"Shameless"

[SepticTone]

"Shameless".

I thought I'd add this phenomenally popular TV series to the list of interesting & successful British media offerings, largely because I'm fairly certain it would never be aired on any US TV channel; it's one of the most avidly-watched TV series here still, it features authentic North-West English actors & accents, & is bloody good, basically.

It centres on a dysfunctional North-West English 'family', all living on benefit, petty crime, drugs & alcohol & existing in a sink estate somewhere in a fictional area near Manchester. Loads of fun in prospect already, I hear you chortle.

Its tone is essentially 'black comedy', something I think Americans don't get over there too much on TV, & which has nothing to do with race, as all the participants are white, as we don't have any black people in Burnley. Comedy in pathos/bathos with no sentimentality, as we don't do sentimentality here either.

It's incredibly well written, keenly observed, accurate to a fault & produced with a veracity born of personal experience by the writer/executive producer, Paul Abbott.

Abbott was born in my home town of Burnley, & I've met him, & can attest to the accuracy of his portrayal of contemporary life for the underclass in North-West English towns, after Margaret Thatcher virtually declared war on us up here in the early 80's, & won. I know the witch is a kinda folk-hero to Americans for some reason, but, believe me, she devastated whole swathes of the country north of the 'Home Counties' & is the one person I would wish......no, I'm non-political here, so I won't continue.

To cut a long story short, I worked at a local college where Abbott was rescued, at age 15, & placed in a class of similarly-socially-deprived kids in danger of sinking into drugs, violence, crime, etc., having been excluded from school because of their challenging behaviour. He was mentored by a teacher there, a friend of mine, Claire: a woman of infinite patience, resilience, understanding & skill, who turned his life round in 12 months.
I taught for a couple of years in Year 11 excluded kids classes at the college (ages around 14/15), & can attest to the mental & physical exhaustion it induces, but she battled through it.

She somehow persuaded him to take up writing as a hobby, as she recognised his gift & he went on to become one of the most successful British screenplay writers.

A few years ago he hosted a reunion/thanks kinda party at the local club near the college in Barrowford, where me & Claire were among the many guests, & he personally acknowleged the debt he owed to Claire in a very touching way. A sound chap he is.

The series might not be to everyone's taste, as it's very socio-realistic, & exhibits the peculiarly skewed British humour, adult themes (You have to be a 16+ ((our age of consent here)) to watch the clips on Channel 4's website & it's aired on TV after our 'watershed level of 9.00pm here), but I know davec at least is interested in authentic British stuff that doesn't make it across the Atlantic.

Links:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/shameless

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Abbott

[davec]

Ah, back from the wilds of snowy northern Indiana!

Yes, I am interested. I'll try to catch it when I can.

We have troubled folk here too. A few miles from my farm home , a rather tipsy shopping mall Santa Claus became loud and abusive with some people. The cops way overreacted and tasered him. His wife, witnessing this, beat hell out of both cops and took their guns away. One managed to run and lock himself in the squad car so he could call for backup.

[SepticTone]

A tipsy Santa being tasered & Mrs Claus stealing the guns off the cops!

I'd love to see that: sounds like an episode of Father Ted.

Is it on YouTube yet?

[christineb1979]

Is there a youtube video for Shameless?

[SepticTone]

Is there a youtube video for Shameless?

Well.

I suppose.

If you've taken the trouble to register here, deary, that there well be a youtube clip of "Shameless" somewhere. On Youtube.

Oh!! I found One!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DskxPIUq ... verified=1

48 minutes. Do not watch it on fullscreen, as it shows pores.

Trick is.... Type "Shameless" into the search bar on youtube. Works for me anyway. Almost every time.

[davec]

Don't mind ST's wry chiding style. Heart of gold...

I just tried the YouTube hit, and YT is refusing to play the clip in 'my region'--so they're adhering to UK licensing standards. If you're not UK based, I guess you'd have to try the proxy server technique. Now that I have Firefox as my browser, I'll try FoxyProxy and see how it goes for this and for regular viewing of Beeb, etc.

Should be a doddle, according to these folks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2oxQu5asuc&

For other UK viewing venues, see the message "New Catchup Internet Streaming Site Launched Today" here. That's where I got the above link.

[davec]

Well, I tried the free proxy server route on three servers. Mini-review: Yuck, so far.

One does nothing, another spins a lot of gobbledegook in the progress bar and then says 'Stopped', the third lets you get almost to the point of actually playing something on iPlayer and then says 'This server is refusing connections'.

Some online reading reveals that:

Free servers disappear or get shut down all the time. You may spend many evenings shopping for servers rather than watching Shameless or QI.

Free servers can be frustratingly slow, with lots of download interrupts.

The type of server you are looking for is known as an 'anonymizing server', for obvious reasons. Problem is, some include your original IP address in packet headers, after a protocol prefix such as "http_forwarded_for:". Others, without saying so, act as proxies as long as you are cruising web pages, but as soon as you try to download media content (the entire reason for visiting iPlayer), they pass your IP address through, and you're out of the water again. I think that's what happened to me on the third try.

Any helpful hints will be appreciated. I don't feel like splurging on a subscription-fee proxy site at this time. I guess Beeb has my IP on file by now, although they aren't actually likely to be dunning me with a subscription bill anytime soon, of course, since I failed to get anywhere.

**Sigh**. Oh well, Robin Hood's still free on Hulu.

[SepticTone]

I promise that I will research this problem for you, dave, & come up with a nice solution.

[SepticTone]

OK.

The Beeb has access to its iPlayer, as do all the other UK TV stations, extremely well ringfenced with almost impenetrable software, sorry to say, it appears from my research. A UK proxy will access it but it's not fast enough for the high-def content it streams. ( In some ways, we are actually quite high-tech here, you know).

The only way to access the iPlayer , 4OD, ITv catchup, etc., from outside the UK is actually to purchase a VPN account, which effectively cracks the codes the TV station uses on its internet content & allows any user outside the UK to access everything at a watchable speed, in almost HD quality (which the BBC iPlayer is: it's amazingly clear & fast, actually better than my non-HD TV.

Going through a regular proxy server apparently renders the stream too slow to watch.

Unfortunately, a bonafide VPN account costs money: around £6 a month:

http://www.vpnuk.net/

Sorry.

[davec]

Septic access to Shameless!!!

www.veoh.com

Search on "Shameless" and you will get watchable episodes. I sampled a few. Some seem plagued with download halts, others not. Don't know if it's a come-and-go deal or depends on where particular episodes are stored on their servers, or just what.

One episode mysteriously stopped after two minutes and offered a video menu of clips from the episode. Don't know why that one.

Definitely recommended. I'll catch a few in the near future. Looks great!!!!

Another look at Manchester. I'm also looking for episodes of Robbie Coltrane's Cracker series, based in Manchester, of which my local video store has a few on DVD. Very good--I love Coltrane, and he plays a very complex and eccentric crime investigator who is basically just too damned smart for his own good. Also, Last of the Summer Wine, and other shows.

My plan is to cruise BBC iPlayer (we can cruise the site, just not download TV shows, but BBC radio stations are available--see new thread on 'Sampling accents via BBC radio'), then look for the shows on Veoh and other sites.

Hot damn!