not very interesting imo, me in the US forty years ago (and a bit)

This is me in Olympia (top) and San Francisco (middle and bottom). It was actually April 1986. I flew into SF just before my 21st birthday, and took a train I think (must have) up to Olympia, or near enough. Yeah, I know, there are train tracks in the Olympia picture but they were just for goods trains. I was kind of captivated by the train line in the road. I don't know why those state buildings (in the middle) were at all interesting to me. Supermarkets kind of thrilled me, with their crazy products (orange cheese etc). I seem apparently happy to just stand in front of things disengagedly. 

I was on my way to Thatcher's Britain which sucked a big turd but at least I saw The Smiths and, er, Stump or whatever. And I got to endure the Chernobyl cloud and be somewhat arguably possibly exposed to mad cow disease. 

the end of the slate culture gabfest

So, I don't really know why this has happened but the Slate Culture Gabfest has come to an end, apparently without acrimony amongst the three hosts who have been doing it for 18 years but also, apparently, in a rather rushed decision (and presumably no will on the part of Slate to experiment with a new team, for instance, though they have had plenty of fill-ins over time, in a way that made me wonder whether they were planning a personnel transition). 

Insert generic nameplate here. Oh, I just did! 

My response when they announced the death of the show, a few weeks ago, was typical denial - I just stopped listening! So there are a couple of recent eps I haven't heard, and that is after loyal listenership since at least 2013, surely earlier. But if they have been tired or uninspired, the team of Steve, Dana and Julia absolutely haven't shown it. The program is as fresh now as ever, IMO. I have long really enjoyed it.

A listener phoned in to say that one of the things they really liked about the Culture Gabfest was that it showed how to educate/enlighten without talking down to someone, and that's really true. I wonder if I can say that the CG has changed my approach in any way. It may have. It's been a bit of a beacon, and certainly most of the things discussed have not really been in my wheelhouse (though more than the films usually talked about in the Filmcast, about which I could not give two shits) but I have enjoyed the way they've been analysed. 

Now, my only Slate podcast is the Political Gabfest (there are other podcasts and they're good but it's impossible to get them on my phone). I think it's time to give up on Slate, cuz the whole thing is a subscription headache every year and it's too American for me, overall. Lots of American things are.