Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don’t be. This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. ![]() How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. “Greetings parents and congratulations to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005. Here are the links to the original audio followed by the entire speech. Wallace hits on our need to manage rather than remove our core hard-wired human instincts. It makes Windermere look like a paddling pool.David Foster Wallace‘s 2005 commencement speech to the graduating class at Kenyon College, is a timeless trove of wisdom - right up there with Hunter Thompson on finding your purpose and living a meaningful life. The speech was made into a thin book titled This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life. But that’s set on California’s Pacific coast. The obvious comparison piece for Deep Water is Big Little Lies, the American HBO series starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, which proved the school gates could be a fertile backdrop for a thriller. Also, not to sound all Fathers For Justice, but I’m increasingly tired of TV where men are all dreadful and women must bravely battle through their failings, which is surely as reductive as the alternative. “What kind of mother are you?” “We both know how damaging a divorce is for the children.” “You can stand up, I’m not going to manipulate you.” “She doesn’t fulfil my needs.” There are visual cliches, too, like the scene where a woman goes prying around someone else’s bathroom, rooting through cupboards and trying on perfume. It’s not their fault the script is littered with the kinds of clunkers that bring you out of the lakes and back to the channel changer. Critics are shredding the ‘lacklustre’ Big Little Lies finale.Meryl Streep refused notes from director on Big Little Lies set. ![]() Anna Friel on trans child drama Butterfly: 'I don't know what I'd do'.It’s the same as the plot of I Am… Kirsty, albeit in marginally less grotty surroundings. Sax won’t pay the bills, but sex might, if she accepts the indecent proposal made to her by Scott Elias (Gerald Kyd). In the first episode bailiffs take her fridge. ![]() Roz is the poor blonde one, a struggling physiotherapist with a charming but useless partner Winston (Charlie Carrick) who brings home saxophones instead of money. The women are clearly delineated so that the viewer doesn’t get confused. Kate (Rosalind Eleazar), Roz (Sinead Keenan) and Lisa (Anna Friel) are three friends living the small-town dream: driving through rolling green hills, worrying if their children have enough possessions, and shagging each other’s husbands. Much better than this deep cliche, which at times is enough to make the heart sink. ![]() The source novels, by Paula Daly, were simply called Windermere. How else will the title be manipulated? Perhaps the characters will reveal hidden depths. In the cold open, a child falls into a lake. The title is obliged by convention to be a lame pun, so the characters get into metaphorical deep water, but also the events unfold in Windermere, in the Lake District. Clearly, austerity is wreaking havoc with the imaginations of TV commissioners. Soon after Channel 4’s I Am…, the series of standalone films about three women struggling with men, money and family, comes Deep Water, ITV’s six-part drama about three women struggling with men, money and family.
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