Building a house of cards (also known as a card tower) is a pastime involving the stacking of playing cards on top of each other in order to form a structure. The structures created using this method rely on nothing more than balance and friction in order to stay upright. No adhesives or other external connecting methods are used, and no damage or alterations are made to the cards themselves. The larger the structure, therefore, the more likely it is to fall, due entirely to the higher number of balanced cards that could fail and compromise the integrity of the card building. Bryan Berg claims, however, that the more cards you place on the tower the stronger it becomes. This is because the weight of the cards pushing down on the base (increasing friction) allows a few cards to stumble without the entire structure collapsing.

House of cards is also an expression for a structure or argument built on a shaky foundation or one that will collapse totally if any one element is removed.

World Records

Main Article: Bryan Berg

A prominent house of cards builder is Bryan Berg. Berg broke the former world record in 1992 for "The Tallest House of Cards" with a tower that stood 14′6″ (4.4 m) tall.

Another tower was built by Berg at the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University in 1998. It stood at approximately 25 ft (7.5 m) tall and utilized over 1500 decks of standard playing cards that weighed over 250 pounds (115 kg). It took two and a half weeks to build, with construction taking place in shifts that lasted anywhere from four to twelve hours each day. During construction, the tower was surrounded by scaffolding, which also formed the means of reaching the top of the tower to place additional cards.

On November 6 1999, Berg built an even taller tower for the German edition of Guinness Prime Time [1] in the lobby of the casino at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. This tower was nearly a foot taller than the one pictured from the above link. It stood approximately 25.29 ft (7.7 m) tall and used over 1,700 decks, stacking up 131 stories high.

When he was asked whether it would be possible to build even taller (reaching for instance, about 100 ft or 30 m), Berg just responded with a simple: "You bet!"

In 2004, Guinness added the "World's Largest House of Cards" as a new category in recognition of Berg's construction of a replica of Cinderella's Castle for Walt Disney World. [2] At the time of writing (August 2006), Berg was still the holder of both records.

See also

• Bryan Berg
• Stacking
• Architecture
• Playing Cards
• Skyscrapers
• Guinness World Records

External links

• Bryan Berg's official webpage
• Image of one of Berg's record attempts

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House of Cards
Directed by	Paul Seed
Produced by	Ken Riddington
Written by	Andrew Davies (writer)
Starring	Ian Richardson Susannah Harker David Lyon Diane Fletcher
Music by	Jim Parker
Distributed by	BBC
Release date(s)	November 18, 1990
Running time	4 x 50 minutes
Language	English
IMDb profile

House of Cards was a political thriller novel written by Michael Dobbs, a former Chief of Staff at Conservative Party headquarters, which was set at the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as British Prime Minister. In 1990, it was televised in a critically and popularly acclaimed television drama serial by the BBC, for which it is probably better known. The story was adapted by Andrew Davies. Dobbs's novel was also dramatised for radio for BBC World Service in 1996, by Neville Teller. The House of Cards trilogy was rated the 84th best British television series in history.

Overview

In it, the fictional Chief Whip, Francis Urquhart (the entire concept came from the initials, 'F.U.') [3], played on TV by Ian Richardson, is seen engaging in all the skulduggery of power politics in his efforts to become Prime Minister. There were two sequels: To Play the King, 1993 and The Final Cut, 1995. Like House of Cards, both were also based on Dobbs's novels of the same names; however, it appears that Dobbs did not envisage writing the latter two books initially, since his ending to House of Cards differs from that of the BBC's dramatisation. The differing script allowed Dobbs to then continue the series.

House of Cards draws heavily from Shakespeare's Macbeth and Richard III, both of which examine issues of power, unbridled ambition and corruption. Indeed, Richardson said he based his performance of the scheming Francis Urquhart on the way Shakespeare portrayed Richard III.

Frequently during the drama Urquhart talks through the camera to the audience, breaking the fourth wall. The drama also introduced the phrase "You might say that; I couldn't possibly comment" which was frequently used by Urquhart whenever he was asked a question to which he wanted to reply Yes' but could not be quoted on; usually because he was 'politically unable' to agree or disagree publicly, with the emphasis on either the 'I' or the 'possibly' depending on the situation. A variation of the line goes, 'You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.'

Plot

House of Cards starts with Francis Urquhart sitting at a desk, commenting that 'Nothing lasts forever. Even the longest, the most glittering reign must come to an end someday.' He is referring to Margaret Thatcher, who in the House of Cards universe has just left office. This then requires that the Tories (for whom Urquhart is an M.P. and Chief Whip) elect a new leader. This new leader is Henry ('Hal') Collingridge, a decent man of whom Urquhart is secretly contemptuous ('no background and no bottom').

