One of the saddest things about the latest disgraceful tweets from US president Trump is the signal failure of Republican lawmakers to come out and call them for what they were: racist and completely un-American. But it isn’t hard to see why. They know they are doomed if they say what I’m sure a lot of them are thinking, namely something like:
“I believe in the Republican Party and the conservative views it stands for, but I cannot support a president who persists in his racist tirades. This is not an America I want to part of.”
By telling those congresswomen to “go back where they came from”, Trump broke they rules of his own Equal Opportunities Commission, which cites on its website the kind of language that if used in the workplace could be deemed, not just deeply offensive to people of colour but actually illegal. And perhaps the most worrying aspect of this is that bigots can now shout at an ethnic minority person walking down the street to go back where they came from, and if challenged, they can now say: “Hey! if the President of the United States can say it, so can I!”
But those Republicans who have reservations about Trump’s racism know that if they go against him, he will not back them in the upcoming primaries, and put his support behind an alternative candidate who will toe the Trump line, right or wrong, whatever it takes. So it’s really about power. There is nothing new about politicians abandoning their moral sense in their quest for power. I just think it’s got worse than it has ever been, and this in a world that ought to be moving towards a better, more humanitarian future.
Trump knows he is tapping into an extremely rich vein of underlying racism in the United States, just as the Brexiteers here know they’re onto a good thing with the closet racists in our own country. You can’t go wrong appealing to the worst in people, it seems...
Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Saturday, 13 July 2019
He said what we’re all thinking
Poor old Kim Darroch. Forced to resign for doing his job. Ambassadors are charged with explaining coherently the situation in their adopted nation to the powers that be at home, and he did that with wit, perspicacity and insight. He revealed the chaos that reigns in the dark heart of the White House, and the truth of his remarks was what caused Trump to launch yet another of now famous hissy fits against anyone fearless enough to call him on it.
Of course his remarks were not intended for his ears, or indeed anyone outside the higher echelons of the Foreign Office, but someone, probably an arch-Brexiteer, was determined to bring him down. We can probably expect more revelations from him or her as they attempt to trash the rep of anyone brave enough to label Brexit for what it is: the greatest folly the UK has ever enacted upon itself.
One of the more unseemly spin-offs of this whole farrago has been the signal failure of Boris to offer any kind of succour to Kim Darroch, despite knowing full well, as a previous foreign secretary, that ambassadors have a job to do, and that he was doing that job exactly according to his job description. Of course I understand that his position in Washington has been fatally compromised by the leaks, especially since Trump said he wanted nothing more to do with him (once again showing that Trump’s representation as an angry baby was uncannily accurate), but he should at least have been backed publicly by the UK establishment until his term of office came to end at the end of this year.
Shame on you leaker, and shame on you Boris for supporting him!
Of course his remarks were not intended for his ears, or indeed anyone outside the higher echelons of the Foreign Office, but someone, probably an arch-Brexiteer, was determined to bring him down. We can probably expect more revelations from him or her as they attempt to trash the rep of anyone brave enough to label Brexit for what it is: the greatest folly the UK has ever enacted upon itself.
One of the more unseemly spin-offs of this whole farrago has been the signal failure of Boris to offer any kind of succour to Kim Darroch, despite knowing full well, as a previous foreign secretary, that ambassadors have a job to do, and that he was doing that job exactly according to his job description. Of course I understand that his position in Washington has been fatally compromised by the leaks, especially since Trump said he wanted nothing more to do with him (once again showing that Trump’s representation as an angry baby was uncannily accurate), but he should at least have been backed publicly by the UK establishment until his term of office came to end at the end of this year.
Shame on you leaker, and shame on you Boris for supporting him!
Wednesday, 3 July 2019
it isn’t just climate change that threatens us
BBC news last night ran an extremely disturbing story about the indigenous Indians of the Amazon and how their future is threatened by encroaching farmers and loggers. These people don’t see why the Indians should have the forest, even a relatively tiny portion of it, to themselves. They have a right to work the land themselves, they claim, and anyway, the Indians just waste what they have.
