http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b092s5vv/storyville-silk-road-drugs-death-and-the-dark-web
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Indiaās Partition - The forgotten story. BBC2
What a bunch of twats we were.
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Was reading an article today about some of our own heroes who have been immortalised as statues. Nelson, as an example, had some fairly toxic views on slavery etc (by todayās standards) but there arenāt yet calls for his column to be dismantled. But then much of Bristol & possibly Liverpool was built on the wealth generated by it, The sugar trade from the Carribean also doesnāt look great under scrutiny. They are tricky issues.
Itās history. Weād like to think weāve learned from it & move on.
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We seemed to have had a lot of āflawedā heroes.
True
Listening to the radio today, someone has already called for Nelsonās column to be dismantled due to Nelsonās dodgy opinions on slavery.
There is a vocal section of Bristolians who similarly want all public buildings/infrastructure named after Edward Colston to be renamed. The Colston Hall will be renamed soon after it is relaunched in 2020.
I really donāt think we have the same issue as the States, in that our statues arenāt used as focal points to glorify a discredited (and defeated) ideology.
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A good number of bands have refused to play Colston Hall over the years, Massive Attack being the obvious one.
Would be a model if the US nutters could read.
Out of interest, was the US civil war and the desire for the Southern states to seccede really only about their wish to persist with slavery and the Northās desire to stop it or was there more to it than that? I assume that history, as usual, was written by the victors. Iād be interested to look into what other grievances there were. It was a fairly brutal conflict with whole cities being destroyed.
I think that statues should be maintained for an amount of time - say 20-100 years - and then moved. They should be stored in a nice statue garden that gave a balanced summary of the personās life.
This would overcome the issue of having statues of people seem as less than perfect now. It would also provide some interesting variety, and allow statues of modern high achievers - Iād like to see scientists, artists, teachers and the like, as well as the traditional warmongers.
The garden would also be a great place to visit.
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True Detective - Ep4 so far. Loving the way its shot and the music 
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One of the best things Iāve ever seen on TV. The 2nd series was interesting in its own way but nothing like the quality of the first one.
It does seem fairly compelling although there do appear to have been some questionable revisionists in the early 20th century claiming that slavery was on its way out by the mid 19thC but that politicians of the time were too inept to resolve the issues without a war. Itās an interesting topic that apparently still divides people over there.
Mr. MWS requires a āhappeningā like right bloody now.
This is a particularly interesting topic in Economic History which is the subject of much revisionism and some fairly poor scholarship. The best known book is probably āTime on the Cross:The Economics of American Negro Slaveryā (1974) by Fogel and Engerman was a very controversial book whose conclusions I found to be (i) deeply unpalatable and (ii) unsubstantiated by virtue of flawed data, incorrect maths (lots of 2+2=5.3) and selective analysis. The book prompted a vigorous response and there is a plethora of work rebutting the conclusions. I havenāt read all the rebuttals but there is a decent critique/synopsis of Fogel and Engermann here. Suffice to say that the academic reputations of Fogel and Engerman were somewhat tarnished by the fallout from their bookā¦
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Interesting to see that it was Damon Albarnās dad who laid it on.
(feels a bit like St Germans was last year!)
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My son has been going to a small Devon based festival for the past few years which has some of that arty home-made vibe. Iām been quite envious as Iāve dropped him off the last couple of years. Looks like fun.
You need subtitles.
Itās hard work otherwise!
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If you have PBS on your Sky set up then try and catch this
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/civil-war/
Itās an incredible piece of work.