I love how feisty he is. despite the respectful format, he's always setting small traps to engage the other, and he's highly provocative, but his best quality probably was how damn interesting was everything he said
I cannot thank you enough for sourcing and uploading this. To anyone reading: please do not post this link in public fora anywhere. That will only risk attracting content copyright strikes. If you want to share it, please only do so in private messages with discreet people you personally know and trust.
That opening bit of the Earl speaking to the journalist was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. That is THE most English man I’ve ever seen or heard in both voice and demeanor.
Ludo and Hitch was a great combination. Lord Litchfield sounds like he's had a liquid breakfast. Ludo was influential in the abolition of the death penalty in Britain
@@Peakage So….clear diction and understanding of subjunctive clauses is…..Elitist? And…..Conservative? And……A bad thing? You may be right you know. Teaching the children of miners to read attentively and to speak clearly was one project of the 19th Century trade Union movement. Back when there was this….y’know, this transphobic idea that the Labour Party was there to improve the life chances of people outside elites. But, yeah, okay. It all led to Arthur Scargill so fxxx it. Let’s NOT teach kids on council estates in London to think and speak in long form sentences. Let’s teach them to be unintelligible, nonsensical, self absorbed and hostile. Let’s teach them drill rap. That way they can kill each other before the age of 25. Never live to an age where they start to enjoy a bit of Radio 4 and a mug of cocoa like the rest of us conservative elites.
I mean this is flawed, but at least it's for grown-ups. (Yes, grown-ups have flaws.) Queue responses saying the proles now have a voice and that voice has demanded Love Island and Naked Encounter.
I note that Hitchens didn't sound nearly as posh as a young man in England as he did after he moved to America. In Washington by his own admission, people loved the idea that (as they saw it) he was an upper-class Englishman who was also a leftie. This, along with his obvious intelligence, was a big part of his appeal, and he milked it for all it was worth. But always worth listening to.
@@John-kb7pv I'm not sure that's fair on his case. There was a great deal about him that was questionable .... Pushing his teenage daughter into a romance with a man in his thirties for social advancement is at best creepy and at worst just horrific. But we all know how that marriage went. Happily, the creepy older groom is now married to his then mistress whom he continued to shag throughout both their marriages. Hurrah for royalty! But as to the late Earl, I don't think consanguinity was the issue. He just had a stroke. As a younger man he distinguished himself in Normandy and seems to have had all Jos faculties until a ripe old age. There is (has been) certainly a "cousins" issue in European royalty and the aristocracy, but I'm not sure it accounts for this man's stroke.
Wow, young Christopher! Cutie, I gotta say (sorry, sorry, of course it's not important! But I have no idea what they were discussing anyway) Thanks for posting.
A side effect of seeing this is the recovery of feelings prevailing then, a renewed of uncertainty and expectations of what warmongering evil means in the climate of nuclear weapons MAD-NESS. "The more things change the more they stay the same", as was said, which means there's nothing to say really..
I don't see why that should be so. Many attentive viewers of television drama will find things of interest to say about it. And often a good deal more pertinent than Christopher Hitchens here, who - unlike Liz Forgan and Bernard Ashley - isn't really talking about the actual programme itself in this discussion, but instead using Grange Hill as a springboard for his hip take on contemporary North London teenage life.
The Earl Spenser in the beginning was A) crazily inbred, B) stinking drunk, C) completely unaware of himself. Of course, an acceptable answer may also be all three.
Grange Hill was filmed at a school in North London. Their accents etc. are about North London youth culture. Hitchens is not forgetting the rest of England, rather, he is aware of the context of the programme and is commenting on a lack of realism for that locality.
So "refreshing" to the see a day drunk John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, on the pavement of the peseants. Well of his speach to judge it might be more truley that it might be barbiturates (Quaalude?), after all it's 1981 - with that said the newer of benzos could be the weapon of choose.
