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Callan's Graphics and Things

Callan

It’s me. I’m the old lady with the tarot cards.
Published by SLP
Location
Toronto, ON, CA
Because everyone else is doing one.

First, some unused TLIAW graphics:

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London Leo Amery Airport is an airport located in East London. Originally lying on the site of RAF Fairlop airbase, the airport was renamed from Fairlop Airport in 1963 after Leo Amery, the first Prime Minister and second President of the Commonwealth. The airport is a hub for the flag carrier Commonwealth Airways, the low-cost airline EuroJet and the international cargo airline Alba Airlines. It is the busiest airport in the Commonwealth and the seventh-busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic. It is one of two main airports serving London, the other being London Heston.

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Commonwealth Airways is the flag carrier of the Commonwealth of Great Britain and Ireland, and the largest airline in the country. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the largest airline in Europe. Formed by a merger of Imperial Airways and British European Airways in 1944, the airline serves all six inhabited continents. It was nationalised under the Bertram government in 1972, and denationalised in 1999 under Thomas Caro. As well as owning several major airlines in Britain and Europe, the Commonwealth Airways Group owns the Aviation Services Company Speedbird Systems. The airline is one of 15 civilian operators of supersonic aircraft.

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Councillor Troy said:
A reminder that today is the 25th anniversary of the most interesting London Mayoral election, probably ever.

It was such a bloody strange election- it just ended up becoming this weird, multilayered proxy fight that shaped postwar British politics. Isabel Bertram, after being beaten to the Radical leadership by George Holland, then had a massive falling out with him (depending on who you ask, it's either because she got caught out trying to gut Ben Griffin's cabinet portfolios as a power grab or because he accused Bertram of abusing the memory of her dead husband as a way to try and run a "party within a party"), resigned from the cabinet in a massive huff and proceeded to beat his handpicked candidate for London Mayor.

On the other side, you've got a really close acolyte of Thomas Caro (who, please note, is not yet the leader of the Unionist Party) winning the Municipal Reform nomination because Caro explicitly stitched up the nominations for her. A victory for her was a victory for Caro, not Taggart, whose star was fading fast. So what you ended up with was a highly personal, vitriolic campaign while both the PM and the leader of the Opposition (both quite unpopular by now), both all but said that they wanted their own people to lose and let their own people campaign for what was supposed to be their opposing side.

In the end Howell became the first female Mayor because she campaigned on actual policies and the whole "Peace Dividend" thing.

roystenlla said:
At least Mother Goose kept her promise to leave frontline politics if she lost- imagine what would've done to the Radicals and her daughter's career if she'd won and actually followed through with all that threatened infighting. She was Past It by 1992, that was painfully clear. It was probably better that she lost- it was more dignified for everyone.

SolentP said:
Not for the people in the Aspen Centre it wasn't.
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Councillor Troy said:
I imagine that you're referring to the allegations that Howell, as Mayor was complicit in the corruption that led to people turning a blind eye to fatal design and safety faults in the Aspiras Centre. The investigation was intense- intense enough to totally destroy Howell's hopes of a political comeback. If she was guilty of anything, they would've prosecuted her- the outrage was just too intense, and there was a lot of anger that they didn't charge her. They nearly lynched Taylor Thorne, and with good reason. Howell's role was murky, but not criminal, and her co-operation with the investigations and how totally remorseful she was about her part in that sorry business is well-known.

I still find it remarkable that none of this in any way directly blew back on Caro, though it links into that slow erosion of Unionist dominance which came to a head with Devonport.
roystenlla said:
SolentP said:
Not for the people in the Aspen Centre it wasn't.
You think that Mother Goose would have been any less in thrall to Taylor Thorne and the property empire?

The whole business was just pure greed and thoughtlessness, part of the whole culture of the time. So much stuff was going up in London after the Second Great War, I knew a fair few.people who were part of it. Thorne was by no means the only case of stuff like this happening. It was just that he was the flashiest case, built that fanciest building, got all the right people under his spell. And that it was his building that killed a hundred people.
Paul Ennis said:
It turns out that an old colleague who I no longer speak to believes in that conspiracy theory that the Aspira Collapse was some kind of terror attack and linked to the Whitehall Bombings. His reasoning for it is nonsensical and ghastly
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Beaconsfield said:
Let me guess: is it that the Whitehall Bombing was a false flag so that Caro and his Jewish cabal could drum up support for a proper homeland in Palestine and Aspira was covering up loose ends in the form on Andrew Thorne?

