Dr Feelgood

Cracking The Nuts

2007-08-14T01:30:00.000Z

A news story of a fairly common type was to be found in the Telegraph today:

'Lawyers have told the Roman Catholic Church that it cannot sack a Catholic headmaster who has entered a civil partnership with a male teacher.

The Archdiocese of Liverpool has been unable to take action against Charles Coyne, the head of St Cecilia's primary school, who has registered a partnership with Richard Jones, who is believed to work at a nearby school.

. . .

Local Catholics and family campaigners have urged the authorities to take action over the "scandal".

One churchgoer said: "Senior officials are aware of this yet they have done nothing. It's unacceptable."

Norman Wells, the director of the Family Education Trust, said: "It is not unreasonable for parents sending their children to a faith school to expect the headteacher to be living according to that faith."

. . .

A spokesman for the archdiocese said senior officials, including Fr Michael O'Dowd, the episcopal vicar for schools and colleges, had discussed the case as issues of employment law were involved.

"Legal advice was sought," the spokesman said. "The Church was advised that in this case nothing could be done, despite the fact that the head was acting contrary to Church teaching."

. . .

The bishop said each case was different, and added that it was possible for male friends to share a house together without breaching Catholic moral teaching.

. . .

The Rev Richard Kirker, the general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, predicted that Mr Coyne's "courageous" step would be followed by others in senior posts.

"This will be very helpful to everybody who expects the Catholic Church to be open and honest," he said.'

Oh, how the religious tie themselves into knots. There are three primary factions in this argument, and it's quite hard to tell which the most deluded is. On the one hand are the lay complainants, who appear not to have realised that modern anti-discrimination laws mean no-one gives a hoot about their personal moral reaction to one mans sexual orientation. Apparently, nobody was concerned about Mr Coyne's teaching ability until now. Quite obviously underpinning the complainants grievances is the ugly assumption that merely by being around children Mr Coyne is somehow 'teaching' them homosexuality, as if being gay were rather like being a leper, and only quarantine can guarantee public safety.

On the other side of the argument are the 'Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement', who look suspiciously like the proverbial turkeys voting for Christmas, almost as if they are unaware that reinforcing the status quo will lead to precisely the same situation being repeated in just a few weeks time, just as the last one was only a few weeks ago.

And in between these two greasy buns, as it were, is the fetid sausage of the church hierarchy, torn as ever between anti-discrimination legislation that cannot be beaten on the one hand, and a congregation baying for blood on the other. The situation is apparently so desperate that one bishop can issue a statement saying that it's okay for male friends to share a house together in Catholic teaching (duh!), as if pretending that the men are doing no more than playing Scrabble or grumbling at the newspaper is likely to remove the tangible facts of their homosexuality, and their congregations intolerance, from the mix.

Lost, out of all consideration, is Mr Coyne and his partner, whose personal lives have been quietly torn apart by a public media tussle over something that has absolutely nothing to do with them personally, and everything to do with the egos of its various participants. Good luck finding another profession, eh lads?

Media Snapshots

2007-06-27T20:24:00.000Z

On the radio the other day, BBC political analyst John Pienaar interviewed some Labour Party activists in Salford after Blair had handed over leadership of the party. He asked them about Blair's legacy. The first activist puffed up Blair's achievements, and then Pienaar butted in and chimed him for being partisan. Then he asked the second, and she responded by talking about Thatcher's failings. Pienaar again interrupted, asking her to be less partisan. I swtiched the radio off. At no point did it seem to occur to Mr Pienaar that there was something of an irony in a supposedly neutral political analyst questionning two party activists about a subject they clearly had an interest in being partisan about and then chiding them for not being neutral political analysts.

If all this politics is too much for you, you should try the news when politics isn't on it. Here's what was on the last fifteen minutes of Five's lunchtime news last Friday:

1) A viewer had sent in a homemade video clip of a downhill wheelchair race.
2) The 'news' was announced that a 'scientist' had announced that that day was the happiest day of the year. A wholly subjective equation was shown on screen, which even the presenter seemed embarrassed to be explaining. This was followed by a conversation with professional prankster Tony Hawks about how he stays happy. The interview had almost no relation to the 'news', although it did prove an opportune moment for both interviewer and guest to mention Hawks' books (which I've already read) and his participation in the (doubtless very worthy) 'Tennis for Free' charity campaign.
3) The news switched to an old standard - 'it's raining at Glastonbury!' An incredibly chirpy female reporter, who, hilariously, seemed to be actually high, reported from a slightly-muddy field, showed a five-second interview with an organiser in front of a drainage ditch, and spent the rest of the segment discussing which celebrities she'd met, how much fun she was having, and pulling her mac down over her face. It was actually quite amusing, though frankly I'm worried her bosses may have cringed a little.
4) The reporter turned to Daily Mail and Observer film critic Jason Solomons, and asked him about the three main releases of the week. He didn't like two of them, but did like 'La vie en rose', the Edith Piaf biography.

Amazing stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. Of course, there's not always a lot of choice on the other channels. Browsing around today, I came upon a channel called 'the HITS', which is another music video channel. The segment was called 'The 20 Pioneers of Love', and the video was Marvin Gaye's 'Sexual Healing'. I had no idea that Marvin Gaye invented romance. The video, which can be seen here, seemed almost laughably po-faced. In these post-Michel Gondry, post-ironic days, it usually seems that modern music videos have to be held at a creative distance from the songs subject matter. Consequently, a song about a sunny afternoon of contemplative love-making will usually feature badly-filmed, hyper-edited, colour-saturated footage of a riot in an old people's home, or a claymation video of a rat crawling through a drainpipe. By contrast, Gaye's video is from a simpler time. Halfway through, it switches to a made-up film called 'Midnight Love', in which the clearly perfectly-well Gaye is rushed to hospital in dire need of 'sexual healing', which appears to come about through his perving over a nurse with a plump rump, the ingestion of 'Midnight Love Potion' from a distinctly un-medicine looking blue bottle, and the use of a thermometer apparently borrowed from a 1970s sex comedy. I really don't know which I prefer.

Logorrhea

2007-06-11T03:32:00.000Z

I don't understand the fuss about the 2012 Olympic logo.

It's not that I think the logo is amazing, it's that I have no idea what a 'good' logo would look like. I am also prepared to speculate that if those complaining loudest about it now had been honestly polled a fortnight ago, they would have been fairly apathetic about the issue. The logo controversy is part of a wider problem in Britain - people feel passionately about the Olympics, both for and against hosting it, but because there was no debate about whether applying would be a good idea at the time the decision was made, totally irrelevant and unimportant decisions like how the logo should look become disproportionately important as people with a vested interest in doing so use them as a stick with which to beat the government. Maybe there is a good case for demand-revealing referenda here. Personally, I suspect the government is not so much guilty of 'bad logo' as 'bad press relations' - would anyone really have cared if the logo had just emerged, quietly and unannounced, on official literature, as a fait accompli, instead of being trumpeted as a major achievement on the evening news?

Jon Of Cant

2007-05-30T01:09:00.000Z

I went to the barbers yesterday, and while there, did something I almost never do; I picked up 'The Sun'. In it was a column by Jon 'Gaunty' Gaunt, which contains so much wrong-headedness it needs to be seen to be believed. By the way, I didn't make up his nickname - his email address is gaunty@the-sun.co.uk. If you're as amazed by his penmanship as I, why not drop him a congratulatory line?

Example No 1: 'BANKSY A PAIN IN THE ART'
Starting off small, our man moans about Banksy. 'I know that he is talented but I am afraid he is also a vandal and there is no way we should be celebrating or promoting the painting and defacing of other people's property. Other less talented yobs follow the example of this "anonymous rebel" and have made our cities hell-holes to live in as they spray their "tags" like feral cats across every available wall or train carriage.'

One - whatever happened to the humble comma?
Two - how hilariously po-faced is this?
Three - I've never seen a feral cat spray a "tag", and I don't believe they're capable of doing so.
Four - not to nitpick, but surely if Banksy is 'talented', then he very much isn't a 'pain in the art'.

Example No 2: (Later In The Same Column)
A complaint about 'Jocks'*. 'While we're on the subject of the awards, I was also dismayed that three of my Scottish colleagues decided not to stand up with the rest of the audience to give David Beckham a standing ovation. They laughed and giggled while we paid this great BRITON the respect he deserved for all his charity work with young kids. When I asked them why they sat on their hands, their reply was: "It would be just wrong - he's English." I replied: "I know but he's also a Brit and we were celebrating Britain." Why the hell do Jocks who come from such a very, very small country carry such a huge chip? Grow up.'

I have two complaints here. Firstly, he doesn't seem to realise that when it comes to football (which is, after all, what Beckham is famous for), England and Scotland are separate nations with separate football associations and a long and bitter rivalry. (Incidentally, this situation - multiple FIFA nations that are actually all part of a bigger nation - explicitly contravenes FIFA rules. Any other semi-autonomous region in the world - say, Transnistria for instance - would be rejected if it tried to apply). I lied above. Clearly he must know that they are bitter rivals, so why the phony outrage? Secondly, how dim do you have to be to not see the irony in going to an award ceremony celebrating Britishness and then write a column about it insulting 'chippy' 'Jocks' from a 'very very small country'?

Example No 3: 'A HARD LESSON'
Hear dear Jon starts getting serious, and the trouble really starts. Writing about the disappearance of 'Maddie' McCann (and on a day in which it looks increasingly likely that she will either never be found or not be found alive), he intones: 'I have enormous sympathy for their loss but I am afraid they were wrong to leave the kids. They were wrong not to use the childcare facilities. They were wrong not to leave the door unlocked. Wrong to leave them unchecked for 50 minutes and wrong to take the "hundred million to one" chance of this happening. They and the Press are also wrong to criticise those of us who have had the balls to voice astonishment that middle-class parents would do such a thing. Since being the first columnist to make this point, my mailbag has been full of support for my stance and I have yet to meet a parent who disagrees with me.'

Oh dear oh dear. Let us ignore for the moment the crass insensitivity of writing this at this point in time, and instead focus on the nightmarish world 'Gaunty' imagines for us - in which parents must be by their childrens sides, every minute of every day, forever panicking about even taking their eyes off them. Of course, this position fits nicely with the Paedogeddon view of modern life all Sun columnists are contractually obliged to take. Also note his 'astonishment that middle-class parents would do such a thing', casually implying he wouldn't be surprised at all if working-class parents did. Finally, he states that he has 'yet to meet a parent who disagrees with me'. He may not have met any parents who disagree, but a simple glance at the Times would have revealed a Mick Hume (parent) 'Notebook' column bemoaning 'crusaders [who] blame the Portuguese for not sharing Britain’s heightened state of paedophile-phobia. Others question why the British parents dared to leave their children asleep in a locked apartment while having dinner.' (Note the disagreement over whether it was locked or not). Obviously not everybody is going to agree with such a paranoid worldview, but why acknowledge nuance when you can allege unanimous support instead?

And now finally, we get to the worst column of all (titled 'Shut up, Hain') which is just repellent. Let's take a look:

'Just whose side is that perma-tanned prat Peter Hain really on?'

One sentence in and we are asked to choose between good and evil (perma-tans obviously hinting at evil, though with the obvious exception for Robert Kilroy-Silk).

'I only ask because his hysterical and irresponsible reaction to yesterday's suggestion that the police need tougher stop-and-search laws was worthy of the ranting of some scruffy anti-war marcher.'

Yeah, because we all know how wrong those scruffy anti-war marchers turned out to be!

'Why the hell is a man who wants to be deputy leader of this country siding with the hand-wringing human rights brigade?' (emphasis in original)

Oh, I don't know. Political conviction? A respect for civil liberties? A knowledge that extensive, racially targeted use of stop-and-search powers has led to race riots in the past?

'These are the politically correct fools who stopped the Government detaining suspicious individuals and instead forced them to come up with the ridiculous idea of control orders for suspected terrorists.'

This is a novel interpretation of history. The BBC News website has its first story on control orders for suspected terrorists on 2nd February 2005; the 90-day detention debate took place on 9th November 2005. It was really hard proving that lie wrong! Also, the civil liberties lobby didn't 'force' the Government to do anything - quite apart from the historically unprecedented third term majority the Government enjoys, and the fact that they have consistently ignored the civil liberties lobby for years, I would think that lobby would prefer neither measure to be in force.

'Which at least five madmen have ignored and run away from and are hell-bent on killing our boys in uniform.'

How does he know?

'The old cliche that if you've got nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear has never been truer.'

Quite a lot of people make arguments based on old cliches, but it's pretty rare to read a columnist boasting about it.

'What's the alternative? Do nothing? Appease the madmen?'

Like most of the column, this is the argumentative fallacy of false dilemma.

'As a result of this, more young Asians are going to be stopped. But to suggest that this will drive a wedge between them and the authorities is nonsense and just gives succour to the enemies within.'

