Highbrow TV? No way!

rick_chasey

Last night was the 3rd of 4 programmes on BBC2: Putin, Russia and the West

I caught the end of the first one, and have watched the next two.

Suffice to say, it's fantastic.

Done in pretty much exactly the same way as the BBC's landmark 'Cold War' documentary series, it takes all the big political players (bar the actual leaders of the bigger countries...) and interviews them to tell the story.

It's fantastic. Straight up, no reconstructions, no channel 4 bullsh!t, just a good old fashioned political history documentary. The kind of stuff that had me buzzing as a kid.

If you haven't watched it, I recommend making some time to watch it in I player or something. It's really very good.

rjsterry

Saw some of this last night. The Russians come across as an arrogant bunch happy to f*** over another country to make sure NATO doesn't get any bigger. Don't s'pose that makes them much different from anyone else though

EKE_38BPM

I saw most of the first one, thought "This is brilliant!" and haven't seen the rest. I think I'll make a point of iPlayering it.

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

Saw some of this last night. The Russians come across as an arrogant bunch happy to f*** over another country to make sure NATO doesn't get any bigger. Don't s'pose that makes them much different from anyone else though

Course they do.

It's Russia.

This is what they do.

rick_chasey

What struck me most was that these Russian diplomats and politicians who seem to be doing jobs like this for years and years seem to be much better at negotiating and geo-political diplomacy than elected Westerners. They seem more experienced, harder, and better at getting what they want (though I am often impressed by the Yanks, believe it or not).

The Brits come across as patchier.