Niall Ferguson's "Ascent of Money" (Channel 4)

Bloody marvellous - I like his style anyway, but this new series
weaves the history of promisary notes and banking in with the current
credit crisis to make a fascinating hours viewing.

Tonight's episode is repeated on on Wednesday on More4, it seems.

Recommended.

 

I must admit I found it somewhat shallow and unsatisfying - beneath
the intelligence of anyone likely to be interested enough to watch it,
IYSWIM.

 

I've been quite impressed with Bremner, Bird and Fortune's take on the
subject.

 

I thought about watching that, but plumped for the Stalin thing. That was
rather dull. I think I'll download AoM just to see which camp I fall into.
Place bets...

 

<crushed>

Oh.

Well I found it interesting. The failure of Spain to get rich on its
new found silver and gold was not something I'd considered before, and
I thought the Mesopotamian tablet that "promised to pay the bearer.."
fascinating.

 

TV Programme about Money.

<passes Colin the agreed sum>

 

I don't know why I don't watch them, 'cos every time I do I enjoy it.

 

Sure - that's fair comment. But I'd call them fun facts, whereas I was
expecting more from a programme that borrowed it's title from
Bronowski and claimed to chart the rise of global finance and analyse
the trail to the credit crunch. Maybe that's to come.

 

Bugger - I wondered where that apostrophe had got to.

 

Maybe one day we can have a programme charting the "Ascent of Apostrophe".

 

I have a vision of an Ape wielding an apostrophe to the sound of
Straus's "Thus Spake Zarathustra".

 

^^^
And to good effect it would seem.

 

Buggroff, I looked that up and stand by it, posessive ending in S I'm
allowed to put s's.

 

Strauss is his name. You do not put an apostrophe in the middle of
someone's name. Really.

 

<googles> Oh fuckit!

Right then, so if Mr. Strauss was to own something, say a widget,
would it be Strauss's widget?

 

Just as well because 4OD is playing silly beggars again. Stopped at 94%
claiming no disk space when there is oodles of it.

BTW - no need to keep the Underground Bunker (unless you want to) as
that completed OK.

Curiouser and curiouser.
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Working again now. I could have sworn I had installed it to my D: drive.
Seems a programmer descendant of Thor Heyerdal decided that it should
not be possible to choose where to store downloads. Wouldn't start again
until I had at least 500Mb free on my C: drive.

Done now. From your review, I am expecting a cross between Bronowski,
Schama and Burke.

Critique to follow.

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IMHO yes. There's is no universally accepted straight answer. I've
seen more recommendations that would result in Strauss's than I have
Strauss'.

Personally I tend to spell such possessives as I say them - so
Strauss's widget but Buggins' turn.

 

So, I have to admit I haven't finished watching it yet, partly because
it didn't really 'grab' me.

I would have liked more on the 'invention' of money. He seemed to skip
too quickly via the conquistadors to the Medicis.

The 'credo' reference is naturally the nub of it all. The frequent
mentions of belief must irritate you.

Not sure I buy his "money is the root of - everything" tack. I suspect
money wouldn't have developed without agriculture as a precursor but I
am sure LN will point me at anthropological examples of hunter gatherer
monetary systems.

At first I found the typical fast cut, attention span of a gnat image
references annoying, but it seemed to calm down a bit later.

Overall, much more 'Connections' than 'Ascent of Man', but I will watch
the rest (and the following episodes).

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| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest * 2 Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

we watched this last night.

A. got very annoyed at me tutting at, and correcting the
generalisations of the presenter.

Plus, the - extremely obvious - retro-edited "I knew what was going to
happen before all the economists did" style wound me up no end.