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Dr Tom May

@dreamcargoes.bsky.social

Television historian, writing a book about Play for Today (BBC1, 1970-84). Associate Lecturer, Northumbria University. Book Reviews Admin for Critical Studies in Television journal.

402 Posts1290 Follower1890 Folgt
Mark Hebden@unionlib.bsky.social · 2d ago

Notice how no media commentator has asked Reform how they will afford making the English Channel the most militarized and surveilled stretch of water in the world? Meanwhile reducing bus fares to £2 will apparently bankrupt the country.

Justin Sherin@wychstreet.bsky.social · 7mo ago

LP Hartley adored it. When Pinter was asked why he used so much of Hartley's diaglogue, he replied, 'Because it could not be bettered.'

David Benedict@eggsbened.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I reckon Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between joins Rebecca, To Kill A Mockingbird and Rosemary’s Baby on the VERY short list of “As Good As The V Good Novel”. Alan Bates, Julie Christie, Margaret Leighton, Pinter screenplay, Gerry Fisher cinematography, fab Michel Legrand score. youtu.be/wHNFbRI79EM?...

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 3d ago

We should never forget how the BBC has changed this country by giving endless airtime to Nigel Farage and other rightwing extremists, while shutting out progressive voices.

Nicolas Chinardet@zefrog.eu · 3d ago

And why is #r4today giving (yet again) such prominence to a hair-brained scheme that has little chance to ever be implemented? A GE is unlikely soon and the threat of Reform winning it is apparently receding. What is the justification for legitimising it?

Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist@nameshiv.bsky.social · 3d ago

I think it also revealed just how quickly a bunch of otherwise very hard problems can be to solve with global collective action. The fuckin Ganga was running clear water for the only time in my lifetime because for 2 weeks nobody threw garbage in it. The canals in Venice had fish.

Dave Andress@davidandress.bsky.social · 4d ago

Covid lockdowns demonstrated, in a deeply imperfect way, the possibility of large-scale social solidarity for a higher cause. That is a prime reason why so many powerful people want us to run screaming away from them into the comforting arms of selfish individualist competition.

Rafe Meager (they/them)@economeager.bsky.social · 3d ago

the "eat out to help out" thing -- the fact that you couldn't get the discount if you got takeaway, which helps the business the exact same amount without risking anyone's life -- was like an existential unmooring thing for me. a time when i fully realised i live at the whim of capricious idiots

Nate O@nateo.bsky.social · 3d ago

If we’re discussing covid, back in August 2020 the Prime Minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak, introduced a programme that subsidised £850m for people to congregate in enclosed spaces and get infected with the disease that killed people, then the state broadcaster depicted him as a superhero

Dr Tom May@dreamcargoes.bsky.social · 4d ago

Great to see a fourth series of BRITISH FILM PREMIERES which has in fact already started! I have seen two of these, but many more I haven't. In my forthcoming book on Play for Today for the BFI, I give this welcome strand some space. It is like a somewhat less regularly scheduled Screen Two.

@ie-news.bsky.social · last wk.

New British Film Premiere season focused on writer-directors announced for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer https://www.europesays.com/ie/610116/ Published: 06:00 pm, 28 July 2026 Updated: 12:45 pm, 29 July 2026 Fridays are movie night on BBC…

Dr Tom May@dreamcargoes.bsky.social · 4d ago

#TheRapture on BBC iPlayer: uncannily close to Seventies fictions like CARRIE and, particularly, THE MEDUSA TOUCH. It's a mode seemingly well suited to exploring climate change and religious zealotry... Quite an engaging first episode, which makes you want to see more.

Kev Moore@kevmoore.bsky.social · 4d ago

World leaders like Trump and Netanyahu could not give a toss about the common man. They’re just pawns to be used to score points against the likes of Spain and Sanchez. It’s fucking disgusting. 😡

TheBossRoss 🧶@thebossross.bsky.social · 5d ago

If you watch anything on #Moroccans coming to #Ceuta, make it this report. CBS News have interviewed some of them & they confirm that social media posts on Facebook & Instagram told them Spain had opened its borders. They're playing with people's hopes & lives. It's awful. We must combat fake news.

Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 5d ago

Update: Google just sent me a statement saying it is “rolling back” this AI feature that let anyone make completely bullshit satellite images. Comes after our demos of the tool and those from OSINT researchers. One of the worst AI tools I’ve ever seen bsky.app/profile/jose...

Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 5d ago

New from 404 Media: Google Earth has introduced an AI feature that lets anyone fabricate completely bullshit satellite images. In our own tests, we added a “bomb blast and crater” to an area of Los Angeles. This is a misinformation time bomb, will 100% be abused www.404media.co/google-earth...

RDCK98@comradekenobi.bsky.social · 5d ago

It remains one of the most baffling things in the world that so many erstwhile Trade Unionist figures in and without Labour make no argument or have no strategy for growing unionisation rates outside of the traditional industries

Nathan@nwylabour.bsky.social · 5d ago

Meanwhile the emergent class of underpaid service workers - a group sympathetic to left-wing politics - is left non-unionised and institutionally unbound. The result is that their policy priorities and cultural attitudes rarely figure in Labour's internal debates. No wonder they flock to the Greens.

Steve Peers@stevepeers.bsky.social · 5d ago

The police were contacted because a Reform councillor did not like being personally criticised for the decision. So much for the party's supposed love of free speech.

HappyToast@happytoast.co.uk · 6d ago

This has really pissed me off, if you're in the area and can afford it go and give the cafe owner some money to help fund the kids meals. And if he refuses buy yourself a nice coffee and tip him as much as you can. Fuck Reform taking food from kids in need. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Rob Tyers@thexclaim6.bsky.social · 6d ago

JG Ballard on Graham Greene “His fiction is generated by his experience of the world outside England. He couldn't be further apart from someone like Kingsley Amis or Anthony Powell, whose fiction is entirely generated by the closed world not just of England but of a very small part of” #booksky

PRINGLE: I think it was Graham Greene who compared The Crystal World with Heart of Darkness. Was there any influence there? BALLARD: I don't know whether I'd read Heart of Darkness at the time I wrote The Crystal World. I honestly don't think I was influenced by Conrad. I don't mind being influenced - after all, we're all influenced to some extent - but if you're talking about conscious imitation: certainly not. PRINGLE: Were you influenced by Graham Greene - because he was influenced by Conrad? BALLARD: Probably, yes. There's something about Greene's handling of solitary characters, externalizing the character's mind in terms of the situation in which he finds himself, the particular landscape. He does this so brilliantly. He can have a solitary figure standing by a jetty in the Far East, looking at some sanpans, and he brings in a few things like the local police chief scratching his neck and so on, and within a paragraph one has a marvellous evocation of the psychology of the hero, and of what the hero and of what the book is about. Yes, I probably was influenced by Greene, but I never consciously imitated him. PRINGLE: Were you attracted to Greene because of your Far East background? BALLARD: What I liked about Greene, and still do, is that although he's snared by the English literary 'thing', he's very much a twentieth century man, and his fiction is generated by his experience of the world outside England. He couldn't be further apart from someone like Kingsley Amis or Anthony Powell, whose fiction is entirely generated by the closed world not just of England but of a very small part of England. In Greene's fiction one can breathe the smells, see the sights and hear the sounds of the whole world. Not having spent my childhood and adolescence in England, I received a very big shock when I got here in 1946 and found it was a closed little island, containing a whole lot of lesser islands - the world of English professional life. Professional middle-class life of …
Saul Staniforth@saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 7d ago

Sonia Sodha: "privatisation of the water industry has been a big failure.. public ownership could work, but the question is, how do you do it without having to put up lots of money up front?" Simple. Prosecute the bosses, fine the companies into bankruptcy & take our water back.

James Murray@james-bg.bsky.social · 7d ago

I know it's not news Kemi Badenoch is not across the detail, but this is an absolute shocker. She says the UK's net zero plans are 'perversely increasing carbon emissions'. In 2019 when net zero targets were adopted emissions were 45% below 1990 levels. Last year they were 54% below 1990 levels.

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Caroline Keep@ka83k.bsky.social · last wk.

Btw I love film. But best thing I've seen lately was Hail Mary in which (as with The Martian) Andy Weir consistently treats female characters as competent, complex pepple defined by their work, decisions, and technical skill rather than as emotional props or tragic catalysts for a male lead...

Luca Migo@victinibcn.bsky.social · last wk.

58 days of relentless resistance. 🦩 Albanians are standing up against land grabs, corruption, and authoritarian overreach to defend their public lands and democratic rights. When the people unite, real change happens. Keep raising your voices, Albania! 🇦🇱