.com/Finance/bank-run-in-cyprus-whos-next.html

    http://www.businessinsider.com/cyprus-bailout-risks-europe-bank-runs-2013-3

    & this from Zerohedge which includes a report made in 2011 from the Boston consulting group which predicted similar events:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-16/everyone-shocked-what-just-happened-and-why-just-beginning

    There is it seems some advantage to being skint..

    1. Stevie

      I’ve been saying this for a while.

      The more you have the more you’re going to lose.

      I didn’t have a lot to start with (well certainly for the first 16 years) and not a lot now so I’m not too fussed. I’ve got used to not having the heating on again, only this time I won’t be burning my furniture.

      Those were the days :-).

      Brian

  11. I have just watched a recording of Metamorphosis and immediately I thought that I must find you . So I’ve found you now and will be reading you and looking out for you. I’d very much like to know more aboout your thoughts about anything and everything . It’s not easy to find , you know.
    Please keep on.
    Carole

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