Last autumn, as the protests against Sudan’s leadership and particularly its president Omar al Bashir gathered pace, a Russian oligarch and big mate of Vladimir Putin called Yevgeny Privozhin decided he’d better do something to defend his interests, namely a gold mine he owned in Sudan. Afraid a new government might be more liberal and start taxing him properly, or even start looking into his work practices and suggest he pay his workers a bit more, he mounted a social media campaign to discredit the demonstrators, spreading lies such as claiming they were burning down children’s playgrounds, and even that they supported LGBT people, something calculated not to go down well in that deeply conservative, Islamic country.
As we now know, these tactics didn’t work and Bashir was forced to resign. But the whole thing was highly instructive of the way the world works these days. Tactics not unlike these did work in the US in 2016, enabling Trump to win the presidential election. And similar disinformation campaigns here in the UK helped the leave campaign win the day in the same year.
Thanks to CNN, we now know of these disgraceful attempts to interfere with politics in another country. Trump calls CNN and other ‘liberal’ news outlets “fake news”. Well, he would, wouldn’t he. They’ve been showing him up for the bigoted, compulsive liar he is at every opportunity. And no one’s going to like that.
Friday, 26 April 2019
Friday, 12 April 2019
Trump on Assange: who he?
Back during the US presidential campaign in 2016, he expressed his approval of Assange’s Wikileaks several times, on one occasion even gushing: “I love Wikileaks”. And why wouldn’t he? That website contributed significantly to Trump’s victory when it dumped thousands of Hillary Clinton’s and other Democrat emails onto the web for public scrutiny.
Yet when he was asked yesterday about the hapless Ozzie, cut loose by a new Ecuadorian president tired of him after 7 years of hassle, Trump affected to know nothing about him. Either this was a telling example of Trump’s burgeoning dementia, or he was throwing the guy who helped him become president under the bus with all the decisive cynicism of a Mafia boss.
I’m not a big fan of Julian Assange. I’ve always had the feeling he’s a bit too fond of himself, and his work during 2016 seriously damaged the chances of the only person who could beat Trump to the White House. And the whole world, never mind America, has been picking up the pieces ever since. I don’t think there’s much to the sexual assault charges against him in Sweden, from what I heard, though I doubt if he’s the most courteous lover on the planet (he had already made love to a woman and they were sleeping together when he attempted to do it again - while she was asleep). Hardly the most serious crime in the sexual assault spectrum, but not exactly exemplary behaviour either.
But we shouldn’t extradite him to the US. They’re salivating over the idea of putting him in a supermax prison for a very long time, after they’ve dreamed up some really good charges against him. Whatever he is, or isn’t, he doesn’t deserve that.
Yet when he was asked yesterday about the hapless Ozzie, cut loose by a new Ecuadorian president tired of him after 7 years of hassle, Trump affected to know nothing about him. Either this was a telling example of Trump’s burgeoning dementia, or he was throwing the guy who helped him become president under the bus with all the decisive cynicism of a Mafia boss.
I’m not a big fan of Julian Assange. I’ve always had the feeling he’s a bit too fond of himself, and his work during 2016 seriously damaged the chances of the only person who could beat Trump to the White House. And the whole world, never mind America, has been picking up the pieces ever since. I don’t think there’s much to the sexual assault charges against him in Sweden, from what I heard, though I doubt if he’s the most courteous lover on the planet (he had already made love to a woman and they were sleeping together when he attempted to do it again - while she was asleep). Hardly the most serious crime in the sexual assault spectrum, but not exactly exemplary behaviour either.
But we shouldn’t extradite him to the US. They’re salivating over the idea of putting him in a supermax prison for a very long time, after they’ve dreamed up some really good charges against him. Whatever he is, or isn’t, he doesn’t deserve that.
Saturday, 6 April 2019
There’s never been a better time to be human
That’s right. People live longer, infant and child mortality has plummeted, even in the developing world, there’s been a significant reduction in world poverty and we’re more likely to have the opportunity to fulfil our potential than ever before. State sponsored slavery is over (though there’s still quite a bit of slavery about, so only 7 out of 10 there) and while in medieval times, most people never travelled more than 20 miles from where they were born, now hundreds of millions of people jet around the world to exotic locations every year.
