I am viewing the entire BBC/PBS episodes of a great series that shall continue into the next year.
Most people live quiet lives of desperation.
So says McLuhan!
I have become caught up in a a BBC series entitled:
Foyle’s War
The mystery/cop series is set in Hastings, England during the Blitz and first aired in 2002.
I am currently viewing Set 2, Episode 4 (2003) entitled FUNK HOLES!
Delightful!
Michael Kitchen plays Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle; the chief police officer of Hastings.
I underline this particular episode because we find ourselves in FUNK HOLES.
What prey tell is a FUNK HOLE?
Well it seems that by 1940 during the Blitz, the economically superior classes left London and the larger cities and sought haven in the countryside hoping to escape reality.
And the country-gentry who owned large estates in the ‘country’ needed money.
So the country-gentry naturally turned their homesteads into inns or hostelries as they say.
Now the local markets, subjugated by new rationing rules and regs (much like us a few years later) found that they could not procure adequate products for their old markets let alone the new markets available for the noveau riche (who were not really that noveau! ha).
Therefore, the local markets which were cheating anyway, could no longer supply the richer folks in their own areas since the old more aristocratic Funk Holers would pay three or four times what the old market would bear for a simple pound of liver!
CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT!
I most probably heard those words from three primary teachers and then fifteen professors later on in life.
This series, which I most probably will critique later on, underlines the fact that there is more to historical eras than hats and pants and language and….
So many Brits were without allies on the national scene and without hope following the destruction of their homes. FDR loomed more magnificent in the minds of hundreds of millions of Europeans as the war waged on during our isolationist period increasing of course, following our entry into the war.
WE WERE ONCE THE SINGLE SYMBOL OF HOPE FOR THE SURVIVAL OF CIVILIZATION!
Ha!
Anyway, this blog is not a movie critique but an analysis of the FUNK HOLERS!
As this episode in Foyle’s War progresses we are introduced to the residents of these Funk Holes.
Besides cheating the locals out of their meats and their exotic foods (exotic in the sense of potatoes and carrots), the funk holers cheat. I mean they purchase all the available under-the-table commodities.
The one resident couple of a local funk hole that really got to me, ended up with canned ham which was directed toward their dog!
An amazing comment on humanity since in a previous episode we are confronted with a 1940’s version of Oliver where the waifs collected paper and metal for the war effort in an attempt to procure chocolate from the local parishes!
Why Oliver & Co. did not end up with the canned hams presents us with the concept of the aristocracy’s concept of ‘choice’.
THE PRESENT
Nowadays we have witnessed a new class of FUNK HOLERS.
They do not merely hide in the Hamptons or in the country side of Hastings hoping not be be found out, hoping not to be confronted and hoping that the present ‘difficulties’ shall one day be resolved.
We find people BRAGGING that they are indeed FUNK HOLERS.
Joe Walsh is an example of the present day braggerts; proud to be FUNK HOLERS.
Joe finds himself confronting his own fascist/NAZI persona without one month served in the Armed Forces of anything.
And he finds himself in the FUNK HOLE and finds himself, once again, competing against a severely wounded and disabled veteran!
SO WHAT IS A MOTHER TO DO?
I mean this motherfucker will not even pay his proper child support whilst he spends his entire oratorical life espousing family values besides national duty!
Again, as I have underlined many many times, hypocrisy has no value as a category anymore.
John Kerry who chose to volunteer for his country’s armed forces rather than accept a printed message telling him that he was drafted, went on two tours (THAT’S TWO TOURS FOLKS) in that magic land of Siam. I mean during his first tour he certainly discovered that there was no Yul Brenner and there certainly was to be found no Deborah Kerr!
Well he gets wounded twice and at the 2004 Repub Convention, all of these FUNK HOLERS are wearing symbols making fun of John’s Purple Hearts.
TWO PURPLE HEARTS
And the repubs wear pretend band aids.
Whilst the FUNK HOLER Bush had no Purple Hearts, no tours of Siam and not one incident of combat because he used his aristocratic station in life to avoid conflict. Speaking of avoiding conflict, after a couple years, w bush found the terrors of the sky too much to his liking and so he hid away in his daddy’s campaign whilst the people in power destroyed any documentation that might have substantiated his true tao in life!
CHICKEN HAWKS!
As Cheney once said:
I pursued other options.
But let us remove ourselves from the battlefields for a second.
There are battlefields that involve no tanks, no drones, no rifles and no bombs.