Underlying this, I feel, is an undercurrent of racism. All over Latin America, the paler your skin, the more you can trace your ancestry back to Europe, the higher up the social scale you are. Conversely, the darker your skin, the less evolved you are, and the fewer human rights you should enjoy. The jungle bunnies are untermensch, if I may borrow a phrase from another culture, so why should we pay them any mind? Unfortunately, this despicable attitude is being encouraged by Brazil’s new populist president Bolsonaro, who has joked (we hope) that he’d be just as happy to see the whole of the rainforest paved over if it would help his country’s economy. And the fate of the indigenous populations, who have lived there in harmony with nature for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived? Fuck them. They don’t count.
And what does count? Money, stupid, and the maintenance of power. Ask Donald Trump. He’s the fountainhead from which populists around the world got their inspiration. Which is why, even if he loses in 2020 (which I have no particular reason to believe he will) his toxic legacy will persevere for decades to come...
Tuesday, 2 July 2019
June 2019 film review part 2
ROCKETMAN (2019) D- Dexter Fletcher
A man dressed as the Devil walks into an addiction clinic like he owns the joint. He could certainly afford it: he’s Elton John, one of the most successful pop singers in history. So what’s he doing here? Ah, the price of fame...
Unlike Tristram Shandy, this biopic does start at the beginning, with young Reg Dwight realising he has certain talents, and this being recognised by his Mum (though not Dad) and his music teacher. Some time later he bumps into a guy called Bernie Taupin, who can write songs but not the music, but Reg reckons he was born to do that job for him. The rest as they say, is history...
Comparisons with Bohemian Rhapsody are inevitable at this point, as both look at the lives of iconic figures in pop music, from humble beginnings to life at the top with all the pitfalls that brings. For my money though, this is the better movie: more tightly scripted, more involving, and with some brilliant set pieces, especially a terrific tapestry of a scene set to the music of Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting. Definitely the film of the summer.
THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER (1974) D- Werner Herzog
There’s this Austrian dude called Walter Steiner, and he was born to do two things: carve wood and fly, the latter with the assistance of two long skis. In fact he’s so good at ski jumping, can fly so much so much further than anybody else in history, that the organizers have to have him launch off much lower down the slope than everyone else, because if they don’t he’ll go so far he’ll land on the flat and possibly kill himself. Even then he still wins virtually every competition he enters.
In order to do justice to the great man, director Herzog uses a 500 frames per second slow motion film camera to catch every glorious moment of Steiner’s flights towards the infinite, before coming back to earth, seemingly as light as a feather. And as usual, Herzog works his magic, adding his own distinctive voice-over which adds to the strange, hypnotic atmosphere of the film. This film is available on You Tube, and, in this reviewer’s opinion, is unmissable.
A man dressed as the Devil walks into an addiction clinic like he owns the joint. He could certainly afford it: he’s Elton John, one of the most successful pop singers in history. So what’s he doing here? Ah, the price of fame...
Unlike Tristram Shandy, this biopic does start at the beginning, with young Reg Dwight realising he has certain talents, and this being recognised by his Mum (though not Dad) and his music teacher. Some time later he bumps into a guy called Bernie Taupin, who can write songs but not the music, but Reg reckons he was born to do that job for him. The rest as they say, is history...
Comparisons with Bohemian Rhapsody are inevitable at this point, as both look at the lives of iconic figures in pop music, from humble beginnings to life at the top with all the pitfalls that brings. For my money though, this is the better movie: more tightly scripted, more involving, and with some brilliant set pieces, especially a terrific tapestry of a scene set to the music of Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting. Definitely the film of the summer.
THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER (1974) D- Werner Herzog
There’s this Austrian dude called Walter Steiner, and he was born to do two things: carve wood and fly, the latter with the assistance of two long skis. In fact he’s so good at ski jumping, can fly so much so much further than anybody else in history, that the organizers have to have him launch off much lower down the slope than everyone else, because if they don’t he’ll go so far he’ll land on the flat and possibly kill himself. Even then he still wins virtually every competition he enters.
In order to do justice to the great man, director Herzog uses a 500 frames per second slow motion film camera to catch every glorious moment of Steiner’s flights towards the infinite, before coming back to earth, seemingly as light as a feather. And as usual, Herzog works his magic, adding his own distinctive voice-over which adds to the strange, hypnotic atmosphere of the film. This film is available on You Tube, and, in this reviewer’s opinion, is unmissable.
June 2019 film review Part 1
A COCK AND BULL STORY (2005) D- Michael Winterbottom
Was an alternative title offered by Laurence Sterne to his masterpiece Tristram Shandy (double entendre intended), a book they said was impossible to film. But one of Britain’s cleverest directors, Michael Winterbottom, wasn’t listening. But how to do it? Winterbottom decided on a film-within-a-film method, taking his inspiration from Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Truffaut’s Day for Night, and casting Steve Coogan as Tristram and Rob Brydon as his uncle Toby, playing themselves whilst attempting to make a period piece in a variety of English country houses dotted around the Norfolk countryside.
Did it work? Most critics agreed that it did, and once I got my head around Winterbottom’s method, I did too. Coogan is good enough to make you forget about Alan Partridge (even if some characters keep reminding him of his most famous creation), and his double act with Rob Brydon, which is reminiscent of the series they later made together, called The Trip is often hilarious This, presumably, is where the idea for that series came from.
Verdict: this is what Millennial Brit cinema is all about: Intelligent, funny and insightful.
THIS IS ENGLAND (2006) D- Shane Meadows.
A kid (a brilliant Thomas Turgoose) barely in his teens fights off the bullies who taunt him about his father’s death in the Falklands War. His courage is noticed by older lads, and word gets back to a local BNP organiser (an early outing from Stephen Graham) who decides to take him under his wing. Adolescence is an impressionable age, and soon our lad is going on all the marches and demos...
Shane Meadows and Stephen Graham recently came together again to make the brilliant TV series The Virtues about a man scarred by sexual abuse in childhood, but it is well worth it to see the impact they made when this film came out in 2006. While working in a very different way from Michael Winterbottom, Shane Meadows has established himself, like the latter, as one of the most talented directors in British cinema. And when he works with Graham, it seems he can do no wrong. One of the best British films in the last 20 years.
GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974) D- H P Halicki
Not to be confused with the much later remake starring Nick Cage, this film is ostensibly about a gang of car thieves who are commissioned to steal 48 luxury cars in 5 days. The key to what this film is really about can be found in the opening credits, where top billing is given to “Eleanor”, who turns out to be a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1. And it is she who is taken through her paces, and then some, when the police catch up with the gang leader, who then embarks on one of the longest and most dramatic car chases ever committed to film. Everyone has seen the car chase in Bullitt, and the car vs train chase in French Connection, but surprisingly few people have even heard of this cult classic, the pet project of HP Halicki, who himself, somewhat ironically, died 20 years later in a car smash.
A notable collector’s item.
A kid (a brilliant Thomas Turgoose) barely in his teens fights off the bullies who taunt him about his father’s death in the Falklands War. His courage is noticed by older lads, and word gets back to a local BNP organiser (an early outing from Stephen Graham) who decides to take him under his wing. Adolescence is an impressionable age, and soon our lad is going on all the marches and demos...
Shane Meadows and Stephen Graham recently came together again to make the brilliant TV series The Virtues about a man scarred by sexual abuse in childhood, but it is well worth it to see the impact they made when this film came out in 2006. While working in a very different way from Michael Winterbottom, Shane Meadows has established himself, like the latter, as one of the most talented directors in British cinema. And when he works with Graham, it seems he can do no wrong. One of the best British films in the last 20 years.
GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974) D- H P Halicki
Not to be confused with the much later remake starring Nick Cage, this film is ostensibly about a gang of car thieves who are commissioned to steal 48 luxury cars in 5 days. The key to what this film is really about can be found in the opening credits, where top billing is given to “Eleanor”, who turns out to be a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1. And it is she who is taken through her paces, and then some, when the police catch up with the gang leader, who then embarks on one of the longest and most dramatic car chases ever committed to film. Everyone has seen the car chase in Bullitt, and the car vs train chase in French Connection, but surprisingly few people have even heard of this cult classic, the pet project of HP Halicki, who himself, somewhat ironically, died 20 years later in a car smash.
A notable collector’s item.
June 2019 book review
THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENTLEMAN by Laurence Sterne
In the middle of the 18th century, a child is born into a genteel family, but immediately finds himself laboring under all manner of difficulties. First, the doctor crushes his nose with his newly invented obstetric forceps while delivering the child. Second, the serving wench mis-spells his name when given the task of registering his birth. These are both insurmountable problems for Tristram’s Father, among whose ‘hobby-horses’ are the beliefs that it is essential to go through life with at least two things: a good Christian name, and a strong, prominent nose. Oh dear.
Now, you’d think that these facts would occur at the beginning of what amounts to an autobiography, but no. We are into volume 5 of the book before Tristram is even born, because of a literary device Laurence Sterne made his own: digression, often lengthy, frequently hilarious and always fascinating. Our esteemed author, who often addresses us directly, sees these diversions not as such, but “as the thing itself”. The digressions are the book, and what make it unique in literature. And there are numerous other unique aspects to this remarkable book. All at once, we may come across a blank page, a page that appears to be an impression of marble, or another which is simply black. Some of these eccentricities are explained (though we are often not left a great deal wiser for the explanation); some are not. But what we ultimately find is an amazing novel that is literally centuries ahead of its time. The great doctor Johnson once said of it: “Nothing odd will do long”, but here the good doctor was in grave error. It has done long, never being out of print in the 260 years since it was published. Try this tiny taster, from page 332 of the Penguin edition:
“...It is from this point properly, that the story of my LIFE and my OPINIONS sets out; with all my hurry and precipitation, I have been clearing the ground to raise the building - and such a building do I foresee it will turn out, as never was planned, and was never executed since Adam. In less than 5 minutes I shall have thrown my pen into the fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is remaining at the bottom of my inkhorn, after it - I have but half a score of things to do in the time - I have a thing to name - a thing to lament - a thing to hope - a thing to promise, and a thing to threaten... this chapter therefore, I name this the chapter of THINGS, and the next chapter be upon WHISKERS, in order to keep up some sort of connections in my works...
You don’t want to go on and read 600-odd more pages of this sort of sublime, mind-expanding ridiculousness? What is wrong with you?
WATERLOG, by Roger Deakin
An academic with a lifelong interest in the environment reads the famous short story The Swimmer by John Cheever, and decides to re-enact the narrative of that story by “swimming across Britain”, taking in lakes, rivers, canals, public swimming pools and the odd estuary along the way.
His account of these exploits has become famous as one of the most lyrical and beautiful pieces of creative nonfiction to have come out of Britain since the War. Deakin was a very observant man, and noted the wildlife he encountered, be they otters, wild flowers, fellow swimmers or local anglers with loving, even ecstatic detail. Like his friend Robert McFarlane, he had a passionate love of the English countryside, and feared for the dwindling wild places, now under threat as never before from the implacable forces of capitalism and the rush to profit.
Roger Deakin died tragically young from a brain tumour in 2006, thereby depriving the world of a unique and beautiful mind. We can’t afford to lose people like him...
