Eddie Izard has been refused permission to run in the Palestine marathon, which was run today. 7000 people took part, but he was not invited, not by the Israelis but by the Palestinians themselves.
Why would they do that? Simple. Eddie performed his act in Tel Aviv yesterday, in contravention of the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) guidelines the Palestinians feel is crucial in their fight for equality with their masters.
Eddie was spotted in the "Singer" cafe in Bethlehem today, trendy waterhole for cool tourists to this embattled land. And there he was given a little lecture in geopolitics by local political analyst Baha Hilo. Story goes, poor Eddie was left feeling a sadder, but wiser man by the end of it. But Eddie, how could you be so naive? I have had so much admiration for you until now, yet you have fallen for the Israeli Zionist lies about everyone getting together and it'll be fine. It won't.
Back in the 80s there's was a campaign to isolate Apartheid South Africa by an early version of BDS. And when cricketers like Graham Gooch took big bags of cash to play there,or singers like Elton John who played at Sun City, they were rightly vilified by the ANC and everyone fighting for justice for the black people of South Africa. And I'm sorry Eddie, but we should be doing the same thing for people who make money out of the equally apartheid system that now operates in Palestine. Like you. I still like you, but do your homework next time
Friday, 31 March 2017
Tuesday, 28 March 2017
The good war: against polio
Poliomyelitis is a terrible disease. While I can happily say I have never seen a fresh case, I have seen the long term consequences many times: useless legs, paralysis from the neck down; in my early career I used to see burnt out polio cases all the time.
There hasn't been a new case of polio in the UK for over forty years, in no small part due to the highly successful immunization campaign, in which I played a small part. I have personally protected thousands of babies, first using the groundbreaking Salk vaccine, then the even better drops-in-the-mouth Sabin vaccine.
Thus was not always the case. One of my earliest memories is hearing on the radio weekly bulletins on the number of new polio cases that week, 200, 300, sometimes more. But polio has remained common in the developing world. Then Bill Gates and his wife started spending literally billions of dollars in attempting to vaccinate every at risk child. It nearly worked, but last year there were 37 cases reported in the world, all of them in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Not many compared to the millions of cases per year not so long ago, but still too many. And over the weekend, 190,000 vaccinators prepared a massive frontal assault against the implacable foe, aiming to vaccinate no less than 116 million children, mainly in Africa. Please God it will make a difference.
When I was 12 years old there was a smallpox outbreak in South Wales and I remember every child in our school being vaccinated against the disease. Except me. I suffered from severe eczema at the time and this is a contra-indication to using the vaccine: if vaccinated such people will actually develop smallpox in all the areas they experience eczema, which would have been a significant percentage of my body surface, a condition known as eczema vaccinatum. This is usually fatal.
WHO and the UN mounted a massive war against smallpox in the 70s which led to the last case being reported, in Ethiopia, in 1977. There hasn't been a reported case since, with the exception of an unlucky technician in a laboratory in Birmingham of all places.
There is a message here for all parents, wherever they are (and there are plenty of them here in the UK) who refuse to have their kids vaccinated. These parents are cheats. They leach off the protection gained by their children's cohort being immunized, without taking the tiny risk for their own children that the rest of the community is willing to accept. I'm not saying they should be forced to immunize their children, though in the US several states will not allow children to attend school unless they have been. Perhaps we should do the same thing here. If not, they could be named and shamed. They deserve it.
There hasn't been a new case of polio in the UK for over forty years, in no small part due to the highly successful immunization campaign, in which I played a small part. I have personally protected thousands of babies, first using the groundbreaking Salk vaccine, then the even better drops-in-the-mouth Sabin vaccine.
Thus was not always the case. One of my earliest memories is hearing on the radio weekly bulletins on the number of new polio cases that week, 200, 300, sometimes more. But polio has remained common in the developing world. Then Bill Gates and his wife started spending literally billions of dollars in attempting to vaccinate every at risk child. It nearly worked, but last year there were 37 cases reported in the world, all of them in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Not many compared to the millions of cases per year not so long ago, but still too many. And over the weekend, 190,000 vaccinators prepared a massive frontal assault against the implacable foe, aiming to vaccinate no less than 116 million children, mainly in Africa. Please God it will make a difference.
When I was 12 years old there was a smallpox outbreak in South Wales and I remember every child in our school being vaccinated against the disease. Except me. I suffered from severe eczema at the time and this is a contra-indication to using the vaccine: if vaccinated such people will actually develop smallpox in all the areas they experience eczema, which would have been a significant percentage of my body surface, a condition known as eczema vaccinatum. This is usually fatal.
