I want to believe

WIMBLEDON DISPATCH

Having reached the half way mark at the All England Championships, I am at the stage, along with the rest of the British population, that it is perhaps more than a pipedream to imagine we could have a British champion for the first time in my life and some time before that. Only problem? One Novak Djokavic, World #1, #1 seed and, judging by his performance last night, by some margin the most dangerous man left in the draw.

On Friday evening we saw our Andy making short work of his opponent, and we all started to feel a sense of confidence that this time, more than any other time, our boy could romp home, especially since the demise of two players who have proved his nemesis more than once on the Centre Court. But then we saw Djoki dispatch his victim, ranked 25 in the world and therefore not exactly crap, in such style my only word to describe it was, awesome. Murray is good, sure. He's better than I've ever seen him before, and better prepared. He's got Ivan Lendl in his camp, a man who knows a lot about winning at the highest level and seems to have passed much of it on. But can he beat the Serbian warrior? As I say, I want to believe he can. I don't wish to confound him with one of my famous sporting predictions, but he certainly can. Unfortunately that is not the same as will.

Scales fallen from the eyes dept.

One of the most exciting matches so far this year was seeing Federer go down to an unseeded player whom no one has ever heard of before. At one level I felt sorry for the great champion being humbled by an unknown, but there was an incident in the 4th set which made me less sorry. For the first time in my experience of having seen him play dozens of times over the last 10 years, Roger allowed his frustration to get the better of him, and in a net exchange hit the ball savagely at his opponent. With a dodge that would have done credit to a young Mohammed Ali, he just managed to evade the streaking ball, which then sailed out. The look on Federer's face said it all: anger, disappointment, frustration- it was all there, and it wasn't a pretty sight. Suddenly I lost a little of the enormous respect I hold for the great one. If this is the only time he's behaved like this at a major tournament I could feel a bit better about him- after all, we're all allowed the occasional show of anger. It's just that we're used to seeing him as the ultimate shining white knight, and this jarred rather horribly with that image Perhaps he should retire soon, before this sort of thing becomes commonplace with him as he begins his inevitable slide down the rankings.

June book and film review

Welcome to this month's media review. Get ready for a rich mix of the sublime and occasionally ridiculous!

BOOKS

INFERNO, by Dan Brown. Our legendary hero Dr Robert Langdon wakes up in a hospital bed in Florence with no idea how he got there. Before he's even rubbed the sleep out of his eyes he's dragged into a global conspiracy where an evil genius is attempting to reduce the world's population by half by the simple expedient of releasing a genetically modified plague virus. Or is he?
Someone has said that reading a Dan Brown novel is like being on a dangerous adventure in the company of an experienced travel guide, which I would say nails his books perfectly. Once again I found myself more interested in the often fascinating detail of the places they visit: in this case, Florence, Venice and Istanbul, than in the often Byzantine complexities of the plot, which, as usual, contain some very irritating wind-ups along the way, making for this reader an ultimately unsatisfying experience. But who am I to judge? Doubtless the book will sell in its millions before being made into a highly lucrative movie. So what do I know? Enough, this time, to announce I shall not be reading any more of the great one's offerings.

A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME, by Anthony Powell
Vol IX- The Military Philosophers
Vol X - Books do Furnish a Room
Nick Jenkins is nearing the end of his voyage through the 20th century. In The Military Philosophers, Nick, now a major involved in liaison with representatives of the Eastern European allies, sees out the end of the war unscathed, unlike many of his friends and acquaintances, and returns to civilian life as a writer and sometime publisher. He meets the sultry Pamela Flitton, (with her gorgeous looks and sulky attitude, strongly resembling, in my mind at least, an old girlfriend of mine, and that didn't end well either), who is what we might today call a ball-buster, snagging men and causing them to makes fools of themselves. She meets Widmerpool,, now a labour MP, and against all expectations, marries him. Glorious stuff. In Books do Furnish a Room, we meet Bagshaw,a left-wing publisher who has gained the soubriquet "Books do furnish a room Bagshaw"  ("Books" for short) who was so named after an incident when, advancing on a reclining nude lover, bumps into a huge bookshelf and showers the contents over his inamorata. Allegedly, or apocryphally, he makes the immortal remark while helping his lover up from the leather-bound debris. Meanwhile, marriage to an MP has not improved Pamela's mien: she leaves him and sets up house with a noted author twice her age. It is said many of the characters in Powell's masterwork are based on real people he encountered. When I have completed the cycle of books (there are just 2 remaining) I shall embark on Hilary Spurling's explanatory book Invitation to the Dance, when I am hoping for much intriguing information to be revealed. Please see next month's review for more on this.

