Peter Kosminsky

Peter Kosminsky Wiki page

I'm rather new to the Wiki thing but I am confused by this tag that has appeared at the top of my page. It appears to threaten to wipe the page. That's rather draconian. Who is proposing doing this and why? Or is this even the correct space for me to ask this question?

The message says not everyone wd expect to have their own page in an encyclopaedia. That's a rather insulting remark. I warrant a page in Who's Who. Don't I warrant a page in Wiki? The one that was there before was a stub and had been a stub for quite some time, until I updated it. After I updated it, other pitched in and made further improvements; I have not sought to undo their changes. Now it is a factually accurate page with lots of cross-references and useful links for journalists who are proposing interviewing me.

Perhaps one of you Wiki-experts wd be kind enough to explain?

Best wishes

Peter Kosminsky (talk) 20:36, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you should ignore that first message at the top of this page, which appears to be a simple mistake by User:Shirt58 as you didn't create the page 'Peter Kosminsky'. The page is not likely to be deleted as the subject clearly meets WP:Notability (people). The second message under 'March 2011' is correct though. You are welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, but it's worth you reading WP:conflict of interest before you contribute further. Regards, Qwfp (talk) 08:55, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Peter Kosminsky (talk) 10:21, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Peter! Qwfp sent a wise and kind message to me, to suggest that I make a partial apology to you. Wise, because an apology is due, and kind, because a full apology is due. I simply didn't do my research. I apologise, not partially, but completely for my mistake. It is obvious that you did not "edit" (Wikipedia jargon for "make contributions to") the "article" (Wikipedia jargon for "a Wikipedia web-page that is part of its main online encyclopaedia content") Peter Kosminsky. Whether you only partially accept my apology is up to you!

Qwfp is right, tho. There are difficulties if you edit Wkipedia under your own real name, especially if you edit your own article. A whole lotta wikipedians edit under their own names, but I myself am not brave enough to be one of them, even tho my real name very common. (Apparently I'm also well-known Hawaiian surfer, a QC in New Zealand...} Somewhat off on a tangent, I'm reminded of when I received an email to <my.realname at auniversityinmelbourne.edu.au> from a rather prestigious school offering me a lucrative consultancy opportunity, following the day-long discussions between Professor me OAM with the head of academic studies and the headmaster of said school. I replied, accepting the role, but pointed out that I was an undergradute law student, and on the day in question I recalled only playing two Field Hockey matches, having a long and pleasant phone conversation with my girlfriend in Sydney, and then making particularly delicious minestone, and and wondered if they hadn't meant to send it to <my.realname at anotheruniversityinmelbourne.edu.au>...--Shirt58 (talk) 11:27, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Of course I accept your apology. But i am too new to this Wiki experience to even understand what it is you have done wrong! I just thought I was helping by adding some details to a page that was rather thin. I think I now understand the concern. Maybe I shd work on Wikipedia under a pseudonym in future but, somehow, that seems a bit sneaky. I think I'd rather be open and just let other add their input as they wish. Do pls let me know if I am on the right track. I feel as if I am tiptoeing into a very complex new world.Peter Kosminsky (talk) 12:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Peter, although a number of people who are notable enough to have Wikipedia pages about themselves do use pseudonyms, continuing to use your real name shouldn't be an problem, and of course is good for reasons of transparency. Some editors do get a bit twitchy about people editing pages about or related to themselves, it's generally not seen as an issue if the edits are neutral and - more importantly - properly sourced. Obviously there will be things about your work that you'll know from memory, but Wikipedia material must be referenced, so it's better to be able to cite a source that corroborates any new information. Descriptive details of programmes and their cast/production crew are OK, as the production itself is the source, but any "behind-the-scenes" information usually requires a third party reference. For example, in Shoot to kill policy in Northern Ireland#Cultural impact, your rationale for making Shoot to Kill as a drama rather than a documentary is referenced to what you said in the discussion programme. Nick Cooper (talk) 14:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Could I quickly just ask you what to do in this situation then? There's a very good quote from the Daily Express about one of my shows. I have a pdf of the article. However, the Express is no longer making that article available on its website, (at least not as far as i can see). So what does one do? I'd like to quote the article but can't give a clickable reference.

