THE TRAIN OF TERROR
Here is an extraordinary piece of film. It is a live outside broadcast of a British army simulation of an attack on a train in Britain. It went out at prime time on a Ö÷²¥´óÐã programme called Saturday Night Out.
And it happened in 1956.
I have tried to find out whether the British government and army were planning for an attack by Cold War Soviet sleeper cells, or the IRA. Or whether they were training to do sabotage themselves. But no one seems to know.
The commentary is wonderful - especially at the end. And Saturday Night Out had a great catch phrase
SATURDAY NIGHT OUT
SHOWS YOU
THINGS HAPPEN
AS THEY HAPPEN
WHEN THEY HAPPEN
AND WHERE THEY HAPPEN
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Comment number 1.
At 19th Jan 2010, Giv wrote:I love the presenter's eulogy before the train departs. So over the top.
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Comment number 2.
At 19th Jan 2010, rubensni wrote:Top Gear 1950's style!
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Jan 2010, ivica wrote:Not as brilliant a line as "future events such as these will affect you in the future", but still pretty funny. I lol'd.
I typed out "Hope you do a little film for Charlie Brooker's Newswipe again, Adam." but then I did a search for "Newswipe" to make sure that's really what it's called and saw this, so yay...
Thngs like this can really cheer me up.
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Comment number 4.
At 20th Jan 2010, UsHonestJohn wrote:A bit anticlimactic, but fascinating considering this was over 50 years ago!
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Comment number 5.
At 24th Jan 2010, Dave Socrates wrote:Hmm, I imagine the most the audiences memories of WWII were a bit more 'terrifying' than this programme. But I'm sure, back in those days, people would hide behind the sofa literally vomiting in fear etc. etc.
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Comment number 6.
At 26th Jan 2010, noemi Giupponi wrote:i'm writing my Master thesis on how strategies for sustainable behavioural change can deal with bounded rationality and irrationality aspects of human actions and values.
I find your work so inspiring, helpful and just very clever. Thank you so much for showing us how a man's work can still mean something....It is so rare and precious nowadays....to find meanings.
Best wishes
kind regards,
Noemi Giupponi
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Comment number 7.
At 27th Jan 2010, the art teacher wrote:EPIC FAIL.
I enjoyed that. You see a lot of homages/send-ups of 50's TV in a lot of comedy shows. This is almost like one of those exaggerated sketches.
"You've never seen anything like this before!!!"
then
"Well you've got take your hat off to her".
Is this a deeper analogy of the fallability of the military? An example of the dumbing down of popular culture? A glimpse of the kind of vicarious thrill that people get from seeing disaster on TV? Morever, the duality of creation and destruction that is evident in man's attempts to achieve greatness?
Dunno, but pretty funny regardless.
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Comment number 8.
At 27th Jan 2010, yurdj wrote:omg i didn't know adam curtis has a blog. i'm a big fan of 'nightmares', 'self', and 'trap'. i hope your next one is a doozy. when 'nightmares' aired, i was living in san diego, and got a copy of it and showed it to the activist community there. The info about the neocons was so comprehensive it blew their minds, esp. in fall of 2004.
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Comment number 9.
At 29th Jan 2010, Moor Larkin wrote:The movies did it better:
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Comment number 10.
At 30th Jan 2010, trythisthen wrote:5. At 11:09pm on 24 Jan 2010, davesocrates wrote:
Hmm, I imagine the most the audiences memories of WWII were a bit more 'terrifying' than this programme. But I'm sure, back in those days, people would hide behind the sofa literally vomiting in fear etc. etc.
----------------------------------------------------
Sorry Dave, but er . . . no. I remember seeing this glued to the telly as a wide-eyed 12-year-old. And was a disappointed then by the anti-climax of the event as much as I am now. Basically we sat there and laughed.
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Comment number 11.
At 30th Jan 2010, 12005GT wrote:I've written extensively about railway sabotage operations during the campaign to liberate France in 1944, and this is spot-on.
Off this topic: Adam, if you read this, would you e-mail me at edentoarmageddon@gmail.com regarding material to be found in your posting from 25 September last (Kabul City Number One (Continued))?
Many thanks.
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Comment number 12.
At 7th Mar 2010, victorkiriakus wrote:The following sources document some of the times where the U.S. government was found secretly exposing it's citizens to harmful bacterial agents to study their effects. One of them describes how in 1966, a bacterial agent was released into the New York City Subway system by dropping light bulbs filled with bacillus subtilis (variant Niger) onto the railway tracks in order to study the mode of spread.
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Comment number 13.
At 3rd Oct 2010, Gaz wrote:All this user's posts have been removed.Why?
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Comment number 14.
At 4th Oct 2010, Gaz wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 15.
At 25th Oct 2010, moreram wrote:What a let down, I was expecting Hollywood style pyrotechnics!
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