Given I spent much of yesterday out, there’s little surprise in the fact that I only managed a skim-edit of Monday’s ‘Z’ work and the reading of some more NC:5 submissions. For the latter, a little over 20% are making it straight to ‘shortlist’, and about 35% to ‘longlist’.
Is that the norm at this stage, based on the four previous anthologies? It’s probably not a million miles away, to be honest.
Today I’ll review some more submissions and hopefully add to ‘Z’.
Remember my ‘binge watch’ confessions? Well I’ve just completed viewing the six episodes of the documentary series Can’t get you out of my head on iPlayer. This series looks at the concept of ‘self’ in the changing world of power, politics and money, and examines how ‘systems’ (of power, money or politics) have attempted to control people over the recent decades – and how people have attempted to assert their individuality. It’s a complex thesis-like series of programmes with some really eye-opening moments. I may have to go back and watch it all again if only to try and understand more of it…
But first – I’ve now started watching Once upon a Time in Northern Ireland, five programmes that look back at The Troubles. One thing that makes these programmes interesting is that there is no narrator; all the words come from either into-the-camera interviews from people who were there and involved (including ex-IRA members) or from contemporaneous TV footage/reportage. I visited Ireland in 1979 – so when The Troubles were raging – and I saw stones being thrown, tanks on the streets, was searched going into shops etc. But I also found people from both Northern Ireland and Eire to be lovely people in the main, which seemed only to make the struggle even more a tragedy.
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Ian Gouge - Writer 