And secondly, Nick, when you very kindly write to me to help in this way, do i answer here or do I write on your talk page?

Sorry to be so thick.

Best wishes

Peter Kosminsky (talk) 14:10, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Online references are preferred, as they're easier to check, but using a printed source is just as valid, in the usual publication name, date, page number format, so it can be checked one way or another.

It's usual to keep any line of conversation on the Talk page where it starts. Some editors do respond to a comment on their own Talk page on the Talk page of the other editor, which is OK if only two people are involved in the discussion, but it can get messy if there are more people involved! On the other hand, if you're responding to a comment left some time ago, there's nothing wrong with leaving a brief "I've responded to your comment" message on the other editor's own Talk page, in case they miss it.

Also, if a conversation on a particular subject Talk page goes off at a tangent, it can be advisable to transfer it to one of the participant's own Talk pages - or to another more relevant page - but that's usually only requested by other editors when it starts to take up a lot of space, or gets very off-topic. Nick Cooper (talk) 17:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Last night

Thanks for the message on my talk page! And a very big thank you to you and to everybody else involved with the RTS event last night -- it was a privilege to be able to come and listen. I can't get over that you were all prepared to take the time out of your schedule to talk to us, and then describe so candidly and in such detail all that you all went through to finally get the film to the screen -- I was completely fascinated. (No doubt I'll be adding a "development" section to the wiki-page in the next few days, with more errors for you to correct(!) -- is it okay to talk about the budgets and so forth? Was that all 'on the record' ?) Even having read all the material in the press, I still don't think until last night I had the first conception of just *how* much research had been behind this project, and how committed you were to letting that lead the path of what you showed onscreen. And such a high-quality Q&A session too -- really good questions, really interesting answers, and fascinating the comments and tributes of those who had lived first hand what you were showing, or in one case (I talked to him in the lift on the way up) the expert historian, originally from Jewish Iraq, who'd been engaging with this period all his life, talking about how you were bringing to the forefront things that had previously only been 'hidden in academia'.

There was something I said last night that was just awful though. You were kind enough to thank me for my contributions here, and I think I said something like "I did it for the wiki, not for you" -- the thought of that statement has been paining me ever since. What I was trying to say was that all I've been trying to do here was to be fair, accurate and informative about the programme, within my limited abilities, rather than to be giving you any special consideration. But it was graceless, because I am no writer, and I know the page is no better than it is, so it means a lot to be told that you're okay with what I've done, because this is your creation and something into which you have put so much of yourself. And since, in several years of occasional tinkering on Wikipedia, this is the first time that I have wanted to put together a properly thorough article on a TV series, in a sense it is because the programme -- your programme -- is so compelling and has so much depth of background to it that it is worth trying to write a proper article on (well, proper at least up to my level of competence anyway).

BTW, I don't know whether you've seen it, but the series got a really fantastic review from an online U.S. Jewish magazine called Tablet in the last couple of days -- I think quite well thought of. I don't know whether it makes any odds in the greater scheme of things, but it would be nice to think that just maybe it might encourage someone at PBS, HBO, or BBC America to feel more comfortable that it might be safe to take the plunge. The follow-up comment from "Europa" at 11:50 about watching it with friends from Tel Aviv, "one a former IDF Commander who found it moving and yes – evenhanded", is nice too. Jheald (talk) 17:57, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jonathan

This is very strange. My next project is a movie about the early life of Nelson Mandela and I am deep in the research, (as ever!). Mandela studied at a school called Healdtown, named after James Heald, a prominent Wesleyan Methodist British MP. Reading this, I thought of you and turned to Wiki to write you a note about it on your talk page. Instead, I found this really kind and generous message. Thank you so much for writing in these terms. I'm really glad you enjoyed the evening. I think we all did too, though I was really too tired by the end to notice!

Of course you can write about what was said last night. As far as I know, nothing was said that could not be for public consumption. Happy to fact-check anything you wish, but only if that would be helpful.