WHO and the UN mounted a massive war against smallpox in the 70s which led to the last case being reported, in Ethiopia, in 1977. There hasn't been a reported case since, with the exception of an unlucky technician in a laboratory in Birmingham of all places.
There is a message here for all parents, wherever they are (and there are plenty of them here in the UK) who refuse to have their kids vaccinated. These parents are cheats. They leach off the protection gained by their children's cohort being immunized, without taking the tiny risk for their own children that the rest of the community is willing to accept. I'm not saying they should be forced to immunize their children, though in the US several states will not allow children to attend school unless they have been. Perhaps we should do the same thing here. If not, they could be named and shamed. They deserve it.
Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Brexit gets serious
Theresa May has accused Nicola Sturgeon of "playing politics with Brexit". And indeed she has. We all played politics with Brexit last June, when over 30 million of us voted to remain or leave the EU. Now the hard Brexiteers are playing politics with Brexit, as are the softies, and the Remaoaners.
Brexit is politics. Asking someone to "leave the politics out of Brexit" is like asking people to leave the balls out of tennis, or the violence out of boxing. I remember the Apartheid South African government bleating that politics should be kept out of sport, after they'd put it in the first place. Politics is part of every human activity you care to name. When I was an active member of Friends of the Earth back in the 70s we used to say: "existence on planet Earth is a political act".
You can't keep the politics out of anything, and the idea you should keep it out of something like Brexit is one of the dumbest oxymorons I've ever heard. I'm glad the SNP is making it awkward for the Brexiteers. I don't want Scotland to leave the UK, though I really couldn't blame them now if they did, and immediately applied to join the EU. If they've got any sense they'll ask to join the euro zone as well, as I suspect they'll have to if they want their application to succeed. Good luck Scotland the Brave!
Brexit is politics. Asking someone to "leave the politics out of Brexit" is like asking people to leave the balls out of tennis, or the violence out of boxing. I remember the Apartheid South African government bleating that politics should be kept out of sport, after they'd put it in the first place. Politics is part of every human activity you care to name. When I was an active member of Friends of the Earth back in the 70s we used to say: "existence on planet Earth is a political act".
You can't keep the politics out of anything, and the idea you should keep it out of something like Brexit is one of the dumbest oxymorons I've ever heard. I'm glad the SNP is making it awkward for the Brexiteers. I don't want Scotland to leave the UK, though I really couldn't blame them now if they did, and immediately applied to join the EU. If they've got any sense they'll ask to join the euro zone as well, as I suspect they'll have to if they want their application to succeed. Good luck Scotland the Brave!
Saturday, 11 March 2017
Enough with the knee-jerk reaction already
Judge Lindsay Kushner got in hot water with women's groups over her remarks that women should be cautious about getting falling-down drunk in public places, or perhaps anywhere else. She didn't say that offers a licence for men to rape them, and she didn't say it would be their fault if they did, she just said they should be careful.
Sounds like good advice. I'm a man, but there are places in Cardiff I wouldn't visit at night- the back lanes in the area I live, for instance. They are magnets to junkies and drunkies who congregate there (in the daytime as well, actually) and might see me as legitimate prey. Similarly if I told you I was thinking of taking a city break in Mosul or undertaking a driving holiday in rural Afghanistan you'd think I was nuts.
Judge Kushner took care to say what has become a mantra of the women's movement for more than 30 years:
"Whatever we wear and wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no"
But her remarks have been distorted by those same women's movements as granting a charter to rapists. She said nothing of the kind. All she was doing was pointing out the realities of the world we live in: a world peopled by very unpleasant men who are waiting for the opportunity to abuse and mistreat women, and that it makes sense for women to take sensible precautions to protect themselves.
Sounds like good advice. I'm a man, but there are places in Cardiff I wouldn't visit at night- the back lanes in the area I live, for instance. They are magnets to junkies and drunkies who congregate there (in the daytime as well, actually) and might see me as legitimate prey. Similarly if I told you I was thinking of taking a city break in Mosul or undertaking a driving holiday in rural Afghanistan you'd think I was nuts.
Judge Kushner took care to say what has become a mantra of the women's movement for more than 30 years:
"Whatever we wear and wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no"
But her remarks have been distorted by those same women's movements as granting a charter to rapists. She said nothing of the kind. All she was doing was pointing out the realities of the world we live in: a world peopled by very unpleasant men who are waiting for the opportunity to abuse and mistreat women, and that it makes sense for women to take sensible precautions to protect themselves.