Police abuse of sus laws is generally regarded to have been a contributing factor in the Toxteth and Brixton riots in 1981, mostly because the Police were stopping and harrassing disproportionately large numbers of young black men, and often appeared to be doing so for no reason other than malice and the pleasure of disrupting people. This is fairly recent history - presumably Mr Gaunt is aware of it, but of course thinking back to a recent historical example of stop-and-search powers being abused to harrass young men leading to conflict and rioting helps purvey the 'nonsense' view that the Police might abuse new stop-and-search powers to harrass young men, leading to conflict and rioting.

'Hain is almost becoming the Islamist Lord Haw-Haw.'

That would be an accurate analogy, because of course one sees Mr Hain on al-Arabiya making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of Osama all the time.

'He's doing the enemy's propaganda work for them.'

Yeah, because by sticking up for civil liberties, Hain is really playing into the hands of Taliban-style Islamists who famously really respect civil . . . wait, something's not quite right with this argument . . .

'If that means they get stopped more often they will have to live with it and realise that it is a necessary evil until we defeat the terrorist scum who want to blow us all up regardless of our faith.'

Note the delight with which the 'necessary evil' is being propagandised. One might almost believe he doesn't think it an evil at all! Note too the language used - just 'have to live with it' - the sort of language an exasperated spouse would use to refer to a partners head cold.

'He should forget about the human rights of the enemy . . .'

Since human rights, by definition, apply to all humans, that might be difficult. Also note the sly rhetorical elision - by implication, all of the people stopped by the Police under these powers will be 'the enemy', and the Police will never make a mistake, ever.

'. . . and start protecting the decent tax-paying Brits who pay his wages.'

Here confusion takes over. Having been bust discussing the 'enemy within', Gaunt now contrasts that enemy with 'decent tax-paying Brits', although all the suicide bombers had British passports and paid taxes. Of course, in reality, 'Brits' in this context is synonymous with 'whites', as we can see in the line 'as a result of this, more young Asians are going to be stopped.' Whether by accident of design, Gaunt lets the guard down a moment and admits the obvious racial element to these new Police powers. Telling.

Jon of Gaunt: Purveyore of moste respectable cante for readers of 'The Fierie Cellestial Orbe' newspapere.

At the end of 'Richard II', Shakespeare gives the historical figure John of Gaunt the most famous speech:

'This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth . . .'

By contrast, here is the 1st Duke of Lancaster's near-namesake enlivening the national dialectic several centuries later:

'Yesterday's picture in The Sun of the 75-stone hog that was shot by the young lad in Alabama, and it's comparison to Porky Prescott, was unfair, unkind and a real insult to . . .'

What's that coming over the hill, is it a punchline, is it a punchline?

'. . . to the pig.'

Oh, be still, my aching sides.

It would seem that history does repeat itself. John of Gaunt was Richard II's uncle, and effectively acted as Regent during his period as King when he was a minor. In the modern day, it would seem that Richard 'the Blackheart' Littlejohn has provided a nice 'intellectual' regency for 'King' Jon to follow on. I only hope he loses his crown jewels in the wash. Better still, he might be able to follow on exactly in Littlejohn's footsteps, and write an allegedly execrable novel that did at least inspire the funniest debate ever on Five Live and the funniest book review I've ever read.

*Note for American readers: 'Jocks' in this context is a derogatory insult for Scottish people, not somebody who is good at sports.

Hooking The Punters

2007-05-17T03:50:00.000Z

The following review - by Matt Glasby - almost made me want to go and see 'Zizek!', a documentary about Slovenian cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek:

'If you only watch one film about an insane Slovenian boffin with a weighty god complex and an even weightier speech impediment, make sure it's this one.'

You've got to admit, that's a good one.

Ten More Years For Tony!

2007-05-12T03:22:00.000Z

It's hard to understand what possessed Neil Clark to write this piece, in which he looks back upon the ten glorious years of Tony's premiership - Tony Benn's, that is. It's well worth reading, if only to boggle at a man who has managed to get a bizarre piece of adolescent wish-fulfilment on to what is supposed to be Britain's premier group blog. It's unintentionally very funny indeed. I was going to try and parody it, but alas, I haven't the skill.

Apparently, 'the renationalisation of the railways, carried out in the first months of the Benn government, has been a great success', which is good to hear. Still, that achievement pales into insignificance when compared to 'Britain's implacable opposition to Nato military action that led to a peaceful solution to the incipient civil war in Kosovo'. Yeah, I hear everyone in Kosovo was hanging on to every word of the debate in Britain before committing themselves.

Tom Hamilton is of course right when he states that this mythical Prime Minister, 'unlike every Prime Minister in my lifetime . . . just gets to do whatever the hell they feel like, without ever having any need to make political compromises or take unpopular decisions, and without ever being placed in a position where bad consequences are inevitable whatever they choose', and that this is wholly unmoored from reality, as surely a child could divine. The real question is not why Clark wants Tony Benn to be Prime Minister, but how such nonsense can possibly appear on a blog like Comment Is Free, which is in theory supposed to be a sort of Brains Trust of the finest minds in the land turning out quality and well considered blog posts. Fat chance.

Temporary Exodus

2007-03-11T03:19:00.000Z

Just to save you the trouble of having to check back here every few days, I would like to warn the few readers still clinging on to this sinking ship that there will be no new content for several weeks - probably about four, at a rough guess.

In the meantime, those familiar with Unreal Tournament might conceivably find this faintly amusing.

PS: Thank you for your continued support. It really is much appreciated. I'm sorry I've been lax in answering comments recently - it's all due to how busy I've been. I fully anticipate getting this thing back to normal in the fullness of time - don't delete me off your blogrolls yet!

De-Evolution

2007-02-26T05:13:00.000Z

I seem to be missing the boat on the latest trend, which is bashing the Conservapedia.

The Conservapedia is an attempt to produce an 'online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America.' Hilarity ensues. It apparently isn't a parody site - it was set up by the son of far-right writer Phyllis Sclafly - but inevitably the parodists are moving in. I wish they wouldn't; most of the stuff is funnier serious. I can't believe the entry on the unicorn is in earnest (via, S,N!):

'The existence of unicorns is controversial. Secular opinion is that they are mythical. However, they are referred to in the Bible nine times,[1] which provides an unimpeachable de facto argument for their once having been in existence . . .'

'Post-Noachian references to unicorns have led some researchers to argue that unicorns are still alive today. At the very least, it is likely that they were taken aboard the Ark prior to the Great Flood.'

Coming soon - I SAW A HIPPOGRIFF AT THE SHOPS TODAY!'

I just did a random search on the site, and came up with this:

'Christopher Columbus' ship, the Santa Maria, ran aground on the island of Haiti on Christmas eve, Dec. 24, 1492. Columbus named the settlement la Navidad. Leaving 40 men, Columbus then departed and promised to return the next year.'

'Columbus wrote this to Spain's monarchs: "In all the world there can be no better or gentler people. Your Highnesses should feel great joy, because presently they will be Christians, and instructed in the good manners of your realms."'

No more, no less. After this event, of course, the settlers settled down with the natives for a nice cup of tea and a game of Monopoly. Actually, that last part might be figuratively true.

My personal favourite comes from a debate page on BC/AD vs CE/BCE:

'England no longer has an established church and the United States never had one.'

Erm, really?

Anyway, I want the parodists and jokers to back off. Why waste a natural source of buffoonery? It's not subverting; it's vandalising.

A Little Comment Goes A Long Way . . .

2007-02-22T19:05:00.000Z

It's been far too long since we last checked out what the great and the good of modern Britain are saying:

Shorter Jeremy Leggett: We're being invaded by carbon dioxide, so we should take up war positions. Bagsy I get to do the sniping.

Shorter Bronislaw Geremek: French and Dutch voters weren't rejecting the European Constitution when they voted 'no' in a referendum on the constitution, which means we should carry on full speed ahead!

Shorter Matthew Yglesias: I've caught Hillary Clinton not telling the whole truth when she says she wasn't in favour of a "pre-emptive war" against Iraq and . . . what do you mean, I haven't mentioned my own initial support for Iraq either?

Shorter Norman Geras: I'd like to beg people not to misread Nick Cohen's new book.

Shorter Andrew Murray: I really disagree with everything in Nick Cohen's new book.

Shorter Nick Cohen: It would seem that people are misreading my new book.

Shorter Peter Wilby: It turns out that David Cameron isn't a single mother from Huddersfielfd after all.

Shorter Mark Vernon: It turns out that fundamentalist Christians love the planet because God made it. Huh, looks like the God Squad could be useful for something yet!

Shorter Felicity Lawrence: Peel away all the layers of globalisation, and what do we find driving it all? Poultry, obviously!

Shorter Edward Pearce: "Robert Walpole - You might consider him a detestable prime minister, but at least he wouldn't have invaded Iraq." [that's the by-line. Seriously. I can't make anything up that's better than that - ed.]

Shorter Natalie Bennett: All of human history and culture may very well collapse, and all that will last is plastic bags.

Shorter Morven Crumlish: I hate Amazon for providing me with a list of similar products to the one I've bought that might be worth a browse. How could they?

Wagamama Is Shit

2007-02-21T01:11:00.000Z

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post was, in fact, not written by me, but by my good friend Mike, who has no blog or Blogger ID. I would just like to take this opportunity to say that if anyone who has no blog wants to email me something they've written, I will happily publish it, and I won't steal the credit. Honest.

I’ve been to Wagamama twice and both times it’s been depressing. I’ll take you through two examples I encountered on the menu:

Chilli Beef Ramen: Translation - Steak in a bowl of watery soup.
Menu Entry: Mmmmmmmm the steak tastes like it’s been boiled and the soup tastes like watery diarrhea after a night of drinking and vindaloo. All for the head hurtingly reasonable price of £9.95. Yay.

The person I was with at the time got this:

Chicken Katsu Curry: Translation - Rice, chip shop curry sauce and chicken nuggets.
Menu Description: As you eat you feel a sense of self loathing for just spending £7.50 on chicken nuggets, curry sauce and rice that has just been cooked for you by someone who, if he didn't work here, could be cooking the same chicken nuggets and curry sauce in your local chippy. You then realise the only reason it could ever justifiably cost this much is if the nicely shaped piles of rice are fashioned by a specially trained artist hedgehog who makes self-portraits.

Wagamma is described as fusion cooking… It’s a fusion of really easy to cook food, made badly, with rice or noodles, uncomfortable primary school benches and a crap name… Well done.

DON’T GO TO WAGAMAMA

Instead buy some chicken nuggets (at most £2 if you want Captain Birdseye’s good stuff) some curry sauce (50p) and rice (fuck all) and then spend about £1.50 hiring someone for 10mins to cook it for you. Go sit on a bus shelter bench near a busy road during rush hour and eat it. It's that quality Wagamana experience recreated exactly, for less.

Radio Silence? If Only

2007-02-20T10:43:00.000Z

My dad drove me back to the station the other day, and he did something I haven't done in quite a long time. He switched on a commercial radio station. Me, I only ever listen to Five Live these days, since the hours I tend to want to listen are around 1 until 4 in the afternoon, coincidentally the time that nice Simon Mayo is on.

The station he listened to was Kerrang, or perhaps I should say KERRRANNNGG!!!!, since the purpose of the station appeared to be as loud as possible. It's been quite a while since I used to listen to metal music, and I'd forgotten quite how proud of their own stupidity its followers are. The experience was very funny, I have to say.

First of all, a caller rang in with a request. They didn't have it. So he requested something else. They didn't have that. He requested another two or three things, all of which they didn't have. I should point out that these might have been album tracks, but they were by bands that even I had heard of, and I know nothing about any music that isn't house, electro or techno. It was becoming painfully obvious that they only have about one hundred tracks that they can actually play. So the caller requested something else. They couldn't play that because it had been on an hour earlier. So he requested something else, and they didn't have that.

'This is a joke, isn't it? I mean, this is a wind-up?' asked the bewildered caller.

'No', replied the DJ, trying to save what little face he could at this point.

'Oh well, keep on rocking'.

Then they played a song by Avril Lavigne, and then, after a few minutes of appropriately dreadful commercials (seriously, radio commercials are the absolute nadir of existence) they played a trail. It went something like this:

'We'd rather live in sex slavery in Manchester than ever play a bad song'.

The next track was the debut single of Sum 41. There was an irony in this that I suspect might have passed unnoticed by the station producers.

The whole thing reminded me of the parody radio station V-Rock that was on GTA: Vice City, but with worse music and slightly lower standards of professionalism. Certainly that trail was just as hilarious, though unintentionally, as anything from the parody.

Grumpy Redux

2007-02-13T10:15:00.000Z

I watched 'Grumpy Old Men' the other night - for the first time since my rant, and I'm sad to say that, if anything, the situation has deteriorated. The 'grumpies' were busy complaining that they are now more famous for their appearances on the whinge-a-thon than they are for whatever else it was made them semi-famous in the first place. You may imagine my eyes boggling somewhat at this point, as I tried to process the fact that these men were trying to enlist my sympathy. This, I take it, is deified grumbling being given a postmodern edge, Grumbling 2.0 as it were. You see, expressing their annoyances has created a whole host of annoyances in itself!