I have seen the Tablet piece - was alerted to it by Twitter, funnily enough. It is really well written, I thought.

How funny that you should mention that remark. I was quite struck by at at the time but I too have reflected on it overnight and understood completely what you were trying to say. I think you were saying that you admired the programme but nontheless had written about it objectively, according to the tenets of Wikipedia - and certainly not to please me or anyone else for that matter. I respected the point you were making, so please don't give it another thought.

Best wishes Peter Kosminsky (talk) 18:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Six degrees of separation.  :-)

James Heald MP (1796-1873) never married, and so had no children; but his elder brother George (c. 1785-1863) was my great-great-great-grandfather. There were portraits of both the MP and his father James (1758-1815) that used to hang in my grandfather's study (they're now in my brother's house in Edinburgh). It's after the two of them that I was named. (The J in my user-id is for James rather than for Jonathan). So that really is quite close to home, even via the Eastern Cape!

I don't know as much about them as I really ought to. The older James Heald rose I think from fairly ordinary circumstances to do very well in cotton printing, just as the industry mechanised and really took off at the end of the eighteenth century. He had printing mills in Stockport and at Disley in Cheshire, supplying a warehouse in Manchester. George carried on the business after him, and I think did tolerably well, though there were a lot of up-and-down booms-and-busts in cotton in the first half of the nineteenth century. James was left some cash, and I think went in as a partner in the business for a while, but sold out circa 1820 to 1825. I think he then went into banking - or at least providing capital - and built up a really very substantial fortune. (In his will in 1863 he left £350,000, which is about £30 million in today's money). According to the DNB, "In the latter part of his life he was not actively engaged in business, but greatly assisted in the reconstruction of the Manchester and Liverpool District Bank, and was a shareholder in many Manchester companies." He was also a key shareholder in the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway, though it too went through some bumpy times.

As far as I can tell he came last in all three elections that he stood in; but in 1847 that third place was enough to get him elected (despite a protest from his constituents) because Stockport at that time elected two MPs, and the man who topped the poll (Richard Cobden) had been elected in more than one place, and decided to take his seat somewhere else. A Conservative, but a Peelite in favour of Free Trade (given his Manchester cotton background), as an MP James Heald apparently "was closely associated with Benjamin Disraeli in the latter's reforming policies, particularly in relation to the hours of employment for children, where, especially considering his own business interests, he had very advanced views. He was an enthusiast also for the improvement of industrial relations and the legal recognition of the trades unions." On the other hand he was also a staunch opponent of Catholics getting the vote, and was against the secret ballot -- which doesn't sound so progressive to modern ears. He failed to get re-elected in Stockport in 1852 (apparently after rioting in the constituency), and also failed to be elected at a bye-election in Oldham later the same year, this time apparently after the dragoons had to be called out on polling day.

His strongest commitment though was apparently to Evangelical causes. He had considered becoming an Anglican minister in his youth; but was talked into remaining a Methodist and a layman by an uncle. But after he had made his money, he was apparently quite a philanthropist, amongst other things serving as treasurer and generously supporting the Stockport Infirmary. Close to his home in Didsbury he gave the land and a substantial endowment to set up what became the main Methodist theological seminary; while in Bristol he laid the first stone of what became the main Methodist educational college. He was particularly interested in missionary activity apparently, and became lay treasurer and the "most important layman" in the Wesleyan missionary society, according to the DNB.

When he died in 1873, his sister and his nephew (my gr-gr-grandfather) built a church in his memory. The church has since (I believe) been re-purposed as the offices of an advertising agency.

I vaguely knew that there was a Healdtown in South Africa and/or that there had been some sort of missionary activity; but I had never looked into it, and I certainly had no idea that it had a connection with Mandela. What an amazing bit of information -- thank you so much for this. According to a page found by Google, the mission was founded in 1853, then "in 1867 a training institution for teachers and theological students was founded with the help of James Heald of Manchester, treasurer of the Wesleyan Missionary Society. The station was named for Heald following generous financial contributions from him". What a wonderful thing to find a connection to -- a school of this significance in a society that was so polarised. But then in 1953, it says, the schools were nationalised by Verwoerd as education minister, who then deliberately destroyed the quality of further education there. It was burnt in 1976, then was closed altogether for a period from the 1980s. But now they're trying to bring it back to life again as a modern comprehensive school for the area.