But after al this very interesting stuff, I still remain with a very nagging question which is the uncertainty if her hair is real, or a helmet...? 😀 ;-)
![Christopher Hitchens on American Politics [V498]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rvmjgw8wxW0/mqdefault.jpg)
![Christopher Hitchens on American Politics [V498]](/img/tr.png)
![Christopher Hitchens - [2007] - 'No Laughing Matter' with Martin Amis](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4-5xXDvORf0/mqdefault.jpg)
Hitchens was adorable with his baby face, but his sharp cheeky wit never faded with age. Rest easy Hitch.
If only there were a hell for him. Remember, this is the man who campaigned for the Iraq War. Rest in piss.
Kate Adie interviewing the Earl Spencer “I’m afraid I was very, very drunk”
🤣😂
I wondered about that, was that slurred speech not due to his stroke a few years before?
@@matthewdarcy6859 must be the stroke
Why not, on such a happy day for him :)
Great to see baby-face Hitch, I miss him so much.
So do the shareholders at Diageo
Clicked on this for the young Hitchens, but the whole thing is a blast.
Harry Enfield must have studied the Earl of Spencer diligently!!!
40, 45 years
was he drunk
You mean Paul Whitehouse
@@gazriley624 Yes he was! He admitted it😂
@Roger Hoke: Sheridan - one always finds time for one's National Health work.
I love how feisty he is. despite the respectful format, he's always setting small traps to engage the other, and he's highly provocative, but his best quality probably was how damn interesting was everything he said
I cannot thank you enough for sourcing and uploading this. To anyone reading: please do not post this link in public fora anywhere. That will only risk attracting content copyright strikes. If you want to share it, please only do so in private messages with discreet people you personally know and trust.
You're very welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Hitchens even young, sounds as wise as old oak!😂🙌🇬🇧
I'd like to think he was a little wiser than an oak lol
Wow. Loved this. Thanks again 👏
That opening bit of the Earl speaking to the journalist was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. That is THE most English man I’ve ever seen or heard in both voice and demeanor.
The old boy was plastered.
Inbreeding much?
You're missing the reality - he was pissed as a fart.
I think he had lunched rather well.
@@Guedingen He'd had a stroke some years before.
Omg my Darling Hitch! 😍❤ so YOUNG and beautiful yet so SMART! Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting!
You really like him! I’m jealous of the Hitch
Never thought I’d hear Hitch’s take on Grange Hill!
Saw this video just to see such a young Christopher Hitchens .. Looks soo cute and innocent .
I wouldn't say he looks innocent! LOL!
@@wiseonwords 😄
This is really cool. Where do you find all these archived interviews / discussions ?
Seems like a promising young man 🙂
Extraordinary find!
Thanks for uploading this. Please keep them coming!
Great stuff, looking at this made it obvious to me why we have got so dense and ignorant as a society!
This must be the earliest Hitch clip I've come across ... great work!
Yes, my thoughts exactly.
Surreal hearing Hitch talking about 'Grange Hill'
Absolutely mad lol. I never knew it was in north London.
Was a geordie show when I was a kid!
@@thekidd7 are you thinking of Biker Grove?
@@gazriley624 yessssssss. Goodness me, hands up. I must’ve been having a slow day!
Was Earl Spencer wandering about outside the palace, absolutely leathered, or is it just me?!
He was drunk as a judge!!
I adore The Hitch but I’m watching this for Ludovic Kennedy .
‘The Hitch’. Gross. Do you call Peter Hitchens The Hitch too
@@henrysmith883 it’s called British Irony and is a sign of affection and regard.
Earl of Spencer, Upper Class Twit of the Year.
Hitch’s greatest hair day.
If I were a tenth of how articulate and intelligent CH was I would be a happy man
I'd say that you have definitely succeeded.
Isn't it great to pause and look up a word and realise ever word is specifically spoken.
Be happy, Hitch was.
Ludo and Hitch was a great combination. Lord Litchfield sounds like he's had a liquid breakfast. Ludo was influential in the abolition of the death penalty in Britain
Little did they know, that they were in the presence of greatness.
so true!