I've heard it from a couple of people I've met out campaigning. They voted Ecologists.
roystenlla said:
Well, no-one in the Europe or the Middle East trusted Caro to be objective about the Jerusalem Impasse on account of his faith even after the Arab Liberation Front tried to blow him up.

The rumours of him totally flipping out at President Slater when he tried to suggest that the civilian deaths were accidental are probably true.
TWD.scot said:
Yes. A remote controlled denotation that's supposed to go off as Caro's motorcade goes past, but ends up going off just as half the civil service goes out to ? They knew exactly what they were doing, doesn't matter how many statements they put out otherwise.
 
TGS-Punk (KendrickPunk? DoylePunk? CommonwealthPunk?)

Creaky and fragile optimism of the late 60s/early 70s continues unabated. A postwar consensus of technocratic development, seeing scientific advances and political reform as key to the improving the human condition- a second Progressive Era. The use of Eugenics is a hot-button issue across the world, a bigger cause celebre for environmentalists than nuclear energy. Mid-Century modern aesthetics are popular, with steel, concrete and blue glass rising up the London skyline. Zeppelins and supersonic aircraft aren't rare, and nice to fly on if you're rich enough. Minor terror attacks are a problem in Britain but no more than in any other nation; there are few narratives linking small-scale outrages. Terrorism is seen as an inevitability, but one that deserves a much harsher response from the authorities.

The Commonwealth of Great Britain and Ireland has recently elected Leon Grady, one of the first men on the moon (being on the Anglo-French Concorde 8 mission in 1997) as its ceremonial President. The Commonwealth is making moves to apply for full membership of European Compact, a military alliance and Customs Union. A moonbase is under construction under the jurisdiction of the World Congress; it is swiftly turning into the world's largest money pit for all concerned. Nuclear warfare is a possibility that keeps people up at night but in a multi-polar world, it is not one that would destroy the Earth -just half of it.

The environmentalist movement is strong- it’s biggest cause celebre is the hot potato that is eugenics. Climate change is often associated with nastier right wingers (and even more respectable elements of the right and left) that want to blame it all on the growth of those African and Asian colonies - and ecologist often have an uphill struggle with that aspect.

Gentlemen have gone around with undercuts/mohawks for a few decades (and longer hair and dye on men is more common, even amongst the very professional very professional) while the rebellious youth tend to be rocking homburgs and straw boaters. Much fashion is very seventies oriented; bright colours and big lapels.

(With credit to @zaffre)
 
Gentlemen have gone around with undercuts/mohawks for a few decades (and longer hair and dye on men is more common, even amongst the very professional very professional) while the rebellious youth tend to be rocking homburgs and straw boaters.

oh no

Much fashion is very seventies oriented; bright colours and big lapels.

Oh yes
 
The PoD here is Major calling a snap election in Autumn 1991. He comes away with a majority, smaller than OTL, which erodes even faster and his government implodes over Maastricht. John Smith gets to work quickly at bringing about Social Democracy in Britain, passing Devolution in Scotland, Wales, London, Yorkshire and the North East. Plans to privatise the railways are shelved, and Smith takes his second landslide in '99 as a mandate to push forward into a referendum over the Single Currency- which tears the Tories to shreds. Smith steers clear of McCain's adventurism in the Kosovo, and when it blows up in his face his caution is lauded as foresight. Smith was close to Mickey Leland, and when Smith died of a heart attack in 2002, it was little surprise when the President was asked to do a eulogy at the state funeral.

Beckett, as Deputy PM and Deputy Leader, automatically became the new Prime Minister but the fight over the succession was bloody and undignified- while Jack Straw came away the winner, exiling Blair to NATO and Brown the backbenches, he was mortally wounded, and Britain joining the Euro in 2003 was seen as his only success. The Tories went through several leaders since Major- Dorrell barely papered over the cracks, and Lilley was an out-and-out Europhobe, who was dumped in the face of tanking ratings not long before Smith died. Rifkind, having won back Edinburgh Pentlands in 1999, brought the Tories back into relevance but he resigned in 2005, believing that the confidence-and-supply deal between Straw and Hughes would last a full five years.