Thank you so much for letting me know about this -- I had no idea, and it's made my day. Jheald (talk) 23:23, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, life really is full of the most extraordinary coincidences, isn't it? So funny that we met on the Wednesday and I was reading about this in Anthony Sampson's wonderful biography on the Thursday. Best wishes Peter Kosminsky (talk) 05:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The Promise

Thank you so much for your kind comments on my talk page. I'm particularly relieved if you feel I was near enough when I tried to summarise some of the things you've said about how you constructed the series, and what you were trying to achieve. I was a bit alarmed, when I added a few words trying to summarise David Cesarani's critique a few weeks ago, and two days later found a blog in German quoting a Reuters report, putting what I'd just written directly into his mouth! So it's a relief that you don't feel too misrepresented. (I've re-ordered those sections a little in the meantime to make the sequence more chronological, per WP's house style recommendations for "Production" sections, but the text is essentially unchanged).

I've seen a few of the French previews/reviews online, but more would certainly be of interest -- though I'll not be trying to reference them as exhaustively as the U.K. ones.

This is what I've seen so far (my Google-guided translation may be a bit rough around the edges, and may not fully grasp the full sense of the original):

• La Croix (18 March) ran pretty much a hit-piece [1]; though did say that "there's no doubt, the film ought to be seen". The assertion that you misrepresented Belsen because you didn't spell out that it was a concentration camp not a death camp, and that you should have blamed the British for the typhus epidemic, seemed particularly odd.
• Libération (21 March) loved it. [2] ("admirable"... "the excellent director", noting "its ambiguity, its double-valuedness, its lack of Manicheanism... not pointing the finger either at one camp or the other").
• Les Echos (21 March) [3] "keeps its promises"... "exceptional, stunningly intelligent"... acting and dialogue measure up to "the ambition of this film, which does not bring unanimity but makes proof of sincerity".
• Le Journal du Dimanche (19 March) [4] Kominsky [sic] combines "epic spirit with historical and journalistic rigour to deal with the conflicts of our time". "Historians will point out some simplifications... Others may complain of political bias to the view of the English pro-Palestinian left. Nevertheless Kominsky delivers a useful historical fiction for understanding an intractable conflict".
• Le Monde TéléVisions supplement (20-21 March) lengthy interview + enthusiastic preview, rather than a review
• Télérama preview + interview (22 March) [5] "a remarkable mini-series in four episodes"... "unless you are already bristling with certainty, you come out of The Promise with far more questions than answers".
• Le Point (17 March) [6] (17 March) "Kosminsky is adamant that he is refusing to judge the situation, but what he shows of the blood-soaked birth of Israel and the treatment of the Palestinians today is overwhelming. One is left by The Promise profoundly affected by the journey, the ambiguities of the characters, often torn between two loyalties. A shower of awards is to be expected for Kosminsky. And also gibes."
• Nouvel Obs [7] "Point of view is that of someone from the British pro-Palestinian left, and should be seen as such"... but it looks beautiful, and has "an epic spirit rare on television".
• L'Express [8] Beautiful but too long.

Looking forward to finding out on Tuesday what an al-Jazeera film review audience has to say and ask about it (and then I'll stop stalking you, I promise!)

All best, Jheald (talk) 00:25, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi James

Thank you for your kind message. Your remarks about Reuters are interesting and cautionary, I guess. Once it is in Wikipedia, it is taken as fact. I suppose it is indicative of the laziness of our times, (in a way), but also a tribute to you and all the other editors out there who have made it so. Must make your job especially nervous though...

I think you have most of the coverage there. The guy from Le Croix was, (how shall I put this in a public arena), very strange. During the interview he accused me of getting many of my facts wrong - via an interpreter but I'm pretty sure that's what he said. I told him that he had better be very certain of HIS facts before he printed such a thing as it would be highly damaging to my reputation and therefore potentially actionable. I haven't read his piece but I believe he excluded that accusation. However, I'm told he ended with an accusation against the Head of Fiction at Canal+ over which THEY may sue. So, up to you...

