#meanwhile all the older children seem to be having a turf war on the other side of the tree but i don't mess with that shizz kvbhsdb

[keeps-ache]

had a nice time yesterday 👍

[sunlitroom]

Gotham – s5e01 – Year Zero

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham:

Ra's saw a vision. Selina was shot.  Jeremiah’s obsession with Bruce reached heights where even Hannibal might suggest some restraint. Bombs! Kaboom  The government declared the city off limits. The city is now a battleground - each man for himself.  Ed and Lee stabbed each other in as sexual a way as possible. Oswald got revenge for Gertrud’s murder.

Jeremiah told Bruce that as Gotham falls - we rise.  There go the bridges. Babs and Bruce killed Ra's.  Everyone stares aghast at Jeremiah’s destruction.

As always, long post will be long.  There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot might appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)).  There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism.  Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

We open on the city on fire, smoke billowing.  

We can hear sirens,helicopters, gunshots and....

In a wood-panelled library, we hear a record being played – Dame Vera Lynn’s We'll Meet Again.

 I’m not sure if this song is as meaningful for an American audience – but for a British audience this song is inextricably linked with World War Two, Blitz Spirit, Our Finest Hour – doing without, self-sacrifice, and coming together to defeat the worst foe.  Does it have the same associations for you guys?  Just trying to get a sense of their purpose in using it here.  Ed pulling on leather gloves, taking an ace of diamonds and putting it in his breast pocket.  He smiles in the mirror and leaves with a shotgun.

Jangly East European music. Oswald is being made-up by his people. They slide his glasses on, and he takes his gun.

 Harvey’s in what I think is what’s left of Scottie’s bar, also looking fondly at a gun.  Vaguely western music plays.  I think it was western, anyway.  Was it supposed to be Irish?

 In his office at GCPD. Jim puts on his badge. He’s also carrying a big gun.

 Tl;dr – guns!  The perfect accessory.

 Oswald walks downstairs with his gun.  Harvey put on a hat and heads out with his gun.  Jim strides out in a bullet-proof vest.  They’re joined by Ed. Then Oswald steps out from somewhere and flanks Jim.

They line up at a huge barricade.  Jim growls out

Fire on my command.  For Gotham!

The one thing they can all agree on

They start shooting, and what looks like the army fires back.

But we’re not quite at this point yet, and so we cut away to the title screen

 Day 87

In GCPD, Jim is having a frustrated conversation with some government official. Jim is trying to outline the situation to the official, and giving a helpful catch-up in the process.  

The city is now up for grabs.  Oswald has taken city hall.  He’s stockpiled weapons and is manufacturing ammunition.

(An aside – which in itself would require supplies, I imagine?)

We go to see Oswald. His place is all cold greys and blue – chilly looking.  His tailoring, too, is very hard-edged – none of his usual flair or ornamentation. Even his hair is rigid.

He shoots his gun up at the ceiling

Some acolytes, all thin and worn looking, clad in shapeless grey uniforms, applaud him – clearly terrified.

(An aside – Gotham, you know I love you.  I wreck my wrists to type out recaps.  But that leaden reference to totalitarian regimes? That's just plain old tacky. It was heavy-handed and unnecessary and tasteless, and just felt uncomfortable to watch.

In short, no.)

Jim continues his helpful catch-up.  Oswald’s control of weapons has made him unassailable.

Meanwhile, Barbara runs her own portion of town from Sirens – which is the only part of town which is good for food and booze.  She mostly trades information.  

(An aside - What information is unclear.  It’s not like the situation is massively complex.  I don’t feel like this would have a lot of mileage.  Pssst – we’re still all fucked!)

Men can apparently buy ‘windows of time’ at Sirens.  Barbara is said to enforce her rule with an iron hand.

 In the west - Jonathan is doing fuck knows what.  It seems to involve crucifixion and making your own ragged leather outfit.

 Victor and Firefly are warring further north.  Jeremiah has not been seen since the bridges exploded.

 Jim continues.  

Then there's us - GCPD controls a ten block area round the precinct.  We’re feeding 150 civilians: families, children, the poor and sick.

Basically – the weaselly official is having none of it.  Gotham isn’t the government’s responsibility. He refers to Jim as Mr Gordon – and he tersely corrects him to Captain.

Jim asks him to evacuate children at least.  Weaselly official says they’ll form a committee. A weary Jim tries to convince him that the government has a duty of care.  Again – there’s wriggling, and Jim eventually asks him to just admit that they’re on their own.  The silence he receives in return says it all.

Selina lies in a hospital bed, facing away from other people in room: Bruce, Alfred and a doctor.  Her face is flat and bleak.

We hear the doctor tell Bruce and Alfred that paralysis aside, they need to operate before her spine collapses.  Alfred said they tried to evacuate her but couldn’t make it on time.  Bruce asks if they can operate there and the doctor says they have no choice.

Bruce approaches Selina and softly says her name.  This makes Selina start to cry silently.  He crouches down and tells her the dr wants to operate.  She flatly says fine – whatever.

Bruce crouches down

I’m going to be here the whole time

Poor Selina’s face twists, and she continues to cry

Back on GCPD turf, Harvey argues with an angry hungry man who’s getting mouthy and accusing the police of taking extra food for themselves.  Lucius appears and says everyone gets the same share or else supplies run out.

Jim approaches, looking over from higher on a staircase and calls out.

That's enough.

They all look over at him. Jim, it seems, commands obedience and respect these days.

He looks at the argumentative man

You don't like the rules?  Leave

Shouty man backtracks - just sayin’

Harvey tells him to say it walking - putz

We hear discontented murmuring from the crowd.

Jim asks how they’re doing – to which Lucius responds that they only have a month of food left. Harvey fulminates about the lack of support and says he’s never paying taxes again.  Jim thinks the government will eventually do the right thing – they just need to keep everyone alive long enough for that to happen.  Harvey replies that they’re almost out of ammunition. Anyone makes a move, and they’re sitting ducks.

 A snoring, dishevelled Ed wakes up on an old sofa on a rooftop, sporting Sharleen Spiteri’s 90s hairstyle. A dog barks at him while weird, discordant music plays.

We see him now in an untidier version of the library we saw at the beginning.  He’s talking into a recorder.  He seems to be having black-outs and losing time.  Someone get him to draw a clock!

He looks angrily in the mirror

Show yourself - I know it's you inside there, Ed

Apparently, Idiot Ed still won't appear.  Ed yells coward at himself, and says he knows that it’s him controlling him when he’s asleep

He stares back at the map spread out on the table where he seems to be keeping track of the spots where he wakes up – trying to find a pattern.

On the precinct roof, Jim stands next to the spotlight.  Bruce tells him he could ask someone else to do it – but Jim says he likes it.  Bruce asks if it’s because it reminds people that in darkness there’s still light – and Jim says it reminds him too.

He adds that they’re low on supplies.  The government refuses to evacuate people, and is ignoring their suffering.  Jim looks tired.

Bruce says that he gave Lucius permission to scavenge Wayne Enterprises Research and Development – it’s not much, but it’s something.  He then says he has to go – the doctors are going to operate on Selina.  Her condition is getting worse.

Jim listens, and then asks him to let him know how it goes.

A troubled-looking Bruce turns to leave.  Jim calls after him

Are you sorry you stayed?

Bruce thinks.  His face looks determined.

No. You?

Jim replies

Hell no

Bruce smiles and leaves. Jim stares out over the city.

 At Sirens, Mr Penn places a bullet on Barbara’s desk.  She regards it.  He makes an offer

Mr Cobblepot offers 1000 rounds of ammunition in return for 1000lbs of steak

Barbara smugly says the cupboard is bare in Penguin Land, but Penn says Oswald just wanted red meat. Mr Penn’s neck is noticeably narrower than his collar.  Was he always this thin, or is this to underline the idea that Oswald isn’t feeding his employees well?

Tabitha watches all this from the corner of the room.

Barbara continues, saying that Oswald wants to get fat on steak while his minions starve.