FILMS

THE LEMON TREE (2008) D- Eran Riklis. A lone Palestinian woman tends the lemon grove which has been in her family for three generations. Then the Israeli defence minister moves in next door and the security people decree her grove be cut down as terrorists might lurk among the trees and launch an attack. But the lady does not take the decision lying down, and the case soon hits the media. Acutely observed and well acted, the surprise is that a film this sympathetic to the plight of ordinary Palestinians was made by an Israeli team. There may be hope for them yet...

ALADDIN (Disney animation, 1992) D- Ron Clements and John Musker. Things aren't going well for an Arab boy; then he finds a lamp and rubs it. The rest you know. Innovative and high energy adaptation of the famous story finds the Disney crew in top form, a form they perhaps did not re-discover until Wall E. Robin Williams shines as the voice of the genie, though this was in his relatively early days, before he got all coked up and annoying.

DREAMGIRLS (2006) D- Bill Condon. In early 1960s Detroit, a girl group is nurtured and brought to stardom by a clever and unscrupulous manager. A film which is said to reflect the progress of the Supremes, this is a surprisingly skillful and insightful dissection of the pop world in general and the Tamla Motown phenomenon in particular. Even Eddie Murphy, whom I usually find difficult to stomach, is very good indeed. The film is also notable for Jennifer Hudson's performance, which earned her a unique Oscar in her debut role in a feature film. Highly recommended.

INTO THE BLUE (2005) D- John Stockwell. Somewhere in the Caribbean, a group of very attractive beach-bums go diving for buried treasure, and find it in the form of a tonne of carefully packed cocaine inside the fuselage of a crashed plane. So far so good, but then the "owner" of the drugs demands they go down and retrieve the lot. Their reward? They'll be allowed to breathe.
With stars like Paul Walker on board, the movie comes over like "The Fast and the Furious at 20 fathoms", though the result is scarcely taxing to the intellect. Jessica Alba looks great though...

LINCOLN (2012) D- Steven Spielberg. In the closing months of the Civil War, the American president struggles to engineer a majority in the senate to pass his bill to emancipate the slaves. Meanwhile the fighting drags on. Spielberg really makes two kinds of films: the "ripping yarns" (Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park etc) and his "serious" efforts ( Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan). Personally I prefer his ripping yarns, but of his serious offerings I think this may be his best yet. The whole film is shot is seeming semi-darkness, with everyone talking at once (a technique of which I do not necessarily approve), but shining through almost every scene is the stunning performance of Daniel Day Lewis as the doomed president. Outstanding.

MARLEY (2012) D- Kevin McDonald. The life and times of the great reggae star captured through the reminiscences of his family, friends and fellow musicians. An exhaustive study, richly deserved in view of Bob's global fame. We see his childhood (the son of a young Jamaican beauty and a British army captain, who disappeared shortly after conception) and his gradual rise to megastardom. I thought I knew quite a bit about the dreadlocked one, but nonetheless had a number of gaps in my education filled in by the film. What came through especially vividly was the profoundly spiritual atmosphere that surrounded him throughout his life, and which influenced everyone around him. Everyone except one. His daughter seemed unimpressed by her father's saintly reputation, citing with some bitterness his incessant ganja smoking and partying for stealing her childhood.

Then there was his illness, which I had always ascribed to lung cancer, though as it turns out I couldn't have been more wrong. It all started with a malignant melanoma being found in one of his toes. The doctors recommended a hind-quarter amputation (removal of the entire leg, including the hip joint)- a step so radical he and his supporters could not contemplate such an awful thought. A pity in retrospect, because the tumour came back, spread throughout his body and killed him. As Chris Blackwell commented: "He was badly advised by the people around him" and it's hard to argue with that verdict. They could only see as far as the procedure affecting his stage performances and stopping him playing his beloved football, so they just pretended it wasn't a problem. And you can't afford to do that with a malignant melanoma...

OFFSIDE (2012) D- Jafar Panahi. A football mad Iranian woman is desperate to see her national side in a crucial World Cup qualifying match. Only problem, women aren't allowed to go to football matches. So she disguises herself as best she can, but it doesn't work; she is detained and sent to a roped-off section of the stadium out of sight of the action, where she joins a crew of other girls who have been likewise apprehended. Agonisingly, the girls can still hear the roars of the crowd, and persuade a sympathetic guard to provide a running commentary on the match from his vantage point. Absolutely brilliant portrayal of the absurdity of certain Sharia laws, rooted as they are in medieval times when, as I understand it, they didn't even play football. But of course Sharia law is designed mainly to keep women in their place: at home looking after the children and being compliant to their betters: men.
A thoroughly engrossing and highly professional piece of movie making.