I have been thinking about how hard it is to add references to, for example, the Peter Kosminsky page. Many of those facts i just know from memory but aren't anywhere written down. Of course, I guess the awards could be referenced to each awarding body's website. That got me thinking about what documents I do have. Obviously I have cast lists, budgets, some call sheets for some of my old productions. I also have some cuttings. I wonder, would you be at all interested in seeing them? I suppose, were you to be utterly bored and without other more interesting and important things to do, you might one day consider putting up pages about some of my earlier shows, (or amplifying stubs), and - in that case - such documents might be of use?

If so, let me know.

Best wishes and many thanks

Peter Kosminsky (talk) 08:23, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to be slow to get back to you. Sometimes it can take me hours to work out what I want to say. I'm very flattered. On the other hand if I spend very much more time writing articles on subjects from Kosminsky-land, my girlfriend may well kill me. (On the other other hand, I do have The Project and Shoot to Kill in my computer still waiting to be watched...)

I think my answer re the cuttings is probably not. I drafted a long screed to try to say why, but basically after a long and roundabout discussion it was just saying I don't think it's really for me. But with luck somebody out there will sooner or later want to take in hand our articles on your body of work, they may be able to see this discussion and get in touch.

A couple of completely unrelated things. Firstly, just for the record, the way that that La Croix piece finished (after some comments from someone called Samy Cohen) was:

We can therefore expect a lively debate following its release. This is also the desired effect, says Manuel Alduy, the director of fiction at Canal+.

-- which I suppose could be interpreted as making Alduy agree with Cohen's assertions and say they were intentional; but it seems a stretch. The plainer meaning would seem to be just that Alduy wants The Promise to get people talking, which seems fair enough. Or Canal+'s lawyers might have been successful in getting something taken out. But you're probably well out of it.

Secondly, I've been meaning to ask... the dog. You told Telerama that everything was based on research; and I don't believe C4's lawyers would have allowed such an emotive scene if it wasn't. But my dearly beloved Significant Other was discussing the series with some Israelis that she works with, and the very first thing they mentioned -- I think even before the villa in Caesarea -- was the dog, adamant that there was no way that an Arab would keep a pet dog like that: it would be unclean, forbidden. (We even have a page Islam and dogs here on WP). Now I suppose Mohammed may be slightly Anglicised -- for example, in inviting Len to come and help Hassan learn maths, and encouraging Jawda to learn English. But I was wondering, was this a question that came up in rehearsals or on the set; and do you know if there were many Palestinian Arabs that kept pet dogs in this way during the Mandate period? Jheald (talk) 23:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to add - I shouldn't worry too much about references for the Peter Kosminsky page. The biggest concern for WP on a page about a living person is the potential for libel -- that's one reason why we're a bit paranoid about referencing. But if you're obviously aware of the page, and comfortable with it, then that's much less of an issue. Secondly, your word is as or more reliable than most things we would accept as a WP:Reliable Source -- eg a bio written by you that appears on the website of an organisation you're connected with; or a profile of you in an industry biographical encyclopedia of film-makers. Formally we can consider the works themselves as reliable sources for what's written about them. Nailing things down with references is helpful because it can help stop miscreants sneaking in spurious sentences without anybody noticing; and of course when the links can act as a gateway for readers to find fuller and more detailed information. But wikipedia can swallow up time like a black hole, and I'm much more interested to see Mandela, and the new political thriller you promised us for Channel 4. Jheald (talk) 00:11, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi James. Thank you for your message. Quite understand about the archive material.

Re the dog element of the story, I had several sources for Arabs leaving their dogs. A primary one was "In Search of Fatima" by Ghadi Karmi. I can quite understand why your girlfriend might have been concerned. We found, during the research and while shooting, that some Israelis, (though by no means all), are given to making very categorical, black and white statements about the Palestinian Arabs - with whom they actually have very little contact - on the basis of very little firm evidence. As you can see from the film, the scene in question was shot in a former Arab village with Palestinian actors and a Palestinian adviser on set. None of these individuals raised a concern about an Arab boy of the period adopting a stray dog, an event corroborated by our research.