An impatient Tabitha cuts in, and asks if Oswald too scared to leave his citadel, knowing that she wants to plant a knife in his neck.

Barbara says Tabitha is still raw about the business with Butch – so they’ll want 2000lbs of ammo in return.

An infuriated Tabitha turns to Barbara and says not they’re not giving that bastard anything – he killed Butch

(An aside - does Tabitha really think Barbara would have let Butch live on Sirens’ turf?  For how long, before she got jealous and irritated and decided to put another bullet in him?)

Barbara wants to trade with Oswald, but Tabitha says no.  Barbara says she’s not asking her to forget – but they need ammo to protect the women who come there.

(An aside - A quick glance round suggests that Sirens can offer food and protection if you’re a good-looking woman of probably 18-40.  The older woman we saw earlier in the crowd of refugees at GCPD?  The young girls?  The mothers who won’t leave their families?  Yeah – didn’t think so.  As @rhavewellyarnbag suggested elsewhere – it seems likely that Sirens is pretty much a brothel by any other name)

Barbara promises her that Penguin's time will come.  Tabitha puts Penn’s sample bullet in her gun and tells him that Oswald will regret giving her this, and leaves.

Barb smiles at Penn, and tells him to make it 3000lbs

(Is ammunition measured in lbs?  Is this a usual thing?)

On GCPD turf - an anxious policeman stares out through the barricade and says he saw something move. His friend laughs it off – but we see a shadow. Jonathan suddenly appears, and sprays the man with his serum through the space in the door

Would you like me to make it stop?  Open this door

The other cop tries to stop him – but the infected man desperately opens the door, and is promptly scythed down by Jonathan.  He tells his silly acolytes to split up, steal, and kill anyone who gets in their way.

Inside, Jim talks to Harper, telling her to reinforce the barriers round Oswald's turf.  The lights suddenly go out.  Jim tells Harper to find Lucius and tell him to meet at the generator.

At the hospital, Selina's operation is underway.  Bruce and Alfred are watching from the corridor outside when the power goes off.  Alfred says hospital has back-up generator, so it’s fine – it’ll all be

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

Bruce is not convinced, though.  Vindicating this, a nurse puts her head around the corner and says men in the basement stealing medicine.  Bruce goes to investigate and tells Alfred to stay with Selina.

Careful

Jim is at the generator, which is sparking and making fzzzt noises.  He hears a sound, and draws his gun.  Jonathan appears and scythes at him, before riffing on Dirty Harry.

I know what you're thinking….

He remarks that Jim has so few bullets – is shooting Jonathan really worth it?

I mean – he’s controlling part of the city, randomly crucifying people, and now he’s looting and murdering. I’d say yes?  Jim disagrees though

No - it's not

He picks up an iron bar instead

He asks why he’s here – not for the generator?

Jonathan doesn't want light - fear lives in darkness

Oh, do shut up, Jonathan.  Everyone’s trying to survive and you’re dicking about in a stupid coat with a bunch of teenage edgelord prats.

Jim concludes that he came for supplies.  Jonathan adds that he’ll also take his life.  They fight. Jonathan asks how long it’s been since he’s tasted his toxin. That super-scary toxin that is seemingly rendered useless by water, iirc.  

He asks Jim what he’s scared of now.

Not you

Harvey chases some of the other looters down – but they manage to steal some food.

Back at the hospital, Bruce uses the night vision goggles Lucius found in R&D to watch Jonathan’s acolytes roam around the basement.  He swoops in and out, knocking them out.  One follower realises something isn’t going well and calls out for – now, I might have this wrong: Scad? Is that a name?  Is this why he joined this group – embittered at being christened Scad?

Bruce swoops in again to take him out.  Unfortunately, the lights come on and – momentarily blinded – Bruce is shoved back while they escape with the precious supplies.

Back at GCPD, there’s understandable discontent that supplies have been lost. They only have a week’s worth of food left.  Jim tells Lucius to drop to half rations.  Lucius tells them they’re already at half rations – but Jim tells him to halve them again.  Lucius says that gives them two weeks at most.

Harvey starts to rant a little, frustrated.  Bruce appears from nowhere and says that help is coming: he’s going to fly in supplies. Jim reiterates the government line on no contact.  Bruce says he won’t ask for permission.

Harvey comments that it’s nice to have a billionaire around.  Jim’s less happy – and says that it’s only a one-time solution.  Bruce says medicine has also been stolen, and there are people in pain. His eyes wander – and he’s clearly thinking of Selina.  

Jim watches him, and tells Harvey to go tell the people that help is on the way.

Once he and Bruce are alone, Jim asks how Selina is.  Bruce looks troubled. Jim tells him that Selina is strong, and she’ll pull through.

Back at the hospital, where Bruce sits by Selina’s bed.  She flatly tells him the surgery was a success – but adds she’ll never be able to walk again.

That's a bummer

Bruce says there’s only limited resources – but there’s hope once they rejoin the mainland.  Selina shrugs this off.  Bruce says he knows that she’s in pain, but there’s medicine on the way.

Selina regards him coolly and says it’s funny –

Jeremiah shot me to get to you.  After all the things I've done, what did me in was being your friend

Turning away from him, she says she wishes Jeremiah had killed her.

A pained-looking Bruce leaves.

As he’s exiting the ward, a nurse whispers over to him urgently

Doctors can't help her - she needs the witch

Bruce stares.

Back at GCPD, Jim asks Harvey what the mood is.  He replies that they love their Jim Gordon – but that the chopper needs to come.

Back at Oswald's place, a full plate is placed on Oswald’s desk.  Soviet-ish style music plays in the background – just in case I missed the North Korea stuff earlier.  Yes – I get it, show.  Now stop it.

We hear a creak of leather and see Oswald testing some kind of leg brace.  I’ve given up guessing at the precise nature of Oswald’s leg injury - the show is not exactly consistent with injury and illness – but whatever this is seems to help. He’s pleased and says it feels good, striding about while the man who presumably made it – again, one of his thin, worn minions – watches.  Oswald tells him to add a knife on it.

Penn enters – there’s another shutdown at the factory.  A weak, starved worker fell into a press. Oswald insincerely says he feels for all his workers, but cannot give what he doesn't have

He takes a bite of the steak from the plate on his desk, and pulls a face.  It’s apparently overcooked.  We hear a whine.  It comes from a bulldog Oswald has christened Edward – to whom Oswald offers praise, and then feeds the steak.

Penn visibly struggles at the sight of this.  He says quality is suffering at the factory due to conditions.  Oswald irritably interrupts him, and shoots at the ceiling to demonstrate the quality of the product.  The dog whines in fright. Oswald then tells Penn he upset the dog, and shoots again in temper.  This time, the gun doesn’t fire properly, and Oswald seems to hurt his hand.  Penn cuts in again about better quality products, but Oswald shushes him

Do you hear that?

At Sirens, Barbara and Tabitha are arguing.  Barbara says Oswald is locked in city hall with a small army

(A random aside - Barbara's hair looks fried)

Barbara says she knows Tabitha misses Butch.  Tabitha stubbornly says she needs to make it right.  Barbara asks how she’s going to do that without being killed.  Tabitha’s not really listening.  Barbara tries again

I need you too

Tabitha is now distracted by the sound of a chopper

Barbara tries again - wide-eyed.

Tabby  - do you hear me?

On the roof, Jim and Bruce spot the chopper. The pilot says he’ll meet them at the rendez-vous point. As he flies down the street, though, someone shoots at it – and it starts to crash.  

Heading out, Jim says the chopper is down in Low Boys’ territory – they’ll need to fight their way in and out.  Harper asks for ammo – but Harvey tells her to be grateful for what they’ve got.  Jim asks Alfred if Bruce is about, and they have a confusing little back and forth about whether Jim has given Bruce permission to be there – which Alfred seems to think he wins.  That was just a bit baffling, to be honest.  

The downed helicopter is being raided when Oswald arrives in a big shiny car. He introduces himself.  The leader says this isn’t his turf.  Oswald says he’s going to claim it anyway.  The leader remonstrates, but Oswald’s men shoot them.