ADVISE AND CONSENT (1962) D- Otto Preminger. An American president has made his choice for Secretary of State (the US equivalent to our Foreign Secretary), unaware that his protégé has a secret past. There follows a struggle not unlike the one we saw in Lincoln, where a scramble ensues to find a majority in the House to confirm the president's selection. My copy of this film had an awful soundtrack, sometimes out of synch, always rather muffled, and this did not exactly enhance a movie which lives and breathes dialogue from first shot to last. But the players (Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton et al), plus the masterful skills of director Preminger ensure it remains a quality product that has dated little since its production more than 50 years ago.

OH MR PORTER! (1937) D-Marcel Varnel. An incompetent railway employee is banished to an isolated station in Northern Ireland where it is thought even he cannot do much harm. They couldn't be more wrong..Yet somehow at the last he manages to snatch glory from the jaws of idiocy. When this film was made Will hay was at the top of his game, Britain's most popular entertainer. And this vehicle, predictably a box office smash, did little to harm that reputation. With a tremendous energy which is sustained from first scene to last, it remains riotously funny even after the passing of three-quarters of a century.

OCTOBER 1917: TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (1927) D- Sergei Eisentein. Stalin personally authorised the making of this documentary film to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Russia's glorious revolution. Equipped with an unlimited budget, Eisenstein set about re-creating the great scenes, using thousands of extras and exploiting to the full the willing co-operation of the city fathers of St Petersburg (then called Petrograd, later to be known as Leningrad). The result (carefully airbrushed to avoid any reference to Trotsky, by then in exile) is an astonishingly authentic-looking film. Indeed it is almost impossible to view the set-pieces as anything other than contemporary footage.
Extraordinary.

THE TREE OF LIFE (2011) D- Terrence Malick. A lower-middle class family in 1950s Texas struggles to come terms with the standard vicissitudes of family life: death, disappointment and compromise. Here Terrence Malick has created his most thoughtful, sensitive and beautiful film yet. Brad Pitt as the bullying father who is consumed by guilt is superb, as is Sean Penn, who plays one of the children grown into adulthood. His broody presence, almost completely devoid of dialogue (there's actually very little dialogue in the entire film) towers above the movie, while Hunter McCracken who plays the character as a child is also brilliant. And let us not forget Jessica Chastain, whose face can portray enormous emotion with the barest micro-expression.
A strange, hypnotic, sometimes confusing, but ultimately exceptional piece of cinema ..

Brady revisited

Whatever we might have thought of Ian Brady's loathsome performance yesterday, one thing we cannot criticise was his honesty.

In one of the most astounding statements I have ever heard, he not only showed zero remorse for his foul murders of innocent children, he actually justified them on the grounds that they were an "existential act". I've seen murderers try to wriggle out of their responsibilities; I've heard them express the profoundest remorse for their evil acts, but never, never have I heard them justified in this way. I've heard it said that Brady has an IQ of 150 or thereabouts, but clearly he has been reading too much Nietzsche and Sartre- and taking them a bit too literally.

And if he seriously does want to influence the mental health tribunal panel into thinking he's sane enough to be returned to an ordinary (if maximum security) prison, is he sure this was the right way to go about it? Mental health tribunals are made up of lay as well as professionally qualified members, and I can only imagine they were, every one of them, revolted to their collective core by what they heard yesterday, placing them in no mood to give in to any of Brady's demands.

They are certainly faced with a very tricky problem. They are there to decide whether it is still right to detain him under the mental health act, or whether he is sane and should therefore get his wish and go back to prison. But what if he decides to feign "madness" again once he is back in, say, Durham gaol? Would he then be transferred back to Ashworth until he's compos mentis again? I think they will conclude that, for a variety of reasons, but principally because the state does not appreciate having its chain yanked, that he should stay where he is. And even though I do not believe he is mad in the medical sense of the word, they're probably right. But they could take his naso-gastric tube out and see what happens... 

Let him die

The Moors murderer Ian Brady was in court last week to request permission to be allowed to starve himself to death. The Court is currently mulling over his request, but in truth there is only one issue: is he mad or not? 

