Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
But, at the time of its release, the first run of episodes benefited from insanely lucky timing (through dumb luck): Episode one aired the very day that The Iron Lady, Ms. Thatcher, was suddenly ousted, ending the UK's longest Prime Ministership, from within her own party -- and, hours later, the character Uruquart is opening his first scene with an ironic comment on the 10 Downing Street upheaval that put his faction into power: 'Nothing lasts forever.' With arched eyebrow.
Oh good heavens, I didn't realize the TVification was so old. I vaguely assumed that it was from (say) 2010 and the USians had looked at the ratings and seen "sure-fire winner" and remade it with more USians and fewer Thatchers. The original is of course little squiggles on a dead tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dobbs ...and I knew enough context to assume it had been written (or at least published) after the author was Well Out Of It, i.e. at least a decade after the stuff he was writing about. Thatcher's run as PM was '79 to '90; the book came out in '89, and the TV show in '90. Charlie Stross wrote something about all this on his blog, but as usual, I can never find the post I want over there. (antipope.org)