Now, to most other people, this could be written off as Sod's Law, or as the price you have to pay for being indulged in the narcissistic fantasy that the programme constructs around its contributors. However, this is a programme on its last legs, with an ever-dwindling number of contributors, and the BBC is trying to drain the last milk out of the udders of this erstwhile cash cow, so there are no boundaries left to observe, no point at which a producer would step from behind the camera and say, 'hold on, do we really imagine anyone cares about this any more?'

The problem is it attempts to recast middle-aged men in the role of victim, but since its contributors are presumably comfortably off and living a life that must seem fortunate, if not glamorous, to many of the programme's potential viewers, it cannot help but seem like a trivial exercise in empty narcissistic self-indulgence. In Nick Hornby's 'How To Be Good', the protagonist's husband is a local newspaper opinion columnist entitled 'The Angriest Man In Holloway' or some such. Lacking much in the way of material deprivation to bemoan, and being rather shallow and self-centred, his columns complain most frequently about such trivialities as the small tubs of ice cream that you get in the interval at the theatre. He pours out invective far beyond proportion to the (mostly imagined) offence, and as a result, Hornby suggests, becomes a vain, empty, cynical shell of a man. Such, it would seem, is the fate of the 'grumpies', searching ever lower in the unwritten rules and roles of modern British life to find untapped material.

For I could almost forgiven the programme its cynicism and its relentless negativity if it weren't for its banality. This angered me previously:

'The programme cleverly frames its arguments in such a way that if you only half watch it, you find yourself vacantly nodding in agreement, but in reality their arguments don't stand a moments consideration. For instance, they spent five minutes going on about what a 'con' bottled water is. All of them admitted to buying it. Here's a radical idea - instead of whining, why don't you just stop buying it?'

Yet if bottled water was bad, the edition that aired last night, which I will charitably assume has been screened before, reached so far into the barrel of cliche that they complained about peoples enthusiasm for Tim Henman, and Wimbledon devotees' apparently counter-intuitive willingness to cheer on 'Tiger Tim' despite the fact that he loses (used to lose) in the quarter or semi finals every year. This is such a frequently repeated meme in popular culture that it was passe even before it became irrelevant (Andy Murray is now the crowd-drawer at Wimbledon). There is simply no way in which observations on this subject can be presented as new or fresh, and wholly unsurprisingly, these banalities disguise the cynical negativism of attitudes that Britain must always be an also-ran in sporting events. I couldn't care less about rugby, but you never heard the 'grumpies' praise England's win the rugby World Cup - of course not, because the very title of the programme insists that every utterance must be negative, must be accusatory.

There was one other grumble I saw before my friend switched the channel in disgust - the 'grumpies' complained that the liquid that comes out of coffee-machines tastes the same no matter what button you press. Those with even a faint recollection of the works of Douglas Adams will recall that he made a similar observation in 'The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy', which entered the public domain 29 years ago. Typically, Adams fictionalised observations are a million times more humorous, as Arthur Dent is forced to explain to the alien drinks machine that refuses to give him a decent cup of tea, all about Ceylon, the East India Company, the British empire, tea on the lawn and so forth. Dent's exchange with the machine is one of the highlights of the novel, a microcosm of the bureaucratic obstructionism that is the novels key theme. Contrast that with some playwright I'd never heard of saying that he thought these cups of tea might be made of cat-shit. Arf Arf.

Somebody, please put this lame programme out of its misery.

A Bad Doctor Joke

2007-02-13T03:10:00.000Z

Would you believe it, I was actually considering giving up blogging, but then I switched on the radio today and a very joyous sound emerged. It was the sound of self-proclaimed "PR Guru" Max Clifford beating a hasty retreat.

For those not British, Max Clifford is a very famous publicist. He is very good at getting celebrity clients into newspapers or out of them depending on their mood. He is extremely good at his job. He is also a horrible, sleazy little man, famous for representing some not exactly wonderful people, like OJ Simpson.

However, most of my personal distaste for the man comes on a more abstract level. To demonstrate, let me quote a sentence from his Wikipedia entry:

'In light of Clifford's view of the deteriorating state of the NHS, and the moral difference with members of the John Major Government, Clifford worked to expose stories to help the Labour government in to power.'

Unfortunately, the personal views of this man end up being troublingly important in national life. I don't suppose he has a greater idea about the state of the NHS than I do, but obviously, if He thinks so, then it must be true, and the stars must be re-ordered to give the heavens a new look.

One of the not-too-nice people Max Clifford represents is 'Dr' Gillian McKeith, who is a ~~snake-oil salesman~~ television nutritionist. Her programme consists of her volubly berating fat people for their poor lifestyle choices, and dressing up a certain amount of common sense diet advice (eat more fruit and vegetables, eat less crisps and meat, that sort of thing) with a whole host of pseudo-scientific nonsense about chlorophyll in your intestines and the belief that complex dietary information can be gleaned from examining facial pimples or the tongue, or, most famously, by examining her subjects' fecal matter.

What so annoyed Mr Clifford today is that Mrs McKeith is no longer allowed to call herself a doctor in her advertising materials (don't suppose she'll change her URL though), owing to somebody complaining about her questionable 'academic' qualifications to the Advertising Standards Authority. Obviously, I don't hold with things like that, but to the extent that it appears to be causing a wider debate about the worthlessness of her advice, with a four-page demolition of her by Ben Goldacre in the Guardian today, I'm happy as can be.

My personal reason for disliking Mrs McKeith is that she is part of a new television trend that not only allows bullying and humiliation, but positively encourages it. Every week on her show, various fat people are cajoled into denouncing themselves and their lifestyles, with the shrewish Mrs McKeith loudly chiding them for all their transgressions. It is sanctimonious, nasty viewing, and the fact that much of it is wholly unscientific only compounds matters.

It is somewhat ironic that Mrs McKeith specialises in examining people's shit - though whether doing so is much more accurate than reading the future from tea leaves is up for debate - since she is represented by Mr Clifford, who is of course something of a turd himself. Their dual misfortune cheered me up immensely.

Shit-stirrer.

First, Get Your Own House In Order . . .

2007-02-05T05:36:00.000Z

Back in Stourbridge to watch the Super Bowl, and found an advert in my parents' for a company called Richards Roofline Ltd. They may, for all I know, be the best roofing contractors in the Midlands. What I do know, however, is that the front of the advert is mostly made up of a list of local addresses the company has recently fitted stuff at. One of these addresses is 94 Wassell Road. At the top of the advert, in very small lettering, it says:

Reg Office:
94 Wassell Road
Wollescote
Stourbridge

Is it not perhaps not a tiny bit disingenuous to list any repairs you, as a building contractor, have done on your own property as some kind of CV-boosting achievement?

A Joke That'll Move Your World

2007-01-30T17:56:00.000Z

I was playing my mate at pool the other day. I accidentally potted the white, so he had two shots. He potted on the first, and missed on the second. He turned to me to ask if it was still his turn at the table.

'Do you play carry?' he asked.

To which I replied: 'I did once try playing 'Carrie', but she kept moving the balls.'

This would have been an amazing joke if he'd ever fucking heard of it. Sometimes, my wit is my own worst enemy.

Cheat.

Aunty Knows Best?

2007-01-26T04:56:00.000Z

Paul Dacre, the editor of The Daily Mail, has claimed that the BBC is 'culturally Marxist'. No-one seems to be quite sure what he means - least of all, I'm tempted to suggest, himself - however, reading between the lines, he seems to be levelling a charge of collective left-liberal groupthink at the organisation. There is a fairly clear argument that this, at least, is not a wholly unfair charge. One need only look here for those disgruntled at the Beeb for this bias, and that blog features fairly prominently an article by Andrew Marr in which he admits that this is his impression too.

None of which should matter. I don't personally care what the opinions of BBC newsreaders are, and I reckon most people are intelligent enough to work out for themselves whatever their opinion on a story is, without having to be spoon-fed it. The trouble is, we are forced to care by the way the BBC is funded, through a mandatory, non-means-tested licence fee.

The licence fee system of funding has just been renewed for another ten years, but it gets increasingly hard to justify this. Matt C reveals, while making another point, that '[only] 2.6% of the national audience . . . are in the icy grip of BBCs 3, 4, News 24, Parliament and CBeebies.' All BBC channels put together only make up just over a quarter of television viewing. What's more, The Economist showed that:

'Poorer, less educated viewers seem to be turning away, too. Serious material suffers most when people move to multi-channel television, says Ofcom, and particularly in poorer households. The BBC's “Correspondent”, “Newsnight” and “Horizon”, all current-events programmes, are watched by only half as many multichannel homes as by terrestrial-only homes. ITV's “Pop Idol” is watched by only 16% fewer. The drop in “Newsnight” viewing was 17 percentage points greater among poorer viewers than among richer ones. Soap operas, light entertainment, daytime TV, sport and lottery programmes attract a much higher proportion of poorer viewers, the corporation notes.'

'The result, says a BBC executive, is that “we are over-serving white middle-class 55-year-olds.” The BBC is trying to do something to widen its audience. In 2002, for example, realising that it was hardly reaching young black people, it launched a digital radio station called 1Xtra, modelled on pirate radio.'

Even if it weren't the case that the licence fee was deeply unfair on sheer economic terms, it certainly is unfair in a multichannel world. Unable to attract younger and poorer viewers - despite what I suspect many would argue is trying too hard - the corporation is failing in its public service remit. The licence fee is a tax levied by those who can most afford it and get most out of it on those who can least afford it and get least out of it. It should be ditched as soon as possible - those ten years can't go quickly enough.

Chavmo

2007-01-24T16:53:00.000Z

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post was, in fact, not written by me, but by my good friend Mike, who has no blog or Blogger ID. I would just like to take this opportunity to say that if anyone who has no blog wants to email me something they've written, I will happily publish it, and I won't steal the credit. Honest.

On my way home from University I concluded two thing. The first after overhearing someone one a bus say "I’m going to hit the books, then hit bed".

I think that all people that use hit before an object to say that they are going to do something involving the object should be hit in the face with that object. This should be enforced much in the same way as the tango adverts of old.

My second revelation was far more profound and wide reaching and could solve two major problems of modern society. Chavs or scallies, call them what you will are a pain in the arse. Always beating people up robbing houses, spitting (if you’re a chav reading this I don’t mean like a “grangsta rappper spittin lyrics”, I mean how everyone else uses the word) and breaking things. Bastards.

Emo kids are the second, less in your face but equally irritating, group who spend there time crying and whining about life being so hard. Boohoo.

A government enforced policy of breeding of the two together would lead to well rounded individuals who are neither annoyingly whiny or try to attack because you “looked at them wrong”. The whininess and agressiveness would balance each other out.

This equation proves it:

Chavy aggression + Emo whininess = Normal individual.

Problem solved…

Although on a small minority of cases there is a chance that this could lead to the worst of both worlds, a chavmo. This “person” would beat the shit out of you for no reason then cry about it while playing shitty, whiny music near your pummelled remains which would be infinitely worse then either one on its own.

Cameron Chameleon

2007-01-16T05:04:00.000Z

Compare and contrast:

'Politicians 'should meddle' in family life'

with

'I am Thatcher's heir!'

Sounds to me like the worst of both worlds. In fact, the corruption is maybe even more relevant - 'the worth of boast worlds'.

I've decided my advice for the next election already - 'vote Loony, vote often'.

By the way, chameleons generally don't change their colour to camouflage themselves - that's something of a myth. They actually change them when there is a change in their physical or psychological wellbeing. So there.

Ha, World - In Your Face!

2007-01-10T02:18:00.000Z

Well, it turns out I was right after all. After being wrong. However, let's focus on the fact that I was right in the end.

You may recall that a while ago Sony brought out an advert for their Bravia television featuring thousands upon thousands of coloured balls bouncing down the hilly streets of San Francisco.

I initially argued that practical reasons made this impossible, and that it must have been painstakingly CGI-ed. Boy, was I wrong, as these beautiful photos show.

Well, they proceeded to do a sequel with paint, which you are sure to have seen. Having been once burned, I proceeded to argue against everybody I knew that the advert was accomplished wholly without CGI. Nobody believed me - and they were all wrong:

'Our latest TV ad - featuring massive paint explosions - took 10 days and 250 people to film. Huge quantities of paint were needed to accomplish this, which had to be delivered in 1 tonne trucks and mixed on-site by 20 people.

The effect was stunning, but afterwards a major clean-up operation was required to clear away all that paint!

The cleaning took 5 days and 60 people. Thankfully, the use of a special water-based paint made it easy to scrape-up once the water had evaporated.'

Looks like I was right after all. More cracking photos here.

I apologise unreservedly for the infantile nature of this post. Can I have a free TV now Sony?

Blogger The Weird

2007-01-07T02:38:00.000Z

I hadn't used the draft function before - apparently it slots posts halfway down the page if you've written things in the more recent past, so I feel I should point out that I haven't totally abandoned you, I have been beavering away (as if!) on this. If you have comments, please comment under that post!