GCPD arrives.  Jim gets out of his car

Oswald!

Jim!  I thought you might show up.  so good to see you, old friend.  How are you faring in these troubled times?

Jim tells him to step away from the chopper, but Oswald refuses.

Sorry - mouths to feed - and you know all about that - I hear you’re up to your ears in refugees

Jim says they’re protecting children and families

You shouldn't have shot it down, Oswald.

Oswald frowns.  He says he didn't shoot it down - he didn't know that the chopper was coming.  He’s still taking everything, though.

Jim says it must have been him – who else has that kind of weaponry?  Oswald says that’s a fair point, but it still wasn’t him.  He would just admit it, if he had: it’s not like he can be arrested.  He also tells Jim to skedaddle while he can

Jim and Oswald stare tensely at each other in their annual new season tiff

Harvey tells Jim they’re outgunned – which is maybe the most redundant observation ever made – but presumably to stop Jim reacting stupidly because his pride has been nettled. Oswald tells Jim to listen to Harvey. After all they’ve been through, he doesn’t want to kill him.  Not like this.

Before the situation can progress, we see arrows through Oswald's men – and a glimpse of Tabitha.  The cops raise their guns – and Tabitha grabs Oswald, a gun to his throat.

Listen to me – I know you’re upset about Butch

Tabitha yells that Butch thought Oswald was his friend

(An aside. Really?  Because the last I saw of Butch, he spent a lot of last season shoving Oswald around and threatening him. Oswald offered their old working relationship, and Butch rejected it in favour of choking him for a bit.  But anyway.)

This infuriates Oswald. He sounds sincere, and his voice breaks slightly as he says

I was his friend - you put a knife in my mother's back - his blood is on your hands!

Tabitha asks him if he thinks that she expected to come here and kill him and walk away.  Poor Barbara.  Given the choice, Tabitha opted for Butch again.

Hilariously, Oswald falls back on what he knows best

Jim! are you going to let her kill me like this in cold blood?

I promise it’s not shipper goggles – but Jim does an infinitesimally slight shake of his head.  Oh Jim.  Never play poker.

Oswald continues

You are not only the one keeping Gotham from the abyss - I am too: I supply stability

Tabitha turns Oswald to face her.  He reiterates the cold, hard truth:

I may have pulled the trigger - but you killed Butch

Tabitha has no real response for that

Shut up and die

She pulls the trigger – but the gun doesn’t fire properly. Oswald is saved by his defective stock. He laughs maniacally – and quickly pulls his knife on her.  They struggle.  He taunts her a little.

If that was one of my bullets, I’ll be having a word with the foreman – unacceptable quality!

He then tells her to say hello to Butch, and overpowers her – stabbing her in the chest.

There’s a scream – Barbara, who runs out from hiding to stare.

Jim watches the scene unfold.  Tabitha falls to her knees as Oswald watches. She manages a couple of words – presumably advice to Barbara about the futility of ongoing revenge.

Barbara - don't….

Oswald runs for cover as Barbara roars and fires blindly

We get a close-up of Tabitha's body as Barbara shoots and a gunfight breaks out.  Oswald calls out that it’s sounding a bit quiet from Jim’s end – they’re out of bullets.

Outside – we see Bruce break into a van with a propagandistic image of Oswald on it. He beats the guards easily and steals some ammunition.  He delivers this to a grateful Harvey and Jim.

Barbara reloads and runs out into the room.  Oswald appears, and shoots her in the shoulder.  He looks down at her.

For the record – that is not how I wanted things to go

Barbara screams that she'll rip out his heart

Oswald tells her to be quiet - talk like that will force my hand!

(An aside.  See - the thing is - Oswald is pretty much lawful evil here.  Tabitha already had it coming for Gertrud. Oswald took Butch instead.  She then tried to shoot him in the heart.  What is he supposed to do?  He doesn’t actually want to kill Barbara – unless he’s pushed – as is evidenced by what he says next.)

Oswald looks at her

For old times’ sake – I will give you a chance.  Can we move past this?  Say the whole Tabitha/Butch chapter is over?

For what it’s worth, he sounds sincere.  And it’s consistent with past actions from him. Oswald will tend to want to even scores.  But he’s also as likely to want to shake hands and move on when he’s truly done with something. This is likely why both Victor and Penn and Butch still ended up working with him after various betrayals and conflicts.  

Barbara screams at him.  She’ll feed his guts to the rats - you beaky-nosed freak.

(An aside.  As I said, I am biased. But beaky-nosed freak compared to you stabbed my mother in the back is just my problem with this plot encapsulated. The worst Barbara can come up with in the heat of the moment is that Oswald looks odd. Tabitha got off listening to an old lady crying, and then stabbed her in the back.  Who’s uglier?)

Oswald looks genuinely...sad for a moment. Credit to RLT for managing to give this writing nuance - because he’s Oswald’s been forced to pantomime villainy for most of this episode.

He then flips back to sass. So, no – then?

Barbara smirks at him.

Jim walks out.  He says he wants to make a deal.  They can split 50/50 if he lets Barbara go.

Barbara shrieks that he does not get to limp out alive. And, again, yes, they’ve tried to be as unflattering as possible with Oswald in the first half of this episode – make a monster of him.  But Barbara’s frequent resorting to freak and physical insults – it just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Oswald smacks her in the face to silence her.

He offers another deal for Jim.  He kills Barbara and takes everything.  Jim gets to stay alive – and go home to reflect long and hard on his generosity

Jim asks what happens when the government finds out he killed the only cops in Gotham. What?  He basically just said you were all getting to leave.  There’s more than one line in this episode that actively makes no sense.

Oswald tells him nothing would happen – and that Jim has nothing to offer.

Now they have extra ammunition, Harvey shoots.  Jim shoots Oswald’s bad knee.  Oswald screams.  Jim says that’s not true anymore.  He was never going to make a deal: he needs all those supplies.  One of Oswald’s men ushers him away.

Back at GCPD, supplies arrive.

Harvey asks Jim if Oswald is going to pull through.  Jim says probably – and that this will at least put him out of commission for a while.

Harvey says he could have put him down, but Jim makes noises about regulations and laws and shooting a man without warning.

Harvey says they’re fighting for survival and asks again why he didn’t do it.

Jim looks away. Harvey tells him

You win or you die - next time shoot to kill

Jim gives the tiny headshake again as Harvey walks away.  I honestly promise I’m not fibbing – go back and look.

Bruce approaches Jim and says he’s going to see Selina.  Jim asks again for Bruce to let him know how she is.  As Bruce leaves, he calls after him

You want to help - just ask.  You’ve earned a place

Bruce smiles and leaves.

Up at Jim’s radio desk, a woman removes a mask.  It’s Ecco. She looks over his map – and listen as the radio crackles.

Captain Gordon, come in.

She watches from shadow as Jim approaches and answers. The voice at the other end replies.

You have allies across the river.  We will find a way to help you

Jim listens – face serious. He turns sharply, feeling watched – but there’s no one there.  When he glances back to the map, he sees one of Jerome’s ‘ha ha ha’ tags on his map.

 A man searches dumpsters in an alley.  We see Ed burst out of one, angry.

Really? A dumpster?

Back at the library, he pounds the map table.

What are you doing to me?!  Show yourself!

What is happening to me?

At Sirens, we see Tabitha's corpse laid out on a table.  Barbara kisses her, turns to her acolytes, and looks straight out to us.  She’s dressed and made-up more softly than earlier.

I promise - if it's the last thing I do, I will kill him!

Her scream of rage merges into Oswald’s screams of pain.  He’s seated, dressed in white linen/cotton old-fashioned underwear, as someone digs for the bullet in his leg.

My leg - he shot my leg! I just fixed this!

He spits as he screams. Wouldn't his mouth be dry from pain?  Whatever – for some reason, they’re insistent in reinforcing physical loathsomeness for Oswald.

