Saturday, December 18, 2021

All I Ever Needed to Know



I have a number of friends who are grew up in the generation before and after mine. You'd not know it from either our activities or our conversations, but there are some TV shows I grew up seeing that the younger ones missed.

One of those is Blakes Seven. Running for a few brief seasons in the end of the 70's, and produced by BBC, it had 10 million viewers in it's prime, with divided camps as to whether it was a silly but entertaining space opera or a heroic poem. It's both.

Yes, it was a decidedly low budget (isn't that the same quarry?) story of a band of outlaws, on the run from their government, striving for justice in space, while battling some hilariously dangerous aliens. The early scrips were stunningly intelligent despite some chincy sets, far more appealing to me, as that age, than the slick offerings of other shows.


So for a quiet day at home I present a classic (author unknown)

ALL I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM BLAKE'S 7

Trust is only dangerous when you have to rely on it.

Reality is a dangerous concept.

I am not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going.

No good deed goes unpunished.It is frequently easier to be honest when you have nothing to lose

Civilization has always depended on courtesy rather than truth.

On Earth it is considered ill-mannered to kill your friends while committing suicide.

The art of leadership is delegation.

All that patience gets you is older.

Regret is part of being alive -- but keep it a small part.

He who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.

Infallibility depends on your point of view.

There are times when even the most cynical must trust in luck.

Heroics seldom run to schedule.The choice is very simple -- either you can fight, or you can die.


In the end, winning is the only safety.

Power usually makes its own rules.

It is not necessary to become irrational in order to prove that one cares; indeed, it is not necessary to prove it at all.

While there's life, there's threat.

Luck has nothing to do with it.

Strategic withdrawal is running away, but with dignity.

Idealism is a wonderful thing; all you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use.

Nobody is indispensable.

Everyone's entitled to one really bad mistake.

In the end, your word is all there is, really. There are other rules, but you'll find out what those are when you break them

7 comments:

  1. With your permission, of course, this article gets printed off, a copy for me inside my desk drawer to refer to from time to time, and a copy for my granddaughter, so she can do the same.

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  2. Wow! I'm not quite a year older than you, but I've never heard of that show. Of course, I don't think I'd ever even seen a BBC production till I was in my 40s or 50s. We only got two channels when I was a wee kid, and half a dozen or so more when we got cable when I was in my teens.

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  3. Oh yeah! :-) And 'I am not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going.' is one that the Star Trek types NEVER learned...LOL

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  4. I loved BLAKE'S 7. I remember watching it late a night on ghr local PBS channel in the Chicagoland area.

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  5. Great quote log material. Thanks.
    Merry Christmas to you and all you love.
    MikeyB

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  6. Printing this one out, thanks for sharing.
    Wishing you and yours a Blessed Christmas.

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