_DeanRiding

_DeanRiding t1_iydpsmz wrote

Reply to The Decline of British Blue Collar Stories On Screen: 25 years since NIL BY MOUTH first hit screens, Gary Oldman’s film has become a relic of a time when working-class stories were major cinematic events. What happened? by Bullingdon1973

Couple of things going on here.

First, I think the author is completely ignoring what happens on the TV screen, given most of our most popular shows are about completely normal people.

Secondly, there has been a massive cultural shift it what it means to be "working class" these days. There aren't any coal mines anymore. We've transitioned from an industrial to an extremely 'service' based economy, so anyone who would have been working in mines, mills, or other production is now working on the till at Tesco or in a call centre.

A smaller part of this is probably also how budgets for British film were smaller back then. For 30 or 40 years we had the Carry On films being made on shoestring budgets and they were incredibly popular, which meant more of them obviously got made (movie industry largely caters to demand, they don't create it). Nowadays, especially with globalisation as well, we have huge corporations like Film 4 leading the charge in the film industry with things like The Favourite or The Father and co-producing the likes of 12 Years a Slave, 127 Hours, and Slumdog Millionaire instead. Much higher (although still incredibly small by Hollywood standards) budgets with more scope for different and interesting stories.

I think tied to that point somewhat is how Britain in general simply doesn't have the clout on the world stage that it used to. There's less attention from overseas now because we're kinda just irrelevant, or at least can't really compete against the behemoths in America.

Back on that first point though. Just to name a few successful 'working class' (to the extent it still exists) TV shows from the last two decades: Shameless, Peep Show, Inbetweeners, Outnumbered, Vicar of Dibley (ran until 2020 if you can believe it), Black Books, IT Crowd, Little Britain, Cuckoo, or even Waterloo Road. And that's obviously ignoring the fact that Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Eastenders, and Hollyoaks are all still actually running as well since god knows when.

Finally, all of this is of course ignoring the fact that films by Martin McDonagh are still getting made like Three Billboards and most recently Banshees of Inisherin.

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_DeanRiding t1_ixqp823 wrote

Reply to comment by leto78 in Bye-bye airplane mode: EU allows smartphones during flights by Zhukov-74

I used to work for Vodafone and once had a call from someone who got the ferry over from Dover to Calais (pre-brexit). Apparently he didn't realise his phone was on in his pocket and used like 5mb of data (just through weather/ambient apps or whatever I guess). They charged him about £30 for it. They literally charged £6 per mb. When I spoke to general customer services to see if this was a mistake, they said the charges were totally legitimate and that he wouldn't be refunded for it.

Absolutely ludicrous.

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_DeanRiding OP t1_ix7k07b wrote

Reply to comment by AllanfromWales1 in A 20 mph speed limit intervention implemented at city centre scale had little impact on short- or long-term outcomes for road traffic collisions, casualties and speed. by _DeanRiding

I've personally found that if road conditions are permitting, people often (sometimes dangerously) overtake those doing the 20mph limit as well which I could actually see increasing accidents (anecdotally such an incident occurred just outside my house).

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