When the Lib Dems turned on Labour over an authoritarian anti-Terror bill, Woodward was able to sweep in on an effective majority of one. Seen as insignificant, his management of the British recovery efforts in South Asia in the aftermath of the catastrophic Thirty-Day War earned him respect at home and abroad. When his tiny majority was eroded in by-elections, Labour attempted to force a no-confidence vote, which only backfired when Woodward called their bluff and and Denham lost his seat as a result. He was seen as an ineffective economic steward, and many Tory backbenchers never trusted him due to his liberal stances on social issues (gay marriage, for instance, was made law with Labour votes in 2007). The economic crash and the failure of American bailouts doomed his re-election prospects. One unqualified success supported by all wings of the party was the formal pact with the Ulster Unionists, which netted the Tories three Northern Irish seats in 2012 and meant that they could once again claim to be a party of all of Britain's Nations.

Flint was never a terribly effective Leader of the Opposition, and her disappointingly slender majority reflected that. She pushed through many infrastructure and economic recovery programmes, forced to credit the fiscal conservatism of her predecessor for leaving a more stable fiscal situation than many of Britain's neighbours. Flint was perceived as gaffe-prone; a prominent example was her defence of President Weiner just days before he declined to run for a second term. And then her whips failed to count properly during a crucial and controversial vote on cutting welfare, and wrongly chose to count on Adonis' Lib Dems to see them through. Crabb, a moderniser with a socially conservative tinge, was initially popular, contradicting much imagery about the Tory party. But now he is increasingly hemmed in from many sides: the right is demanding welfare reform, the left wants him to support Nick Clegg's bid to become EU Commission President, First Minister Cunningham is agitating for a Scottish Independence Referendum, and there are rumours in the press of a Weiner-esque sexting scandal that goes right to top of the Crabb Ministry...​



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Addiscombe and Addington
Bristol Central
Byfleet and Chertsey
Coventry Central
Dublin Harbour
Finsbury Park
Glasgow Clydesbank
Kidderminster
Lambeth
Mid-Gloucestershire
Monaghan
North Hampshire
Manchester Mayfield
Port Talbot
Portsmouth Southsea
Richmond and Northallerton
Richmond-Upon-Thames
Three Bridges
Sheffield Rivelin
Stanstead
Willisden
 
The Protectors! was an award-winning comedy show that aired in the early-1990s. A spoof of the spy-thriller genre popular post-Second Great War, the show is well-known for quick-fire dialogue, sight gags, wordplay and non-sequiturs, as well as depicting much satire of current events. The show follows "The Protectors", an elite unit of London-based spies dedicated to "preserving the sanctity of order". (One of the many running jokes is the fact that who The Protectors work for is never established; at various points in the series they take missions many different organisations and officials, including the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chinese Embassy and the Ford Motor Company). Typical plots have the Protectors assigned to deal with international espionage, political and corporate intrigue and in one episode an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery at a country house.

The show was the first big hit for comedian Charles Oppenheim, who was one of the lead writers and starred as Kevin Dryden, the main lead throughout all three seasons and three films. The show also launched the careers of many other aspiring actors and comedians, including Sarah Hayes, Richard Blythe and Milind Verma. Verma and Oppenheim are the only two main cast members to appear in all three seasons and all three films.

The TV series garnered critical praise and decent ratings, although the show only developed a cult following following blockbuster success of the first film adaptation in 1999. Some of its humour and subject matter was often considered borderline for conservative 1990s (it considered to be one of the first TV comedies to present an same-sex relationship). The show is credited for helping to setting off the "satire boom" of the 1990s that revived British comedy in the aftermath of the Second Great War, and has been cited as a key influence on comedy programmes such as the comedy-drama Roads to Prosperity and the long-running sketch show The Century Programme.

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The Protectors II: On Common Ground was the second of the three films in The Protectors! series. The film has The Protectors assigned to guard the international dignitaries at a global peace summit being held in East London. Kevin Dryden, forcibly retired and exiled to Canada following the events of the first film, returns to London after finding evidence that there is a conspiracy to sabotage the summit via kidnappings and blackmail.