An Unoriginal Source Of Frustration

2006-12-28T01:51:00.000Z

Some time ago, Matt C did a post pointing out some of the more arcane and asinine decisions by the body that adjudicates upon the decency and accuracy of advertising in Britain, the Advertising Standards Authority.

When not wasting tax payers money on their own not-exactly-brilliant ad campaigns, the body makes some of the most preposterous censorship decisions in Britain today.

If you cast your minds back to this summer, you may be able to recall an advertising campaign for a product called 'Original Source shower gel'. The reason you may be able to recall the campaign is that it tried to boost the products 'natural' credentials by featuring actors in the nude - three adverts, one actor in each, two female and one male. Two of the adverts weren't complained about, and can be seen at the official website of the product (why does shower gel need a website?)

The best is yet to come, however. The third advert featured a young-ish looking woman sitting under a lemon tree. Apparently, 29 viewers said that it was offensive because the woman, who was over 18, looked under 16. The advertisers had assumed that this wouldn't be a problem; they had received clearance from the Broadcasting Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) who had said - you're gonna love this:

'The BACC said they endorsed Cusson's comments and added that the model was, if anything, ethereal and androgynous, a sort of creature of nature like a dryad or a nymph, and came across somehow as asexual rather than sexually suggestive.'

If you kept a straight face reading that you did better than me. These are the finest minds in the nation, people! Visit4Info members can judge for themselves whether a thin eighteen year old woman looks more 'like a dryad or a nymph' here. I don't know, she looks like a woman to me:

But then what would I know, I'm not a classically trained pervert after all. The advert was changed; 29 complainants won the day - a magnificent victory over common sense was won (and the hopeless and totally irrelevant BACC was overriden yet again, making it surely the most pointless body in Britain today).

However, it goes on. The more reactionary elements of Fleet Street have done a great job in training their readers to be minor fieldmarshals in the Paedo Wars. The product website contains a messageboard (again, why?) and the Paedofinder generals descended en masse. Here are some of the classic contributions to the national dialectic:

showerjel:
'Too right, I think there is a bit to much body showing, especially the postiions they are in! Any pervert would enjoy it!!!'

Oh, and you would know?

Digitx
'I agree with Pinkichi, it does not matter whether the Standards people did not saying anything. What does matter is that people still perceive the advert to be of a young girl (specifically underage). In this day in age, we have to be so careful not to enrich the lives of the paedophiles out there. I am waiting for a better response from Original Source before making an official complaint. '

Oh yes, the lives of paedophiles are just great in modern Britain. You know, I hear the government give them free PlayStations, just like the asylum seekers! I mean, it's totally irrelevant that the woman is actually comfortably over 18 years old, what's more important is what paedo's may or may not be thinking. One of the contributors, pinkichi - one of the 29 victorious complainants - deserves a fisk all of their own:

'If your image had been used by a paedo group how would you feel? If one of your children had been used? One of your friends? One of your nieces/nephews?'

Except that nobody has been used by a 'paedo group', nobody was abused - given that the lady is over 18, she obviously chose to be in the advert of her own free will, and I hate scare tactics about 'what if your children were abused?' No one was - so what? (it has to be said, however, that this daft idea has spread - one blog claiming to be 'seeking justice and support for survivors of child sexual abuse' has run the story)

'Unfortunately not everyone out there is innocent and nice.'

So treat everyone you meet with suspicion - after all, you can't be sure about anybody, and unless you're sure they aren't, then they're probably paedophiles.

'I have a big problem if naked children are used for profit. I have no problem with naked adults.'

So, sorry again, but what is your problem with the naked adult in front of you?

'Bottom line you are either for or against child abuse images etc. I know where I stand and have no problems being called a prude etc bring it on!'

I guess that makes me objectively pro child abuse then. Why am I not on the Sex Offenders register already? Come to that, dear reader, why aren't you - after all, you didn't complain to stop the rising tide of not-quite-child-pornography, did you? Shame on you!

Campbell's Comical Con Of A Climax

2006-12-19T17:01:00.000Z

Nicky Campbell really is a tool:

'London is on a shortlist of five cities being considered to host an NFL game next year. Nail-biting, isn't it? Shall we send them Watford v Charlton in return? It would, I'm sure, be a great accolade to be chosen it but if it does come here, as the late Peter Cook said to David Frost in response to a dinner invitation from the Duke and Duchess of York: "Oh dear. I find I'm watching television that night."'

'No off-fence (go on, say it in a funny way) to the sport's British cheerleaders but if only they put down their pompoms and assume some ob-jec-ob-jec-tiv-ity. This is a game which appeals only to those who enjoy it's legalised brutality or get off on the cultural accretions and ghastly razzamatazz that disguise what the spectacle lacks. In crude terms, American football never reaches orgasm. A ball going into a net, through a hoop, down a hole, being touched down or blasted out of reach with supreme finality, satisfies a need deep in the primal core. Merely carrying a ball into an area after all that build-up and he-man hullabaloo is a bit, well, flaccid. It's Charles Atlas with erectile dysfunction.'

'I can't drive past goal nets without wanting to stop the car, get out, blast a ball and see that bulge and hear that ripple. I can't imagine the yearning desire to advance the ball into an endzone. Psycho-sexual problems apart, American football is, compared to our own national game, philosophically inferior. A Bostonian once said to me after watching a game of sacker: "I don't get it. You can make a great play and get nothing for it." Such is life, my dear old fruit.'

Well, pardon me Nicky for taking 'off-fence' (ha! Did you see what he did there? What a wag!) but I can't quite believe such a terrible bundle of non-sequiturs made it into the pages of a national newspaper. Campbell complains that scoring a touchdown is somehow inferior to scoring a try because . . . well, actually, I'm not quite sure why he believes that. Is it the fact that when a rugby player gets over the try line, he has to bend over a little bit and place the ball on the ground? Oh, the athletic superiority!

Quoth Mike Carlson:

'For the life of me I can't see how sinking a putt and touching down a try are similar, or how either is qualitatively better than jumping the air, grabbing a ball thrown from 40 yards away, and coming down dragging your toes inside the 'touch' line while being hit by two guys out to jar the ball, your teeth, and your wind away from you. But then, I'm a mere American.'

In the words of Philip Larkin ('Self's The Man'):

'But wait, not so fast:
Is there such a contrast?'

Try watching these videos (more rugby ones)*, and then tell me what the big athletic and sporting difference is, and then watch this video and tell me how that is in any way more sporting or athletic than either, or how its not very phallic 'climax' in any way makes up for the unremitting tediousness of all that came before it.

Ask yourself seriously; which is closer to rugby, American football or golf? Or, for that matter, basketball or netball or cricket or whatever sport it is in which the ball is 'blasted out of reach with supreme finality'?

Campbell's moan about 'cultural accretions and ghastly razzamatazz' is so much token anti-Americanism - he may or may not like cheerleaders or fireworks particularly, but they do nothing to 'disguise what the spectacle lacks' because it doesn't lack anything in a sporting sense.

Also, if I may be pardoned for going off on a rant here, if football (say) provides such an amazing spectacle that couldn't be improved by 'ghastly razzamatazz', Campbell might like to tell me why only 13000 home fans turned up to watch Wigan this weekend, or why, when Fulham travelled to Blackburn earlier in the season, only 150 Fulham fans made the trip up north? The answer might lie in his rhetorical question of whether Watford v Charlton should be sent to America - a game that Jackie Oatley described on Five Live this week as 'the worst game I've ever seen'. Or perhaps he might like to ask himself why so many people go to twenty20 cricket, and so few people go to county championship games?

Campbell risks humour again later when he writes about 'sacker' - why look, that's almost nearly how an actual, real American might pronounce it! Sadly for Campbell and those who love sneering at 'philosophically inferior' Americans, 'soccer' is actually a British word. What's more, pace Carlson again:

'I don't hear any old fruits saying 'the sport you Australians call 'soccer', although they do call it that, because, like us, they have their own form of football which they prefer to the beautiful hooligan game of shirt-tugging, crotch-grabbing, and diving.'

Campbell's real scorn, of course, is saved for 'the sport's British cheerleaders'. After all, in Obi-wan Kanobe terms, if the Americans are the fools, I'm the fool who follows them. He should try mentioning that to Colin Murray at the BBC Christmas party, for his Five Live counterpart used to present Five's coverage of the NFL during the early hours of the morning, two nights a week, and getting paid a very small amunt of money to do so, out of sheer love of the sport. He singularly fails to consider that I - or any of the sports numerous British fans for that matter - might, in fact, enjoy watching American football alongside many other sports, and that I may enjoy it precisely because it has the same characteristics as every other sport I watch, and that the 'climax' he believes is so obviously absent is so totally ephemeral to the viewing, and sporting, experience.

Cleverer than its namesake.

*The first is a video of LaDainian Tomlinson's touchdowns for San Diego, the others of rugby tries of various quality - I put several in because of the huge number of Tomlinson touchdowns contained in that video. At some point, I hope to be able to embed these videos into the post, but YouTube isn't letting me at the moment.

No Peeping

2006-12-17T03:15:00.000Z

Longer-term readers may be able to remember that at the end of March, I was rejoicing at the news that 'Peep Show' hadn't been cancelled.

Friends of mine may have noticed me muttering under my breath, whenever some fresh drivel offends mine eyes on the gogglebox, something along the lines of 'never mind, at least the new 'Peep Show' DVD is out soon'.

Indeed it is. It is with a heavy heart, therefore, that I must note I shan't be buying it. Not out of choice, but because the makers have placed something called Macrovision RipGuard on it. This piece of software prevents the disk being viewed on PCs and, crucially, PlayStation 2's, my only means of watching a DVD.

The purpose of this piece of software is to stop people ripping the disks and sharing them on Torrent sites, which may be a worthy enough goal. Unfortunately, however, their master plan has two flaws; firstly, it demonstrably hasn't worked, as series 3 is freely available on Torrent sites, and secondly, it is clearly encouraging people not to buy their product (check out the host of one star reviews, 'not for the programme but for the disk' on Amazon).

How daft is this? Why alienate people who actually want to pay for your product in favour of a doomed attempt to stop ripping? Why does this software stop the innocent user (me) from watching the DVD on a PS2, which can't rip disks anyway?

I want answers, and I want them soon. I shall set a personal deadline - if the makers don't produce a version of the DVD that I can watch by the end of January, I shall illegally download a copy.

A Film Review Of 'Borat'

2006-12-15T17:52:00.000Z

It could be seen as a little ironic that in the year the studios attempted to get serious, and offered viewers the chance to peruse films about McCarthy or the troubles in the Middle East, the film that has caused the greatest critical schisms is a self-consciously vulgar narrative about a fake Kazakh journalist crossing America in order to receive some personal and national 'cultural learnings'. That such cultural learnings include naked wrestling, pubic hair as currency and Pamela Anderson surely won't have shocked a world that saw a scene involving Carmen Electra playing a blind woman taking a voluble shit in front of a crowded room in 'Scary Movie 4' played as a comedic highlight earlier this year.

A little more surprising, however, is the way the film has become a critical line in the sand, operating as a demarcation point for those critics unwilling to accept without question comedy of belittlement and grotesquerie. Director Larry Charles and provacateur Sacha Baron Cohen utilise every weapon available in their apparent quest to find the Holy Grail (a film that offends everybody, and is, therefore, in the minds of the target audience, young white men, a near nirvana of crushed social expectations). Perhaps it's Borat's unique combination of racial slurs, grossly de-eroticised sexuality and involvement of an apparently frequently unsuspecting public that provoked such strong reactions.

Or, more likely perhaps, it is the inspired marketing campaign that accompanied the film. Traditionally, it is horror films that were marketed upon the basis of how they broke laws, offended morals and were generally indecent, a bit of rough. Of course, one can go back to the 1920s and onwards to find many examples of these, but in the modern era, the template for the 'shock horror!' style of horror film marketing is Michael and Roberta Findlay's 'Snuff', which was a particularly dull slasher movie with an arguably realistic looking 'real' murder tacked on the end. The producer Allan Shackleton came up with the brilliantly inventive idea of forming outraged pickets against his own film in order to increase publicity. Ever since, horror films at the more extreme end of the market have sought notoriety through inflaming opinion. 'Borat' is arguably the first example of a succesful application of this policy to a comedy.

For it is impossible to analyse 'Borat' without analysing the real-world response the film has provoked. The ludicrous, parodic PR tour of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev and the endless post-release lawsuits merely engorge the film's already inflated cultural position. Whether or not the filmmakers are found guilty is irrelevant financially and, more importantly, confirms to a public keen to taste fresh provocation from studio comedies that have become stale from repetition and predictability that this is a film that Does Something, and that that Something must be important because people are upset about it.

The viewer's opinion on what the film achieves or fails to achieve hinges upon two key factors - readiness to accept the film's quasi-political message, and an acceptance of the transformation of unwitting civilians into roundly derided figures of fun. Arguably, the latter can be justified by the former, but the political message is less clear than some seem to believe. The film contains a coda, in which we see Borat, proudly standing in a new, less primitive Kazakhstan. One joke, hinging upon Borat's superiority in poverty to his next-door neighbour, is mirrored from the start, with Borat now appearing superior in poverty-lite. The overall effect of the coda is to enforce a classic rags-to-riches narrative arc on the proceedings, for both man and nation.

