Why do the Brits do mysteries so much better…

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

A recent count I saw was 334

Yes, it’s been a running joke in this country: don’t move there or you’ll get murdered.

[_Robert_Participant]

And its summer all year round.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

There’s an English county called Somerset, which is quite rural and pretty.  No-one knows what it’s named after, but it might be “summer farmstead”, or a number of things.

[UnseenParticipant]

A tangent: Has anyone here seen the bizarre Swedish-themed film Midsommar? I won’t say anything more about it as almost anything I say would be a spoiler.

[UnseenParticipant]

I assume that there are commonalities holding between British mystery series and other types of series and dramatic programs.

So, I’m interested at the very high percentage of multiracial families in series like Vera. I’m also stunned at the almost total absence of Jewish characters. Muslim characters abound. There’s the occasional East Indian. I think I’ve yet to see my first Jewish character after having watched, easily, more than 100 British mystery programs.

Strange.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

I’m interested at the very high percentage of multiracial families in series like Vera. I’m also stunned at the almost total absence of Jewish characters. Muslim characters abound. There’s the occasional East Indian. I think I’ve yet to see my first Jewish character after having watched, easily, more than 100 British mystery programs.

This pretty well reflects the cultural and ethnic make-up of the UK.  There are a lot of second- and third-generation South Asian and West Indian families.  Muslims and people in other Indian religions don’t tend to like marrying outside of their religions.  So multi-racial families are very common, but mainly between Afro-Caribbean / African, East Asian and White people, who are all Christian in heritage (except maybe the East Asians).

Why don’t you see many Jewish characters?  That’s a good question.  It feels like being Jewish isn’t a big thing in the UK, in the sense that it’s not a big deal for anybody, unless someone is Orthodox, when it’s obvious.  People don’t seem to care that someone is Jewish.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

It feels like being Jewish isn’t a big thing in the UK, in the sense that it’s not a big deal for anybody, unless someone is Orthodox, when it’s obvious. People don’t seem to care that someone is Jewish.

I agree with Simon. I don’t think it is given any attention by anyone. The Orthodox community, mainly around the  Golders Green area might stand out a little but nobody cares. London is too big and too cosmopolitan. I lived in an end-of-terrace house, consisting of 8 houses. Irish, English, Indian, Jewish, Jamaican, Northern Irish, Scottish and Bangladesh. I was the only person not born in the UK. 3 of the other houses had an Irish parent. We all hung out in each others homes. So long as you were not an a-hole, nobody cared. It was not ‘a thing’.

A few years ago I was walking back from a Publix supermarket in Atlanta and saw armed police outside the local synagogue. Turns out they were on sentry duty after a ‘viable threat’ was received. It came to nothing but those incidents can unsettle the entire community. It was the evening of Black Friday at Thanksgiving weekend and I went home to the festivities with my Irish, Jewish and Indian friends and family. I did not mention it. Like when I went into work in London, beside the Regent’s Park mosque in January 1991 to see ‘jihad’ graffiti all over the street, the morning after Op. Dessert Storm. Nobody in the University mentioned it.

[jakelafortParticipant]

One similarity between Trump and Harris in their prez. campaigns. Both signalled their rejection of jewishness. Trump said, my son in law happens to be Jewish. Harris pointed out how her family was eating bacon for breakfast. The bacon was not accidental. In other words this aint no kosher house. And Trump was saying hay it was not me who decided to let a Jew in the family. Accidental like a modern.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Harris pointed out how her family was eating bacon for breakfast. The bacon was not accidental. In other words this aint no kosher house.

I think you’re reading too much into it.  Trump, I can believe.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Simon, you may be right.

It is after all only my interpretation. When i watched it live it struck me as signalling. And clearly she was going to be asked about the moment she was apprised of Biden dropping out. So i think it only reasonable to assume she contemplated the moment and how she would recite the story. Remember she also indicated about this moment how her first thoughts were for Joe.