Wednesday, 1 March 2017
February 2017 Film Review, Continued
PRIMAL FEAR (1996) D- Gregory Hoblit
A teenage altar-boy (a brilliant Ed Norton in his film debut) is accused of murdering his priest, and it looks like an open-and-shut case: he's got blood all over him, and he's found next to the body. Nobody believes his cries of innocence, except Richard Gere, who plays a whiz-kid lawyer who can see a real juicy way of advancing his already successful career. But is everything as it seems? Are you kidding me? Of course it isn't.
Competently written and directed, and starring some more than competent players, this had me gripped from start to finish. Great courtroom thriller.
NAPOLEON (1927) D- Abel Gance
A twelve-year old boy studying at a military academy is taking part in the great annual snowball fight, where half the school takes on the other half. Hit by a snowball wrapped around a sharp pebble, he is bloodied but unbowed, and starts to organise his fellows into an effective fighting force. Before long he prevails, and the "enemy" is routed. Looking on, one of his mentors murmurs to his colleague that this boy will go far...
Later, he rises through the ranks of Le grand Armee, becoming a brigadier-general by the age of 24. Then comes the French Revolution and, losing favour, escapes the guillotine by a whisker. Nothing can stop him now...
At 5 hours and 32 minutes, this is one of the longest feature films ever made. It is also one of the best. First there was Georges Melies, then there was D.W. Griffith, then there was Abel Gance, a man who, like a Beethoven or a Picasso, single-handedly brought his chosen art into a new, completely different realm. Devising virtually on the hoof one revolutionary technique after another (colour-washes, slow pan, zoom, tight close-up, split-screen, multi-screen, hand-held camera and even ultra-wide screen, "cinerama", to name just a few) and, moreover, drawing an astounding performance from his star, Albert Dieudonne, Gance created one of the key movies in the history of the cinema. And to think, this was to be just the first in a trilogy of films that might have lasted a total of more than eighteen hours! Poor bugger, ran out of funding and was almost forgotten until Kevin Brownlow decided to devote a fair fraction of his life to restoring the fading print that was available in the 60s to the crisp, beautiful version we can see today, further digitally enhanced by a team from the BFI in the Millennium. Unique.
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2016) W/D- Kenneth Lonergan
A Massachusetts man's brother dies unexpectedly, and, even more unexpectedly, stipilulates in his will that his brother look after his 16 year-old son. But Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) already has more than enough problems of his own, and cannot see how he is ever going to be able to take on this new responsibility.
A few days later, two women watch him walk past in the street. "Isn't that Lee Chandler?" One asks., to which the other says, "What, the Lee Chandler?" Now it is clear, Lee has a past, some notoriety indeed, though it is some time before, in this remarkable piece of "showing-not-telling" we find out what. And when we do, we can see why Lee is reluctant to take a confident, horny adolescent under his wing. Which doesn't mean he doesn't try. He tries hard, but it is beyond him.
There is an unforgettable moment towards the end of the film when he tries to explain to his charge why he can't hack it:
"I can't beat it. I'm sorry. I can't beat it."
I don't wish to spoil the plot for a movie which is one of the most moving, brilliantly written and directed pieces I have seen in the past twenty years. Casey Affleck's performance is a miracle, as is Michelle Williams's, an actress who can portray more with a slight quivering of the lips than most actresses can do with their whole bodies. I cried at several points, and believe me, I'm a hard-bitten bastard. A wonderful, wonderful picture. If you only see one film this year, make it this one.
A teenage altar-boy (a brilliant Ed Norton in his film debut) is accused of murdering his priest, and it looks like an open-and-shut case: he's got blood all over him, and he's found next to the body. Nobody believes his cries of innocence, except Richard Gere, who plays a whiz-kid lawyer who can see a real juicy way of advancing his already successful career. But is everything as it seems? Are you kidding me? Of course it isn't.
Competently written and directed, and starring some more than competent players, this had me gripped from start to finish. Great courtroom thriller.
NAPOLEON (1927) D- Abel Gance
A twelve-year old boy studying at a military academy is taking part in the great annual snowball fight, where half the school takes on the other half. Hit by a snowball wrapped around a sharp pebble, he is bloodied but unbowed, and starts to organise his fellows into an effective fighting force. Before long he prevails, and the "enemy" is routed. Looking on, one of his mentors murmurs to his colleague that this boy will go far...
Later, he rises through the ranks of Le grand Armee, becoming a brigadier-general by the age of 24. Then comes the French Revolution and, losing favour, escapes the guillotine by a whisker. Nothing can stop him now...