Their new leader chosen, after a year the Conservatives then face the next election. They win by a narrow majority of around twenty-four seats and Urquhart expects to be given a senior position in the Cabinet afterwards. However, citing the political demise of Harold Macmillan after he sacked half his Cabinet, the newly elected Prime Minister effects no reshuffle at all. Being stuck as Chief Whip antagonises Urquhart, who then resolves to get rid of Collingridge. Significantly it is his wife, Elizabeth, who convinces Francis of his ability to take the job as P.M. and to begin a campaign to destabilise Collingridge's leadership. To do this, he enlists the services of one of the Tories' P.R. consultants, Roger O'Neill, a former Irish rugby international who now has a cocaine habit that had been funded by his Tory expense account. Urquhart, as Chief Whip, threatens to expose this unless O'Neill does as he says.

O'Neill, a charming but unstable man, then works to undermine Collingridge. O'Neill gives an Opposition M.P. some information that would make Collingridge look foolish at Prime Minister's Questions. He also sets the scene for Urquhart himself to pose as Collingridge's alcoholic brother Charles, so that he can trade in Mendox Chemicals, a company about to benefit from the government. As a result of the latter, Collingridge becomes accused of insider trading and this, combined with his eroding image and his bad showing at the Brighton Party Conference, eventually force him to resign. Urquhart gains Collingridge's confidence as his loyal confidante, while at the same time supplanting Tory Party Chairman and grandee, Lord Teddy Billsborough. Billsborough is later sacked by Collingridge as Party Chairman, Urquhart having stated that it was Billsborough who was behind the campaign of leaks from the Cabinet to assist the leadership chances of his close friend, Michael Samuels.

The second half of House of Cards then deals with the manner in which Urquhart gets himself chosen as Leader of the Tories and Prime Minister. At first pretending to be unwilling to stand, he eventually announces his intention to run and goes about making sure his competitors drop out of the race, with the help of his friend and underling, the weasel-ish Tim Stamper (played by Colin Jeavons) and with the less eager assistance of Roger O'Neill. At the same time, Urquhart begins (with his beautiful wife's blessing and implied encouragement) an affair with the junior political reporter, Mattie Storin. It appears the Urquharts believe that Francis's affair will give him a power over Mattie that will enable him to manipulate her position at the main (fictional) newspaper,The Chronicle, in order to ensure that within its pages, Francis comes off well and his rivals for the leadership, very badly. Mattie, whilst talented, is naïve and apparently somewhat unstable. She has an apparent Electra complex and declaring that she cannot call Urquhart by his given name of 'Francis', decides upon to refer to him as 'daddy'. 'Daddy' being a word that runs through the entire TV trilogy in Urquhart's painful flashbacks of Mattie.

Urquhart's rivals for the Tory leadership and the Prime Minister role are eliminated as follows:

• Harold Earle — Education. Blackmailed into withdrawing by Urquhart and Stamper sending him pictures involving him and his sexual solicitation with a rentboy (namely, oral sex).
• Peter MacKenzie — Health. Hit by bad P.R. after an incident staged by Urquhart involving his car running over a disabled person, forced to withdraw.
• Patrick Woolton — Foreign Secretary. Urquhart pressures O'Neill into persuading his personal assistant and mistress, Penny Guy, to have sex with Woolton at the Party Conference, and sneaks a bugged ministerial red box into Woolton's suite, and records their sexual encounter. Urquhart sends Woolton the audio cassette, thus blackmailing Woolton into stepping down from the contest.
• Michael Samuels — Environment. The ablest of Urquhart's rivals, Samuels has his reputation tarnished when it is leaked that he was in favour of homosexual rights, nuclear disarmament C.N.D., and communism in his Cambridge days (the Tory point of view frowns on these things). Samuels is also Jewish and it is hinted that this is also a negative characteristic in the eyes of some in the Party (namely Woolton in particular, him being an anti-Semite]]).

Urquhart gets the backing of Woolton when he withdraws and, in an ironic twist, Collingridge, himself, who proclaims Urquhart's complete loyalty to him and his leadership.

