From one of my favourite contemporary poets, Steve Pottinger, with his permission:
(don't) read all about it!
In all the stories from the funeral there's one that they don't tell:
it's how Kwasi's clearly off his chops or seriously unwell,
but the media stay silent, they decide this isn't news
instead they focus our attention on the pronouns people choose.
They laud a queue to see a coffin, ignore the ones for A&E,
print photographs of food-banks with Conservative MPs
who are smiling for the camera, and never ask them how it is
that folk can work yet not afford to eat in this wealthiest of countries.
And if we start to grumble about what lies out of our reach
they're quick to point their lying finger at some poor sod on a beach
who's just landed in a dinghy, say that they're the ones to blame.
They set the poor upon the poorer, the same old sorry game
they've played down all the centuries, one that offers no solution,
which provides us with a scapegoat when we need some kind of revolution.
And yes, we're desperate and angry, and we sometimes take the bait
they're dangling in front of us. The politics of hate
can be attractive when you're powerless, when hope's in short supply,
when costs go up and wages don't. When rent's sky-high.
When the day-to-day is dismal and the future is a threat
and you could do with some distraction. And so, the trap is set
with flags and pageantry and outrage, they launch their war on woke™
and we're conscripted in a culture war against our own folk
where we're at each others' throats and all of us lose,
fighting on battlegrounds we didn't choose.
We need to do so much better than this. Bring ourselves back from the brink.
The world we want to live in is closer than we think
if we just look out for each other. Don't buy the lies they sell.
The stories that we need to hear are the ones that they don't tell.
There is more from Steve on his website.
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Note the production in that. Lots of inserted images to reinforce the story and keep the viewer’s attention. For me, I couldn’t get on with the written version, but the video made it spring to life. Could I suggest in your videos you try that and also some changes of camera angle. You might need more than one camera to do that, but you could just split the video into two or three sections and change the camera angle after each split if you can successfully keep the thread going. I’m not sure if you use a script – there’s no evidence you are reading anything unless you’ve got an autoprompt. Then I assume the software you are using would allow you to stitch it all together in some sort of cutting room. As I said before, however, it can be time conuming.
Nigel
That would be far too time-consuming and would not pay: the messages I will create are not works of art: they are short punches
So unless someone has a budget to fund production costs I will have to b much more realistic
Richard
Accepted. I wish I could fund such a venture. You are quite right, of course. I did a 15 minute video about Jersey and it probably took me a day.
I just watched the Cambridge/Oxford talk on YouTube which is excellent. Nice to see you back in form.
I was interested to hear that you came into macroeconomics through your passion for railways because it was the opposite way round for me. My interest in MMT led me to look into how the railways were funded in the 19th Century and that made me passionate about disused railway lines, especially the Somerset and Dorset. I have walked the whole of the line from West Bay to Maiden Newton.
I love the S&D
A great shame it was lost.
Railways! I too got into this stuff through railways too – economics, energy policy, sustainable energy, transport policy, the environment. Railways have become a bellwether for human stupidity for me.
I tell you what – we need another clean air act! Cycling in cities – it’s not just the cars, its the exhaust fumes that are killing us as well.
Agreed