Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Jonathan Meades Abroad
There have been posts when I have derided how trashy television has become, then we have Jonathan Meades with a new series of Jonathan Meades abroad. My faith in good broadcast television , for that matter BBC2, is slightly restored. Meades' television is extraordinary - factual, entertaining, ascerbic, quirky - he writes with a highly loaded pen - his targets are those everyday things that you love to hate, but have never had thought processes to articulate your scorn. His targets tonight were those buildings and environments that are being subject to regeneration. The advent of this, he points out, came with the arrival of Tony Blair and "Social Thatcherism"
In one scene, he goes into a luxury apartment and describes that such apartment blocks are "Housing Market renewal pathfinders" and that they provide "A lifestyle solution". The modern luxury apartment "...is a product of design culture; it draws bar culture, restaurant culture, retail culture, gallery culture, museum culture, culture culture" This voiceover is made over a scene where he goes around the luxury apartment feigning horror at all the design trinkets and tut which litter the flat. It's not just design culture, it's M & S design culture.
In one scene, he goes into a luxury apartment and describes that such apartment blocks are "Housing Market renewal pathfinders" and that they provide "A lifestyle solution". The modern luxury apartment "...is a product of design culture; it draws bar culture, restaurant culture, retail culture, gallery culture, museum culture, culture culture" This voiceover is made over a scene where he goes around the luxury apartment feigning horror at all the design trinkets and tut which litter the flat. It's not just design culture, it's M & S design culture.
Labels: Architecture, BBC, culture, Design, Lifestyle, Property Development, Regeneration, Television
