More Roots

The final episode of Roots is on tonight. I’ve not really enjoyed visiting this blockbuster story/land mark event in television to be honest; you will learn that I am nothing but honest when I write about whats happening from my hill. I promise to be honest on every occasion, except the occasions I lie.

My boss, Ginger Pom tells me they all watched it glued to their tellies back in the day, but it wasn’t the quality of the production, or the glamour of the star studded yankee cast, sorry Mr McShane. Ginge swears it was the story, she says that in England in 1977, they just hadn’t heard a story like that before, and that’s what was fascinating for them. So I’m spoilt, I’ve heard it all before, I’ve heard it told by better story tellers, I’ve heard it told by more interesting characters. Oh dear, yawn is me, the too harsh critic – you’re too hard Ned, you are too hard on people. That song has rung around my ears with the familiarity of five bells.

I watched three David Lean movies last weekend........ I know I am spoilt.

It feels like a burden or a chore to have to sit through the last episode of Roots, its much the same feeling I get when I have to drag Ned’s Cavalier body to work each morning - I do like my current job, I just dont like working.

I remember the story of Roots being interesting, I think the thought of the story is interesting, the actuality is not. At the end, its still dated badly, the acting style is either wooden or cartoonish and the story is bland and has not held a lot of interest for me after all. The characters are not that entertaining or that compelling, I feel there is only one that has really engaged me and that was Chicken George (he is Kizzy’s son). The other black characters have fallen into two camps, the sour sullen moody ones or the hard done by beaten and down- trodden ones, Chicken George has an enthusiasm and energy the other characters are missing. Now London Hospital on UKTV whiched I watched after Roots last night has engaged me - fascinating, people die, children die, I like it when people die, its just like they do outside the box (outside the flat screen??) I dont have a flat screen tellie, so for mine its still outside the box.

I am forcing myself to continue with Roots, guilt wins out – 'black slavery stories, you should watch it just to show respect and empathy for what they went through' guilt, and I'm not even a damn yankee - I have leftie tendencies, and can singalong to the Internationale with vigour if nicely lubricated but who cant then, its oh so popular to be ‘pc’.

Guilt is my crime, suffering through boredom is my punishment, though as another slave gets whipped by some white sci fi character actor that you can never remember the name of, my mind wanders to thinking about what sort of a Doctor will Matt Smith make, or whether 4 hours of War of the Roses tomorrow will give me a numb bum - all the important issues of the day.

I am reading Dante, just the Inferno - I am experiencing a hiccup of intellectualism.

C W Stonekings Jungle Blues is this weeks sound track.