Better Drunk
- Thread starter Lord Roem
- Start date
Excellent work, as one would expect from your fine self, of course. Loving the picture, by the way - ticks all my boxes.
I actually remember reading 'The Prime Ministers Who Never Were' and their entry on George Brown whilst I was back home over Christmas. Like everyone else I'm looking forward to seeing more.
I actually remember reading 'The Prime Ministers Who Never Were' and their entry on George Brown whilst I was back home over Christmas. Like everyone else I'm looking forward to seeing more.
All looks very interesting. I wonder if Brown's OTL ally Tony Crosland might attain his great dream of becoming Chancellor in this timeline. Presumably Wilson is Deputy Leader, but I'll be interested to see if you have Brown keeping him as Shadow Chancellor or perhaps putting Jenkins there. More, please!
Is there a member called Wells, or did I just get equal billing with EdT and Thande?
Is there a member called Wells, or did I just get equal billing with EdT and Thande?
All looks very interesting. I wonder if Brown's OTL ally Tony Crosland might attain his great dream of becoming Chancellor in this timeline. Presumably Wilson is Deputy Leader, but I'll be interested to see if you have Brown keeping him as Shadow Chancellor or perhaps putting Jenkins there. More, please!
Is there a member called Wells, or did I just get equal billing with EdT and Thande?
Sorry, I did think that might cause confusion, I meant Anthony Wells of Gordon Banks fame.
I have a quiescent timeline that I hope to resurrect someday: should I do so, i would like to commission some illustrations (take existing head-and-shoulders photographs of named actor/actress, photoshop it in some clever stylised way). Is this something you could do?
My thoughts so far,
Fantastic stuff Roem. As others have said, the excerpt format works really well: it is the classic Politibrit style.
A minor nitpick though; I'm fairly sure that the "Crook and the drunk" line was uttered by Crosland, not Jenkins. The former always seemed much more snide and blunt than the latter.
But considering most of my knowledge of this period comes from this website, I might not be one to talk...
But considering that the great salesman that was Wilson nearly lost the election to a man who chose to become PM as a change from the Grouse Moors, I don't think that Brown will be in for an easy ride come 1964...
Fantastic stuff Roem. As others have said, the excerpt format works really well: it is the classic Politibrit style.
A minor nitpick though; I'm fairly sure that the "Crook and the drunk" line was uttered by Crosland, not Jenkins. The former always seemed much more snide and blunt than the latter.
But considering most of my knowledge of this period comes from this website, I might not be one to talk...
But considering that the great salesman that was Wilson nearly lost the election to a man who chose to become PM as a change from the Grouse Moors, I don't think that Brown will be in for an easy ride come 1964...
I always like to imagine Alec Home like Charles Lester out of The Good Wife: he seems harmless, right up to the point where he's had the entire Labour Party frontbench quietly killed by tweed-wearing assasins. Metaphorically.
Yay, Roem TL!
I rather hope the MP for Huyton won't be too marginalised in TTL, though I confess there's a certain amount of chauvinism at work there...
I have little idea about George Brown's politics; it'll be interesting to see how things play out from here. It was about now IOTL the Sixties began to Swing; I wonder how much that will carry over ITTL?
I rather hope the MP for Huyton won't be too marginalised in TTL, though I confess there's a certain amount of chauvinism at work there...
I have little idea about George Brown's politics; it'll be interesting to see how things play out from here. It was about now IOTL the Sixties began to Swing; I wonder how much that will carry over ITTL?
Firstly, many thanks for all of your very kind and encouraging words. It is very gratifying to have the opportunity of doing a "proper" timeline after the emotional roller-coaster of Lavender.
I mainly decided to do this because I realised how many of the figures in 'Lavender' were just coming to the start of their frontbench careers in 1960, and it seemed somewhat of a shame to leave all the research where it was, especially after Meadow and I had ploughed through so many biographies and other various paraphernalia.
I'm not expecting this to turn into anything more than a couple of months of infrequently up-dated tosh to be honest, but Brown is such a great character, with such potential, that it could end going beyond my planned end-point.
Thank-you also for all the kind words about the opening poster, I certainly did enjoy putting it together!
To pick up a couple of specific points;
Surprisingly so as it turns out. Woy was one of the few members of the Daltonite Camp to enthusiastically back Brown over Callaghan in the contest in 1963, much to the chagrin of Tony Crosland, who coined the "drunk and a crook" line (sorry Daltonia - I don't believe that this was a mistake on my part - I think that you may have miss-read the opening, though I understand that it may have been a little ambiguous!) - it actually caused a slight argument between the two in OTL, which is butterflied here.