(Incidentally, this is far from the worst example of a terribly thought-out epilogue from 2006. That honour surely has to go to 'Confetti', which has an epilogue in which two of the main characters - the naturist couple - renounce the lifestyle that has been their only signifier throughout the film. Stripped of that, they are characters without a point - a complete waste of all the previous characterisation. You see, this is why they make films with scripts, so they actually make sense!)

Cohen's political point, if indeed it could be called that, is wholly generic - it turns out that some people in the southern states are a bit racist, and that men don't like being kissed by other men. If this is homophobia, class me a homophobe. Those at the sharp end of the pranks are generally helpful and sincere - even the small number who reveal views that are genuinely revolting do so in a spirit of camaraderie and banter. None of this is to say that these people don't deserve their comeuppance, but it does blunt its polemical effectiveness. Leo Goldsmith is right when he states that they generally 'deserve their treatment, if only for their extreme self-seriousness and their gullible willingness to believe that such primitive, socially retarded people as Borat actually exist overseas', but no-one should mistake their humiliation for enlightenment instead of entertainment.

So, ultimately, the only measure of the films success is whether or not it makes you laugh - and of course it did, though in patches, mostly when Cohen was showing the verbal dexterity that was a hallmark of 'Da Ali G Show' in its best years. Nobody can deny how quick he is thinking on his feet, and it is in the improvisatory, rather than staged, sequences that the film shines. Watching Cohen berate an uncomprehending woman for shrinking people into the dolls she's throwing out in a yard sale is far cleverer than an endless, five minute naked wrestling scene, particularly since Cohen presumably worked out his career would hardly benefit from an extended look at his penis, and so an improbably large strategic bar defends what's left of his modesty - a somewhat surprising copout in a film so apparently determined to mine the bottom of the barrel in a quest for provocative revulsion. Illuminating, but only very dimly, and amusing, but only occasionally, it was the most succesful failure of 2006.

The Things You Hear . . .

2006-12-11T16:18:00.000Z

Sometimes just annoying:

In Sainsbury's:

'Would you like to visit to the bakery department?'

Sometimes amusing:

In the bogs at closing time at my local:

Man 1: 'Would you rather be chased by a tiger or an elephant?'
Man 2: 'A tiger. Elephants are mad when they're on a rampage and they'd crush you.'
Man 1: 'An elephant would be better, because you could hide behind a tree. You couldn't do that with a tiger.'

A Little Comment Goes A Long Way . . .

2006-12-06T22:48:00.000Z

Shorter Mark Honigsbaum: Bird flu might have all but disappeared, but I'm still panicking!

Shorter Ian Davis: Here's an idea - we could threaten our non-existent enemies with make-believe weapons!

Shorter Anthony Giddens: The problem with Britain is that we're too obese to defend ourselves.

Shorter Michael White: The three main political parties have a God-given right to exist, and if they don't appeal to us, why then we must pay to make them appeal to us.

Shorter Ian Macwhirter: Foreigners own most of our power companies, and they aren't to be trusted to do it properly. We should own all of our power companies because only people from the country of origin can be trusted to . . . what do you mean, Enron?

Shorter Jackie Ashley: The judicial system would be better served by weeping matches between victims.

Shorter Ken Livingstone: Come on, there must be somebody else excited about the Olympics besides me?

Shorter John Lloyd: A majority of people in Scotland want independence, and a majority of people in England wish to give it to them, but the majority doesn't want Union broken.

Shorter Andrew Brown: Let's get rid of all music that's gone before. We could call it Year Zero!

Shorter Matthew Fort: Some people seem to think that cheaper to produce potatoes are a good thing, but I can't for the life of me see why.

Shorter Iain Dale: The Conservatives should probably get a bit more similar to Labour.

Shorter Alan Wolfe: I reckon those Evangelical Christians will just give up and forget politics now that they've lost an election.

Shorter Natalie Bennett: Watch as I reduce the whole of global conflict to a simple battle between men and women.

Shorter Peter Preston: Taxis are shit. We should get rid of them, and tough luck if you don't live on a bus route.

Shorter Richard Francis: The judge who presided over the Salem Witch Trials later apologised for doing so, and therefore Tony Blair should apologise for slavery, which he presi. . . oh, no, wait a minute, something's not right . . .

Let's Talk About Sex

2006-12-01T17:05:00.000Z

The winner of this year's Literary Review award for the worst writing about sex in a novel was Iain Hollingshead for a passage in his novel 'Twenty Something'. Apparently, the author's reference to the protagonist's 'bulging trousers' was enough. However, BabyWashington argues, not unreasonably, that Will Self was robbed for this, from 'The Book Of Dave':

'Dave licked between Phyllis's shoulder blades and drove his tongue down her grooved back. She shuddered and, grabbing his thigh, pulled it up and over her own so that he half straddled her. In the confusion of their bodies - his hairy shanks, her sweaty thighs, his bow-taut cock, her engorged basketry of cowl and lip - there was clear intent; so that when he penetrated her, they moved into and out of one another with fluid ease, revving and squealing, before arriving quite suddenly. Dave and Phyl were having sex in her cottage outside Chipping Ongar.'

Now, I have a little difficulty understanding all of this. Before I go on, I should point out that I haven't read 'The Book Of Dave', because I don't read books in hardback as a point of principle - I fail to see why I should subsidise publishing industry vanity when it will come out in paperback in six months time. I do know, however, that people take Self seriously, and that Self takes Self even more seriously. When the novel was reviewed on the Five Live book review, the reviewers (who normally love everything they're presented with - I've only ever heard them slag off one book in the entire time I've listened) were a bit lukewarm about it, and when a member of the public who'd been given an advance copy started laying into it, Self was mightily unimpressed.

The point I'm trying to make here is that his novel isn't a joke. Whatever you think of Self as a writer, he's an excellent reader of his own work, being possessed of a fine reading voice. It's hard to believe he never read that passage to himself, and if he did, how and why did it end up on the page? It isn't just bad, it's awful, even by the standard of average entries into this dubious competition. When the imagery isn't meaningless ('engorged basketry', 'bow-taut cock'), it's vile ('hairy shanks') or else cringeworthy and cliched ('revving and squealing'). The rancid plosives, the horrible mental image, the jarring disconnect of that final line, it can't all have been accidental.

Self didn't win because the judges stated that 'heavyweights like Thomas Pynchon and Will Self are beyond help at this point'. In other words, giving the award to him would be like giving a Razzie to Ed Wood - somehow, it just wouldn't cover the scale of the offence. Yet time and time again, certain writers find themselves on this list, and Hollingshead may be amongst them - 'I hope to win it every year', he announced.

That, ultimately, is the problem with 'prizes' like this. All they do is encourage an unseemly and unfortunate race to the bottom (so to speak), creating a sort of nonsensical cache for unreadable prose.

Would you want this man narrating your sex?

Where Are Those Goddamned Statisticians I Ordered?

2006-11-28T15:55:00.000Z

Well, where are they?

From Five Live's 'Midday News' today:

'The two main political parties have loan debts of over £60 million. The Conservatives have £35 million, and Labour have £24 million'.

Hang on,let's see if we can get our resident maths expert to sort it out:

Any luck?

Hmmmm. Looks like a 'no' then.

Newsflash: We're Great

2006-11-27T05:36:00.000Z

If you head to the BBC News page right now, you will find a link to a video podcast containing 'The Best Of The 10 O'Clock News'. Even news programmes have best-ofs now? How do they even pick this sort of thing? Maybe, after each story, the producer leaps up and down shouting 'Yes, great news, folks!' or 'This news just isn't up to par' and they judge accordingly. Personally, I have to say I think it a little opportunist to take credit for the day to day happenings of the world, but there you go.

However, I mustn't beat up on the Beeb too much. Long-time readers will know that it's not exactly my favourite organisation in the world, but credit where it's due means I must complement them on their coverage of the Ashes online. In addition to being able to listen to the matches over the net, meaning I can drift off to sleep while they're on, they have finally caught on to the possibilities of blogging, and have set up blogs for a number of people involved in the coverage to share their thoughts.

The writers, including Jonathan Agnew, and sometime commentators Mark Pougatch and Arlo White, as well as quite a few others are pretty variable in quality, and most of them are trying to big up England, which is a little tricky at the moment, but it's refreshing to see some out of game discussion and dissection. Frankly, the BBC, which has been pretty slow picking up the baton in harnessing the power of the net, and blogging in particular, is on to a good thing if it utilises it more frequently, because of the sheer number of people it can put on the ground. Hopefully they'll have some cheerier news to talk about soon.

Happy Birthday Tonya!

2006-11-19T17:56:00.000Z

Okay, I'm late, but never mind, better late than never. After all, Tonya herself was late to the medal ceremony at the 1993 US Championships, so compared, mine is a minor misdemeanour indeed.

Yes, this time last week was the 36th birthday of erstwhile American figure skater Tonya Harding. The only thing most people can remember about Tonya is that her husband hired a man to cripple her main rival Nancy Kerrigan during the 1994 US Figure Skating Championships. Yet there's so much more to her than that, and we here at Dr Feelgood thought now would be as good a time as any to reveal '10 Reasons Why Tonya Harding Is A Much Better Person Than Nancy Kerrigan, And In Fact Just About All Of You Too':

1. Well, for a start, she was arguably a better figure skater - she was the first, and to this day the only, American to land the famously difficult triple axel.

2. She was terrible at timekeeping, being nearly late at two competitions (including one in which she was so late that jet lag nearly ruined her performance) and one awards ceremony. She was, therefore, much more dramatic, and anyway, as all celebrity parties show, it's the best people who turn up last.

3. Harding married a man called Jeff Gillooly. This is arguably the funniest surname in the world. By contrast, Kerrigan married a man called Jerry Solomon. You can almost feel the greyness washing off that name.

4. Harding once got someone to telephone in a bomb threat against herself in order to avoid the pain of having to qualify for a tournament. I'm jealous - why didn't I think to do this with my homework?

5. Even better - Harding later used the same excuse to cancel a boxing match. It takes guts to burn people once, but twice? Fair play!

6. A patron of the arts - her attack on Kerrigan inspired a novel 'Celebrities In Disgrace' and 'Tonya and Nancy: The Opera'.

7. Come on - would anyone give a shit about figure-skating if it wasn't for her?

8. Made a sex tape before it was passe.

9. Harding was found guilty of domestic assault, which is, I admit, not terribly cool. However, she assaulted the man by throwing a hubcap at him, which most certainly is.

10. Kerrigan, by contrast, was a whiny bore. She once attended a promotional event with her sponsor, Walt Disney World, and was caught saying: 'This is dumb. I hate it. This is the most corniest thing I have ever done.' An ungrateful bitch, obviously, but it's the grammar that upsets me. 'Most corniest?' She deserved everything she got!

Also, she made it to the cover of Time magazine. More than any of you, anyway!

Thoughts

2006-11-18T23:13:00.000Z

I haven't really been doing right by you all recently. Hardly any posts, emails and comments unanswered. I have been extremely busy this week, but I promise I'm going to try and do better in the forthcoming weeks. I've started by answering comments and adding people to the blogroll who asked to be added.

To be absolutely honest with you, I've had an absolutely awful week with work, which isn't over yet by any means. I just had some devastating news from the girlfriend too, so I'm really quite down at the moment. The upside for you lot is that that usually means a bit more frequent blogging.

A Bad Rap

2006-11-13T21:44:00.000Z

The Times:

'HIP-HOP and rap artists are teaching young Muslims the ideology of radical Islamism through songs about the war in Iraq, the oppression of Muslims and the creation of an Islamic state governed by Sharia, or religious law.'

'Intelligence agencies have identified music as a “tool for indoctrination”. The phenomenon began with an American group called Soldiers of Allah. The group has since disbanded but its music and lyrics remain popular on the internet. Other groups in Britain, France and the US have been identified as giving cause for concern. Many use the derogatory term “kufur” to describe non-Muslims.'

'Madeleine Gruen, an American intelligence analyst, highlighted the lyrics of a British group called Blakstone as a possible gateway to extremist politics.'

Uh-oh. Here we go again. People are using music for ill reasons. I know I should be concerned, but I just can't remember what music is . . . I'd better ring my mate John, he'll know.

STEVE: Alright mate, how's it going? Been up to much lately? Listen mate, I've just forgotten what music is and I was wondering if you could tell me?

JOHN: Nah mate, haven't done anything for years. Music? Let's see, I seem to recall writing that down somewhere. Ah, yes: "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats."

I'm glad we cleared that up. That act was twelve years ago. Twelve years and one government on, and we've gone precisely nowhere. First it was raves (pdf warning), then it was Jamaican dancehall, and now it's the turn of the next group of people who've come up with music that's 'threatening'. As per usual, we see the implicit assumption that people can't possibly make up their own minds about what they hear, or take responsibility for their actions. No change here, then.

