Is anyone else feeling like it’s all about to go nuclear in a MAD sort of way? What with your mullahs on this side, your Netanyahus and your Trumps on the other side, I am resigned to the fact that it might not matter now that I didn’t save enough for my tax return.
Apocalypse Now? A Threads.
by 71 Comments
I’m getting prepared.
The story of nuclear apocalypse … did you know only two things survive a nuclear war? Cockroaches and dentists (the girl screaming at the end has fillings)
And possibly Keith Richards
And The Afterword. I can’t see The Afterword changing all that much just cos everybody’s dead.
That’s cold, man…
Oh and Gerry Rafferty. I bet he’ll survive.
Let’s combine our beloved site and the Stones immortal
before Threads came this US TV movie, which is also essential homework viewing.
Oh yes, with Steve Guttenberg. It doesn’t have the bleak British horror of Threads but is pretty good.
This is also quite good if you like your kitchen sink British drama crossed with doomsday scenarios
The Day after is to Threads as We Are the World is to Do They Know
It’s Christmas
Peter Yates The War Game beats both
I couldn’t sleep for weeks after watching ‘Threads’ in comparison’The Day After’ sent me to sleep.
I don’t think I’ll watch ‘The War Game’. Reality is bad enough.
The War Game is terrifying. I saw it once, I felt it made Threads look like Jackanory.
I recently re-watched Threads for the first time since the original broadcast. I’d forgotten just how ceaselessly, overwhelmingly bleak it is. Astonishing television, and absolutely chilling. It’s still surprising it ever got made, and shown.
The Day After was unusually grim for US TV at the time, but doesn’t come close to Threads in terms of showing the futility and misery of life after the blast. Despite everything, you still get the feeling that things in America will eventually improve. That’s not how I felt by the end of Threads, with the figures stumbling over the ruined, empty landscape. *Shivers*
I’ve read enough about The War Game to know that it would be too much for me. Threads is as far as I want to go down this black, black path.
Apparently there’s a remake of Threads in the works, by Warp Films, who did Adolescence, This Is England, Little Birds etc.
Its going to be a live documentary ?
Or could always go nuclear in a really COOL kinda
Don’t panic Mainwaring.
I think this is one instance where regime change would be beneficial to the region as a whole.
The Iranian people deserve better than a supreme leader with henchmen stifling dissent.
Is this ironic?
Absolutely – we could add Trump and Netanyahu to that list. Let’s get rid of all of them.
Which they had.
Until the US deposed him.
For wanting to nationalize the oil industry.
Funnily enough I visited an old nuclear bunker on Saturday! Creepy. Three stories underground. Fully staffed it held 600 people!
https://secretnuclearbunker.com/
there’s one in Dundee too, I got in there a few years ago as I know a guy who’s fixing the old computers inside, but it’s all a bit hush, hush so shhhhhh
Turns out they are all over the country. There’s one up the road from me, I discovered.
https://www.subbrit.org.uk/sites/great-offley-roc-post/
Yup. One in your home county too, Hack Green near Nantwich.
@Twang
In addition to Cockroaches*, it seems that all bar four of the still living ex members of The Fall will also survive the coming Apocalypse
* and dentists @Clive
Foxy Towers is lucky enough not to be affected by subterranean burrowings of a secret military nature, given that only half a dozen miles away there is a vast underground network of spooky stuff that is still in use. I’m not sure what the blast radius would be, but I fear my cucumber plants might not be very happy if it turned out to be one of Vlad’s prime targets.
You think it’s Vlad who’s gonna nuke us? I assumed it was gonna be Ali. I don’t know which way to look now.
@Gary this is the problem. I don’t know which of the nutters is going to unleash the bomb first. Watching ‘Threads’, one of the most sinister things about it is how ordinary life goes on with the increasingly fraught escalation heard in the background on the TV or radio. It feels like that now. I’m dreading a sudden, hideous event from one of the current cabal of ‘players’
Yep. These times sure is scary.
In the wise words of the modern prophet, Sting:
In Europe and America
There’s a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets
Mr. Khrushchev said, “We will bury you”
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
It would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too
Do we believe that Vald and Ali etc, would care enough about their children and their country’s children to want to avoid that? And then other side of that coin is that if I were a peace-loving Palestinian/Iranian/Ukranian who saw my children being maimed or killed by Netanyahu or Vlad, how badly would I want revenge?
I think Vlad, Bibi, Ali, hell even Donny love their children and firmly believe they are building the world they dream of for them. If that involves killing innocent Ukrainians/Gazans/Iranians/Israelis, that is simply the price to be paid.
However, given the way these things go, no matter how much angry men bluster about regime change, commit massacres etc, the traumatised descendants of today’s victims everywhere will be out for revenge in the future.
