It's a Wonderful Point...

It's a Wonderful Life bank run scene, posted on YouTube by NemoPublius (March 30, 2008)

A little bit of ... not very scholarly fun, today.

Chris Cagle over on Category D posted very wittily last week about the wonderful things that go on in the media While Rome Burns...

Well, exactly a week has gone by since his post, and Rome is still burning, but I just wanted to share an essential link with you to an item from the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, as reported by the BBC website today, which was based on the quintessential 'film-studies film', It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, USA, 1946). The BBC page link is HERE; and the related Today programme audio file link HERE).

A little taster:

Russell Taylor, one of the writers of Alex, the cartoon of city life which runs in the Daily Telegraph's business section, has written his own version of James Stewart's speech from It's A Wonderful Life [see video embed and audio file above]. It captures just how Alex Masterley - the caddish hero of the comic strip - would describe the events of the past week.

"So, you want to withdraw the money you deposited with us? Yes, well, I'm afraid we can't give you back your money because we don't have it. You see, what happened is that we lent the money you gave us to Joe and the Kennedys and Mrs Maklin to buy houses with, and then we lent them some more money to buy a second property on a buy-to-let basis and a third rental property too and then we lent them some more money against the value of all the various properties that we'd lent them the money to buy, so they could go on a nice holiday..."

And on it goes. Funny stuff. And timely, too. But, as they sometimes say in and around Rome, "Fa caldo..."