22 Comments

everything about the Pelicot case is, to say the very least, extremely dispiriting. grateful for your basket of other links to cheer me up.

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Combining your first two items I’m recommending “English Teacher,” a really gay sitcom on Disney+ for its portrayal of a high school student with Asymptomatic Tourette’s syndrome (ATS, according to the student’s best friend). The show is a witty send up of pieties (trans, teenage fragility, school admin., hook up culture) Brian Jordan Alvarez writes, produces and stars. I want to be in his writers’ room.

As always, thanks for the gift article.

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Hooray, another Ludwig fan! This is the series the world (me) has been crying out for and I could happily watch him repeatedly make his awkward way across an incident room for the rest of my days. I also loved Jonathan Creek but made the mistake of rewatching it a couple of years ago. There is something nastier in the woodshed than I'd realised when I was younger. Isn't there always?

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I was literally just thinking of rewatching Jonathan’s Creek, possibly with my kids. I an sure there’s loads that went over my head the first time around. What’s in the woodshed that I should be wary of?

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His interchangeable female companions are a bit eek now, and from memory, the Black Canary episode has a running joke about them arguing if a particular police detective is a man or a woman. I bet there’s other stuff that is Normal For the 90s.

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The Grinning Man episode is particularly nasty but it all depends on your kids tolerance, I guess. Given I was watching Taggart before my teens, I really can't judge for other people!

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It would be fun to do a list of the similarities between Ludwig and Jonathan Creek (and not just “both TV series”). While not formulaic, there is a formula. Though it’s possible nothing will beat the first Rik Mayall episode of JC.

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I had assumed (and hoped) that the Black Canary episode was planned as a springboard for a Gideon Pryke Series.

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I loved Ludwig. Did you like Anna Maxwell Martin’s knitwear? I thought it looked like the kind of thing you might like. I’m desperate to find out where I could get the owl jumper (sweatshirt?), and even found the costume designer on Instagram but I’m too shy to ask. If anyone knows, let me know, please.

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Gladwell is terrible for the exact reason you mention but are far too kind with

He’s from the ‘this one simple trick can solve X’ school and that is just not how the real world works, it’s bad enough when he applies it to individuals, but that is just harmless gussied up self-help books, when he applies it to politics and things that are important it’s borderline dangerous

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Ludwig was a great family watch - something there just isn’t enough of if you’re not into reality TV. (Also, agree that Frighteners is an excellent but overlooked film).

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Very looking forward to new HIGNFY !

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I really liked Ludwig! Between your newsletter and the Stock-Bindel podcast I never run dry on TV recommendations anymore :)

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Regarding Malcolm Gladwell, have I misunderstood or did he actually characterise the notorious college rape of an unconscious woman as a 'failure in communication'?

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Thanks for the Ludwig recommendation - I watched the first one yesterday and ended up bingeing the whole series. Can confirm the ending doesn’t disappoint.

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Seconding the praise for The Frighteners. I rewatch it every few years, and it’s still damn good.

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Re: student accommodation(s), Kathleen Stock wrote about it at length quite a while ago, when she was still writing on her own website.

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Thanks for so many high quality & thought provoking linked articles. Most enjoyable definitely the Troy Evans one - a joy to read.

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The Gillard Labor Govts great achievement was the creation of the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) which was a major hole in the welfare state filled despite being a minority government. However like all new things it had issues and costs have skyrocketed, so the current Albanese Labor Govt has pushed through some changes and cuts aimed at providers that were gaming the system (defended by the conservative party’s) and some outrageous claims by wealthy and middle class families (I had a mate who worked in an MPs office and rich families who knew how to play the system were claiming for their support worker to come on lavish overseas holidays with the family) and of course the Greens attacked Labor over those kind of savings and the savings Labor tried to find from over diagnosis and (again nearly all middle class types) getting friendly doctors to diagnose autism and Asperger’s type conditions

This is the challenge with these systems, too stop rorting you need paperwork but that paperwork can be easily handled by families with means and the poor families give up trying, still a real struggle finding a solution to that problem. The one clean cut lesson is, as always, that the Greens are terrible in every way

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The bit I forgot to mention. The minority Govt was able to get the NDIS through because the public supported it, but the public heard NDIS and thought, Deaf people, Blind people and those in wheelchairs or missing limbs, people with cerebral palsy and Down Symptoms would finally get the support they deserved. But then unscrupulous providers and the middle class Green types drove up the cost by making claims for the most minor ailments and questionable autism style diagnoses

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