Best wishes Peter Kosminsky (talk) 09:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Shoot to Kill

Thank you very much for the comments on my talk page. I'm afraid the page on Shoot to Kill is so far very thin, pulled together from the various scraps I've been able to find online. I've added a bit more about it not going out in Northern Ireland -- you were quite right, that is important; who John Thorburn is; and also a bit more about the lawsuit. I've also emailed David Rolinson at Stirling University, who wrote the write-up for the BFI, for a copy of the paper he published last year; but he seems not to have seen my email yet.

The book by Dr Paget looks interesting. The first edition had a comment about the problems of making a drama where everyone was called John, but not much more. (At least there wasn't a torque wrench you were looking for...). But the second edition I think isn't quite out yet. Manchester Univ Press says 1 February; but Foyle's, Blackwell's and Waterstone's all say 1 May.

You're right that the article really ought to have a lot more analysis of the content, and in particular what was new over and above Stalker's book, or the various things (like the phrase "Firepower, Speed, Aggression") that had come out at trial, or through papers like the Observer and the Irish Times -- though even those elements would have brought out far more to the front of your 9 million viewers' consciousness than I imagine they ever would have been before.

Inevitably I'm pretty sketchy on the details of what was already out there; so just from the film I couldn't say what was new (and unfortunately the copy I found didn't come with the post-programme discussion, so I don't know whether that would have been enlightening). My impression, just as I was watching, was that you really went out of your way to spell out the names (even including emphasising their middle names -- twice) of the two Special Branch officers who had to quit; and you certainly gave one of them quite a forthright speech defending their methods to Stalker towards the end -- to the extent that one of your IMDB reviewers commended the film for taking the RUC's part instead of being for the inquiry(!). Did you get to write up the programme in The Listener, or in the press beforehand, to let people know what was going to be new? Is that the kind of thing that might be in the cuttings?

Intriguing what you had to say about John Fairley. According to the press at the time (or at least The Independent, which has some archives online) it had been his own decision to leave, when he was passed over for group chief executive [9]... leading to the arrival of your friend Bruce Gyngell, who so didn't like anything other than the nice and the pink. It also said that Pearson were so cross about losing Fairley that they dumped their shareholding [10], selling out to Clive Hollick. The chairman at that time was G.E. Ward Thomas, who'd been in at the founding of YTV; though he'd only been a director not chairman when STK went out, so I'm not sure if he's who you had in mind. But this may be the kind of thing that's best left in the archives of Private Eye. Jheald (talk) 23:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Excellent detective work!

I mentioned Paget because I gave him an interview for a book he was writing in 2005, (I have a transcript he kindly sent me of the conversation here). I assumed it subsequently appeared in a book but haven't checked. I didn't mention it so much for Shoot to Kill but because I know it was a general interview on my approach and it covered a lot of ground. I guess I thought you might find it helpful.

To be honest, I can't now remember too clearly the detail of what was new in STK. We were the first to get the guy who ran the enquiry day to day to speak and so all the daily detail about what took place was new. He was very open but, because of the sensitive nature of the material, our lawyers were rightly tough and some new material could not be included. I'm not sure where you could go to see what was known before Shoot to Kill, perhaps the written works, (or Panorama reports), of the BBC journalist Peter Taylor? I have many of the cuttings from the time here, if there's anything you need help with. You may remember that I suggested accessing some of these documents a few weeks back but I think you weren't too keen to go down that road, (quite understandably!)

As far as the reasons for John Fairley's departure, I had that wry comment from the man himself. But, as you have pointed out, Wiki needs to reference reliable existing works not engage in primary journalism. I'm not sure where you wd go to find speculation on this point apart from the great man's eventual autobiography!