Penn asks him to hold still. Oswald grabs at his shoulder.  He tells him that there’s 1000 rounds to whoever kills Jim - he wants his head.

The bullet is finally removed.  Oswald stares at it, wide-eyed, breathing hard.

At the hospital, a nurse is in Selina’s ward.  She leaves her trolley for a moment. Selina sees a scalpel on it and hurls herself out of bed to get it.

As Bruce approaches, he hears screams from the ward.  The doctor and nurse are restraining Selina as she weeps and screams.  They inject her with something, and lay her on the bed. She’s insisting that she has no reason – they should have let her do it.

Bruce is confused – but the dr tells him she was trying to kill herself, and they’ll need restraints for when she wakes.  Bruce reaches down and touches her face.

(An aside – this was honestly the strongest and most emotional moment in the whole episode.  I teared up when we heard Selina screaming and crying.)

The nurse hisses at him again

I told you - the witch!

Bruce asks where he can find the witch.

Back on GCPD turf, Harvey refers to Jim as

St Jim of Gotham

(A quick aside – I would have maybe expected to see some kind of church presence in Gotham – trying to help.)

Jim tells Harvey he wants new refugees questioned about Jeremiah.  Lucius approaches, and says they now have 6 weeks of supplies.  As they talk – a small boy is brought up to them, who was apparently found at the Thompson St. barricade.  Jim crouches down.

What happened, son?

The boy can’t say much

My brothers and sisters - they’re killing us.  You have to help us

The boy wobbles on his feet. Jim tells them to get him to the clinic

He looks around to the cops who have gathered round him

I know you’re all asking why we’re here when the government won't help us.  It’s simple. We’re supposed to give people hope: if they’re in danger, someone will come.  We will come.  Suit up

 So.  We’re back

General Observations

The big picture

Some things aren’t making much sense.  I know we’re supposed to think Jim represents law and order, while everyone else presents selfish lawlessness.  But the backstory we have with these characters means this doesn’t quite work.

We know Jim will ally with criminals when he has to (at the drop of a hat, actually).  Both Oswald and Barbara are amenable to him. Both Oswald and Barbara see Gotham as home.  The Oswald we saw last season (not this ooc mess) couldn’t imagine anything worse than citizens being killed by Jerome’s stupid blimp.  If Jim is as desperate as suggested, then why hasn’t he tried to communicate with them before the impromptu get-together at the downed chopper?  The worst they could have done is say no, or make wildly unreasonable demands.  If he’s not willing to cede anything to them – then fair enough, walk away – but to not even have tried to talk seems bizarre.  I would guess he’d want to know he’d exhausted every option to help the people.

St Jim of Gotham

Jim’s had a bit of a character shift. He’s squarely law and order and selflessness here.  He tries to hold out hope that the government will help. Even smaller things amount to a shift in character.  He listens quietly to people when they talk. He repeatedly asks Bruce to update him on Selina’s progress.  He’s generally quieter and softer.

As for his shooting Oswald, @rhavewellyarnbag convincingly explained elsewhere that shooting an injured limb isn’t actually doing Oswald any favours at all.  In-universe, though – I think that possibly in the context of a show where mangled hands magically heal and people recover fast from life-threatening injuries with no consequences, and Harvey tells Jim off for being merciful (and we’ve just seen Oswald shoot Barbara non-fatally) – we’re supposed to regard it as a merciful alternative – building on this new character shift for Jim.

Whether or not he’ll maintain this shift of character is another question.

  The whole business by the downed helicopter.  

Well, gosh.  It’s almost like actions have consequences. Barbara should know that herself, given that Tabitha murdered her a couple of seasons ago in retaliation for shooting Butch.  Sorry – but if this is supposed to make me hate Oswald and root for Barbara, then it’s a mess.  Oswald has ample cause to hate Tabitha and want her dead – and she forced the issue here by trying to murder him in front of a bunch of people, where he cannot lose face.  

Come to that, he’s got reason to have gotten rid of Barbara before now, if he’d wanted: she was heavily involved in Ed’s attempt to drive him mad, humiliate him, and murder him.  Yet here he still wants to move on.  You can’t sell Oswald’s actions here to me as an example of villainy that’s somehow worse and more wanton than anything that other characters have perpetrated.  Especially when the characters directly affected – Tabitha and Barbara – themselves have a reputation for casual sadism and violence.

Oswald’s empire

Oswald was at his cleverest and most daring back in season one, when he was trying to make his way. We can assume that this has been the case in subsequent seasons, too – although we never got to see it.  He managed to claw back power after his stint in Arkham, and later capitalise on the post-Tetch-virus landscape.  When he’s actually in power, things don’t tend to go as well for him.

However, that’s not usually because he’s being outright dumb. Oswald wheedles and manipulates – reading people and their motivations so that he can gain from them.  But now he’s OK with blithely alienating people and inviting resentment and rebellion?  Doesn’t see any potential problems with that scheme?

What’s more, this is out-of-character.  Yes, Oswald craves power.  But he also wants – at the very least – loyalty and popularity.  Remember how infuriated he was when Selina wanted to know what she would get in return for helping him?  At most, he wants to be adored.  Remember how he teared up at Ed’s stunt with the little girl during his mayoral campaign?  How genuinely shaken he was when he won - proof that the people liked him?  Wanted him?  Trusted him?  Remember how Ed’s crude commedia dell’arte mocked Oswald’s need for the love of this people?  Oderint dum metuant doesn’t really do it for Oswald.  

Intellectually and emotionally for him, then, this just doesn’t fit.  Not only does he have an emotional need to believe that he’s loved – he knows that starved, angry people are less likely to be loyal, and way more willing to sell him out for a better situation, or rebel outright.

Barbara

I’m guessing this is the beginning of some sort of redemption arc for Barbara – we’ll be invited to feel sympathy for her now, then root for her revenge, she’ll become more of an ally to Jim, and then she’ll be pregnant.  I liked season one Barbara, was still interested in her in season two but since then, to be honest, she’d been so flattened as a character that it was hard to care much about her.  The fact that her redemption storyline is being enabled by trying to make Oswald as unsympathetic as possible – and while giving her a lot of season one Oswald’s characteristics – really just sticks in my craw, to be honest.

I suspect that it’s also a bit problematic that her redemptive arc can start now that Tabitha is removed from the picture.

Selina and Bruce

There’s not much to say other than it’s painful.  Poor Selina.

Yet to be seen: Lee, Zsasz, Strange, Jervis, and Jeremiah.  It sounds like Ivy is the Witch.  

[londone-fog]

The Light Will Guide You Home- IT Star Wars AU

AO3 Link

I, II, III, IV, V, VI 

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Darkness is on the rise. Darth Assem the Wise has begun gradually over taking the galaxy with his Neibolt Regime. As his power grows, so does the power of his apprentice, the fearsome Darth Fide. With the demolition of the Jedi, the public is quickly losing hope.

Meanwhile, General Marsh and the Rebel Alliance struggle to keep the Regime on a short leash. With the rumor of a hidden Neibolt base on the abandoned Sith planet Korriban, they have made quick plans to follow up on the intel.

All they can do now is hope the force is with them...

VII.

Ben was beyond ecstatic to be back on home turf. He really was. He nearly burst into tears when he saw Bev standing there in the loading bay, waiting for him. She was one of the few things that kept him holding out hope during his days on Korriban, and there she was.

He noticed later that she obviously hadn’t been sleeping, and that worried him more than anything. Was she staying up, riddled with concern for her captured friends? Was she facing repercussions for conducting a failed mission?

He wondered all this as he snuck down to Beverly’s room that same night, keeping a wary eye out for any stragglers in the halls. He knocked gently, a simple tapping against the cold metal of the door.

Bev’s face was a total mess of unregistered emotion when she answered, her auburn hair tangled and matted around her face.

“What do you want Ben?” She didn’t say it with any annoyance, just extreme exhaustion.

“I’m pretty sure we both thought I was going to be dead, so I thought I’d come see you,” then, a little quieter, “I missed you a lot.”

