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themetropolitan.bsky.social
The Metropolitan
@themetropolitan.bsky.social
Weekly Substack of Gen X cultural review. No dunking. No hot takes. No false nostalgia.

https://www.themetropolitan.uk/
The comedy we watch as teenagers, like pop music, becomes an intrinsic piece of our characters, creating core, inescapable, memories.
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January 23, 2026 at 1:01 PM
This week we’re visiting Tudor England with Edmund Blackadder, who is hardly the first historical villain to get the benefit of the doubt.
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January 22, 2026 at 8:03 PM
‘Blackadder II’ was one of those rare things, a sequel that was not only as good as but which vastly surpassed its predecessor.
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January 21, 2026 at 12:02 PM
‘On the box’ this week is ‘Blackadder II’, co-written by Ben Elton, who also co-wrote the anarchic alt-sitcom ‘The Young Ones’.
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January 20, 2026 at 8:01 PM
This week we’re re-watching ‘Blackadder II’, one of the great happy miracles of BBC comedy.
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January 19, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Introverts complain about social situations, but is the real problem awkwardness or egotism?
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January 16, 2026 at 8:02 PM
Rowan’s piece this week on how her introversion makes her avoid social situations may be related to the fact that they’re awfully noisy too.
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January 15, 2026 at 1:02 PM
This week Rowan Davies is writing about what a revelation the idea of a social battery was in handling her own introversion.
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January 14, 2026 at 7:02 PM
This week Rowan Davies is writing about how being an introvert makes maintaining social contacts hard, which is where having a ‘firecraker’ friend can come in very useful indeed.
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January 13, 2026 at 12:01 PM
There’s a famous dunk in Mad Men when a kid says to Don Draper ‘I feel bad for you’ and Don Draper devastatingly replies ‘I don’t think about you at all.’ But is this put-down actually advice for social awkwardness?
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January 12, 2026 at 6:01 PM
We’re making a gentle start to 2026, playing among the stars with Iain M. Banks’ ‘Excession’.
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January 9, 2026 at 12:01 PM
We’re re-reading some of Iain M. Banks’ sci fi this week, but we’ve written about his literary fiction before and his smash debut, ‘The Wasp Factory’.
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The Wasp Factory
Iain Banks (1984, Macmillan)
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January 8, 2026 at 8:02 PM
This week we’re re-reading Iain M. Banks’ ‘Excession’, which remains spellbinding in its depiction of his high tech ‘luxury space anarchy’
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January 7, 2026 at 1:02 PM
Just before Christmas we wound up our season on Sherlock Holmes and, not coincidentally, went on a little ‘Blue Carbuncle’ themed walk round London. Here’s Tobias holding both forth and Mr Henry Baker’s hat.
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January 6, 2026 at 8:03 PM
The Metropolitan is starting the year with some science fiction: Iain M. Banks’ ‘Excession’, which is considerably more interesting than the genre’s reputation might have you believe.
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January 5, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Part of the magic of Christmas is how it enchants the everyday world and part of the magic of Raymond Briggs’ book is how he reversed that, making the ‘Father Christmas’ part of the ordinary world.
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December 19, 2025 at 6:01 PM
This week we’re snuggled up with Raymond Briggs’ ‘Father Christmas’. This isn’t the first seasonal comic book we’ve featured, but Posy Simmonds’ ‘Cassandra Darke’ is more a much older audience.
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December 18, 2025 at 12:02 PM
The detailed realism of Raymond Briggs’ 1973 hard-working night-in-the-life of ‘Father Christmas’ shows how well he knew his audience.
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December 17, 2025 at 8:03 PM
This week we’re revisiting Raymond Briggs’ very British ‘Father Christmas’ and for another appearance by the old man, can we recommend our sister Substack’s Christmas story ‘An All Too Magical Christmas’?
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An All Too Magical Christmas #1
Watch now | In which a magician (second class) is mocked in the street by teenagers before being mocked at home by a clockwork robot
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December 16, 2025 at 12:00 PM
One of the chief delights of Raymond Briggs’ 1973 picture book ‘Father Christmas’ is that the lead character isn’t a jolly old elf or mystical, magical being but just another hard working stiff.
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December 15, 2025 at 7:01 PM
The Coen Brothers are notorious for their refusal to explain or comment on the themes of their films, something that only makes them more appealing to those of us inclined to ‘reading too much into things’.
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December 12, 2025 at 8:01 PM
The Metropolitan’s sister substack Christmas Stories is now almost half way through this year’s story: ‘The Wish List’, the story of Alfie, who takes a seasonal job packing boxes, only to discover that the warehouse contains a good deal more than just presents.
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The Wish List - Item 11
Alfie wishes he could escape the warehouse.
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December 11, 2025 at 12:01 PM
‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ was famously a financial disaster, but what producer Joel Silver may have lost in terms of investment, the audience certainly gained in terms of Coen Brothers films.
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December 10, 2025 at 8:01 PM
This week we’re suggesting the Coen Brothers’ ‘Hudsucker Proxy’ for seasonal viewing, but we have plenty of other suggestions in our Christmas season of movie musicals.
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Christmas Movie Season 2025
And a one, two, three, four...
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December 9, 2025 at 12:02 PM
It’s time for the seasonal debate about what is or isn’t a Christmas movie. Well, the Coen Brothers’ ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ definitely is, in style and in content.
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December 8, 2025 at 8:01 PM