The obvious refutation to Mr Sumner’s song is the action being taken by our world’s leaders on climate change. The best people love their children, adore their grandchildren and, where possible, are enchanted by their great-grandchildren. But even they struggle to feel anything for those who will be alive in 200 years. Then you have the psychopaths who tend to rise to power. I sincerely believe if people like Trump were offered an extra billion on condition that, after they died, the entire human race would be incinerated, they would take the money now..
@Gary
@Sewer-Robot
@slotbadger
Doubt the Iranians are worried. They seem to care as little for themselves and their own kids as they do about anyone else’s
As for the rest of us, whether wiped out by revenge or climate change, very much doubt the human race as we know it will be around in 100 years never mind 200.
“Doubt the Iranians are worried. They seem to care as little for themselves and their own kids as they do about anyone else’s”
I don’t think I can agree with you there, @jaygee. I can’t really say, having never been there, and as regards the leaders of the fundamentalist regime you may well be right, but as regards normal, everyday Iranians, from watching videos on YouTube I get the impression most of them are just people like us who want to live their lives in peace without their families suffering.
I think the “othering” of them like that is dangerous. It’s exactly what allowed Israel to perpetrate so much killing in Palestine with impunity.
“Doubt the Iranians are worried. They seem to care as little for themselves and their own kids as they do about anyone else’s”
Well having Iranian heritage and having visited the Tehran a few times to visit relatives, who seem to care very much about themselves and their kids as well, I think that’s – to put it politely – a somewhat sweepingly inaccurate statement.
@ Gary
@slotbadger
Usually in threads of this type, it seems to be generally accepted that the term Americans, Iranians, Russians, etc, is taken as shorthand for the leaders of those countries rather than as meaning the entire populations of those countries.
If my omission in not specifying that fact has caused any offense or upset to anyone with relative in, or ties to, Iran then I offer my unreserved apologies
Thanks for clarifying @jaygee – OK, I see what you mean
Cucumber plant in range, sir!
Nuke the cuke!
That’ll liven up this year’s village fete
Similarly, there was a shelter built just outside Ottawa near where I live in case the government needed to be evacuated from downtown in the event of a nuclear attack. It is now an extremely interesting museum, well worth a visit it you are ever in the area. Incredible what they built underground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diefenbunker
I’ve been to that one. It’s huge, but equipped with anything which roughly correct than strict accuracy. I was amused to learn the closes it came to being used was during the miners’ strike when then government were making plans to be executed in the case of revolution.
I’ve been in a fallout shelter built into a mountain in Lucerne Switzerland in 1985. It sheltered the overspill from the local youth hostel. It felt very safe.
Every building in Switzerland built after a certain date required one or near access to one. Most people use them as storage areas.
Possibly for the gun that every* Swiss man has to keep in his home
*well, that’s the story
Everyone has to do national service, and they will have a gun. I believe it needs to be stored in a very secure way in a box underground. I still found it slightly unnerving seeing young men in military fatigues getting on trains at Zurich Hauptbahnhof carrying guns when I lived there.
We first lived in a flat in Winkelweg, halfway down the hill from the Forchbahn to the Greifensee – we weren’t allowed to use the washing machine in the evening or mow the lawn on a Sunday – a day when we would be woken up in the morning by young men once a month discharging their guns in target practice.
Ha. No laundry on Sundays for me. I got use of the facilities one day every 2 weeks in my building. We got a day off work for “Knabenschieesen”, kid’s shooting day.
@Dai
Bet Swiss schools are a bit leery about accepting kids who’ve come to the country from North America
The nuclear bunker audio guide had a good quote from Einstein. “If the next war is fought with atomic weapons, the one after will be fought with bows and arrows”.
I don’t think that quote is quite right. The actual quote was: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Albert Einstein
I bow to your greater knowledge. That’s what the audio thing said though.
We should have deep sympathy for the citizens of Iran, Ukraine, Palestine, Russia and Israel, and reserve our contempt (where applicable) for their respective governments.
We should also take care to ensure that we are affording to all citizenries the right to be held separate from their government/politicians. It’s increasingly notable that, in certain quarters, the practice is being afforded to nations on one side, but not the other. Which is obviously bullshit.
As for the current conflict, absent a radical change in direction I don’t see much chance of nukes flying.
Clearly, we should always deplore armed conflict, but in a world as bleak as this it would take a cold heart not to find at least a little satisfaction in watching Iran’s deplorable leaders having their bluff called. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fascist theocracy.
Beyond that, all we can do is hope the conflict is over as quickly as possible, with as little additional bloodshed as possible on all sides, and then wait to watch all the unintended consequences unfold over time, as they always seem to with these things.
If it does go hot, and the wrong people get involved, my wife is dead. I am probably too. We’re considered a high priority target.