The freedom to end one's life is, in its way, a fundamental human right. The only circumstances under which someone may be prevented by force from harming themselves is if they have been deemed a danger to themselves or others by reason of mental illness. Some 12 or so years ago Brady was diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia, and thereafter his attempts to starve himself have been thwarted by passing a naso-gastric tube and being tube-fed against his will. Last week Brady argued that the diagnosis is not safe and never has been; that it was made as a result of political machination. And even the authorities admit he has shown no signs of psychosis since then. Indeed, some say Brady simulated those symptoms at the time for reasons best known to himself. There is no doubt that in order to commit such terrible acts he must have a severe personality disorder, one in which there is no caring and compassion for the plight of other human beings, but that doesn't make him mad- just very, very bad.

Whatever the truth of that, the authorities (among which we must include the Home Secretary) must now decide whether such a diagnosis still applies. If not, he will be sent from the secure mental unit where he now resides to an ordinary prison, where, if he is as good as his word, he will deprive himself of food until he dies.

Ian Brady is a strong candidate for "most evil man in Britain", an accolade he justly earned in the mid 1960s following a series of horrific child murders. And although he has had some opposition in more recent times by, say, Ian Huntley, I think most people would agree he is still out on his own in terms of the hatred he has aroused in the hearts and minds of ordinary British people. His partner in crime, Myra Hindley, certainly stood alone during her lifetime as the worst woman who ever lived, partly because she abnegated all her "natural, maternal feelings" in order to perpetrate her terrible crimes. Now she is dead, but Brady is still here. I have heard it said that he should never be allowed to end his own life, because of the enormity of his offences, but I cannot agree. Regardless of how awful a criminal's history may be, the option to end one's life must be part of the human rights package every human is entitled to- even if they are incarcerated indefinitely. To deny such a right to anyone is itself a crime against humanity. Brady has chosen to end his life in one of the most unpleasant ways imaginable- if he wishes to do that, and no evidence can be produced to prove he is not responsible for his actions, then so be it.

On conspiracies

Conspiracy theory is hot at the moment, though there's nothing new about it. The first one I heard about was in the 60s, following the Kennedy assassination. The "One Lone Nut" theory produced by the Warren Commission was roundly rejected by many, and its findings were widely labelled as a cover-up. Remember "the magic bullet", and "the 2nd shooter on the grassy knoll"? I have to say I was quite persuaded at the time, though more exhaustive research, including an incredibly detailed, computer assisted reconstruction showed there was nothing magic about the bullet' that struck both Kennedy and Governor Connolly. Kennedy was sitting in a higher seat than the governor who sat in front of him: the bullet behaved in a perfectly normal way.

Then, also relating to events I remember clearly from the 60s, is the perennially popular belief that the Moon landings were faked. Actually my favourite story about this is the one where Buzz Aldrin was confronted by one of these idiots, who actually went so far as to call him a coward to his face. Aldrin duly decked him, was sued by the punchee, who lost. Excellent. I came across one of these guys recently and put the following points to him: first, did he believe that the Russian Sputnik was real? Did Gagarin really go into space, or John Glenn? How about the Gemini programme, a preparation for Apollo, when the Americans sent two astronauts up at the same time? He nodded grudging ascent to all these.

OK, I continued, warming to my task, let's look at the Apollo programme itself. Manned flights in the Apollo programme began with Apollo 7, which was conducted in Earth orbit. Then Apollo 8, which orbited the Moon. Did that happen? Apollo 9, again conducted in Earth orbit but involved all the elements of the mission: command module, service module and the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module). Are you still with me? My friend was starting to look a little worried. The next mission, Apollo10, saw the astronauts again going to the moon, but separating the LEM, taking it down to within 50,000 feet of the Lunar surface before re-docking with the command module, this to prove all the technology worked before the great Apollo 11 mission, where they simply went one stage further and landed on the surface. I asked my friend: at which point did NASA start making things up? You see what I mean? It's all crap, and terribly hurtful crap for people like me, who followed all these missions with infinite excitement, knowing we were witnessing history being made. Why don't people want to believe this? And why do they think dark forces in the US state engineered the 9/11 attacks for their own purposes, or that an organisation called the Bilderberg Group is running the World behind our backs?

It is instructive at this point to refer to David Arronovitch's views, a man with (I believe) no particular reason to act as an agent of the State. His take is that people would sooner believe in global conspiracy theories than face the fact that the World is actually an immensely complex organism where unpredictable and terrible things sometimes happen, as well as incomparably wonderful things too (like the Moon landings). Did you see him with Alex Jones on the Daily Politics Show with Andrew Neill? (you can catch on You Tube, as I did) Mr Jones ranted about Bilderberg, saying they would cut off the heads of anyone who tried to reveal their existence. Arronovitch responded:
"I'm here to testify, Mr Jones, that your head is still on your shoulders."

