Gas Giants
Gas Giants
J.G.Ballard - High Rise (1975)
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J.G.Ballard - High Rise (1975)

Tom & Gav show you round a des-res, new on the market. Great views from the balcony and even free flying lessons...wait till you meet the neighbours!
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Roger Luckhurst's appraisal of the novel and it's themes

Rick McGrath takes on the same material with a bit more insight

Was the character of Dr. Laing in High-Rise actually a Ballardian joke about R.D.Laing? Here's a brief overview of the Kingsley Hall project in which patients and Doctors lived together

Property

Ballard's original model for the Tower block was the Barbican. He can't have imagined that so long after the construction, the building would still be turning up surprises

One of my many guilty pleasures is Urban explorer videos. I normally wouldn’t inflict this on the rest of you, but there is something about these guys dodging the security in Balfron Tower that seems quite Ballardian, somehow…

…particularly when you put it next to this real estate porn…

...but it seems there's a fly in the ointment...

…maybe you’d like a look at Gav’s old manor, outside Paris…

Movies

Godard’s Alphaville is a movie that gets mentioned a lot in connection with High-Rise, although the connection is a bit tenuous. Here’s one of the more chilling moments.

The case is much easier to make for Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel, which has the advantage of being really funny as well!

The basic idea of High-Rise seems to have been inspiration for the Doctor Who Series, Paradise Towers, which looks to be equally inspired by another high-rise fantasy: Brazil, also a of a high-rise.

Maybe we should leave it to John Gray and Will Self to sum up

Somehow, the idea just won’t die…

Here it is as a ship…

Here it is as a City…

…and here it is a a combination of both of those things, built by the Borg.

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Gas Giants
Gas Giants
All of culture explained by two fat old men, one artifact at a time. Gav and Tom gas about music, movies, TV, books and their creators attempting to understand what they mean about everything else in the world. New episodes every other week Fridays.