Good luck with all this, James. Peter Kosminsky (talk) 06:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Excellent news, that STK might be seen again. The article's got a bit long and baggy compared to the earlier version -- with luck somebody may eventually tighten it up a bit -- but I hope it's a reasonably fair cuttings job of what was written at the time. I liked Nancy Banks Smith's write-up comparing it to a "Western by a great master" -- especially her concern about leaving the armourer alone so long with the incriminating evidence book and a lighted cigarette!

I also saw that, after your comments, the Board did publish Camilla Campbell's detailed response to them about The Promise. I added a link; though inevitably, being me, only as a footnote. Bit concerned to read about the St. David's Hotel bombing though. Misquoting slightly, if there's a Welsh dimension to this, I may retire... Jheald (talk) 12:33, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Edge of Darkness, I presume...Peter Kosminsky (talk) 16:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

:-) Jheald (talk) 23:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

STK article now adapted into something readable by enterprising blogger Rob Buckley ("officially the fourth most popular UK TV blog"): see Lost Gems: Shoot to Kill (1990)

Sorry not to have caught that recent edit on The Promise article, but agree with your call. (I'm away at the moment, with my laptop also in for repair, so internet access is a bit hit & miss).

Many congratulations on the BAFTA nom: good luck for the 22nd! Jheald (talk) 19:14, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Hope you have a lovely break. The guy in question seems to have been involved in some 'warfare' over edits in the past so we will need to see how he reacts to my taking down his contribution. Peter Kosminsky (talk) 22:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Forum des Images interview

Thank for the link! I actually added it to our bio page on you a couple of days ago [11]  :-) Glad you got your technical/wardrobe malfunction sorted out!

I've struggled through most of the French dubbed version, before I found that there was a voix originale upload. But I'll have a listen through the English in the next couple of days to see whether there are some nuggets that demand to be added to some of our articles.

Question: do you know if the U.S. Navy Seals' drill is also based on "Firepower, Speed, Aggression" ? I couldn't help wondering, as the news came in about recent events... Jheald (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi James, hope you don't mind me replying here, rather than on your talk page. The FSA phrase came straight from the research and from our source and was the approach taken by that special unit within RUC SB in the 1980s. I don't know where they got it from - they may have lifted it from a US source. Hard to imagine the Seals adopting the RUC approach, rather than visa versa! Best wishes Peter Kosminsky (talk) 09:49, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Sorry, it wasn't entirely a serious question. I was just struck by the somewhat similar applications of "Big Boys' Rules", thirty years apart; though perhaps it was rather more questionable for a police force to be applying such methods. That and of course that Dominic McGlinchey uncomfortably for the RUC turned out not to be in the car that was shot up in 1982. Jheald (talk) 10:26, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely! Best wishes Peter Kosminsky (talk) 10:58, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The Project

Leave it with me. I can't promise anything particularly soon, but it certainly deserves a better page. I see James Frain, who played Harvey, has a well-stocked page of press previews. [12]. The BBC also has some quotes from the next-day newspaper reviews [13], though they weren't particuarly friendly. But I think you said recently it was one of your favourite pieces; and I take it the French liked it enough, that's why they wanted a version of their own about the ENArques. Perhaps because they had a bit more distance, and could better appreciate the whole milieu being recreated with sense of fly-on-the-wall closeness, because it wasn't part of what they were being exposed to every day. I wonder if the same would be true in this country too, now that it's a door opened into the past, rather than the near present. Assuming that the BBC will include it in its eventual £3 a view download scheme. There's certainly some great stuff in it -- just for starters, the evocation of Walworth Road, and the contrast with Millbank, which all feels so incredibly real; the way Anton Lesser plays the Philip Gould-like focus-group guru; Matthew Macfadyen's final realisation of just how much he's been played... As I was watching it, with the Coalition about a year old, I couldn't help thinking of Liberal activists and wondering where many of them must now be on the same journey.

As I say, I can't promise anything very soon, but I will definitely try and get back to it.

Incidentally, I see you made somebody cry for 15 minutes... and deserve a Nobel Peace Prize #LeSerment #GelobtesLand Jheald (talk) 00:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's nice. I hadn't seen those tweets.