The film's satirical occasionally libellous depictions of real life world leaders garnered some controversy- infamously, then-British Prime Minister Thomas Caro is depicted as leading a shadowy cabal entirely independent of the villainous conspiracy, which generated accusations of antisemitic caricatures. The sequel generated mixed reviews, with most critics praising the performances of the main cast and criticising the broader humour of the script. While the film is generally considered to be a step down from the first film of the franchise, it was the most financially successful of the three films.

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"Like all great works of pop culture, The Protectors was a product of its time. The TV series came out of the uncertainty immediately after the Second Great War, taking the piss out of the fact that one side won but it didn't feel like it, their leaders came out very much on-top but they didn't often look like it. Dryden, Patel et al were headstrong and full of misplaced confidence, launching themselves into perilous situations based on questionable orders from multiple bosses, second-guessing each other behind the scenes. But each time, our plucky heroes find their feet and somehow come up on top just in time.

The films however came out of a different era. The first Protectors film came out in 1999, when the Long Summer was very much in full swing, where the west had reconciled that it could do what it want now that the economy was firmly booming and the Far East was fighting amongst itself. The first Protectors film is full of bitter irony, Agent Dryden is alienated from a world that's decided that everything's just tickety-boo in the most superficial way. On Common Ground is a more direct and broader satire, showing that obviously all these clever people at the top must be resorting to trickery to keep everything working fine, that's how they can afford to be so complacent. Complacency is a big theme throughout the film franchise..."
 
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Excerpt from "Leading from the Crowd" by Helen Kendrick

"It didn't look terribly exciting from the other side of the Atlantic. Yes, there were a lot of things that could fill column inches: first Muslim nominee, first Catholic since LaGuardia, first time either party had elected people who hadn't been in politics during the Second Great War. A lot of stuff about generational change, signifying a lot and a little. Tripplehorn struck me as a proper populist, a boisterous, capricious, a soak-the-rich type who might do something about rising prices and stagnant wages. He'd placated the Democratic establishment with his VP pick: a well-liked woman who was Southern enough, racist enough, and most importantly independent enough for the half of the party that was unnerved by Tripplehorn. It was a choice he'd regret by 2020.

No-one hated Lee Carlton. But after eight years in charge, no-one really liked him either. He was a clever, perceptive man, one who could hammer out a treaty or give a good answer on why petrol prices doubled, but he wasn't brave or imaginative enough to try anything truly bold or radical. That might mean a foreign policy that actually pretended that there were countries outside of North and South America. Carlton's half-hearted attempt to do attack eugenics programmes, the Devonport Scandal causing a backlash across the Atlantic years on, was just asking for a futile fight with Congress. People wanted something new, something interesting. And David Tripplehorn was sort-of interesting. As was Sam Khan. In the end, it was quite impressive just how so many states ended up on a razor's edge. Not that it mattered, not since the sixties.

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"I liked Sam Khan. I might have even voted for him, I certainly would've preferred him as President. Both he and Tripplehorn had both talked a lot about Reform with a big-R but he was the one who meant it. Like every Democratic nominee, Tripplehorn had to climb into bed with Democratic machines to be secure as the nominee; and doing that inevitably blunts your populism. Khan was purer, a proper Chamber of Commerce type, but the sort who could face big bosses down. Little talk, all action. He and no-one won Detroit the 2020 Olympics.

He'd done a good speech or two about his dad's journey to America, what the Melting Pot and the Shining City on the Hill really meant, which I understand got a lapped up. Khan, like all good immigrants and children of them, anglicised his first name.

But that didn't really matter. He wasn't quite boring enough. He was talking about re-opening the question of tarriffs and above all else he was, well, different. Not quite the safe pair of hands. Most of the rest of the world wanted the sensible, cosmopolitan, urbane Governor of Michigan. That's probably why he lost."

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@Callan this is more in relation to your London mayoral map above, but have you considered doing some form of London electoral map/wikibox using the rejected proposed Herbert Commission London boroughs? That might be a similar good example of 'wait, what' to still having Municipal Reform in 1992.
Thanks, will now steal
 
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