The missing episode of Minder

October 23, 2008 at 8:07 pm (Balkans, Stalinism)

Wherein Arthur travels to Albania, and so impresses the natives with his wheeler-dealer wiles, and his promise of a varmint in every pot, that they proclaim him dictator. Guest starring Brian Glover as the late Nikita Khrushchev and Robbie Coltrane as Franz-Josef Strauss, with a special appearance by Norman Wisdom as himself.

14 Comments

  1. Darren said,

    October 24, 2008 at 6:44 am

    Just saw this comment over at Stroppyblog, and I felt compelled to repost it in its entirety:

    Would this be the right place to cheekily plug Saturday’s Profit versus the Planet meeting?

    Taking place in London, it has been organised by the Socialist Party to advertise their new pamphlet, ‘An Inconvenient Question – Socialism and the Environment’ .

    Click on the above link for more details. ;-)

    PS – Speaking of Arthur traveling to Albania, am I the only one who remembers George Cole in the BBC2 sitcom, ‘Comrade Dad’?

    Think Britain in the mid-eighties if the Russians had invaded Britain and made it a satellite state. A sitcom in which both the jokes and essential foodstuffs were heavily rationed.

    Rumour has it that ‘Harry’ of Harry’s Place blogging fame saw ‘Comrade Dad’ as an impressionable teenager, thought it was a Party Election Broadcast by the old CPGB, and promptly joined the Tankie wing of the CP.

    Reply

  2. splinteredsunrise said,

    October 24, 2008 at 8:24 am

    Well, I remember ‘Comrade Dad’ for one. I seem to recall a lot of talk about potatoes…

    That’s as plausible an explanation as I’ve ever heard for Harry’s early career. Why a young bloke should have joined Straight Left in the first place has always puzzled me.

    The meeting looks interesting, and I’ve no doubt the pamphlet will be a good read. :)

    Reply

  3. Mbari said,

    October 24, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    What cracks me up about ‘Harry’ is that he stopped being a Stalinist in 2002, which seems a bit, well, late. Maybe he’d just been delaying his epiphany, which I have to assume most Stalinists had in ’56, ’68, or ’89, in hope of a suitably calamitous moment.

    Reply

  4. Andy newman said,

    October 24, 2008 at 4:09 pm

    comrade dad on you tube

    Reply

  5. anglonoel said,

    October 24, 2008 at 5:51 pm

    We’ll be ‘Laughing all the way to the Leeds’ next…

    Reply

  6. prairiefire said,

    October 25, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    rofte enver hoxha.

    Reply

  7. ejh said,

    October 26, 2008 at 7:43 pm

    He’s a bit of a dictator
    But he’s not a bad old codger

    Reply

  8. te jemi vigjilent ndaj agresive planeve imperialistit said,

    October 28, 2008 at 4:51 pm

    My epiphany was waking up and discovering one day that Trotskyists are not revolutionaries, hate real revolutionaries and in practice, want nothing more than to recycle 1970s Labourism.

    Reply

  9. D. J. P. O'Kane said,

    October 29, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    ALBANIA, ALBANIA,

    Slightly less repressive than Romania.

    Reply

  10. entdinglichung said,

    October 29, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    btw: his former wife Nexhmije Hoxha supports Albania joining the NATO and the 1999 war against Yugoslavia

    Reply

  11. te jemi vigjilent ndaj agresive planeve te imperializmit said,

    October 29, 2008 at 5:34 pm

    Even if she does, I can think of a few other epiphanies, like American Trots becoming American neocons, Roger Rosewell becoming something slightly to the right of the SWP, and the author of Animal Farm sharing his thoughts on alleged Communist fellow travellers with the British security services.

    Reply

  12. amaru said,

    October 29, 2008 at 5:45 pm

    entdinglichung,

    Do you have a source for that claim? It was always my impression that Nexhmije was an ardent communist to this day.

    In recent times I know she has attended the International Communist Seminar organised by the Workers Party of Belgium.

    Reply

  14. amaru said,

    October 31, 2008 at 12:56 pm

    Thank you

    Reply

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