u/LongtimeLurker916

This is maybe too literal-minded, but it occurred to me after watching the full series for the first time on BritBox - I wondered if the actual four-year gap between the two series is meant to have taken place for the characters. It seems hard to imagine Polly and Manuel enduring their jobs (and for Manuel that is a two-way street - he has to endure Basil and Basil has to endure him) for four years.

It was interesting that the very last episode seemed to be the only one with clear time markers. First a mention of strikes (endemic in Britain and winter 1978/79, but a problem in previous years also) and then a completely unambiguous mention of Annie Hall (released 1977).

There probably is no right answer, but I wondered if longtime fans had ever thought about this.

On page 587, in a note at the bottom of the page, Grandin writes, "Navy veteran Dan Mitrione arrived in Brazil in the early 1960s as part of a team whose job it was to systematize torture, to apply a 'scientific method.' Mitrione took beggars off the streets and tortured them in rooms filled with Brazilian police."

No footnote is provided. I know U.S. allies in Latin America did many terrible things, but this claim of testing torture on random homeless people seems to be Nazi-level monstrous if true (and cartoonish if not true). On Google the one supporting claim I could find came from a Cuban agent in the New York Times in 1978. Origination of the claim from Cuba hardly proves it is propaganda, but I would like to know more about the claim.