Posts by tag
england
Tunnel Under Greenwich
Deptford native, George Aitch, takes us under the Thames through the largely unknown Greenwich Foot Tunnel. The soul of London lies in its hidden places.
Time Your Blackouts Better
After a blackout leads to a serious car accident. Gary Hartley opens up on depression, Middle England, and perception in this introspective piece.
The Job Interview
Skint but with the mouth-watering prospect of working as a potwash in the local pub, famous for its aroma of old farts, Holly Watson reluctantly goes to a job interview.
Dole Life Part One: What you have to do for £50 a week
What you have to do for £50 a week in Britain. This is British life on the dole. Steven Bradbury gives Talking Soup the inside scoop on a life of Job Seeker’s Allowance.
ANGER
‘To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one’s work. And part of the rage is this: It isn’t only what is happening to you. But it’s what’s happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference, indifference of most white people in this country, and their ignorance’ – James Baldwin.
The Battle of the Heart Over the Mind
Life is full of changes, and with younger folk are ever-more trapped in a cycle of work and rent, Fulvio Milesi joins us to give us his take on leaving a job that appealed to the mind, but not the heart.
Carpet Fitter’s Christmas Rush
Brian King, who has worked in the flooring and carpet-fitting industry for 30 years, joins Talking Soup to talk about the Christmas rush for carpets and flooring and the toll it takes on the workers.
Stupidly, I Knowingly Broke Quarantine in Spain and was Instantly Apprehended by Police
Robert Locke, a temporarily unemployed travel company representative, woefully disregards government quarantine regulations and takes to the streets in his adopted home of Malaga, only to be arrested almost immediately.
How Black Was My Thumb?
I finish my £8.30 pint and head for where I used to live. Why? I’ve started writing now, I might as well go. It’s an ex-council block. East London thick brick. Rubicon cans on the stairwell, faulty lifts. A kid called Abdi that tries to sell you weed every time you see him, even though you tell him that you don’t smoke weed. It was him that I thought I saw walking past the pub. He’s got a dog. He told me that it is was rare for a Bengali to have a dog. I wonder if he’s still here?
The Living Dead
Nanny Pam and me are watching This Morning; there’s a woman on talking about how she’s been cheating on her husband with a ghost. The TV presenter asks if she has ever been intimate with the ghost. Nanny Pam stares at the TV while her Rich Tea biscuit breaks off into her coffee.
The Strange Case of Derick Johnson
For some reason, my first instinct was to assume that Derick Johnson was a figment of Nick’s imagination or a sort of creative in-joke between some of the players. The name, I observed, sounded like a character from Mad Men. I imagined a dapper fellow in his mid-thirties turning up to play, with a short glass of scotch on the rocks in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Love in the West Midlands
From 90s suburban Coventry, Holly Watson recalls stories from her childhood. This time she looks at a relationship between her Aunty Mandy and her husband SImon, a man so boring as to drive you to tears.
Beyond Work: The Refuse Collector
Beyond Work documents humans at work using words and reportage photography, with no judgement or glorification. It’s an attempt at unearthing the social, cultural and functional world of work that’s invisible in everyday life. In this series, Curtis James interviews Norman Macaulay, a man who has been working as a refuse collector for the past 27 years.
Six feet deep
A beloved grandmother’s death sparks unbridled joy at the funeral from the unbelievably dysfunctional Ackerson family.
Mile End to Clydebank
In a heroic attempt to watch Scotland lose at football, Laurence visits an East-End boozer and encounters one of his Scottish compatriots.
The grim reality of sex after a bunch of booze
City worker, James Richardson, describes an anonymous hook up in a bar and the grim reality of trying to have sex after 12 pints of beer.
Long way to the top
Frank Sonderborg remembers a groundbreaking gig to literally dozens of people in Surrey. It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll.
Visions of Albion
Visions of Albion, a short film by ‘EYE’ follows a group of Chinese tourists across Britain, showing what defines Britishness in the eyes of tourists.
England Your England
London is undergoing a living crisis. We present two short films courtesy of England Your England that discuss a very modern problem plaguing the city today