OK, you want a real conspiracy? Try this one for size. In the autumn of 2001, in the weeks following 9/11, letters containing anthrax bacteria began arriving on the desks of certain highly placed individuals within the government. One was even addressed to George W, who announced publicly he'd been immunised and that one of his agents kept a stock of ciproxin on hand for use in emergencies. Then the precise DNA profile of the bacteria was extracted and guess what? The DNA profile proved conclusively that the bacteria could only have come from the government's own bacteriological research facility. That's right. Someone very high up in that organisation apparently took it upon himself to send these contaminated letters, in the hope that it would be ascribed to Al Qaida (which it was) and provide an impetus to invade Afghanistan (which it did). All this is a matter of well documented fact, though oddly you don't hear much about it these days. You like? A word of warning though: don't tell the conspiracy theorists- it'll only encourage them...

Ireland dispatch

For the second time we have travelled to Dublin for the famous Bloomsday celebrations. In 2010 we were graced by glorious summer skies; this time we were less blessed: skies throughout were a patina of slate grey clouds, which sometimes issued showers of cooling rain. However the festivities proceeded as if immune from any incursion the weather might attempt, and the highlight, a witty and highly politically aware tour of Dublin's famous Glasnevin cemetery, went off with only a few unwelcome precipitating drops. As for us, we briefly became the focus of attention in our authentic Edwardian clothes, which charming custom has been part of Bloomsday since its inception in the post war years. Certainly my wife and her bookcrossing friends looked very fetching in their outfits, though personally I felt my middle-aged paunch was rather too prominent.

The stay opened with a 25 minute bus ride from the airport to the city centre. I sat next to a young woman who was so engrossed by her mobile phone she did not for a single moment glance away from her mobile phone. She spent about half the time playing a game my wife informs me is called "Candy Crush", and must be highly addictive, if her single minded obsession was anything to go by. Intermittently a ringing sound emanated from the phone; presumably alerting her to a facebook ping or maybe a tweet. Then she would break off from her game and type furiously for a few moments before returning to her game.

It strikes me that the penetration of the mobile phone has become world wide and all pervasive. During my 4 day sojourn I registered phones being used by children as young as five, every young person of course, but also the majority even of old gits such as myself (I should perhaps mention that I did carry such a device myself, though it remained turned off most of the time). I can't help wondering if this is really an optimal way for people to behave. By absorbing oneself in its dubious delights, one becomes oblivious to the surrounding environment: its sounds, smells, sights, even its potential threats. If you are a mobile fan you may disagree, but I have seen it for myself this weekend. I saw a young, attractive, but exceedingly glum looking couple share breakfast together in the hotel. In between bites of buttered toast and marmalade, they exchanged hardly a word or even a glance, both totally absorbed in their own devices- not talking into them you understand, that activity has become almost passé these days, but staring at their screens and jabbing at their keypads. At one point the man got up from the table, telling his wife "I've got to take this" and went outside. Only then, alone, she put down her phone and stared into the distance with a  look of utter dejection on her face. She cheered up when he returned, however, and took up her phone again as before.

Maybe I'm an old fashioned fuddy-duddy who has failed to keep up with "techno-progress", but maybe I'm seeing this new institution for the pernicious development it truly is.

PS: sport supplement. Each evening when back in our hotel room we watched the "National", aka the US Open golf and were privileged to watch the highly emotional victory of Brit Justin Rose. But there were problems. Firstly, every single scene was accompanied by the drone of the Goodyear blimp floating overhead. Sometimes fainter, sometimes really intrusively loud, the noise never went away from opening tee shot to final putt. I know professional golfers are famed for their fierce concentration, but I can't believe they didn't find it intrusive. Then there was the crowd. Now I know sporting crowds are always loyal to their countrymen, but did they have to boo Luke Donald's every shot? What did he do? (they did the same to Sergio Garcia, but then we all know what he did)
Finally, if I were Il Supremo, Emperor of the world, I would ban the shouting of "In the hole!" after every shot played. It's boring and stupid. On one occasion someone shouted it just as Justin was beginning his downswing. It didn't spoil his shot, fortunately, and class act that he is (Colin Montgomery would have gone apoplectic) he simply remarked: "That was a bit early." Now that's a true champion.

