GOOD TV

[Big Kev]

Watched the four episodes of Luther yesterday, good viewing.

[Tizer]

The Michael Portillo series on Alaska has fantastic scenery of mountains and lakes.

[Wendyf]

Digging Up the Past, 8pm Channel 5 on Saturday night. This episode is about the Pendle Witches and there is a visit to the dig John Clayton was involved in this summer looking for Malkin Tower. He was interviewed by Helen Skelton for the programme.

[Stanley]

I missed that Wendy. Thank God they had John and not one of the weird 'experts' dressed in black!

[Wendyf]

It's on tonight Stanley. Not much else to watch on a Saturday night if you don't like game shows or "celebrities"!

[Stanley]

Ah! Thanks Wendy. I shall certainly be watching it!

[Tizer]

We've enjoyed watching the 3 episodes of `American History's Biggest Fibs' presented by Lucy Worsley, Series 1 on BBC iPlayer. She'll be banned from the US by Trump when he sees this! She pulls apart American myths, everything from the Revolution to the Bay of Pigs. Fascinating stuff! LINK

[PanBiker]

Digging Up the Past, 8pm Channel 5 on Saturday night. This episode is about the Pendle Witches and there is a visit to the dig John Clayton was involved in this summer looking for Malkin Tower. He was interviewed by Helen Skelton for the programme.

Looks like the printed info on this is wrong, certainly so in our TV guide. The EPG on Freesat shows tonight episode correctly, Poulton in Cheshire in the 14th C. I have scrolled forwards on the EPG to next weeks episode which is the one on the Lancashire Witches. So same time, same place CH5 but next Saturday.

I have set it to record as we will probably forget.

[Wendyf]

Yes, very confusing, even Channel 5 got it wrong on their website.

[Stanley]

And I thought I heard them say the next episode is on Wednesday..... Never mind Wendy We will get there in the end.

[PanBiker]

There is another episode on Wednesday but our TV mag says that ists on Sherwood Forest and the legend of Robin Hood, I'll check the Freesat EPG later and see if it agrees.

[Stanley]

Thanks Ian....
I noted that last night was the last episode of Les Mis and that it was 'feature length' As that interfered with my R4 Today in Parliament at 22:00 I have saved it for tonight when I shall watch the last two episodes back to back early in the evening when I am most receptive.....

[PanBiker]

The last episode is only 15 minutes longer but I thought you gave up on Les Mis as being too miserable Stanley?

Anyway on another matter, on Tuesday BBC 2 6.30pm you have an opportunity to see Michael Portillo getting a grounding in socialism at Clarion House.

Here is the extract that is posted on the Nelson ILP Land Society facebook page:

We are expecting the Clarion House to be feature in the episode of Great British Railway Journeys that is due to be transmitted on Tuesday 5th February on BBC2 at 6.30p.m.

"Michael Portillo continues his rail tour of Britain’s industrial northwest, steered by his early nineteenth century Bradshaw’s guide.
In Blackburn, he catches a rare glimpse of Edwardian life on celluloid and marvels at how factory workers and schoolchildren alike were drawn to seek fame on film.
Continuing east to Nelson, Michael braves the enemy camp to have a pint of tea with the socialist working classes in Britain’s last Clarion House. Way out of his comfort zone, he is heartened by their warm welcome.
Taking his rail campaign south, Michael reaches a magnificently renovated mid-19th century Manchester Victoria station, from where he heads to the Manchester Art Gallery to investigate reports of an outrage in 1913.
Michael discovers the former home, now a museum and women’s centre, of the radical family that advocated such outrages, the Pankhursts. He hears from the curator what motivated Emmeline and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia and learns how they made themselves heard. ""

Great British Railway Journeys Series 10

[Tripps]

Well that's another half an hour of my life lost - waiting for something on a TV programme.

Now I see that in fact it's tomorrow. Just a teaser preview at the end of tonight's show. .

[Wendyf]

Yes, but we saw the Dick, Kerr Ladies football team and my friend Margaret, co volunteer at Colne Library, dressed up as a suffragette for Leyand WI.

[Stanley]

Ian, 15 minutes out of Week in Westminster is a serious matter! I watched the last two episodes and still think it's depressing!
I shall look out for the Clarion House.....