Cognitive Dissonance

2006-11-08T14:56:00.000Z

Within two minutes of each other on the Simon Mayo programme on 'Five Live' yesterday.

A spokeswomen for road charity Brake (who I've complained about before):

'One young person dies every hour on Britain's roads. In the time it takes us to talk about this, one young person will have met their death'.

A spokesman for some union or association of driving instructors:

'Two young people die per day on Britain's roads'.

Obviously the young people perishing are those who were going to grow up to be statisticians.

All of this guff was supporting some typically monstrous proposal to prevent seventeen year olds from learning to drive, and for people just past their test to be limited in the number of passengers they can carry. Obviously this rubbish should be opposed for being impractical and illiberal, and also contradictory to the always-ignored fact that actually road deaths in Britain are on the decrease, but my real question is how all this fits in with this new legislation banning age discrimination? Mixed messages, perhaps?

A Little Comment Goes A Long Way . . .

2006-11-05T03:52:00.000Z

Shorter Quin Hillyer: The tragedy of democratic politics is that sometimes politicians who have had a hand in a couple of decent pieces of legislation get voted out.

Shorter Madeleine Davies: A 'Glamour' magazine poll suggests quite a lot of women reckon Jamie Oliver would make a great prime minister, and as a fellow reader I'm duty-bound to take this seriously.

Shorter Simon Tisdall: North Korea setting off a nuclear bomb would be good news for the United States.

Shorter Peter Melchett: I want cheap and affordable food for people on low incomes to taste horrible.

Shorter Yvonne Roberts: According to my broad definition, Madonna is quite likely to engage in child abuse of her adopted child.

Shorter Masoud Golsorkhi: It is immoral for people to buy cheap and affordable clothing. (Are you spotting a theme here? - Ed.)

Shorter Graham Holliday: I've seen the future - and it's French dog turds.

Shorter Bill Emmott: The Conservatives just look stupid for having a policy on taxation.

Shorter Imran Waheed: I'm in favour of freedom of speech, except when people use it to criticise Islam.

Shorter Michelle Hough: Western women who don't eat enough are basically taunting starving Africans.

Shorter Michele Hanson: The trouble with having opinions is that it forces you to take sides in an argument. I'd much rather get a season ticket on top of the fence.

Shorter George Monbiot: Statues celebrating animal heroes from yesteryear are insulting to the dead Iraqis of today.

Shorter Mark Lawson: Caution! The following is a desperate attempt to be humorous about the issues of the day, mostly by means of jokes about Dick Cheney's forthcoming heart attack.

Shorter Derek Draper: Everyone should have to go to mandatory therapy sessions.

Shorter Polly Toynbee: I'm going to carry on my policy of comparing Britain to Sweden, the most perfect society in the world, no matter what anyone says.

Shorter Carol Midgley: By not dying in his car crash, Richard Hammond has helped convince thousands of boy racers that it's okay to run over pedestrians.

Shorter Julie Bindel: Most men are criminals, and men generally are just scum.

Shorter Tony Juniper: Everyone with a different opinion to mine on global warming should be censored.

Shorter Andrew Rawnsley: Me, lose my faith in politics? Are you kidding? When have politicians ever tried to screw us over?

Shorter Cristina Odone: Free speech on the internet can only lead to trouble.

Shorter Janet Daley: When men get pissed, it's cultural tradition, but when women get pissed it should be a cultural panic.

Ill-Fitting Appendage

2006-11-03T05:07:00.000Z

This article about disappearing fish stocks is deathly boring - and it seems to me rather unlikely too - but one fact does alleviate a little of the tedium.

The key scientists name?

Dr Boris Worm.

Like A Vandal

2006-11-01T01:21:00.000Z

Sometimes, you just read a story and you think you couldn't laugh any harder . . .

BBC News: 'Tycoon Holes Dream Picasso Deal'

'A US casino mogul has pulled out of a deal to sell his Picasso painting for a record $139m (£74m) after accidentally elbowing a hole in the middle.'

'Las Vegas magnate Steve Wynn was showing Le Reve (The Dream) to guests at his office in Las Vegas last month.'

'Mr Wynn, who has retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease affecting peripheral vision, tore a coin-sized hole.'

'He will now keep the painting, which he bought in 1997 for $48.4m, and repair it, his spokeswoman said.'

Absolutely hilarious.

Man Enjoys Ecstasy SHOCK!

2006-10-22T22:18:00.000Z

Another one from the 'to blog about drawer' while I get my head straight (I've been really ill for nearly a week now).

BBC News: 'BBC Defends Norton Drug Comments'

'The BBC has defended Graham Norton after he admitted in an interview he had tried "loads of drugs".'

'The TV star, who hosts the BBC's Strictly Dance Fever and Graham Norton's Bigger Picture, also described ecstasy as "just fantastic".'

'. . .'

'Norton told the magazine: "The only time I took ecstasy was years and years ago. It was absolutely amazing. It was just fantastic - really, really fun."'

'He added: "I've tried loads of drugs, but it would really bug me if I got busted in the tabloids because I take them so rarely."'

Okay, so, Norton tried ecstasy 'once', 'years and years ago'. He has tried other drugs, and either doesn't like them much, or can't be bothered with them, because he takes them 'so rarely'. Who cares, right?

Obviously not. We have an astoundingly hypocritical attitude towards drugs in this country. I can't remember the exact figure, but I do recall reading somewhere that something like 600,000 Es are taken every weekend. If you do view drugs as a problem - and I'm in favour of legalisation, so don't look at me - might that not be rather more of an issue than a TV presenter taking one 'once'?

For the last time - TV presenters are not role models. Nor are rappers. Nor are footballers, or film stars, or ballerinas, or Big Brother contestants. Just because someone is on the telly doesn't mean they have to be an example for your children to follow. Just get over it. From the sidebar:

"We're appalled, it's absolutely mind-blowing that somebody has said that"

-National Drug Prevention Alliance

I thought it was the ecstasy that was mind-blowing? Anyway, two points. Firstly, if you run a charity and you are trying to convert people away from doing a drug, is it really a good idea to call them 'appalling'? Secondly, is it really that "mind-blowing" that someone would admit to enjoying a drug that is chemically engineered to make you happy?

Sin! Sin! Sin! Sin!

Quite A Cockfight

2006-10-20T00:31:00.000Z

Having - as I'm sure you'd noticed - had a bit of a dearth in inspiration recently, I went back over my 'to blog about' list, which contains any number of items that seemed like a good idea at one point or another before I either forgot about them or changed my mind. They're mostly rubbish, but one issue that had me pretty angry at one point this summer did spring out as worth mentioning.

At the Edinburgh Film Festival this year, one of the themes was a re-examination of critically lauded but generally forgotten films from the 1970s, one of which was going to be Monte Hellman's 'Cockfighter'. 'Cockfighter' is a brutal drama set in the Deep South, and features actual footage of cockfights. Over recent years, it has been re-appraised, and is now regarded as a very important work - and an excellent character study - by an under-appreciated director. Tony T had words of praise, and I have to go on his judgement since I haven't seen it.

A few days before the scheduled screening, the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals complained to the festival organisers, who took advice from the BBFC. The BBFC said that any screening would be illegal, since it would contravene the Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937, which expressly forbids public display of any film in which an animal was harmed in the making. It had once been shown in public before, at the NFT, a screening which we now know was illegal.

Although it has never been officially banned, it suffers a de facto ban in the UK. It isn't the only film about cockfighting to suffer a de facto ban. A Claire Denis film, 'No Fear, No Die' also suffers the same fate. According to the Melonfarmers, that film contains a disclaimer in the end credits saying that all the fight scenes were faked, with plastic blades being substituted for metal ones. However, the relevant law also covers 'distress', so the distributors were informally advised that the film would require massive cuts.

I just don't understand who or what is being protected here. In the case of 'Cockfighter', we clearly have animals being killed, yet banning the film is utterly pointless. The relevant roosters have been dead for over thirty years - who are we kidding by pretending it didn't happen? The usual argument about the fruitlessness of censorship in the age of the Internet also stands, only this time, you don't need to go to Ogrish or Rotten to see what the censors won't allow, because there are masses of videos on Youtube. In the case of 'No Fear, No Die', the film apparently takes a moral stance on the issue. 'K. S. Kincaid' on the IMDb:

'Gandhi once said that the true measure of how civilized a society is can be found by looking at how it treats its animals. The message of "No Fear, No Die" seems to be that disregard of and insensitivity towards the lives of animals leads to insensitivity on a greater scale. Jocelyn lets in get to him and leads him to an act of near-homicide. In a modern age in which the peoples of "civilized" nations have become so de-sensitized because of their cultures of excess, we are steadily running headfirst into the brink of our own self-destruction. But no one, it seems, can afford to give a damn.'

What really pisses me off about this is that my dad used to work (and by used to I mean until very recently) near a house in which cocks were bred for fighting, and the suspicion was dogs too. The police know - they raided the house at one point. Nothing came of it. It still goes on. If people want to get angry about cockfighting, then why don't they get angry about it actually happening now, not a film containing a few scenes of it shot three decades ago?

An Ethical Dilemma

2006-10-15T14:52:00.000Z

Okay - I have a problem. I have been offered £30 to advertise an insurance company in my sidebar. On the one hand, I don't really approve of this kind of selling out, but on the other, it is thirty quid. I have been considering adding a PayPal button to the sidebar - I know I hardly give great value for money these days, but I'm a little bit cash-strapped at the moment. If I do get the advert (of course, the person offering may change their mind anyway after reading this post, but it'll still be useful for the future) the advert merely takes the form of a link in my links list. What do you think - should I sell out, or will I just look like a complete tool?

A Little Comment Goes A Long Way . . .

2006-10-11T00:38:00.000Z

Two days late, our new bi-weekly feature.

Shorter Natasha Walter: When I decide what to see at the cinema, I'm more bothered about the gender of the director than whether it's any good or not.

Shorter Agnes Poirier: I'm so bored by the story of Marie-Antoinette I thought I'd write a column about her.

Shorter Larry Elliott: It seems that Gordon Brown would like to be Prime Minister!

Shorter David Epstein: Money can't buy Terrell Owens happiness.

Shorter Peter Tatchell: Watch as I magically turn a meaningless insult muttered at a moment of high stress into a homophobic incident.

Shorter Jim Wild: The Amish school shooter was just like other men, only a bit more manly.

Shorter Will Hutton: Naomi Klein says capitalism is bad. I agree, and British companies aren't good enough at it.

Shorter Michelle Malkin: Charlotte Church's lungs are public property.

Shorter Fiona Millar: Parents who give their children 'light taps' and 'trivial smacks' are child-abusers too.

Shorter Sarita Malik: Policemen shouldn't have to protect people who they philosophically disagree with.

Shorter Ros Taylor: The reason the Conservatives suck is that they insist on holding their party conference at the seaside.

Shorter Gary Younge: White people are solely responsible for the rise of Islamic extremism.

Shorter Peter Preston: If only the EU was designed like the Ryder Cup, with one purpose and one common enemy.

Another Brick In The Wall

2006-10-09T10:24:00.000Z

Via 2Blowhards, a fascinatingly under-reported story:

BBC News: 'Ring Of Steel Divides Padua'

'The Anelli estate in Padua is a cluster of crumbling high-rise flats.'

. . .

'It has a reputation for crime, drugs and prostitution, and is a constant source of angry complaints from local Italian residents.'

'This summer, after riots between opposing gangs, the left-leaning mayor of Padua took a drastic decision to seal off the estate - with a metal wall.'

. . .

'There is only one way into the complex, through a police checkpoint.'

'Uniformed officers now vet everyone coming and going.'

'The wall has limited the drug-dealing. In fact some of the inhabitants welcome the changes it has brought.'

The story, it seems to me, suggests that the residents of the Anelli estate are seen as almost diseased, contaminated by their address. They have also effectively been abandoned, and given up on as lost causes. In reality, this is nothing new - government, whether city or national, often come up with worst resort plans for sealing off parts of a city should it become diseased. Returning to that old favourite of mine, 'Discipline And Punish', Foucault starts off by analysing the French authorities' plan for sealing off a town or city if the Plague should strike:

'First, a strict spatial partitioning: the closing of the town and its outlying districts, a prohibition to leave the town on pain of death, the killing of all stray animals; the division of the town into distinct quarters, each governed by an intendant. Each street is placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance; if he leaves the street, he will be condemned to death. On the appointed day, everyone is ordered to stay indoors: it is forbidden to leave on pain of death . . . It is a segmented, immobile, frozen space. Each individual is fixed in his place. And, if he moves, he does so at the risk of his life, contagion or punishment.'

The other case it reminds me a little of is an incident in 'The Motorcycle Diaries' in which the young Guevara travels to a leper colony, and finds that the colony is divided into half - one half for the hospital and the workers (those who can be saved) and one half for the lost causes (those who can't). The division here occured around a river, but the placement of the colony is as artificial as the placement of the wall in Padua. (By the way, please don't turn the comments into a discussion of the life and politics of Che Guevara - I have plenty enough opinions on the subject, but they can wait for another time. The only thing that matters here is that there is no reason to believe any of the story concerning the layout of the leper colony is fabricated.)

