THANK FUCK FOR OUR FRIENDS IN THE NORTH

'What about that thing we were going to do?'

Higgs and I having just finished our marathon viewing of the Our Friends in the North DVD (all 10hrs 23mins of it), I would just like to say how fucking glad I am this wonderful social-realist document exists.

Our Friends in the North is an epic in the true sense of the word, in that it records and reflects back the recent history of an entire society. How rare is it today to come across a narrative that attempts to embody the story of a tribe in all its panoramic scope? OFITN parallels Middlemarch in so many respects, and it deserves to occupy a place on every British DVD rack in the same way that you might once have expected to find Middlemarch on every bookshelf in the country.

My personal favourite moment is when the southern policeman up north for the miners’ strike adopts a faux Geordie accent to piss off Anthony. What comes out is pretty poor, but not detectably different from any of the supposedly authentic ‘Geordies’ – Eccleston, Craig et al – heard in previous scenes, and a noticeable improvement on Nicky’s mother, who seems to have arrived in Newcastle via the Indian sub-continent (as well as somewhere Hebridean? Or perhaps Galway? There’s a definite Gaelic lilt there).