At 5 hours and 32 minutes, this is one of the longest feature films ever made. It is also one of the best. First there was Georges Melies, then there was D.W. Griffith, then there was Abel Gance, a man who, like a Beethoven or a Picasso, single-handedly brought his chosen art into a new, completely different realm. Devising virtually on the hoof one revolutionary technique after another (colour-washes, slow pan, zoom, tight close-up, split-screen, multi-screen, hand-held camera and even ultra-wide screen, "cinerama", to name just a few) and, moreover, drawing an astounding performance from his star, Albert Dieudonne, Gance created one of the key movies in the history of the cinema. And to think, this was to be just the first in a trilogy of films that might have lasted a total of more than eighteen hours! Poor bugger, ran out of funding and was almost forgotten until Kevin Brownlow decided to devote a fair fraction of his life to restoring the fading print that was available in the 60s to the crisp, beautiful version we can see today, further digitally enhanced by a team from the BFI in the Millennium. Unique.
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2016) W/D- Kenneth Lonergan
A Massachusetts man's brother dies unexpectedly, and, even more unexpectedly, stipilulates in his will that his brother look after his 16 year-old son. But Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) already has more than enough problems of his own, and cannot see how he is ever going to be able to take on this new responsibility.
A few days later, two women watch him walk past in the street. "Isn't that Lee Chandler?" One asks., to which the other says, "What, the Lee Chandler?" Now it is clear, Lee has a past, some notoriety indeed, though it is some time before, in this remarkable piece of "showing-not-telling" we find out what. And when we do, we can see why Lee is reluctant to take a confident, horny adolescent under his wing. Which doesn't mean he doesn't try. He tries hard, but it is beyond him.
There is an unforgettable moment towards the end of the film when he tries to explain to his charge why he can't hack it:
"I can't beat it. I'm sorry. I can't beat it."
I don't wish to spoil the plot for a movie which is one of the most moving, brilliantly written and directed pieces I have seen in the past twenty years. Casey Affleck's performance is a miracle, as is Michelle Williams's, an actress who can portray more with a slight quivering of the lips than most actresses can do with their whole bodies. I cried at several points, and believe me, I'm a hard-bitten bastard. A wonderful, wonderful picture. If you only see one film this year, make it this one.
February 2017 book and film review
Welcome to this month's media review. I hope you won't mind if it is divided into several fragments- this is because my Apple technology doesn't approve of this blog format: once you've written more than about 500 words it renders it almost impossible to write any more. Here goes.
BOOKS
TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, by Peter Carey
A young lad grows up in the poverty of the Australian countryside of the late 19th century. At 14 a famous bush ranger takes him on as his protege, and it isn't long before the lad is outdoing his master in exploits of lawlessness and derring-do. But from the beginning the state has it in for him and his loved ones, and a terrible resentment of authority builds in the young man's breast.
When it came out in 2000, Peter Carey's wonderful, quirky book was rapidly hailed as a masterpiece of modern writing. Purporting to be taken from Ned Kelly's own journals, its style is highly idiosyncratic, using the colloquial language of that time. It is something of an acquired taste, but once one gets used to it the book transforms itself into a cruel, beautiful elegy of an Ozzy Robin Hood, a man who fought the law all his brief life, and ultimately lost. Brilliant.
A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS, by V.S. Naipaul
On the Caribbean island of Trinidad, a baby is born under a bad star. A local astrologer confidently predicts bad luck will dog him all his life; even his sneeze will be unlucky. He grows up, finds himself in a marriage and has children, and all the while, the astrologer's prediction appears to be unerringly accurate. Nothing works out for Mr Biswas, his jobs, his relationships, even the much-vaunted house he eventually builds. Then one day it all becomes too much, and he has some sort of psychotic break, although my diagnosis might be "acute-on-chronic social anxiety disorder".
Then he seems to fall on his feet. Always having harboured a love of words, he is taken on by a Port of Spain newspaper and achieves a measure of success. But will it last?
Naipaul, along with Derek Walcott, is perhaps the finest writer ever to have emerged from the West Indies. His style is immaculate, his story-telling matchless and the whole book is an absolute delight- though don't expect a laugh-a-minute. Having said that it is highly amusing sometimes. Marvellous.
FILMS
THE TURIN HORSE (2011) D- Bella Tarr.
In rural Hungary, a widower and his daughter eke out the meagreist existence on their tiny plot of land. All their capital is represented by their squalid shack, a well, and their horse. Then one day the horse, seriously knackered, refuses to go out and pull the plow. Worse is to come. A band of gypsies camps out on his land, and when he chases them off they shout curses at him. The following day, the well runs dry. What are they to do?