Crystal clear diction, what a difference 40 years has made, you don't get anything as good as this these days on the TV! What happened?
it's conservative, aristocratic, elitist vanity speak. Still get this speak on BBC R4
@@Peakage So….clear diction and understanding of subjunctive clauses is…..Elitist? And…..Conservative? And……A bad thing? You may be right you know. Teaching the children of miners to read attentively and to speak clearly was one project of the 19th Century trade Union movement. Back when there was this….y’know, this transphobic idea that the Labour Party was there to improve the life chances of people outside elites. But, yeah, okay. It all led to Arthur Scargill so fxxx it. Let’s NOT teach kids on council estates in London to think and speak in long form sentences. Let’s teach them to be unintelligible, nonsensical, self absorbed and hostile. Let’s teach them drill rap. That way they can kill each other before the age of 25. Never live to an age where they start to enjoy a bit of Radio 4 and a mug of cocoa like the rest of us conservative elites.
Poor people stopped being censored and were allowed a voice.
I mean this is flawed, but at least it's for grown-ups. (Yes, grown-ups have flaws.)
Queue responses saying the proles now have a voice and that voice has demanded Love Island and Naked Encounter.
Reality television happened, moronic shit that keeps the Proles from thinking to much about what's going on around them.
Don’t do it, Diana
I note that Hitchens didn't sound nearly as posh as a young man in England as he did after he moved to America. In Washington by his own admission, people loved the idea that (as they saw it) he was an upper-class Englishman who was also a leftie. This, along with his obvious intelligence, was a big part of his appeal, and he milked it for all it was worth. But always worth listening to.
It's insane that by the time of this appearance Hitchens had already lived over half of his lifetime
the Earl sounds like he's had a port or two for lunch
Never seen before Hitch is a rare commodity these days!! 👍
This is Ludovic Kennedy's show "Did you see" which was a weekly round up of TV programs.
It was very good!
I love how he makes GRANGE HILL sound like a dirty word!!
Earl Spencer is what happens when you keep it in the family
What a delight - a thoroughly plastered Earl Spencer in better times. 😊
RIP Christopher (great human being)
That old school posh accent (Earl Spencer) often makes the speaker sound like they've suffered a stroke.
He had. Some years earlier. It had almost killed him.
@@BanjoLuke1 I see. I suppose that explains his speech, but there are others who sound very similar to him.
@@jeffgray4075 a result.of generations of inbreeding
@@John-kb7pv I'm not sure that's fair on his case. There was a great deal about him that was questionable .... Pushing his teenage daughter into a romance with a man in his thirties for social advancement is at best creepy and at worst just horrific. But we all know how that marriage went. Happily, the creepy older groom is now married to his then mistress whom he continued to shag throughout both their marriages. Hurrah for royalty!
But as to the late Earl, I don't think consanguinity was the issue. He just had a stroke. As a younger man he distinguished himself in Normandy and seems to have had all Jos faculties until a ripe old age. There is (has been) certainly a "cousins" issue in European royalty and the aristocracy, but I'm not sure it accounts for this man's stroke.
He had had a stroke AND was drunk. I thought he came across quite well considering.
Wow, young Christopher! Cutie, I gotta say (sorry, sorry, of course it's not important! But I have no idea what they were discussing anyway) Thanks for posting.
Ahhh… back when Brit TV still had some clever people… Great reminder, thanks for posting. 👍
What a fine orator the man was. Phenomenal intellect.
Back when he was 'British'
A side effect of seeing this is the recovery of feelings prevailing then, a renewed of uncertainty and expectations of what warmongering evil means in the climate of nuclear weapons MAD-NESS.
"The more things change the more they stay the same", as was said, which means there's nothing to say really..
Good God. What has happened to British television since?
I mean this is flawed, but at least it's for grown-ups. (Yes, grown-ups have flaws.)
Only Hitch could be fascinating and amusing about Grange Hill.
I don't see why that should be so. Many attentive viewers of television drama will find things of interest to say about it. And often a good deal more pertinent than Christopher Hitchens here, who - unlike Liz Forgan and Bernard Ashley - isn't really talking about the actual programme itself in this discussion, but instead using Grange Hill as a springboard for his hip take on contemporary North London teenage life.
