feeling listless

TV Having already this evening watched Days That Shook The World: Chernobyl and Ken Loach's seminal Cathy Come Home I feel happy to report that just when you think thing's can't get any worse they invariably do and it's probably the fault of the rest of humanity.

For the nuclear engineers, put upon to create efficient nuclear power by a Soviet hierarchy which stretched all the way up to Gorbachev fear led them to make the tragic decision which led to the deaths or prolonged injuries of 5 million people through our end of the hemisphere.

Cathy wanted a family in a society which seemed to agree that poor people shouldn't breed (part of the problem being that landlords would take them in because they had children). It's easy to see why society was shocked when they saw her decline from decent house and wage through condemned properties, caravans, tents and halfway houses until her children were taken from her. Although it's clear that things have got better, I wonder what this film might look like if it were made today -- actually how different it would be. How often is it we actually see the really desperate areas of the country outside of news programmes, even, as this programme was in prime time? Has this stuff gone away, or do just not see it on television anymore because it's a bit, y'know, depressing? Simply because the previously socially aware channels like 4 seem to spend their time showing us the lives and times of moderately well off lower middle class twentysomethings with time to spare to appear on television (and stay up all night)? Who better than Ken Loach to make a follow up...