Whistleblowers: look out. The state is after you

Whistleblowers in all walks of life are an endangered species. And when they summon the bravery to make their concerns public, they risk the full fury of the state. Remember what happened when Mordecai Venunu alerted the world to the Israeli's possession of nuclear weapons? They put him in priz for 20 years. In America right now Bradley Manning is facing 300 years in a maximum security facility for leaking details about the hideous way America fights its wars. And it is worth adding here that while I accept that Julian Assange is grappling with his own problems at the moment, neither he nor the Wikileaks organisation has, despite promises made, offered any material support to Manning, even though his leaks to them have enhanced their profile enormously. A similar fate awaits a certain Mr Snowden should he emerge from hiding in Hong Kong and be foolish enough to return to his homeland.

Yet these heroes have made all of us sadder, if wiser with their horrific revelations. Here at home, anyone revealing the lamentable condition of our health service can expect to be sent to Coventry, lose their job or face criminal prosecution. But we need these brave ones, without them the fiasco at Mid-Staffordshire hospital would never have come to light, or the shameful disorganisation at Bristol children's heart hospital where so many unnecessary deaths occurred.

My suggestion: rather than punishing the whistleblowers, if after investigation their claims are substantiated (because we can't have people spreading a lot of lies) they should actually be rewarded, perhaps by promotion, perhaps by a cash handout from the institution they have discredited. That would be something like justice and not the current witch-hunts they face at the present.

Pelagius gets it wrong... spectacularly

Two months ago, after watching Rafa Nadal lose his Monte Carlo crown to a  surging Novak Djokavic, I noted his slow return to form following his injury lay-off of last year and predicted he would win no Majors this year

I have just now witnessed the architect of my hubris pull off a sensational win in that very tournament (I refer here to the win rather than the match itself; which was a very one sided affair, illustrating how far ahead of the rest of the field Nadal has become on clay). Throughout the championship he never looked in any doubt of achieving the unique record of eight wins at a single a Grand Slam tournament. No one, not Bjorn Borg, not Pete Sampras, not Roger Federer even, ever did that. And we can only suspect that other Majors may be vulnerable to the redoubtable Majorcan this year. In 2008 Nadal achieved another unique record when he became the only man ever to have won the French, Queens and Wimbledon in the same year, breaking a psychological taboo which had been in place for several decades. Obviously no one had told Nadal about it. I wonder what odds you could get on that particular treble this year?
[supplement:11.6.13: not good. I understand he isn't playing at Queens this year]

In the Gotterdammerung department, the quarter-finals saw the exit of a great champion of yore: the peerless Roger Federer. He's not quite as quick around the court as he used to be; he's 32 for chrissake and that's pensionable age for a professional tennis player. But he remains the consummate artist. At one point in his match against Tsonga he was forced out wide on the right and whipped a forehand which propelled the ball, fizzing with top and sidespin, between the umpire's chair and the net post, before finding its way to the baseline, precisely at the corner of the court. His French opponent seemed to stare at the ball afterwards, baffled momentarily by what Federer had just conjured. Oh, tennis! I love you so much. I can't play any more because of me knees, doc, but I can still enjoy. So I say: bring Wimbers on, if you please!

Living on planet Earth is bad for your unborn baby: official

Today the RCOG (Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists) has issued a report advising mothers-to-be to avoid all sorts of agents in the environment in order to give their offspring the best chance of success in later life. These include food packed in plastic, food in tins and even new cars. Now we all know that that "new car smell" is kinda funny, but isn't this a little bit crazy?

There is already overwhelming evidence that smoking and drinking in pregnancy has a toxic effect on the foetus, though critics have suggested that the evidence for the other things mentioned above is lacking, and they have a point. So: has the RCOG gone too far?

I don't think so. You see, the fact is that all sorts of strange things can happen in the intra-uterine environment which can have a devastating effect on the life of the unborn baby, and we don't understand all of them. Everyone knows about the terrible effect of certain drugs (thalidomide immediately springs to mind) and infections like rubella, but some babies are born with significant defects for no readily apparent reason.

The transformation of a single celled zygote into a seven pound baby is one of the most extraordinary miracles in nature. Babies in the womb grow faster than the most malignant tumour, yet while a cancer is just a blob of undifferentiated tissue, in babies every cell is completely differentiated into bone, sinew, nerve and so on, and all in exactly the right place. But sometimes, for reasons we do not yet understand, it goes horribly wrong

Let us take the case of anencephaly, a situation where the top half of the brain fails to form and affected children always die within hours of birth. No one knows why. And this awful condition is commoner in south Wales and the north-east of England than anywhere else in the world. Now these areas are both known for their economic deprivation, but then plenty of other areas are even worse, so that cannot be the sole answer. At one time the agent responsible was thought to be a virus that causes potatoes to rot, but further research discredited this theory. We're back where we started. So if the RCOG's off-the-wall ideas were adopted by the nation as a whole, and if even a few less foetal malformations resulted, wouldn't that be great?

