Chris Barrie has updated his website

[Ian Symes]

God forbid there’d be a woke version of Brittas. They’d probably have two of the characters as a gay couple or something.

[loadoftottnumb]

Better than a woke version of Red Dwarf where they’d have half the cast as black actors, kryten being played by someone who advocates EV, Holly would probably be given a sex change at some point and…Rimmer would be played by Chris Barrie :/

[Nick R]

Chris was replaced with Chloë for half of series VII because of political correctness gone mad. Clearly, it’s the only explanation.

[Ben Saunders]

Rimmer would be played by Chris Barrie :/

[Dave]

God forbid there’d be a woke version of Brittas. They’d probably have two of the characters as a gay couple or something.

That’s kind of what made me laugh about the comment – in its day, the show was reasonably progressive anyway so I’m not sure why that would change with a revival.

[Stephen Abootman]

His website ramblings are certainly a long way from this:

[Technopeasant]

Up yours, woke moralists.

[Technopeasant]

 Bobby on the commentary: She is very sexy, isn’t she?

[Technopeasant]

He said he was a Daily Mail reader in a 2008 interview, he’s been along for the ride.

[Dave]

[Stephen R. Fletcher]

I had got the feeling that maybe someone from the cast (presumably Craig) had a word with him and this was why he’d been pretty quiet up until now. Sigh. 

[International Debris]

[Starbugger]

I’m guessing Chris and Robert don’t discuss politics these days.

[loadoftottnumb]

It would be a heck of a shame if I had to add him to the pile of artists I have to separate from their art, with Morrisey, Jacko and Linehan. He’s getting ruddy close though.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Is there actually any definitive word about Jacko though? I mean Carrie seemed pretty sure he was innocent and even recalled an incident in her memoirs when someone actively set him up just to be able to launch a high-profile lawsuit, and then went into an incredibly in-depth description of why he was less trusting of adults after spending most of his formative years being exploited by so many authority figures in his life – his father, his agents, the countless people who wanted to associate with him purely for the sake of his fame. I don’t think it’s as clear cut as people are saying, and while I’ll admit I’ve not seen the documentary, I can’t help but feel there’s still an exploitative element there.

[Flap Jack]

I think if you’re willing to throw out “maybe Michael Jackson’s alleged victims are all liars?” as a take, watching the documentary first is minimum due diligence.

[Moonlight]

[loadoftottnumb]

Is there actually any definitive word about Jacko though? I mean Carrie seemed pretty sure he was innocent and even recalled an incident in her memoirs when someone actively set him up just to be able to launch a high-profile lawsuit, and then went into an incredibly in-depth description of why he was less trusting of adults after spending most of his formative years being exploited by so many authority figures in his life – his father, his agents, the countless people who wanted to associate with him purely for the sake of his fame. I don’t think it’s as clear cut as people are saying, and while I’ll admit I’ve not seen the documentary, I can’t help but feel there’s still an exploitative element there.

I don’t want to derail the thread tbh, there is no ‘definitive word’ about any of them, it’s just a list of artists I don’t like personally but do enjoy some of their work.

[Technopeasant]

And I mean, just to be clear, there is a difference between holding an unsavory opinion and actually doing unsavory things. Even if Chris continues down this rabbit hole he’s no Clayton Mark.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I don’t want to derail the thread tbh

[Moonlight]

Managed to get an early peak at next month’s update:

A Happy January, My Good Chumaroonies, 

I finally did it. I found the Woke. It was cowering under a wet box in my garage, so I killed it with a shovel. As the Herald of Internal Combustion, it is my duty to ensure the petroleum continues to flow forever and a day. Don’t tell Robert. We’re going to a BBQ in a couple days and it would hang in the air like the stench of dead Woke in my garage. I might have to make a lot of jerky.

[Frank Smeghammer]

[Dave]

[Unrumble]

[Asclepius]

Chris, it’s Aleks, your wife. Can you just film a minute about my company, but not have a go at the wokes, modern technology, or mental health issues?

I’ll give it a go…!

[RunawayTrain]

Do … do I dare click?

[Ben Saunders]

I choose to close my eyes and cover my ears on this one

[Stephen Abootman]

If only we could bring back the utopia of the previous 14 years, eh Chris.

[Nick R]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Does he ever post anything positive these days? He seems so bitter about everything. 

I’m kinda glad I’m not likely to ever meet him. Which is sad. 

[International Debris]

Does he ever post anything positive these days? He seems so bitter about everything.  

No, most conspiracy theorists tend to be people who are pretty comfortable in life but somehow unsatisfied, so they’re constantly looking for reasons to see themselves as victims. It’s a continual cycle of finding new ridiculous things to be angry about. You can always tell because they never actually have anything to say about how the world should be run, just that it’s being run by vague evil corrupt overlords of some kind. What would he do to reverse this managed decline of the UK? What does that phrase even mean?