It would be difficult to tell the difference pre strike and post strike, except for the number of bodies.
So the US has entered a war in the Middle East again.
Tick fucking tock.
All very well talking about regime change in Iran, but as usual nobody has given even a moment’s thought to how it will be achieved once the bombing stops.
Regime change worked really well in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, didn’t it?
@Mike_H
It hasn’t worked particularly well in the UK or US either when you stop to think about it
How about we have regime change in Israel?
That one will be even trickier than it’d be for Iran.
In Iran the Revolutionary Guards have everyone who’s opposed to the current system there living in fear and outside of the major cities there is no opposition. Religious fundamentalism is ingrained.
In Israel the entire education system from childhood up is infused with the Zionist ethos and has been since the state’s foundation. The majority there believe they are in the right, no matter what may be done to their perceived enemies. Should Netanyahu and his settler cronies lose power, the current slaughter in Gaza might then stop, but there still won’t be a meaningful reconciliation with the Palestinians.
I watched the documentary One Day In Gaza yesterday, on BBC iPlayer. I think if I’d seen it before the attacks on October 7th 2023 they would have surprised me a lot less. The carnage inflicted on Palestinian protestors on 14 May 2018 was shocking. with unarmed women and children being maimed and killed by the IDF. 60 Palestinians were killed and approximately 2,700 injured. No IDF soldiers were killed or injured. Small wonder the hatred ran deep. Now, after thousands of Palestinian children have been killed, what hope can there possibly be for ever achieving any form of reconciliation?
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/13/one-day-in-gaza-review-an-almost-unwatchably-vivid-vision-of-carnage
The Israeli narrative is one of perpetual victimhood. Talk to anyone who has lived in Gaza and you’ll see a different picture emerge
(Mandatory declaration for avoidance of doubt: I am not anti semitic).
Criticism of Israel is not anti-semitism. Empathy for Palestinians is not support for terrorism. Condemnation of Zionism is not racism. Most Jews are Zionists? So what. Plenty aren’t and portraying Jews as some sort of monolithic entity is racism. I think anyone unwilling to condemn the killing of so many children is a sociopath.
This, exactly. Being of Muslim origin yet non-religious, I’m used to people asking “what do you lot want?” with varying degrees of sensitivity, whenever there’s an Islamist atrocity. It would be equally moronic to assume Jewish people are a monolith and think alike.
Here in Berlin, the state’s intransigence on its full-throated support of Israel means those who vocally oppose Israeli government actions are immediately dubbed ‘anti-semitic’. Even the many Jewish people who oppose Zionism. It’s totally bizarre.
Whilst the world’s eyes are on Israel and Iran, this is going on in Gaza – as told by the British doctors who lived it.
Israel likes to portray itself, to it’s own people as well as to the rest of the world, as being under constant attack since it’s foundation. But it has never seriously tried to get along with it’s neighbours.
The current Netanyahu government are upping the stakes. They appear to be doing their utmost to draw the USA into conflict. It could well be that their attack on Iran has been to that end.
Sadly, it looks like it’ll work, in the short term. Trump needs a big distraction from his ongoing domestic failures. Wars have been shown to be handy distractions for failing governments elsewhere, in the past. But I don’t think Americans will stand for yet another conflict that they can’t get out of once they’re in. The UK government should be very wary indeed of getting involved. Even peripherally.
I’m not sure your first para is altgother right.
Shimon Peres moved from aggression to a more doveish approach.
Yitzhak Rabin pursued peace with Arafat, and it cost him his life.
What Israel is doing just now is abhorrent. But that doesn’t represent their existence since 1948
The Red Arrows were due to fly over my house twice on Sunday afternoon, to and from their trip to the Duxford air show. But their planes were grounded at RAF Waddington because the base was locked down “due to operational factors”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2wndx4l6o
And it was cloudy.
I blame Donald Trump.
When I grew up in England I was taught to believe that the Red Arrows were the best aerobatics team in the world, internationally recognised as such. Then when I came to Italy I discovered that Italian children are taught to believe that the Frecce Tricolori occupy that exalted position. Both are undeniably impressive, but I wonder if any other countries are equally convinced that their aerobatics display team is the world’s best?
The two teams recently put on a joint display for Charles and Camilla.
Apart from the Red Arrows and the Frecce Tricolori, the US Navy have the Blue Angels, France has Patrouille de France, Russia has the Russian Knights, S. Korea has the Black Eagles, Australia has the Roulettes, Switzerland has the Patrouille Suisse, Turkey has Türk Yildizlari, India has Surya Kiran, Thailand has Blue Phoenix and Spain has Patrulla Aguila. There are many, many others less well-known.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_display_teams
Even less known.
Wot, no USAF Thunderbirds?