May book and film review

BOOKS

A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME, by Anthony Powell. Volume VIII: THE SOLDIER'S ART.
Nick is still in the army, though he still finds time off to lunch with his friends at the Café Royal. Then a bomb falls and everyone's life is changed forever: rich and poor alike. Any more info at this point could be construed as a spoiler, so I won't. Read and savour for yourself. You won't regret it. Powell's writing is finely wrought, but eminently readable. Put another way, he's my kind of author..

MARCH TO THE MONTERIA, by B Traven. A young Mexican Indian is diddled out of his pay check by exploitative agents of a local landowner and forced to take part in a trek through the jungle to deliver goods to the Monteria (a mahogany logging operation). He seems placid enough on the surface, and this option is certainly preferable to a lengthy stay in prison, but inwardly he is planning a terrible revenge on the people who wronged him. Traven's ongoing preoccupation is to chronicle the terrible fate of the Mexican poor, who are ripped off by cynical capitalists at every turn, amd he does so eloquently in this book. The committed politics aside, this, like all Traven's novels, is also a gripping tale of hardship and sudden violence. Good stuff.

THE ROSE OF TIBET, by Lionel Davidson. In 1950, a young man journeys to Tibet to rescue his brother who has apparently disappeared into the eternal snows of that land, now embattled by incursions from the land-grabbing Chinese. Once there, he finds to his astonishment that he is recognised as some sort of living god. Not only that, but the local abbess, virginally pure, gets the hots for him. Big time... Graham Greene thought this book was a breath of fresh air in the field of "pure works of the imagination" and it is hard to argue with that verdict. Reading like a rather better written novel of Dan Brown, with symbols, mysticism, and even a touch of the preternatural as well as a fair salting of violence.  The action is unrelenting and described in horrifying detail, like the moment when our hero encounters a bear in the high ice deserts of the Himalaya. Nasty...

A HERO OF OUR TIME, by Mikhail Lermontov. An aristocratic, rather self-centred young soldier is exiled to a regiment in the Caucasus where he has a number of exploits. The tales are told, not by him but by the people he encounters, or extracted from diaries the young man kept at the time. We see him trick a vulnerable young beauty into falling in love with him, carelessly snubbing an old comrade, then tricking another man into a duel he knows he can't lose. Written and structured in a manner which seems contemporary to us even today, it must have been thought revolutionary at the time. This, quite simply, is one of the greatest short novels ever written. Not just my opinion: Tolstoy and Gogol thought the same.
The introduction highlights the subtlety and multi-layering of the book, stating that there is much within its pages to appeal to the most discerning of critics as well as the "ordinary reader simply seeking entertainment". By these criteria I am clearly in the latter category, but this pedestrian reader's life has been actually moved by this marvellous book. In fact the real tragedy is Lermontov himself, who at the age of 26 embarked on a hasty duel with an old friend and was run through on the spot. Considering that he wrote this incredible book at the age of just 24, the loss to the world of literature is incalculable

FILMS

THE CAPTIVE CITY (1953) D- Robert Wise. A young newspaper man in a small town works to expose an organised crime racket that is blighting his community. They're none too pleased by his efforts, and seek to eliminate him- and his family. Effectively directed by the estimable Wise, who approaches his subject in an almost documentary style, it stars a very good John Forsythe (that's right; he did more than play Blake Carrington in Dynasty and doing the voice-over for Charlie in Charlie's Angels) and the result is an understated, near-classic product.

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS (2002) D- Phil Aiden Robinson. CIA man Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) struggles to foil the evil plans of a terrorist group who want to ferment a world war by exploding a dirty bomb in America's heartland. Adapted from Tom Clancy's book, this is exactly what we might expect: a competently made thriller, not very probable, but no less entertaining for that. And Affleck convinces more than he often does. Not bad.

TED (2012) W-D- Seth McFarlane. A teddy-bear comes to life and provides a life-long companion to Mark Wahlberg. But when Marky gets hitched, Ted becomes jealous and hilarious consequences ensue. A kind of modern fairy tale, and with Seth McFarlane's stamp over every frame, we inevitably see strong echoes of Family Guy. You'd think that I, a big fan of Peter Griffin and his long suffering family, would love this; I mean, I like a good fart joke as much as the next man, perhaps more, but somehow there's something missing. What am I saying? It just isn't funny enough, despite the high production gloss. Shame. Perhaps he'll do better next time.