Glad you were still able to watch The Project as recently as you describe. I wasn't aware the miserable old BBC had ever made it available. Peter Kosminsky (talk) 07:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the copy I saw originated with somebody's VHS of the original tx. Perhaps one day such series from the BBC archive will be available on a pay-per-download basis, (Guardian, Telegraph), if we can hope that it will include more than just last month's EastEnders.

When you say quite a lot is written about The Project, there was clearly a lot of media attention when it first went out. Do you know if much more has been published since? Google Books did present a snippet from a 2005 book by Peter Oborne, The Art of Political Lying, which cites the series as provding a textbook example of how Alastair Campbell would "create the impression that a story was false by denying a claim or assertion that had not actually been made" (p. 169), but I'll have to find the book in a real library to discover what the claim or assertion actually was. Has there been more where people have grudgingly admitted years later that, actually, there was quite a lot of truth what you showed? Jheald (talk) 09:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I meant more that there had been quite a bit written about it at the time. It showed some really 'out there' stuff being done by Millbank types and this attracted quite a lot of comment and angry rebuttals from senior figures involved, (best form of defence is offence). But this was all on air and in print at the time. I know Dr Derek Paget of Reading University Dept of Film, TV and Theatre has written about some of this in his various learned books, (derek@rid-out.co.uk). He might be able to guide you. I don't tend to monitor stuff that gets written about the shows well after the event. I guess that's more the province of the academics. Maybe it was unrealistic to suggest you do something so many years later when so many of the contemporaneous cuttings would not be online. But I looked at the stub and thought how odd to have so little about a show that caused such a rumpus. And I remembered what an extraordinary job you did unearthing material on STK, which was of course even further back in the lost mists of time. Also, I think Leigh Jackson should be better remembered than he is. He was a wonderfully gifted writer. Best wishes Peter Kosminsky (talk) 11:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia article Warriors - intention and function of an arte documentary

Dear Peter Kosminsky, as far as I can see the European TV-channel arte has guarded the broadcast of "Warriors" in November 2000 (in Germany at least) with a short documentary, made in the style of the geopolitical TV-magazine "Le Dessous des cartes" in arte by Jean-Christophe Victor and LEPAC. So production and first broadcasting of the film coincided round about with NATO-bombing of Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, ... of course. While the film itself describes the merciless advance of Serbian ("Yugoslavian") forces as well as the cruelness killings by Croatian military mainly against Bosniaks (both in combination with the inactiveness of the UN forces), the documentary obviously interprets the intention of the film in order to legitimate the war against Serbia (or "Yugoslavia") in 1999, as some excerpts of the German documentary version [translated into English] might show: "One has to see the film ‚Warriors’ in a certain context, [...]. The military and political leaders pursued the aim of creating coherent areas, for Croatia on the one side, for Serbia on the other side. To achieve this they used the so-called ethnic cleansing. Wherever a Croat was living, there should be Croatia, wherever a Serb was living, Serbia. All non-Serbs were expelled or killed accordingly. The war in Bosnia was not a civil war. And it did not broke out, because in the Balkans was a curse. [...] We were angry and powerless witnesses of what the film covers. We must therefore insist that the UN war crimes tribunal condemns Karadžić, Mladić, and Milošević. The European refusal, our refusal, to intervene in Bosnia induced Milošević, of course, to proceed in Kosovo in the same way. It raises the question whether not wanting to wage a war ultimately leads to war.".
Of course the Wikipedia article is not the right place to ask whether one can compare the actions of the UÇK with the situation in Bosnia at all, whether the NATO bombing even caused the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999 in the first place, or whether NATO actually started the war of 1999 because of its own interests in that region.
But the fact, that arte broadcasted a film about the war in Bosnia in 2000 together with a political instruction to interpret it in a current context (NATO war against Serbia of 1999), leads to one important question, which is relevant for the encyclopaedic article in Wikipedia: has arte ever contacted the BBC team, what the intention of the film has been? So to speak: was there really an intention of the film makers to support a possible intervention in Kosovo? Do film and documentary form an organic whole, as it was claimed by arte?
I would be glad for more information about the background of the film making. Best wishes, --Anglo-Araneophilus (talk) 12:44, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

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