Jenkins and Callaghan never really saw eye-to-eye in OTL, and in some respects, they were very much the inverse of one another (Callaghan an Englishman representing a Welsh seat, Jenkins a Welshman representing an English one) - Jenkins was also a rung or two further up the social strata as well, and I think he was always rather jealous of Sunny Jim's relatively higher position within the party faithful. Callaghan, as it happens, tended to see Jenkins as somewhat of a snob (which he was, of course...) I hope to go into that as things progress.
Do PM me! I've got quite a few projects and requests on the go already - but I'll do what I can!
I mainly decided to do this because I realised how many of the figures in 'Lavender' were just coming to the start of their frontbench careers in 1960, and it seemed somewhat of a shame to leave all the research where it was, especially after Meadow and I had ploughed through so many biographies and other various paraphernalia.
I'm not expecting this to turn into anything more than a couple of months of infrequently up-dated tosh to be honest, but Brown is such a great character, with such potential, that it could end going beyond my planned end-point.
Thank-you also for all the kind words about the opening poster, I certainly did enjoy putting it together!
To pick up a couple of specific points;
Surprisingly so as it turns out. Woy was one of the few members of the Daltonite Camp to enthusiastically back Brown over Callaghan in the contest in 1963, much to the chagrin of Tony Crosland, who coined the "drunk and a crook" line (sorry Daltonia - I don't believe that this was a mistake on my part - I think that you may have miss-read the opening, though I understand that it may have been a little ambiguous!) - it actually caused a slight argument between the two in OTL, which is butterflied here.
Jenkins and Callaghan never really saw eye-to-eye in OTL, and in some respects, they were very much the inverse of one another (Callaghan an Englishman representing a Welsh seat, Jenkins a Welshman representing an English one) - Jenkins was also a rung or two further up the social strata as well, and I think he was always rather jealous of Sunny Jim's relatively higher position within the party faithful. Callaghan, as it happens, tended to see Jenkins as somewhat of a snob (which he was, of course...) I hope to go into that as things progress.
Do PM me! I've got quite a few projects and requests on the go already - but I'll do what I can!
Thande
Donor
Clearly this TL is a spinoff of Lavender, the result of time-travel interference in order to prevent the Communist agent from ever gaining power
Anyway, nice work - as Meadow says it's good to see the 'scrapbook extracts' format TL as a change. I would say it most resembles EdT's style, as with "Use Your Loaf", I tend to go for longer rambling extracts (sometimes I try to do the shorter back-and-forth, but it rarely works).
I recall 03771 had Brown win the leadership contest in All Along the Watchtower, but sadly he's not been in a position to continue much beyond that point (and, of course, it is not the main focus of that TL).
I have to wonder what the USSR's reaction will be if Brown becomes PM. I was wondering if his term would overlap with Khrushchev's for ultimate awkwardness, but then I checked Wiki and it turns out that in OTL Khrushchev was forced out, get this, the day before the 1964 general election That's almost suspiciously apposite timing.
(Also incidentally while posting this I infuriatingly found an alternative keystroke combination to Alt-F4 which ate my post, but then found that the Restore Previous Sessions option on Firefox now restores active AH.com reply window text too. Huzzah!)
Anyway, nice work - as Meadow says it's good to see the 'scrapbook extracts' format TL as a change. I would say it most resembles EdT's style, as with "Use Your Loaf", I tend to go for longer rambling extracts (sometimes I try to do the shorter back-and-forth, but it rarely works).
I recall 03771 had Brown win the leadership contest in All Along the Watchtower, but sadly he's not been in a position to continue much beyond that point (and, of course, it is not the main focus of that TL).
I have to wonder what the USSR's reaction will be if Brown becomes PM. I was wondering if his term would overlap with Khrushchev's for ultimate awkwardness, but then I checked Wiki and it turns out that in OTL Khrushchev was forced out, get this, the day before the 1964 general election
That's almost suspiciously apposite timing.(Also incidentally while posting this I infuriatingly found an alternative keystroke combination to Alt-F4 which ate my post, but then found that the Restore Previous Sessions option on Firefox now restores active AH.com reply window text too. Huzzah!)
I have to wonder what the USSR's reaction will be if Brown becomes PM. I was wondering if his term would overlap with Khrushchev's for ultimate awkwardness, but then I checked Wiki and it turns out that in OTL Khrushchev was forced out, get this, the day before the 1964 general election
You knew that already, though, surely - you pointed it out to us when we were writing Lavender and we worked it in as a plot point
Thande
Donor
Did I? I must have forgotten it then. I do that sometimes, though more often with LTTW history than OTLYou knew that already, though, surely - you pointed it out to us when we were writing Lavender and we worked it in as a plot point
Thank you, a kind offer. The style I envisage is along the lines of the head-and-shoulder shots in Meadow's(?) timeline "Meet the New Boss" (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=302538 ). There's no need to start yet: when (if!) the timeline gets resuscitated I'll PM you. Again, thank you.