PROMETHEUS (2012) D- Ridley Scott. A crew of astronauts is sent to a distant planet where, allegedly, there be aliens. A prequel to Scott's 1979 masterpiece Alien, this is clearly the film he has wanted to make for years. There are frequent references to his earlier film, including a highly humanoid android who hides a dark secret. Nothing could equal the shock value of his original, but even so Scott creates another fine, frightening and highly disturbing movie. If you liked the first one, I'd say you've pretty much got to see this one.

THE MESSENGER (2009) D- Oren Moverman. A young army sergeant (Ben Foster) is drafted, against his will, into a squad (led by the excellent Woody Harrelson) whose job it is to inform relatives of  the death of their loved ones in combat in Iraq. And they must do their job quickly, before the news makes the media. But everyone involved already appears traumatised by their own experiences of war, so whether they are best fitted for this grim task is open to question. This film has moments of greatness, especially in the scenes where Harrelson and Foster confront the bereaved: some of these cameos, almost little "filmlets" in their own right, are almost unbearably intense. But then the film is spoiled for me by some worrying scenes in which the characters suddenly behave out of character: for example, after appearing in every scene as the epitomes of sartorial elegance, they turn up at the wedding of Foster's ex-wife in torn jeans and filthy tee shirts. Maybe the director is seeking to show us the damaging effects of PTSD on one's personality, but it didn't work for me.

THE HUNT (2012) D- Thomas Vinterberg. A kindergarten teacher slightly upsets one of his charges, who extracts her revenge by accusing him of abusing her. She is believed over his protestations of innocence, and he is fired (though not prosecuted) From then on the small town community in which he lives ostracises him. Absolutely terrific and terrifyingly authentic account of small town prejudice given free rein by an atmosphere of crushing political correctness. And Madds Mickelsen (you'll remember him as Daniel Craig's nemesis in Casino Royale) is superb.

MIDNIGHT RUN (1988) D-Martin Brest. A bounty hunter (Bob deNiro) is commissioned to bring in an accountant (a very good Charles Grodin) who has ripped off the mob (though he has given the money to charity). However there's a big bonus if he delivers the suspect, not to the authorities but to the mob itself, so they can take their awful revenge personally. Bob takes the job, but moral issues cloud his normally incisive actions... A well made feature with strong performances all round, even if the ending doesn't quite jive with what we have seen already. Or maybe it's me. Watchable

PRIMER (2004) D- Shane Caruth. Workers at an IT firm accidentally make a time machine, which they use, firstly to make some money gambling, but then to alter the past to improve their present lives. But they keep making mistakes and having to go back to make further adjustments. Soon it all begins to fall apart, as we might expect. They should have read Einstein's writing on time paradoxes. I had a hard time remembering anything about this film only three weeks after seeing it, which I think says less about my incipient Alzheimer's than its essentially lacklustre nature. At least that's what I believe and I'm sticking to it.

TOTAL RECALL (2012) D- Len Wiseman. In the near future, a remarkably buff Colin Farrell buys some artificial memories, only to discover he has walked into a complex web of crime and murder. Then... Oh, why am I bothering? You know the plot already don't you, having seen the excellent original crafted by a Paul Verhoven at the top of his high-octane game. So why do we need this remake, and a remake which is only a dim shadow of its progenitor? I'm going to admit it: I gave this film only 60 minutes before saying enough is enough. And I don't do that very often. Seriously, don't bother wasting 2 hours of your precious life on this one.

THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS (1998) D- Antoine Fuqua. Hitman Chow Yun Fat is hired to kill a gangland boss's enemy, but when he sees him playing with his little boy he can't bring himself to go through with it. Enraged, the gang boss sends assassins to do him in. And when they fail, a replacement set are brought in- geddit? I like Chow Yun Fat a lot: I mean he's a Chinaman who's name isn't Lee, which is a change. Seriously, I enjoyed this romp which manages to keep the energy up throughout. The body count is kind of high though, so be warned.

THE CHANT OF JIMMY BLACKSMITH (1978) D- Fred Schepisi. In turn of the 20th century Australia, a young aboriginal boy is nurtured by a local teacher who teaches him to read and write; something a lot of the ruling white community can't do. But he soon finds that being literate provides no escape from the Apartheid-type system that operated in those days. Gradually his sense of resentment builds... Sensitive, beautiful and ultimately savagely horrific, this is a quite stunning piece of movie making as well as a comprehensive condemnation of man's inhumanity to man. Brilliant.