I find the Starmer government pretty terrifying, especially being trans, but I have a feeling Chris’s main complaint is that they’re not making a stand against the globalists and they have more actual left-wing back-benchers than the tories, which is a double whammy for him. 

[Unrumble]

[Technopeasant]

 they have more actual left-wing back-benchers than the tories, which is a double whammy for him. 

And Keir’ll make sure they stay on the backbenches, if not out of caucus altogether.

But I mean, he’s outlasted a lettuce, so…

[Dave]

[Ian Symes]

I dislike Keir Starmer and most of the current Labour front bench, but they weren’t even the worst government of 2024.

[Dave]

I’m also a bit unclear on why he thinks sanity will be restored in 2025. Is it because right-wing politicians and parties are making gains and taking power in lots of major Western democracies?

(I hate to put words in his mouth like this, but once you see it you can’t unsee it. All rather worrying frankly…)

[International Debris]

I’m also a bit unclear on why he thinks sanity will be restored in 2025.

I doubt he knows himself. Like I was saying, he’s not offered any suggestion of what sanity or normality are, other than ‘some time in the past’. He dislikes wokeness, androgyny and electric cars, but also enormous corporations, new technology and a run of successive right-of-centre governments. I don’t think there’s any realistic situation in 2025 which would actually make him happy, because he’d probably only be happy if he went back to, I dunno, the mid ’90s or before, before the world started to really resemble the way things are now. Which is a sentiment I can appreciate on some level, but at the same time he’s blaming imaginary villains, because actually acknowledging the real issues – the rise of corrupt tech giants, governments increasingly in the pockets of corporations, high level resistance against progressive and compassionate politics, social media being heavily complicit in the spreading of disinformation – means you have to acknowledge that there are things you can actually do to help, and that’s the last thing these people want. It’s much easier to complain about secret, all-powerful conspiracies who you can’t stop than change your life to fight real life injustice. In an era when trans rights are being erased left, right and centre and climate change is being very slowly swept under the carpet, complaining about some sort of global agenda to punish petrol car drivers and promote genderless people is so utterly devoid of reality.

[Ian Symes]

While the latest update is not as insane as some of the previous ones, it’s one of the sadder ones for me, as it indicates that this isn’t a temporary phase he’s going through. We know it was lockdown that fucked him up, and I don’t blame him for that. Most people’s mental health was affected in one way or another, and it’s going to be a long time before all of those wounds are healed. I know a few people who fell into similar rabbit holes, but who have managed to step back from the brink after a couple of years of relative normality. But it’s a really bad sign that Chris thinks things are worse now than they were in the period that put him on this path. That he thinks the current government is actually worse (for a straight cis man) than the people who set the laws and then decided they didn’t apply to them. The people who were basically on one long bender while his life flipped upside down and damaged him so badly. As ID points out, he’s so so far away from identifying the real villains, that it’s hard to see how he can come back.

[Jonathan Capps]

:(

[Dave]

But it’s a really bad sign that Chris thinks things are worse now than they were in the period that put him on this path.

Yeah, I agree with all of what you said, but this is the really sad part.

[Stephen Abootman]

[Jonsmad]

Stephen that made me chuckle the most yet in this thread. Thank you.

[RunawayTrain]

While the latest update is not as insane as some of the previous ones, it’s one of the sadder ones for me, as it indicates that this isn’t a temporary phase he’s going through. … . But it’s a really bad sign that Chris thinks things are worse now than they were in the period that put him on this path. That he thinks the current government is actually worse (for a straight cis man) than the people who set the laws and then decided they didn’t apply to them. The people who were basically on one long bender while his life flipped upside down and damaged him so badly. 

Exactly, these parts especially.

He needs to have a look at copies of his site during those years, on archive.org, to see what he wrote before and how dreadful the previous lot were.

(And if gender is part of his bugbear, you’d have thought he’d be pleased with the current government’s recent developments.  The inconsistency is such a red flag.)

[Asclepius]

Imagine that you’d been on TV, literally playing the voices of Norman Tebbit, Michael Heseltine, Nicholas Ridley, Francis Pym, Kenneth Clarke, Norman Fowler in a weekly satirical show….

…and you STILL think that Starmer’s lot is worse?

[Jonathan Capps]

If nothing else this thread is a pretty good example of why this is the best community on the internet.

[Flap Jack]

These website updates must be causing a stir at GNP.

[Dave]

Does he ever post anything positive these days? He seems so bitter about everything. 

I only just saw the most recent update from late January, but at least he had some kind words to say about Tony Slattery.

Although the segue into the political rant does feel even more jarring after that.

[Unrumble]

[Jonathan Capps]

[Flap Jack]

[Author]

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