She bit her lip, weighing her options. She finally just sighed and pulled Ben inside by his arm. Her bed was pristinely made, and it looked as though it had been undisturbed for several days. Several holographic monitors were mounted on the walls and placed on the small desk. Clothes were flung across the floor haphazardly. Beverly pinked, trying to secretly shift them from view with her foot.

“Beverly, have you been sleeping? Like at all?” Ben asked, taking in the sight before him.

“Honestly… no, I haven’t. But I needed to find a way to get you guys out. Truthfully, a lot of the higher ups weren’t very happy with the idea of us sending any more people to the base, but they didn’t have to know. Anyway, it didn’t really work out the way I planned-”

She stopped abruptly as Ben stepped forward to grip her in a tight embrace. She quickly sunk into it, wrapping her arms around Ben’s middle.

“We’re here now, Bev. I know that you were worried, but please sleep, okay?” She nodded, allowing Ben to place his chin on her head.

“I want to hear about you first. We only got to hear the technical version of what happened. How are you?”

“I’ve been better. I got my gut busted open during an interrogation session, but it's not too bad. You saw it in the med bay. I was pretty terrified, though.”

Beverly nodded, moving away from Ben to sit on the bed. He followed shortly behind, sitting on the edge.

“I kinda thought that we were going to die there. I’m really glad that Mike came along, otherwise we might have. And then our cruiser was shot down. I dunno, we were on the brink nearly every day.” Ben cleared his throat, hoping his next statement wouldn’t be out of line. “Honestly, the thought of getting back to you is what kept me going.”

“You don’t mean that,” Bev said, but her grin and slight blush gave her away. Ben grinned, ruffling her hair a little.

“Every word. And hey, we got two new crew members, so it’s not all bad.”

Bev sort of nods, moving over to lay a head on Ben’s shoulder. He nestles his nose in her hair, bringing a hand up to curl a stray strand around his finger.

“I’m really glad that you made it out alive. I’m glad that you’re all back and safe. We’ve all been worried sick.”

Ben let her words sink in, trying to wring any hidden meaning out of her words. He’d known her since they were children, but as they got older, she got better at hiding her real feelings. Ben liked to think he was an expert at whittling away her facades, but sometimes he wasn’t so sure.

Sometimes he had to take a risk, shredding his fingers prying her blockades open.

“You know I love you, right?”

Beverly’s shoulders tensed just a little.

“I know.”

It was a quick, cold statement. Detached. Ben’s heart clenched painfully. He gently placed a hand to her face, stroking at a cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. She leaned into the touch just a little, green eyes filled with a peculiar type of fear.

“You don’t have to say it back, Bev. I’m stating a fact, not pushing you into a feeling. Okay?”

“I know.”

But this time, she smiled just a little, seeming at least a little more at ease.

Ben returned her grin, moving his head a little closer. Close enough to feel her warm breath against his cheek, far enough for her to move away.

But Beverly never did. She closed the gap between them, softly bringing their lips together. It was unrushed, unheated. Just a chance to feel close and comforted with each other, knowing that the other was really there and safe.

Kisses like this were not something that happened often between the two these days, and Ben filed away as much as he could in his mind. It was times like that that he really wished the war was a thing of the past, and that Bev’s father hadn’t put so much pressure on his daughter by use of his horrid reputation. He hadn’t treated Beverly or his crew right, and now she was forced to pay the price for it.

But that’s exactly what Ben loved about Beverly; she was a resilient being, born of light and held together by a refusal to do what others expected. She remained disciplined in the face of adversity, yet kind and soft when the dust settled. She took care of those who did not have the ability to do so themselves. Ben had always felt himself turning toward her, basking like a plant to a sun. When he said he loved her, it was the least he could have said.

Ben pulled away from the kiss as slowly as humanly possible, rubbing a gentle thumb across Beverly’s jaw as he did. Her green eyes betrayed her attempt at strength, giving way to a mixture of worry, relief, and something he couldn’t quite place. Regret? Fear? Disbelief? It was possibly a combination of the three.

“Hey, it’s alright. We’ll be alright. We’re home now, we have the intel, we can make our next move. But for now, please get some rest Bev.” She placed her hand on the one Ben still held to her face, lacing her fingers through it.

“Okay, I will.” Beverly ran her thumb gently over the back of Ben’s hand, the small circles leaving warmth in their wake. “Thank you, for coming to see me. It’s good to have you back.”

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I should probably get back to my room, though. We both need our rest.”

Beverly nodded, and Ben thought he’d seen a glimmer of disappointment flash across her face. It might have just been wishful thinking on his part.

He slowly untangled himself from Beverly, quietly padding over to the door. But just as he was about to pass through it, he heard a soft voice.

“Hey Ben?”

He turned his head back.

“Yes Bev?”

“I love you, too. I thought you should know.”

Ben smiled a little.

“I know.”

[samanthasroberts]

How do you rescue a seaside town? – BBC News

Image copyright ALAMY

Having been a model of gentility, Folkestone went into a slump. But its efforts to combat its problems and rebuild might be a model for others, writes Hannah Sander.

The seaside town of Folkestone was once the height of fashion.

International superstars Agatha Christie and Yehudi Menuhin were regular visitors. King Edward VII spent so much of his time in the Kent town that locals took to peering in the windows of the Grand Hotel, in order to spot him having illicit tea with his Folkestone mistress Alice Keppel (the great-grandmother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall).

Today, a strip of grand mansions along Folkestone’s seafront is boarded up. Stretches of sunny beach have become an overnight stop for parked lorries. A closed nightclub completes the scene.

Welcome to the British seaside. All along the coast, seaside towns are in trouble. In the south, authorities battle against the spread of London drug gangs, the tensions fuelled by a European migrant crisis, and a seaside school system which Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has warned is failing children.

Image copyright ALAMY

Image caption Folkestone’s funicular railway in its Victorian prime

And yet only a few minutes’ walk along Folkestone beach, pop-up restaurants offer grilled sea bass, oysters and champagne to the tourists. In the past decade the town’s new art scene has attracted an affluent following.

Similar transformations are occurring in Margate and Weston-Super-Mare. So are fading seaside towns becoming trendy again?

The British seaside has not recovered from the collapse of the maritime and tourism industries. Populations in coastal towns tend to be older and less ethnically diverse. Coastal towns have higher rates of unemployment and more long-term health problems.

Richard Prothero, from the Office for National Statistics, has analysed 274 seaside destinations around England and Wales. “Not every coastal town is struggling,” he explains. “Some are doing very well and remain popular.” Nevertheless, his study revealed high levels of deprivation in many seaside resorts.

In Folkestone, ONS statistics reveal that education is a particular concern. “The biggest impact on school performance is parental engagement,” says Dr Tanya Ovenden-Hope, visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth. She has been monitoring six struggling academies around England.

“In coastal areas we are finding that parents have perhaps received poor education themselves, or education that didn’t lead to a good job. So school is not a priority for them. That makes it much harder to engage the children.”

Folkestone

Population: 46,698 (2011 census)

UK constituency: Folkestone and Hythe; MP – Damian Collins (Conservative)

Twinned with Boulogne-sur-Mer and Etaples-sur-Mer in France, and Middelburg in the Netherlands

Ovenden-Hope herself went to school in Folkestone. She worries about the impact of the town’s two grammar schools.

On the pavement of Folkestone’s shopping district, three local schoolgirls wave colourful signs. They have just completed a sponsored silence, and are now handing out free hot meals to Folkestone’s homeless population. “Schools in Folkestone have got a lot better,” says sixth-former Shrishma Adhikari. “But there seem to be a lot more homeless people now.” All three pupils believe unemployment is a growing problem.

In reality, coastal schools have the opposite problem – too many jobs, not enough staff. “Recruitment is a key issue,” Ovenden-Hope explains. “If you are a newly qualified teacher in your 20s, would you want to go to a very remote coastal school that will present you with huge challenges but with a limited social life? Equally, if you are a middle-aged teacher and a job comes up in a coastal school, you might discover there is no employment in the area for your spouse.”