So. There’s never been a better time to be a human being. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the polar bear, the elephant, the rhinoceros and countless other less glamorous species of both plants and animals. All this was starkly spelled out in the opening episode of David Attenborough’s new Netflix series Our Planet. Since I was born in 1951 the world’s human population has more than doubled, with dire consequences for the non-human biosphere, where the numbers of wildlife, on land, in the sea and in the air have fallen by more than 60%. Everywhere, natural habitats are being encroached upon by human settlement; places like the Serengeti, until quite recently one of the most perfect and diverse areas of wildlife anywhere on Earth, is now shrinking rapidly, jeopardising the future of that wonderful Eden-like place.
The world, David reports, has changed radically since the year of my birth. And while he doggedly insists on a cautious note of optimism about the future, I am deeply pessimistic about the world we will leave to our grandchildren. In a hundred year’s time, the rainforests will have shrunk to postage stamps, while all the ice in the Arctic will have melted, swamping low lying areas (often densely populated by poor people, as in, say, Bangladesh) while the polar bears will have died out altogether. Like David, I live in hope human beings will come to their senses and realise that if for no better reason than it will be bad for us if that happens, our lives are going to need to change. If we don’t, we’ll be living in a very tragic, sterile world before long.
So. There’s never been a better time to be a human being. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the polar bear, the elephant, the rhinoceros and countless other less glamorous species of both plants and animals. All this was starkly spelled out in the opening episode of David Attenborough’s new Netflix series Our Planet. Since I was born in 1951 the world’s human population has more than doubled, with dire consequences for the non-human biosphere, where the numbers of wildlife, on land, in the sea and in the air have fallen by more than 60%. Everywhere, natural habitats are being encroached upon by human settlement; places like the Serengeti, until quite recently one of the most perfect and diverse areas of wildlife anywhere on Earth, is now shrinking rapidly, jeopardising the future of that wonderful Eden-like place.
The world, David reports, has changed radically since the year of my birth. And while he doggedly insists on a cautious note of optimism about the future, I am deeply pessimistic about the world we will leave to our grandchildren. In a hundred year’s time, the rainforests will have shrunk to postage stamps, while all the ice in the Arctic will have melted, swamping low lying areas (often densely populated by poor people, as in, say, Bangladesh) while the polar bears will have died out altogether. Like David, I live in hope human beings will come to their senses and realise that if for no better reason than it will be bad for us if that happens, our lives are going to need to change. If we don’t, we’ll be living in a very tragic, sterile world before long.
Friday, 5 April 2019
March 2019 film review
FREE SOLO (2018) (Narional Geographic documentary) D- Jimmy Chin
El Capitan is a near vertical slab of rock half a mile high in the Yosemite valley of California. And ever since people began to take an interest in mountain climbing, they have been dreaming of somehow getting up a sheer face that seems to have few hand and footholds to assist the process. The first attempts were marathon affairs lasting many days, involving sleeping in hammocks nailed to the rock face and using teams of climbers. Then some lunatic decided he could do it by himself. Eventually this was achieved, but people still weren’t satisfied. They wanted to do it without ropes, expanding bolts or indeed any artificial aids beyond a good, grippy pair of shoes and some chalk to absorb the sweat from their hands.
Then another death defying (or seeking? It’s hard to be sure which) guy comes along and says he wants to break the speed record for doing the apparently impossible. His name is Alex Honnold and his name has now entered the annals of climbing, and indeed sporting achievement generally as one of the greatest exponents of his art the world has ever seen. A man who lives in his van, whose brain has been shown by CT scan to have an amygdala (the emotional core of our brains) which demands intense stimulation before it even begins to fire up, this man lives, sleeps and dreams climbing. Then a Nat Geo team approaches him with the idea of filming his epic attempt at breaking the speed record. He isn’t sure. He isn’t stupid, he knows he stands a significant chance of falling to his death and he wonders about the ethics of filming someone dying. Eventually, to the great benefit of Us all, he agrees, and a team of accomplished climber/ cameramen is assembled to record the great climb. The result is one of the most gripping pieces of documentary film making I have ever witnessed. Unmissable.
AMERICAN HONEY (2012) D- Andrea Arnold
In the heart of Bible Belt America, a young woman with little going for her decides to join a travelling group of magazine subscription sellers. Their wages are minimal, the work is long and hard but at least she’s doing something.
