Wrong with Authority Ep1 - Murder by Decree & From Hell

Back in the long-lost days of 2016, just after things started going crazy but long before they had reached the pitch of insanity we're at now, I started a podcast with some friends: Daniel Harper, Kit Power, and Jim Slater-Murphy (then known as James Murphy).  It was called Wrong with Authority, and the idea was to look at movies based on historical events and the historical events they're based on.  We weren't *just* going to nitpick them for factual accuracy... though that was definitely going to be a part of it.  We were also going to evaluate them as films, and think about what their depiction of history told us about society, culture, and ideology.  We started by talking about two related movies per episode.  We also started creating sub-podcasts within Wrong with Authority.  One was Footnotes, in which two or more members of the core team took a look at something related to our main subject.  Another was Consider the Reagan, in which (again) two or more members of the core team recorded a commentary on the 80s movies that formed us as kids - all of us being gentlemen of roundabout a certain age.  

Looking back, it was a hugely over-ambitious plan.  We soon switched to single movies per episode but it kept spiralling out of control, representing too great a demand on our time and energy, not to mention the scheduling challenges involved in getting all of us together for recording sessions.  We never built much of an audience - probably because of our irregular schedule, our overstuffed and overlong episodes, and the pre-existing surfeit of white guys talking about movies on the internet - but I think we all look back on those days with great fondness and, allowances being made for mistakes and growth, we're all proud of the shows we created... with the possible exception of a strand of episodes in which we got drunk and talked about 21st Century Doctor Who.  They were fun to record, but I think we all feel that, if you listen to them now, "you're not exactly catching us at our best" (to paraphrase Captain James T. Kirk).  

We've all moved on to other projects but remained close friends.  Indeed, our 'back-channel' - a group chat, shared with the wonderful Holly Boson, who is now also part of the group - is still my HQ (so to speak) on the internet .  Daniel and I have, of course, started I Don't Speak German.  One of the things Kit and I are up to is, of course, recording the Backer Street Irregulars, a podcast about our ongoing re-read of the Sherlock Holmes canon, exclusively for our Patreon supporters.

We took Wrong with Authority down in 2018, owing to the expense of paying hosting fees for a defunct podcast that very few people were still revisiting.  But, in my ongoing quest to try to provide my staggeringly generous Patreon backers with something vaguely approaching value for money, I have decided - with the permission of the other people concerned - to repost the old episodes of Wrong with Authority and its various sub-podcasts (at least the ones I'm in), here, exclusively for you.  (The others may well start posting episodes on their respective Patreons too.)  The plan is to post one per month until they run out.

This first episode - originally published 20th November 2016 - is about the movies Murder by Decree and From Hell, both spins on the 'Masonic conspiracy' theory about the Whitechapel Murders of 1888.  It may not be your can of Tizer but give it a go and let me know what you think.   

I intend to create more extras for my Patreon backers, including more exclusive/advance writing and audiobooks in which I read both my own work and classics by other people.  At the moment I am tinkering around with readings of my short story Calder's Room, Terry Eagleton's essay Alice and Anarchy, and Marx's articles on the US Civil War.  I'd welcome suggestions for readings, either from my own work or other people's (but remember copyright issues).

Thanks once again for the support you give me.  It makes it possible for me to produce IDSG, which I consider an immense privilege.