On SHIFTY the new series written and edited by Adam Curtis (iplayer, 2025)
For me, the only fresh and falling fruit from the Millenium Dome
Was a Peter Gabriel album (OVO). Otherwise, it stood empty,
Until becoming what it is now: retail park. Another city scar,
Smoothed by sun; the scab showing a near complete lack
Of vision, as Mandelson and Grade, Putnam, Yentob and others
Sat sifting bad ideas, each day dark. In the new Adam Curtis
Series SHIFTY, he pares back the points he is known for to show
Society’s wreck. As this naked assemblage of unseen footage,
Even without his recorded voice says it all. As he distills
What went wrong after Thatcher’s monetarism dream doused
The future, and the Nazi coined privatization fostered self-interest
And cast communal gain to the wall. Within his captioning
This Adam surveys ruined Edens. For Curtis, the curator of a new
Ken Campbell Madness Museum conveys how the gods
Of finance and tech have torn a hole in time’s fabric, until Hawking’s
Multiverse theory came to save him and us as well through the haze,
From which his Black Hole theory was born, with reality being gobbled,
While other scientists saw it as cobbled as there were so many of them
In the sky, that it couldn’t sustain. We remained. And as his first
Marriage collapsed, in the wake of Jane’s beliefs, so did Stephen
Further in his chair amidst rumours around his abusive second wife.
Pigs did fly. Just as suspension occurs if this is the only reality
To consider. Better still to look further and to see the strands
And streams in the mirror and for the heart and age to ask why.
SHIFTY sees where we stand and shows it up as unsteady,
As with all Curtis, there are stunning reveals at each turn.
In one episode we can see what looks like a real UFO,
As filmed by two schoolgirls in Surrey. It dares reality.
You can see it! Brighter and sharper than any Roswell clip.
Such scenes burn. Making us more aware that there is another
Life we’re all living. It is to do with sacrifice and with stealing
By the ruling hand in thy purse. Profit from the grand Brinks Mat
Heathrow heist founded the burgeoning property market.
House prices are diamonds. Try to buy one now. Wealth as curse.
Thatcher in this is a witch, seen in the most claustrophobic
Of kitchens. Her surburban style dream of advancement
In which she could kneel before Reagen and suck almost came.
But she needed to start her own war as a way to revivify
Churchill, and send us all to gas chambers made of hot air.
We breathed, tamed. And let everyone else pay the price.
Politicians back then stood for nothing. They believed in less,
So Max Clifford and other political pimps soon prescribed
Creating the days we have now, which are looking for their
Peaceful parallel in new atoms, beyond a Black Hole’s
Barren border perhaps the space where Eden as moved
Is described. From a transgender dog to Blair’s raised,
Soul-less eyebrows, in this new series SHIFTY, Curtis shows
What it is we now are. It is the nightmare side to David
Attenborough’s Ocean, (now mentioned thrice); watch these
Programmes and let television once more set the bar
For action, belief and for a space in which all consciousness
Comes together. Quantify all that’s Quantum to hold each
Strand in your hand. We’ll house stars. And at a far more
Managable cost. That Grocer’s daughter pre-sold us.
Now we are rotting in the box. Eve’s leaves flutter.
But if the core can still be saved, we’ll go far. Curtis calls
For such change as a nostalgia loop leaves now empty.
It beggars belief. Reason rattles. So, in God’s name find
Something to throw into the shining tramp’s broken jar.
David Erdos 16/6/25
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002d2jv/shifty
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