Notes and Queries, Vol. 8
A dissertation progress update and a TV recommendation
It’s been a long time since I’ve written a post in this series, and I have a lot to report on the dissertation front! Last time, I was in the middle of writing Chapter 2 of the dissertation and hoping to have a full draft done by the end of April. It’s the beginning of May now, and I can report that I did not get the full draft done by the end of April, but it’s okay. I am – definitely, certainly, no doubt – going to have the full draft done by May 22. Initially, that was a self-imposed deadline, but now it’s become much more real, because my dissertation defense is scheduled for the second week of June. Now I have to get the dissertation done, so that my committee has time to read it before the defense.
Knowing that you have to get something done can be intimidating, but, in this case, it’s been very motivating. As I told someone last week, my dissertation is now “ABC”: all but conclusion. I have written the introduction and all five chapters, done revisions on four of the five chapters, and assembled everything into a full draft document for the first time.1 Out of all of those things, creating the full draft document made it feel very real. Now my dissertation isn’t just disparate parts, contained in different files on my computer. Now it is one almost-complete piece of writing that someone could read from start to finish, and it would make sense to them.
In a sign that my brain is ready to be done with the dissertation, I’ve come up with a couple of ideas for future research projects in the last couple weeks. However, I’m not letting myself fully think about them yet. The only thing I’m allowed to work on right now is the dissertation. All else can come once it is done.
Fingers crossed, and writing gods willing, the next time I write one of these updates, I can report that I have finished the full draft of the dissertation and maybe even that I have successfully defended it.
History on Screen
I haven’t been doing too much recently other than working on the dissertation, reading (for fun!), and watching the NHL playoffs (hockey is an excellent form of stress relief). Earlier this month, though, I watched an interesting – and history-related – TV show. The Gold is a British TV show that dramatizes the events of the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery in London. The show has two seasons, though only season 1 is currently available in the US; you can watch it on PBS Passport.
The first season of The Gold covers the events of the Brink’s-Mat robbery, in which £26 million worth of gold bullion, jewels, and cash was stolen from a secure warehouse near Heathrow Airport. Interestingly, the robbery itself is not the focus of the show; it occurs within the first 10 minutes of the first episode. Instead, the show focuses on the aftermath of the robbery: the police investigation; the very complex web of people involved in smelting, disguising, and fencing the gold; and the vast money-laundering operation created to invest the proceeds from the gold.
One of the things I found most interesting about The Gold is that it really delves into the lives and motivations of the people involved in the gold-fencing and money-laundering operation, as well as the police officers trying to track them down. While the story of the gold is fascinating in its own right, the show also is worth watching for its portrayal of Britain in the early 1980s. The Gold especially draws attention to the class divisions that sharply stratified British society and, as a result, the difficulty of working your way up in society. Many of the characters – both criminal and police – muse on the continued power of the elites. As portrayed in the show, several of the criminals see their actions as a way of sticking it to a ruling class that looks down on them and seeks to keep them away from power.
The Gold also highlights the fact that London in the early 1980s was a very different city than it is today. Large parts of the city were struggling with postindustrial decline and were in need of redevelopment and regenerations. In particular, The Gold draws attention to the Docklands. Formerly a bustling port – at one point, the world’s largest port – the London Docklands had become derelict by the early 1980s. (In the 1960s, the port of London began moving downstream, where it was easier for large container ships to dock.) In the early 1980s, the redevelopment of the Docklands was just beginning. Where did some of the money to redevelop the Docklands come from? (You have to watch The Gold to find out.) Today, the Docklands, centered around Canary Wharf, is a thriving commercial and residential area.
The first season of The Gold ends with the police making a shocking discovery about the original heist, meaning that the investigation, which has already been ongoing for several years, must continue. The second season continues the story of the gold and the police investigation as it goes international. Although season 2 of The Gold aired in the UK last summer, it hasn’t come to the US yet. According to PBS, season 2 is coming in 2026, so fingers crossed that there is a release date soon, because I want to know how the story ends.
That’s all for this week!
Creating the full draft document took a lot longer than you might think, just because of how hard it is to format images in Microsoft Word. It’s 2026, you would think Word would make this easier on us, but it doesn’t.