The three pupils volunteering in Folkestone’s streets agree that the town can feel far-flung, despite High-Speed 1 trains racing through the fields. “We don’t really go to London,” Shrishma shrugs. “It’s too far away.”

Stuart Hooper, the director of intelligence for Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, fears that London is actually far too near.

“It is a new phenomenon – the County Lines,” he explains. “Kent and Essex have very good transport to London and so the London drug gangs have the opportunity to widen their market.”

Folkestone and Dover are among the southern towns being targeted by up to 180 drug gangs. Criminals in the capital, realising that the Metropolitan Police recognise their faces, have begun to recruit young people as drug mules travelling out to the countryside.

“We need to acknowledge that there are vulnerable young people being exploited,” Hooper explains. His team is working with the Met, as well as local addiction services, to monitor violence.

And yet coastal crime is not a new phenomenon. “Gangs and turf wars have been around since at least the 1960s with the mods and rockers, and going back before then,” Hooper says. In the 1930s, crime beside the sea was so prevalent that Graham Greene based his novel Brighton Rock (1938) on gang wars. Meanwhile the queen of crime, Agatha Christie, took a suite at Folkestone’s Grand Hotel to pen her thriller Murder on the Orient Express (1934), and returned to Folkestone regularly.

Image copyright ALAMY

Image caption Folkestone’s Grand Hotel, where Agatha Christie wrote Murder On The Orient Express

Another type of violence can already be found in the seaside streets. In August, Kent Police was forced to intervene in a clash between the English Defence League and local protest group Folkestone United. The scenes could have taken place a century ago, when an influx of Belgian World War One refugees and British empire soldiers turned Folkestone into one of the most diverse cities in the world. Then as now, a wave of anti-immigration rhetoric followed.

The surge in support for UKIP has been driven by seaside towns such as Grimsby in Lincolnshire and Clacton in Essex. As the starting point for the channel tunnel, Folkestone has been central to the debate around immigration. In 2013 UKIP Leader Nigel Farage declared that he might stand as an MP in Folkestone (he later switched to the seaside region of Thanet).

“The Channel Tunnel drew everything away from here, from town, but it is coming back,” explains the waiter in Googies Art Cafe, a trendy burger and craft beer joint in Folkestone’s art district. “Folkestone has completely changed. For one thing, it has become a lot more multicultural. It used to be white, white, white. Eventually the town will be as trendy as Brighton.”

Image copyright ALAMY

Image caption Folkestone’s Creative Quarter

Trendiness, it seems, can transform troubled seaside towns into European hotspots. Richard Prothero points to the colossal variation between different seaside towns, sometimes near to each other. Whereas the statistics show Blackpool to be highly deprived, neighbouring Lytham St Annes is thriving. The Lancashire town has a renowned links golf course to draw in tourists.

Elsewhere, Salcombe in Devon has performed better than other seaside towns nearby. The upmarket clothes brand Jack Wills was founded in Salcombe, helping the town earn its nickname of Chelsea-on-Sea.

In Sussex, Hove has borrowed the street cred of neighbouring Brighton, welcoming sister campuses for the university. Thousands of visitors are filling the hotels and restaurants of Bournemouth, this season promoted to the Premier League for the first time.

Margate has capitalised on its connection to Tracey Emin, with the Turner Contemporary art gallery and an installation from artist Grayson Perry. In Weston-Super-Mare, tourism experts expect Banksy’s Dismaland to add 7m to the local economy.

Image copyright PA

Image caption Folkestone’s own Banksy mural, entitled “Art Buff”

Folkestone has benefitted from some good fortune. The flotation of local business Saga – an insurance and travel company aimed at the over 50s – prompted owner Roger De Haan to pour huge sums of money into regeneration. The result was the Creative Foundation.

“In 2002, the area around the seafront was the most run-down part of town,” says Alastair Upton, chief executive of the Creative Foundation. “Roger De Haan bought buildings in the whole area and restored them. Many of the buildings had taken a battering from the environment. The river runs below us and basements still flood periodically. But 90 of these buildings are now available for artistic activity.”

The Creative Foundation has launched a triennial art show, a new music and performance venue, a book fair, a public art collection featuring works by Tracey Emin, Mark Wallinger and Richard Wentworth, and has created 300 jobs. More importantly, it has given the town a reputation as an arts hub.

Beth Gibbs manages the Lilford Gallery Folkestone, which opened over the summer, and is found on a winding cobbled street newly crowded with art shops and cafes. Until recently the street had been dilapidated. “We are based in Canterbury,” Gibbs explains, “and were looking to expand when I heard about the Old High Street. There is a buzz about this area in the art world.”

Image caption The Old High Street, Folkestone

“Our main market is people coming down from London,” Gibbs says, “and a growing number coming over from France. Without the Old High Street, Folkestone would be just a bog-standard English seaside town.”

The impact of an arts revival is hard to assess.

In the 12 years since the regeneration began there has been very little research linking the town’s economic state or the number of tourists with the new arts scene. The town’s economic health has mirrored the country at large. Vast sums have been spent on the regeneration and yet the ONS still rates Folkestone as “deprived”. But Upton insists that Folkestone’s new arts scene has had a broader impact than that.

“You would be measuring the wrong thing if you measured visitor numbers. Success is a funny thing. There are some measurables – how does the town feel? What are the employment possibilities like? Are jobs secure and well paid?

“But there are also questions of the identity of a town. I think we have done a huge amount on this – changing the way people perceive Folkestone. There is a growing sense of self-confidence and pride for the town.”

At Googies, the staff has noticed the impact of Folkestone’s new reputation. “We are part of the Folkestone creative scene too – we all promote each other. In the past 10 years Folkestone has completely changed. People will soon start to realise that. We have sun, sand and sea. We have a better life.”

Image copyright iStock

Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine’s email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/17/how-do-you-rescue-a-seaside-town-bbc-news/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/11/17/how-do-you-rescue-a-seaside-town-bbc-news/

[adambstingus]

How do you rescue a seaside town? – BBC News

Image copyright ALAMY

Having been a model of gentility, Folkestone went into a slump. But its efforts to combat its problems and rebuild might be a model for others, writes Hannah Sander.

The seaside town of Folkestone was once the height of fashion.

International superstars Agatha Christie and Yehudi Menuhin were regular visitors. King Edward VII spent so much of his time in the Kent town that locals took to peering in the windows of the Grand Hotel, in order to spot him having illicit tea with his Folkestone mistress Alice Keppel (the great-grandmother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall).

Today, a strip of grand mansions along Folkestone’s seafront is boarded up. Stretches of sunny beach have become an overnight stop for parked lorries. A closed nightclub completes the scene.

Welcome to the British seaside. All along the coast, seaside towns are in trouble. In the south, authorities battle against the spread of London drug gangs, the tensions fuelled by a European migrant crisis, and a seaside school system which Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has warned is failing children.

Image copyright ALAMY

Image caption Folkestone’s funicular railway in its Victorian prime

And yet only a few minutes’ walk along Folkestone beach, pop-up restaurants offer grilled sea bass, oysters and champagne to the tourists. In the past decade the town’s new art scene has attracted an affluent following.

Similar transformations are occurring in Margate and Weston-Super-Mare. So are fading seaside towns becoming trendy again?

The British seaside has not recovered from the collapse of the maritime and tourism industries. Populations in coastal towns tend to be older and less ethnically diverse. Coastal towns have higher rates of unemployment and more long-term health problems.

Richard Prothero, from the Office for National Statistics, has analysed 274 seaside destinations around England and Wales. “Not every coastal town is struggling,” he explains. “Some are doing very well and remain popular.” Nevertheless, his study revealed high levels of deprivation in many seaside resorts.

In Folkestone, ONS statistics reveal that education is a particular concern. “The biggest impact on school performance is parental engagement,” says Dr Tanya Ovenden-Hope, visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth. She has been monitoring six struggling academies around England.