Clearly, nothing so severe as any of this is in operation in Padua. In fact, the wall only runs along one side of the estate, so I really fail to see what is currently stopping drug dealers from walking around it. However, it is surely notable that for the first time that I know of in a western democracy, a group of people have been - even partially - sealed into an estate.

Yet there is a clear utilitarian argument for the wall. The BBC claim that it has reduced the problem of drugs ("the wall has limited the drug dealing"). Obviously, this argument holds no appeal for me - I consider it an equivalent of the old standard "say what you like about Hitler/Mussolini/Tojo/Fascist dictator of choice, but at least they made the trains run on time" - but in the results-driven world of modern politics, it's hardly irrelevant.

I really want to know what you all think about this story. It seems to me there are so many possible angles it can be looked at from - socialised housing, drug policy, segregation (arguably racial) - that there is the possibility for a very interesting debate on the subject. So, get your thoughts in!

It's Positively Rank

2006-10-05T23:14:00.000Z

Oh dear. We seem to be going through a purple patch of 'film lists'. In this venerable and foolish tradition, people attempt to rank films according to whatever criteria they feel like. It always, always, ends up merely making the compiler look a little silly.

The worst offender are the 'Radio Times' (praised in one post, damned the next!) who are forever getting their beleagured critic Andrew Collins to create entirely fatuous lists whenever they run out of other things to say. The last ('25 films you need to see to be considered a film buff') was a few months back, inspiring quite a bit of debate at Fisking Central, all of it divergent except for one unifying theme - you can't be a 'film buff' by watching 25 films, and, even if you could, it wouldn't be those 25 films now would it?

Now, back to the treadmill, and he's had to come up with another 100 'landmark' films, and the BBC News website seems a little bit miffed he has chosen to include 'Deep Throat' on the list. Actually, judging by the other examples they give, 'Deep Throat' is one of the more defensible options.

Other examples abound in blogland. Michael Blowhard offers one of the more interesting ideas, yet it's still flawed. His poll - 'Films You Enjoyed Most From The Last 25 Years, Critics be Damned!' - promised an amusing tour through critically trashed works that are nevertheless enjoyable to watch. His poll has one rule:

'Rule #1: If you can imagine a Serious Critic making a Serious Film-History case for your film, throw it off your list.'

Unfortunately, this is where the trouble begins. It can sometimes seem like film critics dish out praise and condemnation like sheep, each following the instincts of the herd, yet clearly this isn't actually the case. Indeed, if it were, there would only be half a dozen in the world. The result of this rears its head in his initial list. It's too long for me to copy out - though I would encourage you to read it yourself so this next bit makes sense - but it should really be pointed out that most of the films he selects are ineligible under his own criteria. Some are interesting genre pieces ('Basic Instinct', 'Speed', 'Die Hard', 'Galaxy Quest', 'The Fugitive') while some he chooses are actually great ('Bound', 'Citizen Ruth'). I confess to not having seen all of the others, but in reality, there are probably a fair few critics willing to big up at least some of them.

The commenters really get the wrong end of the stick. I'm fascinated to know who these people are who believe that critics universally agree that 'The Shawshank Redemption', 'Pretty Woman' and 'When Harry Met Sally' are just not worthy of discussion.

All of which leads nicely to my point - lists of films judged by any criteria are a failure in their very definition. The massively large, organic beast that is world cinema is far too impossibly complex to be organised into rank. Perhaps it's worth stopping even attempting it.

The Dog Doesn't Give Me A Bone

2006-10-03T15:20:00.000Z

I've been meaning to link to the magnificent 'Grace Dent's TV OD' for some time now. It is by far and away the best writing on British television I've seen. She's not always spot on - I didn't agree with all of this week's summaries, and I find the seemingly random words highlighted in bold quite distracting, but other than that, I'm loving it greatly - when she's right, she's absolutely spot-on. Witness on the truly bizarre, and really rather rubbish, 'Dog The Bounty Hunter':

'US reality TV series featuring Duane "Dog" Chapman. Bounty hunter, man-mountain, born-again Christian; watch as Dog trails then pounces on fugitives, before haranguing them heavily about the majesty of the Lord until they fling themselves into jail willingly to avoid a further ear-drubbing.'

'Dog's wife and long-suffering colleague, Beth, makes Cilla Battersby look like Sienna Miller. Dog the Bounty Hunter's chief weapon is surprise. OK, surprise and God. Saying that, it's difficult to be anything other than surprised when an 18-stone bodybuilder with a two-tone mullet in cycling shorts jumps out at you quoting the Book of Job.'

I have something of a problem with this programme. Leaving aside the somewhat questionnable vigilante politics of it all, why the hell can't the Hawaiian police department pull in these criminals by themselves? They always give up without a fight, and finding them seems to be pretty easy to be honest. Every episode goes like this:

1) Dog finds out all about criminals daily activities, and a super plan is made.

2) His son somehow finds a way to fuck it up.

3) They cruise about for a while, and accidentally bump into the criminal.

4) The pronounce at length about the inevitability of being caught if Dog is on your tail.

All the criminals appear to be on freebase cocaine, too, and the one service the programme seems to perform is to end the stereotype that people are crack are violent - the criminals Dog pulls in never fight, they're far too zombiefied.

The other subject Grace is right about is the seemingly endless profusion of celebrities in British life. On 'The All-Star Talent Show':

'On stage Mallandra Burrows (Kathy in Emmerdale five years ago) is ramming fire into her gob dressed in red PVC floozy-boots and snug hot pants.'

. . .

'It's an odd indicator of how saturated Britain is with Z-listers that you can now set fire to your own face on terrestrial TV dressed as a dominatrix and no-one cares: not the audience at home, not the audience in the studio, not even the judges who are paid to be there to judge you. "Does this go on for long?" sighs Julian Clary, as Mallandra limps off to apply frozen peas to her cheeks.'

If you recall, the planet Zaphod Beeblebrox is taken to at the start of 'Restaurant At The End Of The Universe' has passed something called the Shoe Event Horizon. The economy had slightly specialised in shoes, and gradually the planet became famous only for its shoes. It soon became only economically viable to open shoe shops, and quality gradually decreased. Eventually, the planets occupants died of famine and the streets Zaphod finds are full only of low-quality rotting footwear.

I only mention this because Britain is heading rapidly towards a Celebrity Event Horizon. The point at which there were more celebrities than things to be celebrated was passed long ago. We'll soon be at a stage where it simply isn't possible to pitch an idea to TV executives that doesn't involve Z-listers humiliating themselves for the rapacious edification of the TV-viewing public.

A few days ago, I was walking through Manchester with a couple of friends of mine. While queued at the cash machine, we started chatting about a poster nearby advertising the chance to win a date with Calum Best.

'Who's Calum Best?' I innocently asked.

'He's George Best's son. Other than that, he's mostly famous for being on 'Celebrity Love Island' twice, and sleeping with a lot of women'.

WHAT? So here we have a man, not at all famous in his own right, but only because of a man whose last real achievement happened thirty years ago, and who afterwards drank himself to death, who he happened to be related to? Better still, this was enough to get on a programme filled with 'celebrities', which then made his own superfluous 'celebrity' set in stone! He should make the most of it while it lasts, because the ever expanding armies of Z-listers means that his apparent monopoly on sex-related celebrity shows will soon be lost to someone both cheaper and willing to go further for the camera. What a world we live in.

Geeks Attempting To Look Like Greeks

2006-10-02T02:27:00.000Z

I watched a programme on BBC2 tonight called 'Battle Of The Geeks'. It was, in the frequent manner of these things, cautiously interesting.

Presented by everybody's favourite hospital in-patient, Mr Hammond, it featured two teams attempting to transport an egg across an enormous canyon in Namibia towards a target without the egg cracking.

Over the next hour, as the two teams built a glider and a rocket respectively, two rather surprising facts were revealed.

1) Female scientists have even worse hairstyles than their male counterparts.

2) Scientists are idiots. They had 48 hours to build their contraption, and when they tried it, the glider missed by miles (although the egg was uncracked) and the rocket nearly hit the target, but obliterated the egg in its crash landing. Any fool can see that in 48 hours, by far the best option would have been to climb down the canyon and carry the egg by hand.

RIP Steve, Published Journalist

2006-09-29T02:09:00.000Z

The one exciting event in my life over the last couple of weeks was my gaining of a job. That job was writing occasional film reviews for the Manchester student newspaper, Student Direct.

I was fairly pleased with myself. It's not every day you get to see your writings in print. I was duly dispatched to watch 'Hoodwinked', and my humble effort appeared in print this week.

Then, owing to some form of student politicking I won't even pretend to understand, it was all over. The newspaper no longer has a film section. My career as a published film reviewer lasted precisely one review.

Since it was my one and only contribution in print, and all my future efforts are sure to be relegated to this blog too, you may as well have it for completion's sake:

'A Short Review Of 'Hoodwinked''

'‘Hoodwinked’ is an animated re-imagining of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, positing that received wisdom has it all wrong, and giving the four principle characters – Red, Granny, Wolf and the Woodsman – the chance to tell their own version of the story.'

'Ever since ‘Shrek’, children’s films have had to contain jokes for adults and children alike, but ‘Hoodwinked’ is positively schizophrenic in providing half a film for each. The target audience are children young enough to find a world in which actions are motivated by sweets plausible, but such an audience is unlikely to garner any amusement from lengthy parodies of ‘The Matrix’ and ‘xXx’. Still, so many jokes are rattled off that for every miss (Granny doing extreme sports) there’s a hit (a country-singing goat, for instance).'

'It was made on a very low budget, only a tenth of that of ‘Chicken Little’, and unfortunately it shows in the animation, which is only competent. Red, in particular, looks more like a very cute garden gnome than a human child. Equally, the voice cast is starless, relying on character actors such as Glenn Close and Anne Hathaway as well as voiceover specialists like Patrick Warburton, whose deadpan interpretation of Wolf as a sarcastic investigative journalist is the comedic highlight.'

'While its air of smart cynicism hiding a warm heart isn’t inappropriate for the material, its best jokes induce more wry smiles than belly laughs, and it offers nothing unique in this very competitive genre, ultimately rendering it good fun but instantly forgettable.'

The word 'hoodwinked' is a rather apposite summation of how I feel about my erstwhile career.

Rising Damp

2006-09-27T01:55:00.000Z

Spotted on a packet of Whiskas cat food today:

'Contains at least 18% moisture'.

That could be anything from milk to urine. Really reassuring, eh?

A Little Comment Goes A Long Way . . .

2006-09-25T01:05:00.000Z

Shorter Anas Altikriti: Let me call for reconciliation between Muslims and Catholics by fanning the flames a little.

Shorter Mark Simpson: A Dutchman wouldn't need to tell me to jump off a cliff, because I'd already be hurtling towards the rocks.

Shorter Andrew Brown: Britain isn't really the same as Sweden. Who knew?

Shorter Dave Hill: My daughter is growing up, it would seem.

Shorter Jonathan Fenby: Actually, military coups might be good for democracy.

Shorter Matt Seaton: Statistics show that the best way to bring up children is to go on 'Supernanny'.

Shorter Anne-Marie Slaughter: Let's discuss the international peace process, while trying to ignore my frightening name.

Shorter Hadley Freeman: The debate about whether skinny models should grace the catwalks has gone on for too long, and I've got some opinions that should restart it.

Shorter Nick Cohen: Charity's great, as long as it comes from the poor. The rich should keep their money to themselves so that I can carry on resenting them in peace.

Shorter Cristina Odone: We live in a risk-averse culture. This is why 'Top Gear' is popular. People are having to go to greater and greater lengths to take risks. That's why we should lower the speed limit and have a policeman on every corner. What do you mean, non-sequiturs?

Technical Problems

2006-09-24T15:18:00.000Z

Sorry for the absence. Been trying to make this bloody thing look a bit better, and frankly, I'm shit at it. I'm trying to make it look a bit less template-y, but I haven't got any idea how to write HTML code. I'm hoping you folks will have some suggestions. I have had one idea - having a different header each time you access, like what Mr Holland has. I haven't the foggiest how to go about it though.

On a similar note, I've had a very un-noteworthy week, and haven't got much to blog about. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be delighted to hear them. Not very professional, I know, but then, you get what you pay for.

A Short Review Of 'A Scanner Darkly'

2006-09-15T01:05:00.000Z

A sense of unreality pervades ‘A Scanner Darkly’, Richard Linklater’s adaptation of the eponymous Philip K Dick novel. The story concerns Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves), an undercover policeman with the pseudonym Agent Fred, who is assigned to monitor a group of drug addicts living at his house – including himself.