*Christopher Hitchens* - The 5th one being *George Best* , it`s certainly safe to refer to Hitchens as the *6th Beatle* .
The Earl Spencer was wasted.
I miss Hitch.
Did The Earl Spencer really speak quite like that or was he just having a laugh? I always thought he was pissed! 😳
The Earl Spenser in the beginning was A) crazily inbred, B) stinking drunk, C) completely unaware of himself. Of course, an acceptable answer may also be all three.
BAC
A wasp if ever one was seen.
He’d had a stroke.
Is that Tim Nice But Dim with the camera at the start?
Earl Spencer the definition of a chinless wonder.
If you ever want to know what Monte Python was making fun of in their TV show, watch the first few minutes of this video.
I'm watching this with covid and not quite sure I fully believe I'm listening to Hitchens talk about Grange Hill 😅
Ah someone’s doing the lords work.. sincerest thanks
Anything remotely germane to this title doesn't begin until 20:35
18:05 What Chris forgets, as Londoners always do, is that 99% of the rest of the country is not London.
Grange Hill was filmed at a school in North London. Their accents etc. are about North London youth culture. Hitchens is not forgetting the rest of England, rather, he is aware of the context of the programme and is commenting on a lack of realism for that locality.
💙💙💙
Great to see Hitch as a younger man!
he's 32 years old here
Holy shit he was handsome as fuck until the booze and cigarettes really kicked in
He looks younger here. I love his hairstyle. It’s a treat to see him in his younger days. ❤
Mugridge, what a joke he was when debating John Cleese.
Hitchens looks like Rik Mayall in The Young Ones!! Proper Trotsky...!
Earl Spencer pissed as a newt.
So "refreshing" to the see a day drunk John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, on the pavement of the peseants. Well of his speach to judge it might be more truley that it might be barbiturates (Quaalude?), after all it's 1981 - with that said the newer of benzos could be the weapon of choose.
I would say that the majority of school principals these days are not nearly as thoughtful and bright as Bernard is here.
Why is young Mike Stoklosa in the thumbnail.
The lady was interesting; whatever became of her? I left UK in the 80s so maybe just don't realize who she is. Very well spoken.
You're a very good egg :)
The late Earl Spencer reminded me of a Harry Enfield character.
I have never been so excited since the last time I was watching paint dry.
I always presumed that "watching paint dry" was a hypothetical pastime, not something a rational person would do and absolutely not ideal.
The wrong Hitchens remains
17:50 - the makers of Skins listened to Christopher’s call😆
Was Earl Spencer drunk? He sounded it.
But after al this very interesting stuff, I still remain with a very nagging question which is the uncertainty if her hair is real, or a helmet...? 😀 ;-)
A 32 Year old Hitchens.
The Earl Spencer seemed to be drunk as a skunk.
And now we the son of a KGB Colonel (Retired may be .. ) in the House of Lords.
Was Earl Spencer leathered?
Spencer did sound rather plugged, didn't he?
Tx: 28 February 1981
Wow... It's "Tim Nice But Dim" in real life...
Grange Hill was the X Men brought to North London.
"very proud and very happy" calm down mate you nearly groped her
Yes, he was clearly drunk :/
Do you have a timestamp?
Erudition not jocular soundbites how far we've fallen!
The program was called Did You See
Wankered, but had enough wits to call the interview short. Glass raised Earl.
Back when tv was good… sigh.
He was nervous as hell
Hitch is completely wrong about Grange Hill here
Either I or that goofer, the Earl of Spencer is drunk, but one of us are
Love how wrong the opening remarks turned out to be.
Did You See...?
@ John Telford Yes, I'm fairly sure it was John.
this is why I am a republican. not the American bigot type, the British "why should these in bred cretins rule over?" us type
9:33 hitchens
People were very pompous back then.
Spencer appears to be absolutely pissed.................as a newt.
Looks like Barron Trump
The earl sounds like he's pissed as a parrot!
Somewhat of a terse and grudging introduction, Ludovic
Clearly pished..