On the road, relationships form, break apart, reform with other parties, but the work goes on relentlessly.
This film was much praised at the time for its cine verite authenticity, and the players, including Sasha Lane and Shia Lebeouf are excellent. Strangely compelling.
THE LAST MOVIE STAR (2016) D- Adam Rifkin
An aging and long-retired movie star (Burt Reynolds, almost playing himself) is invited to accept a ‘lifetime achievement award’ at a film festival he hasn’t heard of. Flattered, he accepts the offer and makes his way to Hicktown, USA, where he finds to his horror the film festival is just a bunch of movie geeks who get together once a year to show a few movies and invite stars, none of whom ever attend - until now. Furious in his mind he has been duped, Reynolds initially decides to bugger off back home, but then something begins to happen to him and he decides to stick around for a few days to see what happens, and take in some of the local colour. And in the process learn a few things about himself along the way...
I was rather taken with this little effort, crafted with skill and sincerity, and comprising perhaps one of Reynold’s finest roles, certainly since Boogie Nights.
RAIN (1932) D- Lewis Milestone
Somewhere in the South Seas, a good-time girl (Joan Crawford in one of her first talkies), or is she really just a prostitute, or sex worker as we should say today, is stranded on an island, causing much excitement among some members of the populace, and unmitigated horror amongst the more straight-laced. A local pastor (Walter Huston) takes it upon himself to steer her towards the path of riteousness, but it is an uphill task. Meanwhile a sailor also wishes to make an honest woman out of her. But what does she want? That seems to be laid aside as the locals try to work out what to do with this free spirit.
1932 was the last year Hollywood could get away with films like this. After the Hays Code was brought in the following year, salacious subjects like prostitution, or even worse, women who enjoy sex for its own sake, became taboo subjects for over 30 years. So this was almost the last chance American cinemagoers got for a great many years to see adult subjects tackled in an adult way. And even today, nearly 90 years on, it holds its ability to shock. Now that has to be something of an achievement
March 2019 book review
FLIGHTS, by Olga Tokarczuk
A man is on holiday with his family on a Mediterranean island. One day his wife and child leave their apartment on a shopping trip, but do not return. A search is mounted, but there is no trace of either of them. The man stays on the island well after his departure date, understandably obsessed with solving the mystery of their disappearance.
But this is only one vignette in a book with no less than 116 of them, some only a sentence or two long, others (like the one that opens the book) a lot longer, and all on what we might call ‘the philosophy of travel’. All narrated by the same unidentified female traveller, some offer new perspectives into that activity we all undergo, most of us wishing to get the process over as quickly and with as little hassle as possible. But the now acclaimed Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk lingers inside the metaphysical, fundamental nature of getting from A to B, in ways that are both surprising and deeply insightful. A hard book to pin down in a few words - better try it for yourself.
ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION, by W.G. Sebald
Sebald was an emigrant from Germany just before WW2 broke out, and therefore did not witness at first hand the terrible assaults launched upon his homeland between 1943 and 1945. City after city was laid waste, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and injured, millions rendered homeless. Yet, oddly, when Sebald tried to collect reminiscences of that awful time from survivors, he came upon a curious collective amnesia, or to describe it more accurately, a decision not to remember, or if they did, not to talk about it. Consequently, Sebald had to arrive at his conclusions about what really happened on the ground as much from the destroyers, the RAF reconnaissance teams and so on, than from the people who knew best, those who were there. It seems that in the construction of the economic miracle that Germany became after their defeat, it was thought better to ‘put all that behind them’.
Sebald reviews some of the very few books written by Germans on the subject in the post-war years, only to find they were badly received at the time in their own country, for the reasons already given above. Such a sharp contrast, I thought, with us, the British, who celebrated the war and everything about it for decades afterwards - see the success of films like The Great Escape, Reach for the Sky and Sink the Bismarck! If you need any examples. But then, we won...
WITH NAILS, by Richard E. Grant
Being the movie diaries of one of Britain’s best loved actors, from Withnail and I, which launched his career, on through a succession of Hollywood productions including Henry and June, The Player and Hudson Hawk, this last a multi-million dollar blockbuster starring Bruce Willis and notable for making almost no money at all and being labelled as one of the worst films ever made. This film, and a few others he was involved in may have been terrible, but Mr. Grant’s writing is not. He expounds on the dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood in a laconic, easy style which is highly engaging. And he can name-drop with the best of ‘em. From Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman, through Francis Ford Coppola and Bob Altman, to Winona Ryder and Barbra Streisand, he seems to have met them all. That’s entertainment, baby...
IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELLER, by Italy Calvino
A man is reading a promising book about some sort of espionage business, when he finds himself transplanted into another novel altogether. What has happened? He makes enquiries with the publisher, and finds two books have been inadvertently conflated. Apologies are offered, and the original version is provided. Or is it? because this book seems very odd, containing elements of yet another story. Meanwhile he comes across a woman who has encountered the same problem. They make friends, become lovers, then other books are inserted somehow, then still more.
By the end of this hallucinatory ride on which Calvino takes us, nearly 20 separate plots are interwoven in a confusing, but extraordinary tableau. I’ve never read anything like this book, and all I can say is that while reading it you sense you are in the presence of greatness. This is not a quick, or easy book, but well worth the effort. But you need to concentrate...
A man is on holiday with his family on a Mediterranean island. One day his wife and child leave their apartment on a shopping trip, but do not return. A search is mounted, but there is no trace of either of them. The man stays on the island well after his departure date, understandably obsessed with solving the mystery of their disappearance.
But this is only one vignette in a book with no less than 116 of them, some only a sentence or two long, others (like the one that opens the book) a lot longer, and all on what we might call ‘the philosophy of travel’. All narrated by the same unidentified female traveller, some offer new perspectives into that activity we all undergo, most of us wishing to get the process over as quickly and with as little hassle as possible. But the now acclaimed Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk lingers inside the metaphysical, fundamental nature of getting from A to B, in ways that are both surprising and deeply insightful. A hard book to pin down in a few words - better try it for yourself.
ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION, by W.G. Sebald
Sebald was an emigrant from Germany just before WW2 broke out, and therefore did not witness at first hand the terrible assaults launched upon his homeland between 1943 and 1945. City after city was laid waste, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and injured, millions rendered homeless. Yet, oddly, when Sebald tried to collect reminiscences of that awful time from survivors, he came upon a curious collective amnesia, or to describe it more accurately, a decision not to remember, or if they did, not to talk about it. Consequently, Sebald had to arrive at his conclusions about what really happened on the ground as much from the destroyers, the RAF reconnaissance teams and so on, than from the people who knew best, those who were there. It seems that in the construction of the economic miracle that Germany became after their defeat, it was thought better to ‘put all that behind them’.
Sebald reviews some of the very few books written by Germans on the subject in the post-war years, only to find they were badly received at the time in their own country, for the reasons already given above. Such a sharp contrast, I thought, with us, the British, who celebrated the war and everything about it for decades afterwards - see the success of films like The Great Escape, Reach for the Sky and Sink the Bismarck! If you need any examples. But then, we won...
WITH NAILS, by Richard E. Grant
Being the movie diaries of one of Britain’s best loved actors, from Withnail and I, which launched his career, on through a succession of Hollywood productions including Henry and June, The Player and Hudson Hawk, this last a multi-million dollar blockbuster starring Bruce Willis and notable for making almost no money at all and being labelled as one of the worst films ever made. This film, and a few others he was involved in may have been terrible, but Mr. Grant’s writing is not. He expounds on the dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood in a laconic, easy style which is highly engaging. And he can name-drop with the best of ‘em. From Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman, through Francis Ford Coppola and Bob Altman, to Winona Ryder and Barbra Streisand, he seems to have met them all. That’s entertainment, baby...
IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELLER, by Italy Calvino
A man is reading a promising book about some sort of espionage business, when he finds himself transplanted into another novel altogether. What has happened? He makes enquiries with the publisher, and finds two books have been inadvertently conflated. Apologies are offered, and the original version is provided. Or is it? because this book seems very odd, containing elements of yet another story. Meanwhile he comes across a woman who has encountered the same problem. They make friends, become lovers, then other books are inserted somehow, then still more.
By the end of this hallucinatory ride on which Calvino takes us, nearly 20 separate plots are interwoven in a confusing, but extraordinary tableau. I’ve never read anything like this book, and all I can say is that while reading it you sense you are in the presence of greatness. This is not a quick, or easy book, but well worth the effort. But you need to concentrate...
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