Though initially blind to the truth of matters thanks to her affair and infatuation with Urquhart, Mattie Storin eventually deduces that Urquhart and his associates are behind the unfortunate downfalls of Collingridge and all of Urquhart's rivals. Urquhart orders O'Neill to arrange for Mattie's car to be vandalised and a brick to be thrown through the window of her flat, in order to deter her from following up on the story. O'Neill complies, with the assistance of his girlfriend, Penny Guy, but is becoming increasingly uneasy with what he is being asked to do and with the possibility of being discovered. His cocaine habit is also adding to his instability and he begins to become a problem for Urquhart, who promises him a knighthood to keep him quiet but then murders him in order to ensure his silence. Urquhart gets Roger drunk and then mixes his cocaine with rat poison while Roger sleeps. When Roger wakes up, he leaves the Urquhart residence, takes the cocaine in the lavatory of an M27 motorway rest-stop, and dies.

House of Cards ends with Mattie Storin looking for Urquhart at the point when it looks like his victory is certain. She eventually finds him in the Roof Garden of the Houses of Parliament, where she confronts him. He admits to what he has done, in particular, to Roger O'Neill's murder. He then asks whether he can trust her. Despite Mattie saying yes, he says he doesn't believe her and throws her off the roof. Mattie screams 'Daddy!' as she falls to her death, onto the roof of a van parked below. This is where the ending of the TV series differs from the novel; in the latter, it is Urquhart that falls to his death, knowing that Mattie will not hide her information. The book did not contain a romance between Mattie and Urquhart, as the dramatisation did. It is assumed that Urquhart defeats Samuels in the second leadership ballot; as it ends with him being driven to Buckingham Palace to become Prime Minister.

The viewer is aware of two clear loose ends that Urquhart does not tie up in this chapter. An unidentified figure is seen to collect Mattie's dictaphone from her lifeless body. Earlier scenes had established that Mattie was in the habit of recording her conversations with Urquhart. There is also John Krajewski, to whom Mattie had confided both her affair with Urquhart and her suspicions that Urquhart was behind the chain of unfortunate coincidences that resulted in his emerging as the only viable candidate for the Tory Party Leadership and post of Prime Minister.

In this first part of the trilogy, the camera frequently focuses on rats for the symbolic effect of filth and conspiracy.

Trivia

• There is a roof terrace which is three floors up from the House of Commons. The terrace overlooks Star Chamber Court where Post Office vans park. The 'roof garden' in the TV adaptation was however in fact shot on the roof of a building across the road from the Houses of Parliament.
• The series' interiors (set in the Palace of Westminster) were shot in Manchester Town Hall.
• By complete chance, the first BBC showing of the series exactly coincided with the real life Tory leadership contest: the dramatic removal from office of Margaret Thatcher.
• There is an error in the series relating to the election results as reported. Collingridge's government has a majority of a hundred seats and we are told that they lose about seventy seats, leaving them with a majority of around thirty. Since every seat lost by one Party is a gain for the others, a loss of seventy seats from a a hundred-seat majority would actually result in a forty-seat deficit.
• As a phrase and acronym, 'You may think that...' has also been used in the media on occasions where people do not want to commit to a clear 'yes' (or 'no').^[1]

Notable differences from the book

In the book:

• Dobbs attempts to conceal Urquhart's political allegiance; the tv series openly makes him a member of the Conservative Party.
• Mattie Storin does not have a relationship with Urquhart or even talk with him frequently; she does have a sexual relationship with John Krajewski.
• Urquhart's wife is called "Miranda" and is an extremely minor character, not sharing in his schemes. (In To Play the King and The Final Cut, however, she is called Elizabeth and plays a larger role, as in the BBC drama.)
• Tim Stamper does not exist (although Dobbs introduced him in To Play the King).
• Urquhart is much less self-assured and decisive. He also chain-smokes and swears frequently.
• Earle's rent boy appears in person at an important speech of his, distracting him; subsequently, Earle is harassed by reporters who have been told of his indiscretion.
• At the end, Urquhart threatens to kill Mattie Storin by hitting her with a chair, but refrains in a fit of cowardice, and jumps off the roof to his death after she leaves the roof garden.
• Urquhart never speaks directly to the reader; the character is written solely in a third-person perspective. In the series, he regularly speaks directly into the camera to his viewers.
• The Party conference was in Bournemouth, not Brighton.
• Mattie Storin worked for the real newspaper The Daily Telegraph not the fictional The Chronicle.
• Benjamin Landless is from London, instead of being American.

See also

• A Very British Coup (a similar drama of fictional contemporary British politics from a left-wing perspective)
• Politics in fiction
• House of Cards (1993 film) - an American movie starring Kathleen Turner and Tommy Lee Jones
• Terry Pratchett's Hogfather where Death (voiced by Ian Richardson) utters Francis Urquhart's famous catchphrase

References

External links

• House of Cards at BBC Four
• House Of Cards at Action TV
• House of Cards at British Film Institute Screen Online