[Tizer]

Watched this on iPlayer - lovely B&W photos as he visits past haunts, and leavened with a sprinkling of social comments. Tories should watch it!
`Don McCullin: Looking for England' LINK
`Travelogue that follows photographer Don McCullin, now 83, documenting his country from inner cities to seaside towns, on a journey in search of his own nation. Sixty years after starting out as a photographer, McCullin returns to his old haunts in the East End of London, Bradford, Consett, Eastbourne and Scarborough. Along the way he encounters an array of English characters at the Glyndebourne Festival and Goodwood Revival and photographs a hunt and a group of saboteurs aiming to disrupt them. McCullin’s journey is punctuated by scenes in his darkroom, a place he is allowing cameras into for the first time.'

[Stanley]

I shall seek that out.... Don was one of the men who influenced me in my early days with a camera. Look for his programme 'One More War' for an early example of his work. I once visited him briefly at his home and there was a Nikon F on the mantelpiece with a bullet hole through it.... I was very impressed!

[Tizer]

I thought you'd be a McCullin fan. The programme shows him in his dark room which other people don't usually get to see, him and a tortoiseshell butterfly! He said how he likes to develop his prints as dark as possible. I think he's brave in this day and age to still be walking the mean streets and taking shots of people - in the old days people saw it as a novelty and welcomed a photographer but now you're likely to get a violent response. McCullin probably get by due to his charm!

[Wendyf]

Tonight must be the night for the Pendle episode of Digging Up Britain's Past. Channel 5 at 7pm.

[Big Kev]

I thought you'd be a McCullin fan. The programme shows him in his dark room which other people don't usually get to see, him and a tortoiseshell butterfly! He said how he likes to develop his prints as dark as possible. I think he's brave in this day and age to still be walking the mean streets and taking shots of people - in the old days people saw it as a novelty and welcomed a photographer but now you're likely to get a violent response. McCullin probably get by due to his charm!

Some cracking images in the programme, 'hours in the darkroom' brought back some memories, it was definitely a science

[Wendyf]

Tonight must be the night for the Pendle episode of Digging Up Britain's Past. Channel 5 at 7pm.

Make that 8pm not 7pm!!

[Tizer]

If John is in it I hope they identify him, I don't know what the professor looks like!

Kev, it was interesting to see him using his hands to control where the light fell during developing. Mrs Tiz's father used to develop his own film in the early days but he must have dumped it all eventually, it would have been great to have had his own developed photos. Sadly lots of his later photos too disappeared. I think he probably junked a lot when digital cameras came along.

[Big Kev]

Kev, it was interesting to see him using his hands to control where the light fell during developing. Mrs Tiz's father used to develop his own film in the early days but he must have dumped it all eventually, it would have been great to have had his own developed photos. Sadly lots of his later photos too disappeared. I think he probably junked a lot when digital cameras came along.

Using hands and cut out paper masks is definitely where the skill is, I was taught a few of these skills but could never match the level of the people who taught me.
I still have a ring binder full of 'neg' sheets but very few of the prints are still around. The image below doesn't really give enough detail due to the file compression used so I could post it on here. The sheepskin coat required a fair bit of 'shading' with my index finger so you could see the texture and buttons, I'll have to scan it again and see if I can get a bit more detail

One of my youngest son (who is now 30) shot on 35mm Ilford FP4 with an Olympus OM2n and printed on Ilford Gallerie paper.

[Stanley]

Missed John but I'll watch it tonight. I watched Don, dark room, dodging and burning and the focus finder all rang bells.... And the magic D76 on the container. Very old Kodak developer and mainly used on Tri-X film which was the industry standard. Good programme......
A technical note for Kev, did you notice 'Dev 8 min' on the bench? That tells me that he's an advocate of what all the good men taught me, de-rate the film, overexpose and under develop then you don't miss the detail. I once heard an 'expert' telling me that the best pics were from underexposed negs. He described the thrill of getting that detail back in the dark room. I told him that any neg that took that much trouble to develop was a bum neg in my book! You could see from his negs that he had got plenty of exposure. Roger Perry once said the best test for film and darkroom technique was to snap a black cat in a coalhouse and make a good print......