THE UNKNOWN TERRORIST, by Richard Flanagan
A Sydney pole dancer saves the money she earns from her faintly dubious work because she is determined to lift herself into something more substantial, more meaningful. She is well on her way to achieving this when she has a one night stand with an attractive young Arab. They following day she’s reading the paper when he is named as a possible, (probable, definite?- it doesn’t matter, the media has already made up its collective mind) Al Qaida member. Then, CCTV footage emerges which appears to show him, and a young woman, cuddling outside his apartment. The press pull out all the stops to identify the mystery girlfriend, and The Doll (which is how Flanagan describes her) knows it’s only a matter of time before they track her down.
Richard Flanagan has carved himself a rep as one of Australia’s leading novelists, having won numerous awards including the Booker, and here he is at his best, with a sensitive and highly skilled analysis of hope, despair and a media that cares little for anything beyond ratings. Superior thriller-writing...
In the middle of the 18th century, a child is born into a genteel family, but immediately finds himself laboring under all manner of difficulties. First, the doctor crushes his nose with his newly invented obstetric forceps while delivering the child. Second, the serving wench mis-spells his name when given the task of registering his birth. These are both insurmountable problems for Tristram’s Father, among whose ‘hobby-horses’ are the beliefs that it is essential to go through life with at least two things: a good Christian name, and a strong, prominent nose. Oh dear.
Now, you’d think that these facts would occur at the beginning of what amounts to an autobiography, but no. We are into volume 5 of the book before Tristram is even born, because of a literary device Laurence Sterne made his own: digression, often lengthy, frequently hilarious and always fascinating. Our esteemed author, who often addresses us directly, sees these diversions not as such, but “as the thing itself”. The digressions are the book, and what make it unique in literature. And there are numerous other unique aspects to this remarkable book. All at once, we may come across a blank page, a page that appears to be an impression of marble, or another which is simply black. Some of these eccentricities are explained (though we are often not left a great deal wiser for the explanation); some are not. But what we ultimately find is an amazing novel that is literally centuries ahead of its time. The great doctor Johnson once said of it: “Nothing odd will do long”, but here the good doctor was in grave error. It has done long, never being out of print in the 260 years since it was published. Try this tiny taster, from page 332 of the Penguin edition:
“...It is from this point properly, that the story of my LIFE and my OPINIONS sets out; with all my hurry and precipitation, I have been clearing the ground to raise the building - and such a building do I foresee it will turn out, as never was planned, and was never executed since Adam. In less than 5 minutes I shall have thrown my pen into the fire, and the little drop of thick ink which is remaining at the bottom of my inkhorn, after it - I have but half a score of things to do in the time - I have a thing to name - a thing to lament - a thing to hope - a thing to promise, and a thing to threaten... this chapter therefore, I name this the chapter of THINGS, and the next chapter be upon WHISKERS, in order to keep up some sort of connections in my works...
You don’t want to go on and read 600-odd more pages of this sort of sublime, mind-expanding ridiculousness? What is wrong with you?
WATERLOG, by Roger Deakin
An academic with a lifelong interest in the environment reads the famous short story The Swimmer by John Cheever, and decides to re-enact the narrative of that story by “swimming across Britain”, taking in lakes, rivers, canals, public swimming pools and the odd estuary along the way.
His account of these exploits has become famous as one of the most lyrical and beautiful pieces of creative nonfiction to have come out of Britain since the War. Deakin was a very observant man, and noted the wildlife he encountered, be they otters, wild flowers, fellow swimmers or local anglers with loving, even ecstatic detail. Like his friend Robert McFarlane, he had a passionate love of the English countryside, and feared for the dwindling wild places, now under threat as never before from the implacable forces of capitalism and the rush to profit.
Roger Deakin died tragically young from a brain tumour in 2006, thereby depriving the world of a unique and beautiful mind. We can’t afford to lose people like him...