“In coastal areas we are finding that parents have perhaps received poor education themselves, or education that didn’t lead to a good job. So school is not a priority for them. That makes it much harder to engage the children.”

Folkestone

Population: 46,698 (2011 census)

UK constituency: Folkestone and Hythe; MP – Damian Collins (Conservative)

Twinned with Boulogne-sur-Mer and Etaples-sur-Mer in France, and Middelburg in the Netherlands

Ovenden-Hope herself went to school in Folkestone. She worries about the impact of the town’s two grammar schools.

On the pavement of Folkestone’s shopping district, three local schoolgirls wave colourful signs. They have just completed a sponsored silence, and are now handing out free hot meals to Folkestone’s homeless population. “Schools in Folkestone have got a lot better,” says sixth-former Shrishma Adhikari. “But there seem to be a lot more homeless people now.” All three pupils believe unemployment is a growing problem.

In reality, coastal schools have the opposite problem – too many jobs, not enough staff. “Recruitment is a key issue,” Ovenden-Hope explains. “If you are a newly qualified teacher in your 20s, would you want to go to a very remote coastal school that will present you with huge challenges but with a limited social life? Equally, if you are a middle-aged teacher and a job comes up in a coastal school, you might discover there is no employment in the area for your spouse.”

The three pupils volunteering in Folkestone’s streets agree that the town can feel far-flung, despite High-Speed 1 trains racing through the fields. “We don’t really go to London,” Shrishma shrugs. “It’s too far away.”

Stuart Hooper, the director of intelligence for Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, fears that London is actually far too near.

“It is a new phenomenon – the County Lines,” he explains. “Kent and Essex have very good transport to London and so the London drug gangs have the opportunity to widen their market.”

Folkestone and Dover are among the southern towns being targeted by up to 180 drug gangs. Criminals in the capital, realising that the Metropolitan Police recognise their faces, have begun to recruit young people as drug mules travelling out to the countryside.

“We need to acknowledge that there are vulnerable young people being exploited,” Hooper explains. His team is working with the Met, as well as local addiction services, to monitor violence.

And yet coastal crime is not a new phenomenon. “Gangs and turf wars have been around since at least the 1960s with the mods and rockers, and going back before then,” Hooper says. In the 1930s, crime beside the sea was so prevalent that Graham Greene based his novel Brighton Rock (1938) on gang wars. Meanwhile the queen of crime, Agatha Christie, took a suite at Folkestone’s Grand Hotel to pen her thriller Murder on the Orient Express (1934), and returned to Folkestone regularly.

Image copyright ALAMY

Image caption Folkestone’s Grand Hotel, where Agatha Christie wrote Murder On The Orient Express

Another type of violence can already be found in the seaside streets. In August, Kent Police was forced to intervene in a clash between the English Defence League and local protest group Folkestone United. The scenes could have taken place a century ago, when an influx of Belgian World War One refugees and British empire soldiers turned Folkestone into one of the most diverse cities in the world. Then as now, a wave of anti-immigration rhetoric followed.

The surge in support for UKIP has been driven by seaside towns such as Grimsby in Lincolnshire and Clacton in Essex. As the starting point for the channel tunnel, Folkestone has been central to the debate around immigration. In 2013 UKIP Leader Nigel Farage declared that he might stand as an MP in Folkestone (he later switched to the seaside region of Thanet).

“The Channel Tunnel drew everything away from here, from town, but it is coming back,” explains the waiter in Googies Art Cafe, a trendy burger and craft beer joint in Folkestone’s art district. “Folkestone has completely changed. For one thing, it has become a lot more multicultural. It used to be white, white, white. Eventually the town will be as trendy as Brighton.”

Image copyright ALAMY

Image caption Folkestone’s Creative Quarter

Trendiness, it seems, can transform troubled seaside towns into European hotspots. Richard Prothero points to the colossal variation between different seaside towns, sometimes near to each other. Whereas the statistics show Blackpool to be highly deprived, neighbouring Lytham St Annes is thriving. The Lancashire town has a renowned links golf course to draw in tourists.

Elsewhere, Salcombe in Devon has performed better than other seaside towns nearby. The upmarket clothes brand Jack Wills was founded in Salcombe, helping the town earn its nickname of Chelsea-on-Sea.

In Sussex, Hove has borrowed the street cred of neighbouring Brighton, welcoming sister campuses for the university. Thousands of visitors are filling the hotels and restaurants of Bournemouth, this season promoted to the Premier League for the first time.

Margate has capitalised on its connection to Tracey Emin, with the Turner Contemporary art gallery and an installation from artist Grayson Perry. In Weston-Super-Mare, tourism experts expect Banksy’s Dismaland to add 7m to the local economy.

Image copyright PA

Image caption Folkestone’s own Banksy mural, entitled “Art Buff”

Folkestone has benefitted from some good fortune. The flotation of local business Saga – an insurance and travel company aimed at the over 50s – prompted owner Roger De Haan to pour huge sums of money into regeneration. The result was the Creative Foundation.

“In 2002, the area around the seafront was the most run-down part of town,” says Alastair Upton, chief executive of the Creative Foundation. “Roger De Haan bought buildings in the whole area and restored them. Many of the buildings had taken a battering from the environment. The river runs below us and basements still flood periodically. But 90 of these buildings are now available for artistic activity.”

The Creative Foundation has launched a triennial art show, a new music and performance venue, a book fair, a public art collection featuring works by Tracey Emin, Mark Wallinger and Richard Wentworth, and has created 300 jobs. More importantly, it has given the town a reputation as an arts hub.

Beth Gibbs manages the Lilford Gallery Folkestone, which opened over the summer, and is found on a winding cobbled street newly crowded with art shops and cafes. Until recently the street had been dilapidated. “We are based in Canterbury,” Gibbs explains, “and were looking to expand when I heard about the Old High Street. There is a buzz about this area in the art world.”

Image caption The Old High Street, Folkestone

“Our main market is people coming down from London,” Gibbs says, “and a growing number coming over from France. Without the Old High Street, Folkestone would be just a bog-standard English seaside town.”

The impact of an arts revival is hard to assess.

In the 12 years since the regeneration began there has been very little research linking the town’s economic state or the number of tourists with the new arts scene. The town’s economic health has mirrored the country at large. Vast sums have been spent on the regeneration and yet the ONS still rates Folkestone as “deprived”. But Upton insists that Folkestone’s new arts scene has had a broader impact than that.

“You would be measuring the wrong thing if you measured visitor numbers. Success is a funny thing. There are some measurables – how does the town feel? What are the employment possibilities like? Are jobs secure and well paid?

“But there are also questions of the identity of a town. I think we have done a huge amount on this – changing the way people perceive Folkestone. There is a growing sense of self-confidence and pride for the town.”

At Googies, the staff has noticed the impact of Folkestone’s new reputation. “We are part of the Folkestone creative scene too – we all promote each other. In the past 10 years Folkestone has completely changed. People will soon start to realise that. We have sun, sand and sea. We have a better life.”

Image copyright iStock

Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine’s email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/17/how-do-you-rescue-a-seaside-town-bbc-news/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/167602583467

[allofbeercom]

How do you rescue a seaside town? – BBC News

Image copyright ALAMY

Having been a model of gentility, Folkestone went into a slump. But its efforts to combat its problems and rebuild might be a model for others, writes Hannah Sander.

The seaside town of Folkestone was once the height of fashion.

International superstars Agatha Christie and Yehudi Menuhin were regular visitors. King Edward VII spent so much of his time in the Kent town that locals took to peering in the windows of the Grand Hotel, in order to spot him having illicit tea with his Folkestone mistress Alice Keppel (the great-grandmother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall).

Today, a strip of grand mansions along Folkestone’s seafront is boarded up. Stretches of sunny beach have become an overnight stop for parked lorries. A closed nightclub completes the scene.

Welcome to the British seaside. All along the coast, seaside towns are in trouble. In the south, authorities battle against the spread of London drug gangs, the tensions fuelled by a European migrant crisis, and a seaside school system which Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has warned is failing children.