The main course was pancakes. Bacon on the side. She might have simply indicated breakfast with family. Or pancakes with family. That image would be American and wholesome. Deciding to include bacon and belting the B word like it is buttah was deliberate. Now you might think, hey, Muslims copied Jews in having a prohibition on consumption of pigs. So she risked alienating Muslim voters. But not really because who are they gonna vote for? She also risked alienating vegans and vegetarians. Same question though. Meat eating troglodyte or just another phony politician within the parameters of norms? Another positive factor in trumpeting bacon mainstream americans who recognize how F’d up it is to vote for Trump even if they’re arch conservatives. So to the extent she distances herself from her progressive past which she has done in a number of ways the better the probability she wins over some of those voters.

And in signalling we are not a kosher household even though i am married to a goddamn Jew bastard she signals to the jew hating left that maybe just maybe she will be a little bit true to her progressive roots. It is interesting how she has to straddle that pointy fence. She was visibly uncomfortable answering questions about Israel.

Anyway i don’t think she was being a raconteur adding color to her anecdote. It was a decision and she contemplated the implications and embraced the dead pig.

[UnseenParticipant]

Guys, when I talk about the absence of Jewish characters, I’m not particularly talking about rabbis, men wearing yamulkas, or obvious ultraorthodox men in black coats and bizarre hats.

How about characters with obvious European Jewish names like Cohen, Blume, all the variations on Gold (Goldberg, Goldblum, Golden, etc.), Horowitz, Katz, Katzenberg, Levi/Levy/Levine, Perlman, Rosen/Rosenberg/ Rosenthal, etc., etc., etc.? These are common names in the States.

I can’t remember one episode with a character that even had such a Jewish name, even if nothing was made of their Jewishness.

Was antisemitism so rife in the UK that all the British Jews pulled up stakes and moved to Israel?

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

One similarity between Trump and Harris in their prez. campaigns. Both signalled their rejection of jewishness. Trump said, my son in law happens to be Jewish. Harris pointed out how her family was eating bacon for breakfast. The bacon was not accidental. In other words this aint no kosher house. And Trump was saying hay it was not me who decided to let a Jew in the family. Accidental like a modern.

“The bacon was not accidental.” Harris is obviously antisemitic, right? just like those of us who feel anything at all for the poor Palestinians that Netanyahu’s government treats as cannon fodder.

Actually, if Kamala was making any sort of point at all (and I don’t think she was), it might be a reference to something Trump says from time to time in his rallies, which is that bacon has become so expensive that many people can’t afford it anymore. Yes, bacon has become a bit more expensive, as have many grocery items, including pork. But I’m sure most bacon lovers would give up many other things before they give up bacon.

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

You, Unseen are either a moron, an antisemite or you like to stir controversy. Maybe some combo. I don’t see you as a moron. In other contexts you extoll reason and philosophically your epistemology is not that piss poor. Your logic not that listless. Oh yes your heart like the heart of all of the lefties bleeds dodger blue for the Palestinians that live from river to sea. The ones who are being treated as garbage in actual apartheid states you could give a flying pigeon fuck. So yes selectively it is quite touching how caring you and your ilk are. I am sure it has zero to do with Jews in the equation.

Yet you give full credit to the absolute categorically racist rags and champion every obvious anti-israel lie. If it were another topic and one of us did the equivalent you would call it out as brain dead ideologically driven and reason resistant trash.

No i definitely do not think she is a Jew hater. I think she is driven by ambition and how she actually views issues may well be at variance with the stances she takes politically. Her prosecution of pot smokers was fucking reprehensible. Not sure if she has been captured by the anti jewish rhetoric of the regressives or she has taken a stance to advance politically.

No doubt many of the progressives are simply trapped and captured by their anti israel religion and live in an echo chamber and are absolutely incapable of even a modicum of critical thought in re to the issues. I don’t think that is true of you. You’ve come out antiprogressive on other issues and as aforementioned it does not align with your general approach to issues.

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Jake

You are the bigot who lives in a bubble and, sadly, you just can’t see it, so it has you saying stupid shit.

 

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