THE UNKNOWN TERRORIST, by Richard Flanagan
A Sydney pole dancer saves the money she earns from her faintly dubious work because she is determined to lift herself into something more substantial, more meaningful. She is well on her way to achieving this when she has a one night stand with an attractive young Arab. They following day she’s reading the paper when he is named as a possible, (probable, definite?- it doesn’t matter, the media has already made up its collective mind) Al Qaida member. Then, CCTV footage emerges which appears to show him, and a young woman, cuddling outside his apartment. The press pull out all the stops to identify the mystery girlfriend, and The Doll (which is how Flanagan describes her) knows it’s only a matter of time before they track her down.
Richard Flanagan has carved himself a rep as one of Australia’s leading novelists, having won numerous awards including the Booker, and here he is at his best, with a sensitive and highly skilled analysis of hope, despair and a media that cares little for anything beyond ratings. Superior thriller-writing...
Wednesday, 12 June 2019
Fancy a different holiday destination?
Then why not try a week in a Jewish settlement in Palestine’s West Bank? It’s easy: you can book a break through TripAdvisor, Booking.com or Air BnB, all of which are happy to flout international law by promoting holidays in settlements that have been declared illegal under international law for two decades.
International law prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into a territory it occupies, as well as prohibiting those powers from forcibly transferring protected persons from occupied territory. Yet that is precisely what Israel has been doing, on an industrial scale, for the last twenty years. Indeed, it is ramping up its policies as I write this today. This is part of Israel’s policy of ‘normalisation’, whereby it hopes to make the world believe everything is fine and dandy in the lands it controls; therefore it is perfectly legitimate to offer holidays in those occupied lands. They want the world to believe it is situation normal on the West Bank, and that the Palestinians under their thumb are doing just fine. Here’s the news: they aren’t.
I’ve been there and seen it for myself: the settlements perched atop all areas of high ground, from where the settlers encroach on what is left of the Palestinian Territories, harassing the locals, stealing their land, destroying their means of making a living (by, for example, poisoning or burning down their olive groves). Whole villages are being bulldozed to make way for the settlers, while the former occupants are relocated to areas next to rubbish dumps or sewage plants. According to Amnesty International, these constitute war crimes, but the Israelis have an answer: Amnesty is anti-Semitic. Yeah, that old chestnut again, accusing anyone who criticizes the actions of Zionist Israel of being against Jewish people as a whole. They aren’t, of course, any more than are the many Labour MPs who have dared criticize the Israeli state.
I’m not anti-Semitic, but I hate and despise what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people - and Pelagius says shame on the big holiday booking websites for buying into the great Zionist lie, and pretending it’s cool to go on holiday in a illegal Israeli settlement.
International law prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into a territory it occupies, as well as prohibiting those powers from forcibly transferring protected persons from occupied territory. Yet that is precisely what Israel has been doing, on an industrial scale, for the last twenty years. Indeed, it is ramping up its policies as I write this today. This is part of Israel’s policy of ‘normalisation’, whereby it hopes to make the world believe everything is fine and dandy in the lands it controls; therefore it is perfectly legitimate to offer holidays in those occupied lands. They want the world to believe it is situation normal on the West Bank, and that the Palestinians under their thumb are doing just fine. Here’s the news: they aren’t.
I’ve been there and seen it for myself: the settlements perched atop all areas of high ground, from where the settlers encroach on what is left of the Palestinian Territories, harassing the locals, stealing their land, destroying their means of making a living (by, for example, poisoning or burning down their olive groves). Whole villages are being bulldozed to make way for the settlers, while the former occupants are relocated to areas next to rubbish dumps or sewage plants. According to Amnesty International, these constitute war crimes, but the Israelis have an answer: Amnesty is anti-Semitic. Yeah, that old chestnut again, accusing anyone who criticizes the actions of Zionist Israel of being against Jewish people as a whole. They aren’t, of course, any more than are the many Labour MPs who have dared criticize the Israeli state.
I’m not anti-Semitic, but I hate and despise what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people - and Pelagius says shame on the big holiday booking websites for buying into the great Zionist lie, and pretending it’s cool to go on holiday in a illegal Israeli settlement.
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