The battlefield we currently find ourselves upon involves homelessness, hopelessness and unemploymentness.
The FUNK HOLERS have no idea what unemployment means.
The FUNK HOLERS have no idea what homelessness means.
The FUNK HOLERS have no idea of what hopelessness means.
The FUNK HOLERS have no idea of what context means.
The FUNK HOLERS have no idea of what a GODDAMN LOTTERY MEANS.
The FUNK HOLERS would have no idea what being a patriot really means.
MITT ROMNEY
Mitt Romney is the ultimate FUNK HOLER.
He hid in Paris to avoid a war that initially began because of French policies.
He hid in Massachusetts so that his governmental policies could be hid by rationalizations.
He hid his assets all over the globe so that he would not pay his share of taxes to his country of origin.
He hid his faith so that his faith, the core of his belief, would not be analyzed too closely.
He hid his his assets so that those assets would not be analyzed too closely.
He hides his real financial backers so that those corporate sponsors will be caused no harm.
He hides his true aims for AMERICA so that real Americans shall never be allowed to see the perils that they shall all experience once he reaches power.
So let us all give it up to the:
THE FUNK HOLERS
THE CREED OF FUNK HOLERS
1. Look, I am doing the best I can.
2. How else can my great grandchildren get into college?
3. My pets deserve something special from me!
4. Hernandez does a great job on my lawns as well as my sex craved wife.
5. I just love Negroes; my mother knew one.
6. Everyone should be free; just so that they can pay their bills.
7. Humanity shall always be confronted by warfare; just leave my family out of it!
8. But if you all do that, I lose my plantation!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxyU4W8iyeI
Once Upon a Paradigm 
Funk-holers. Great name, Dick. And thanks for the BBC tip. In exchange, just let me say that if you haven’t caught the BBC series Sherlock – not the Robert Downey movies, but the BBC series- then DO IT. It. Is. Brilliant. Really.
Otherwise, CARRY ON FUNK-HOLING!
How ya doin Q?
ha!
I love the new Sherlock. It was profound and amusing and who the hell could not love someone named cumberbatch or whatever. hahhahahahah
Oh there is a new Sherlock in other clothes on the American side of things beginning this fall or in two weeks or….whats the diff? Great promos though!
I was making a joke with Marshall of course and the following lines got misappropriated. Emerson actually said ‘it’. As if Shakespeare and a thousand other writers missed the headlines.
Thank you.
Really, makes my day!
I mean 20 minutes and you are there as Cronkite might say!
I love that Sherlock from BBC!!! I actually am more fond of Watson, but love them both. It’s an awesome twist on the old show, and I’m so glad BBC put it together.
I wonder how far they could make it in my shoes? Rachel had a good take tonight on the Hamptons.
Walk a mile in my shoes!
You gottit Momoe!
There are a lot of Funk Holers on the left as well Dick. To me a Funk Holer is any member of the elite class IE Bourgeois, gated gentry, professional class who is very OK with the status quo and is making out very well thankyouverymuch.
From over paid engineers and health care to the investor class.
I have probs as far as a response to this except that hypocrisy rules all over the place…it is a matter of degree of course.
But my heroes do not scream for war whilst their kids stay sheltered; my heroes do not scream for environmental deregulation whilst they head for safer havens; my heroes do not scream for ‘fairer taxes’ whilst demanding for more fees imposed upon the poor (read Pawlenty here)….
In my humble opinion, there IS NO COMPARISON AS FAR AS THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT.
the end
Amen!
I just love Foyle’s War. That along with the BBC/pbs mysteries. That is some of my favorite TV, but I did not see Foyle’s War running now.
There is no need to hide with so many starry eyed Funk Holer’s to be (Joe the plumber types) roaming our lands. They do not think they are being pissed on and they gladly accept this as trickle down. Just a little more trickle and they too will be a Funk Holer. They know the Holer’s just love and admire them. Sarah of the Palin clan greets them with love in her eyes and states how proud she is to be amongst the True Americans. Tells them how their dreams will come true once we get rid of silly things like regulations. We don’t need no stinking government telling us we have to pay a minimum wage. Get rid of that reg and they would be free to pay lots more.
Outside of the funk holers, Foyle’s War stresses how such a large portion of the English People worked together in a number of different manners to aid in the war effort.
Everybody pooled their resources and that is how they survived.
I am still struck by the fact that Mitt along with members of his class would rather increase their own riches by investing abroad whilst their own countrymen are suffering economically.
Enough of that.
I just love this series.