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Image caption Folkestone’s funicular railway in its Victorian prime

And yet only a few minutes’ walk along Folkestone beach, pop-up restaurants offer grilled sea bass, oysters and champagne to the tourists. In the past decade the town’s new art scene has attracted an affluent following.

Similar transformations are occurring in Margate and Weston-Super-Mare. So are fading seaside towns becoming trendy again?

The British seaside has not recovered from the collapse of the maritime and tourism industries. Populations in coastal towns tend to be older and less ethnically diverse. Coastal towns have higher rates of unemployment and more long-term health problems.

Richard Prothero, from the Office for National Statistics, has analysed 274 seaside destinations around England and Wales. “Not every coastal town is struggling,” he explains. “Some are doing very well and remain popular.” Nevertheless, his study revealed high levels of deprivation in many seaside resorts.

In Folkestone, ONS statistics reveal that education is a particular concern. “The biggest impact on school performance is parental engagement,” says Dr Tanya Ovenden-Hope, visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth. She has been monitoring six struggling academies around England.

“In coastal areas we are finding that parents have perhaps received poor education themselves, or education that didn’t lead to a good job. So school is not a priority for them. That makes it much harder to engage the children.”

Folkestone

Population: 46,698 (2011 census)

UK constituency: Folkestone and Hythe; MP – Damian Collins (Conservative)

Twinned with Boulogne-sur-Mer and Etaples-sur-Mer in France, and Middelburg in the Netherlands

Ovenden-Hope herself went to school in Folkestone. She worries about the impact of the town’s two grammar schools.

On the pavement of Folkestone’s shopping district, three local schoolgirls wave colourful signs. They have just completed a sponsored silence, and are now handing out free hot meals to Folkestone’s homeless population. “Schools in Folkestone have got a lot better,” says sixth-former Shrishma Adhikari. “But there seem to be a lot more homeless people now.” All three pupils believe unemployment is a growing problem.

In reality, coastal schools have the opposite problem – too many jobs, not enough staff. “Recruitment is a key issue,” Ovenden-Hope explains. “If you are a newly qualified teacher in your 20s, would you want to go to a very remote coastal school that will present you with huge challenges but with a limited social life? Equally, if you are a middle-aged teacher and a job comes up in a coastal school, you might discover there is no employment in the area for your spouse.”

The three pupils volunteering in Folkestone’s streets agree that the town can feel far-flung, despite High-Speed 1 trains racing through the fields. “We don’t really go to London,” Shrishma shrugs. “It’s too far away.”

Stuart Hooper, the director of intelligence for Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, fears that London is actually far too near.

“It is a new phenomenon – the County Lines,” he explains. “Kent and Essex have very good transport to London and so the London drug gangs have the opportunity to widen their market.”

Folkestone and Dover are among the southern towns being targeted by up to 180 drug gangs. Criminals in the capital, realising that the Metropolitan Police recognise their faces, have begun to recruit young people as drug mules travelling out to the countryside.

“We need to acknowledge that there are vulnerable young people being exploited,” Hooper explains. His team is working with the Met, as well as local addiction services, to monitor violence.

And yet coastal crime is not a new phenomenon. “Gangs and turf wars have been around since at least the 1960s with the mods and rockers, and going back before then,” Hooper says. In the 1930s, crime beside the sea was so prevalent that Graham Greene based his novel Brighton Rock (1938) on gang wars. Meanwhile the queen of crime, Agatha Christie, took a suite at Folkestone’s Grand Hotel to pen her thriller Murder on the Orient Express (1934), and returned to Folkestone regularly.

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Image caption Folkestone’s Grand Hotel, where Agatha Christie wrote Murder On The Orient Express

Another type of violence can already be found in the seaside streets. In August, Kent Police was forced to intervene in a clash between the English Defence League and local protest group Folkestone United. The scenes could have taken place a century ago, when an influx of Belgian World War One refugees and British empire soldiers turned Folkestone into one of the most diverse cities in the world. Then as now, a wave of anti-immigration rhetoric followed.

The surge in support for UKIP has been driven by seaside towns such as Grimsby in Lincolnshire and Clacton in Essex. As the starting point for the channel tunnel, Folkestone has been central to the debate around immigration. In 2013 UKIP Leader Nigel Farage declared that he might stand as an MP in Folkestone (he later switched to the seaside region of Thanet).

“The Channel Tunnel drew everything away from here, from town, but it is coming back,” explains the waiter in Googies Art Cafe, a trendy burger and craft beer joint in Folkestone’s art district. “Folkestone has completely changed. For one thing, it has become a lot more multicultural. It used to be white, white, white. Eventually the town will be as trendy as Brighton.”

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Image caption Folkestone’s Creative Quarter

Trendiness, it seems, can transform troubled seaside towns into European hotspots. Richard Prothero points to the colossal variation between different seaside towns, sometimes near to each other. Whereas the statistics show Blackpool to be highly deprived, neighbouring Lytham St Annes is thriving. The Lancashire town has a renowned links golf course to draw in tourists.

Elsewhere, Salcombe in Devon has performed better than other seaside towns nearby. The upmarket clothes brand Jack Wills was founded in Salcombe, helping the town earn its nickname of Chelsea-on-Sea.

In Sussex, Hove has borrowed the street cred of neighbouring Brighton, welcoming sister campuses for the university. Thousands of visitors are filling the hotels and restaurants of Bournemouth, this season promoted to the Premier League for the first time.

Margate has capitalised on its connection to Tracey Emin, with the Turner Contemporary art gallery and an installation from artist Grayson Perry. In Weston-Super-Mare, tourism experts expect Banksy’s Dismaland to add 7m to the local economy.

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Image caption Folkestone’s own Banksy mural, entitled “Art Buff”

Folkestone has benefitted from some good fortune. The flotation of local business Saga – an insurance and travel company aimed at the over 50s – prompted owner Roger De Haan to pour huge sums of money into regeneration. The result was the Creative Foundation.

“In 2002, the area around the seafront was the most run-down part of town,” says Alastair Upton, chief executive of the Creative Foundation. “Roger De Haan bought buildings in the whole area and restored them. Many of the buildings had taken a battering from the environment. The river runs below us and basements still flood periodically. But 90 of these buildings are now available for artistic activity.”

The Creative Foundation has launched a triennial art show, a new music and performance venue, a book fair, a public art collection featuring works by Tracey Emin, Mark Wallinger and Richard Wentworth, and has created 300 jobs. More importantly, it has given the town a reputation as an arts hub.

Beth Gibbs manages the Lilford Gallery Folkestone, which opened over the summer, and is found on a winding cobbled street newly crowded with art shops and cafes. Until recently the street had been dilapidated. “We are based in Canterbury,” Gibbs explains, “and were looking to expand when I heard about the Old High Street. There is a buzz about this area in the art world.”

Image caption The Old High Street, Folkestone

“Our main market is people coming down from London,” Gibbs says, “and a growing number coming over from France. Without the Old High Street, Folkestone would be just a bog-standard English seaside town.”

The impact of an arts revival is hard to assess.

In the 12 years since the regeneration began there has been very little research linking the town’s economic state or the number of tourists with the new arts scene. The town’s economic health has mirrored the country at large. Vast sums have been spent on the regeneration and yet the ONS still rates Folkestone as “deprived”. But Upton insists that Folkestone’s new arts scene has had a broader impact than that.

“You would be measuring the wrong thing if you measured visitor numbers. Success is a funny thing. There are some measurables – how does the town feel? What are the employment possibilities like? Are jobs secure and well paid?

“But there are also questions of the identity of a town. I think we have done a huge amount on this – changing the way people perceive Folkestone. There is a growing sense of self-confidence and pride for the town.”

At Googies, the staff has noticed the impact of Folkestone’s new reputation. “We are part of the Folkestone creative scene too – we all promote each other. In the past 10 years Folkestone has completely changed. People will soon start to realise that. We have sun, sand and sea. We have a better life.”

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/17/how-do-you-rescue-a-seaside-town-bbc-news/