Shot in only thirty long takes, this film is extraordinary. The action, if you can call it that, takes place as if in slow motion, depicting the endlessly repetitive lives of our protagonists as they labour to make it through each day. The agony of their destitution is often hard to watch, and it all seems to happen so slowly, yet somehow we are mesmerised by the small-scale drama of their struggle to survive. Exceptional cinema.
JACKIE (2016) D- Pablo Larrain. In the weeks following the assassination of her husband, Jackie Kennedy agrees to be interviewed in her lovely, but eerily empty home, by a reporter from the Washington Post. Still numb with shock and grief, she does her best to come up with some useful copy for the guy, if she'll let him print any of it, that is.
Beautifully written and directed with extreme sensitivity, this film takes us into the heart of one woman's grief- but one who happens to be the most famous woman in the world. We see Natalie Portman (who is sensational, and should have won the Oscar for best actress), wandering about her Hyannisport home, looking at the rooms, walking the paths in the carefully manicured gardens, all the while harking back to that terrible day and what might have been had the bullets missed their target. But they didn't, and now she is alone in her agony. The kind of film that makes us believe in Hollywood again.
Please see next blog for more movies.
BOOKS
TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, by Peter Carey
A young lad grows up in the poverty of the Australian countryside of the late 19th century. At 14 a famous bush ranger takes him on as his protege, and it isn't long before the lad is outdoing his master in exploits of lawlessness and derring-do. But from the beginning the state has it in for him and his loved ones, and a terrible resentment of authority builds in the young man's breast.
When it came out in 2000, Peter Carey's wonderful, quirky book was rapidly hailed as a masterpiece of modern writing. Purporting to be taken from Ned Kelly's own journals, its style is highly idiosyncratic, using the colloquial language of that time. It is something of an acquired taste, but once one gets used to it the book transforms itself into a cruel, beautiful elegy of an Ozzy Robin Hood, a man who fought the law all his brief life, and ultimately lost. Brilliant.
A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS, by V.S. Naipaul
On the Caribbean island of Trinidad, a baby is born under a bad star. A local astrologer confidently predicts bad luck will dog him all his life; even his sneeze will be unlucky. He grows up, finds himself in a marriage and has children, and all the while, the astrologer's prediction appears to be unerringly accurate. Nothing works out for Mr Biswas, his jobs, his relationships, even the much-vaunted house he eventually builds. Then one day it all becomes too much, and he has some sort of psychotic break, although my diagnosis might be "acute-on-chronic social anxiety disorder".
Then he seems to fall on his feet. Always having harboured a love of words, he is taken on by a Port of Spain newspaper and achieves a measure of success. But will it last?
Naipaul, along with Derek Walcott, is perhaps the finest writer ever to have emerged from the West Indies. His style is immaculate, his story-telling matchless and the whole book is an absolute delight- though don't expect a laugh-a-minute. Having said that it is highly amusing sometimes. Marvellous.
FILMS
THE TURIN HORSE (2011) D- Bella Tarr.
In rural Hungary, a widower and his daughter eke out the meagreist existence on their tiny plot of land. All their capital is represented by their squalid shack, a well, and their horse. Then one day the horse, seriously knackered, refuses to go out and pull the plow. Worse is to come. A band of gypsies camps out on his land, and when he chases them off they shout curses at him. The following day, the well runs dry. What are they to do?
Shot in only thirty long takes, this film is extraordinary. The action, if you can call it that, takes place as if in slow motion, depicting the endlessly repetitive lives of our protagonists as they labour to make it through each day. The agony of their destitution is often hard to watch, and it all seems to happen so slowly, yet somehow we are mesmerised by the small-scale drama of their struggle to survive. Exceptional cinema.
JACKIE (2016) D- Pablo Larrain. In the weeks following the assassination of her husband, Jackie Kennedy agrees to be interviewed in her lovely, but eerily empty home, by a reporter from the Washington Post. Still numb with shock and grief, she does her best to come up with some useful copy for the guy, if she'll let him print any of it, that is.
Beautifully written and directed with extreme sensitivity, this film takes us into the heart of one woman's grief- but one who happens to be the most famous woman in the world. We see Natalie Portman (who is sensational, and should have won the Oscar for best actress), wandering about her Hyannisport home, looking at the rooms, walking the paths in the carefully manicured gardens, all the while harking back to that terrible day and what might have been had the bullets missed their target. But they didn't, and now she is alone in her agony. The kind of film that makes us believe in Hollywood again.
Please see next blog for more movies.
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