The film is animated, partly for financial reasons, using a rotoscoping method, in which actors are filmed and then ‘painted-over’. There are other advantages to this besides cost: Keanu Reeves’ animated face is less wooden than his real one, for a start. More seriously, it enhances the sense of paranoia that infuses the material, as Arctor struggles to comprehend the identities of both his friends and himself. As Arctor is forced to question what’s real, the animation reminds us that, in a very real sense, none of it is. However, the film consciously avoids becoming mired down in sermonising about the twin dangers of drugs and surveillance, and a keen sense of the absurdity, as well of the horror, of the character’s situations is evident. In one memorable scene, Rory Cochrane’s suicidal addict Charles Freck hears a narration to his own bid to end it all. It’s this leavening of the mood that saves ‘A Scanner Darkly’ from being a mere lecture.

However, it’s impossible to ignore the political side to the material. Unfortunately, Dick seems a prescient writer. One current advert on TV reminds us that ‘we are on CCTV over 300 times a day’ and exhorts us to ‘give them something to watch’. This commercial exploitation of the surveillance state is completely predicted in ‘A Scanner Darkly’, making the material perhaps even more relevant today than at the time of its writing.

Time For A Brand New Argument

2006-09-13T18:51:00.000Z

Neil Boorman's article on brands on Comment Is Free deserves a certain amount of praise for its level tone and moments of self-awareness, but it's still wrong wrong wrong. Here's the set-up:

'Six months ago, I began writing a blog entitled bonfireofthebrands.com. I announced on the site that I was going to destroy every branded item in my possession, having concluded that I was suffering from an addiction to the status and aspirations surrounding brands. . . I imagined that this project would find favour with any number of social groups who face the daily pressure to consume beyond their basic needs; parents beleaguered by the pester power of their kids, teenagers under pressure to conform to peers, and any adult whose credit card contributes to the £200bn of consumer debt that we must repay in the UK.'

Now let's investigate:

'How very wrong I was. On the day my story broke in the papers, the blog was flooded with negative posts, which, on reflection, was to be expected; here was another middle-class London journalist moaning on about the luxuries that many around the world cannot afford. Instead of burning these things, why not give the lot away to charity or, better still, just count my blessings and keep quiet?'

This is the one moment of self-realisation in the article. One of the commenters points out that giving your clothes to charity to be taken to the Third World is actually a bad thing - clothes dumping makes it impossible for local clothing manufacturers to compete, there's no shortage of clothes even in the poorest countries of the world, and there is a good deal of shame involved in wearing western cast-offs for people in the Third World. However, while this sort of charity would be undesirable, counting his blessings, giving a few more quid to Oxfam and keeping quiet would have been much the sensible course to take.

'I think this reaction has less to do with charity than the overall value that we have come to place on branded things; nowadays, to willingly destroy an expensive bag amounts to the same moral and cultural neglect as burning a book.'

On the contrary, I don't think that's the case at all. The reason burning a book symbolises cultural neglect is that books represent ideas, and their destruction shows unwillingness to listen to different perspectives. Even the most dedicated High Street addict would be hard pushed to call a handbag an idea.

'Take two white T-shirts. They are identical in size, shape and quality, only one has a logo on the breast. The plain shirt costs £5 from a market stall, the branded version costs £50 from a department store. Considering they perform the same basic function, the rational choice would be the market option. Yet it seems the majority of us would choose the branded option whenever we could afford it. We would somehow be letting ourselves down otherwise'.

I dispute his use of the word 'rational' here. He actually means utilitarian or better still functionalist. Of course, the 'rational' shopper takes more than just cost into account. He does come to admit this:

'Of course, there is another function that the branded shirt performs; the logo on the breast transforms the experience of wearing the thing. To display the brand is to prove to yourself (and anyone who cares to look) that you are of a certain standing, that you are worth something in life. In this respect the brand transforms the product from something of utilitarian function into an object of meaning and desire. That is why we buy overpriced products, from iPods to Heinz baked beans, over cheaper alternatives. I wonder, if my bonfire contained only non-branded items, would the outrage be quite so great?'

He is of course right - to an extent - that brands confer social status and acceptability (although of course in Guardian circles the lack of brands confers the same) but that's not the only reason people buy branded clothes, mp3 players and food products. As Tim Worstall argues, the foreknowledge of the standard of the product you're purchasing is crucial:

'They’re a signifier of quality, repeatable quality. Heniz baked beans did not become the world’s most consumed simply because of an advertising budget, nor because they are a signifier of a higher social status. Rather, because they were, in an age of uncertain canning techniques, reliable in their quality. The brand became the signifier of this.'

It's the same with everything - people will pay more for a Mercedes than, say, a Trabant not just because it looks better or everyone at the office has one, but because it's less likely to fall apart within 100 yards of the factory gates.

Back to Boorman:

'The brand, then, is both a badge of identity and a means of personal fulfilment; no wonder people feel defensive when they're told it is all an expensive con. But that's what these brands really are. The extra £45 paid on that branded T-shirt purchases a fantasy that does not exist, a quick fix of happiness that does not last.'

£45 is not that far away from what you might pay for a gram of cocaine. That is equally a 'quick fix of happiness', but it defies economic rationalisation. As Frank Skinner pointed out when talking about his alcoholism, you don't not do it for the lows, you do it for the highs. Okay, you might argue that cocaine gives you a much bigger high than an expensive shirt, but by the same token, an expensive shirt lasts a hell of a lot longer.

'I would suggest that most rational people understand that consumption provides little sustainable contentment (for all our affluence, New Scientist places us 24th in the happiness league, behind Nigeria and El Salvador).'

I'm very suspicious of people who quote surveys like this. Quite apart from the obvious fact that it's impossible to measure happiness with any degree of accuracy, I also wonder what they want me to do with the information. Is he suggesting Britain would be a nicer place if it were politically more like Nigeria? I always remember a teacher telling me that they have televised executions on a Saturday morning. That'd be fun, wouldn't it?

'They would also concede that the price we pay for these branded things is far too high and is crippling to our budgets. And the ethics of production? The environmental impact? None of this is news to the average consumer. Yet we continue to consume according to want, not need, each day of our lives.'

I've never understood that comment about the ethics of production. I know Nike and the like don't pay their workers much by western standards, but they probably pay more, with better prospects, than the local clothing factory.

'I simply state that this "want" is manufactured and manipulated by the emotional advertising of brands and, at some point in the future, it has got to stop.'

Even if that were a sensible goal, and I certainly don't agree that it is, how? Such comments betray a man enjoying living in a fantasy world rather than sensibly discussing changing the real one.

Evil incarnate.

Bleurgh & Brown-nose

2006-09-13T14:57:00.000Z

Bizarrely, it seems some people actually care about whether it's Bleurgh or Brown-nose in charge of the Labour Party.

Why? In the first place, this story is now so dull I can't even think of an appropriate simile to describe how boring I find it, and in the second it's become crushingly apparent that all of the mainstream Westminster politicians agree on almost everything in principle, and only differ (and mildly at that) about methods of execution. Here's a laugh for you: 'Keeping The Faith' - 'Labour members, activists and voters backing Tony Blair against a minority of MPs who want to bring him down'. It's absurd - since he has already demonstrably brought himself down anyway by promising to resign, I fail to see the point in flogging a dead donkey.

If I were a Labour party member or whatnot who loved Blair - apparently, there are some - I'd spend my time backing David Cameron, who appears to agree on pretty much everything.

Do they both agree that flinging money at public services must eventually bring improvements? Yup.

Do they both agree that the environment is basically going to hell and Something Must Be Done? Uh-huh.

Do they both agree that the country needs fewer immigrants? Definitely.

Were they both in favour of invading Iraq? Can you guess?

When they do have a disagreement, it's about scale. So Blair is in favour of big invasions of privacy doing lots of damage - identity cards for instance - while Cameron prefers smaller invasions doing a bit less damage, such as poking his nose into your twelve-year-old daughter's knicker drawer. That the government has the right, and indeed the duty, to spy on its citizens even when they are behaving lawfully is not disputed by either.

Really, I fail to see the point in voting in elections in Britain. It's clearly Hobson's choice, and a vote for any of the three main parties is effectively a vote for the other two as well. Either vote for UKIP or the Commies, or better still the Loonies, or best of all go to your polling station and burn the ballot with a cigarette lighter.

Our Chief Export, Meanwhile, Is Bad Grammar

2006-09-10T20:14:00.000Z

Radio Five Live are running trailers for the footie this week, which includes West Ham v Palermo. Palermo, runs the trailer, are 'Sicily's second biggest export since 'The Godfather'.'

Really?

I dispute whether this is what they mean. I think they actually mean Sicily's biggest export since 'The Godfather.' Except of course a football team isn't really an export. And 'The Godfather' wasn't made in Sicily. But other than that, it makes perfect sense.

Without wishing to nudge in on Hutton's arena, did you know that sulphur is actually one of Sicily's main exports?

That page also contains the following magnificent sentence about Sicily:

'The illeteracy rate is approximately 71%'

Useful, apparently.

Put It Away!

2006-09-08T13:31:00.000Z

I was bored, so I thought would do a quiz.

In Which World War 2 Army Should You Have Fought?

I couldn't complete it. The question 'If I am a leader, I will expose myself to lead my men by example' gave me a very unfortunate image of a vast army wadding across a barren plain with their underwear around their ankles.

A Mole Located

2006-09-07T14:48:00.001Z

There is a mole at Comment Is Free. I headed over there with the intention of parodying some of the rubbish that's to be found there most days, only to find that the writer of the headlines and - is it by-lines? - whatever you get under headlines anyway, is already suberting them! Have a look:

Susan Tomes: 'Sometimes basic literacy can be of vital importance.'

No shit?

Ed Vaizey: 'The defenestration of Tony Blair will leave lasting bitterness in the Labour party, with many allies of the prime minister left hoping for a Tory victory.'

Handy hint for writers: avoid the words 'defenestration' and 'decimate' if you don't know what they mean. In the first place, the last time I looked Tony Blair was still in office. In the second, even if he had been thrown out, he wouldn't have been defenestrated unless he'd been forcibly ejected through the window.

Robert Fox: 'The 'one per cent doctrine' was the measure by which the US government could break the rules to enforce its rules.'

Break the rules to enforce its rules? What?

Gerald Kaufman: 'We should go down on our knees to thank Blair'

Oh yes, let's all worship the master.

David Hirsh: 'To brand Israel's acts of violence in Gaza as 'genocide' lets Ehud Olmert off the hook.'

Yeah, I mean, I can't understand why anybody'd be pissed if it was genocide.

Sometimes the articles are just deeply flawed. James K Galbraith's attempt to cast the recent Mexican election as some kind of conservative coup is deeply misguided, and fails to acknowledge that the Mexican elections are a story with two sides to them. He doesn't point out that the AMLO leader Jose Manuel Lopez Obrador, for all his protestations of an unfair count and calls for a recount, didn't bother calling for a recount of the votes for the national assembly, in which the AMLO got their greatest ever result. He also relies for his data on a professor of, believe it or not, physics. Furthermore, he doesn't relate the fact that both the Carter Centre and the OECD have said there were no major irregularities, and the fact that Lopez Obrador's refusal to accept the verdict has considerably lowered his status in the polls, since most Mexicans heartily disapprove of the implicit threat of civil unrest behind his refusal to accept the verdict. I'm not saying I know Calderon won fairly, because clearly I don't, but it would have done his article the power of good to at least answer some of these basic points.

Fortunately, it's not all fusty political point scoring, and George Monbiot has rattled in an unintentionally hilarious piece. I know bloggers write 'read it all' all the time, and nobody ever does, but seriously, if you want a real good laugh - I was having difficulty breathing - read all about the time he was thrown off Greenham Common, and how the women torched a hippie's groundsheet. I'm wiping tears from my eyes even now.

Banana Bomb

2006-09-05T18:05:00.000Z

The Telegraph has one of the headlines of the year:

'Fun Run Voyeur Held By Banana'

Rather reminiscent of good old Canaan Banana, the former president of Zimbabwe who was convicted of sodomy. Unable to contain themselves, the newspapers were full of headlines like 'Man Raped By Banana' and 'Banana Held On Sodomy Charges'. Immature perhaps, but really rather funny.

Training Day

2006-09-05T15:37:00.000Z

So I went to Manchester for the weekend, which necessitated yet another voyage on Britain's mighty rail network. Don't worry, I did pack emergency provisions.

I presented myself at Birmingham New Street at midday on Friday. At ten to two, I got on a train. For the next hour, it went backwards and sideways to Nuneaton. Eventually, it made its majestic way northward, and in the end the journey from door to door took me just under six hours. That's only about three hours more than it should do, which as anyone who has braved the West Coast Mainline this summer will know, is actually rather good time.

So for once, it wasn't the delays that annoyed me. What really annoyed me was this. I got on at New Street and bagged myself a window seat - better still, a window seat facing in the direction of travel. Then, brilliantly, nobody sat next to me - yes, space! - until an old man got on. But he didn't sit next to me. Oh no. What he did put on the aisle seat, however, was his man-sized suitcase and several enormous bags. I should explain, he did this without asking my permission, or even making eye contact with me. He just did it. I was now trapped in a cave of suitcase, unable to move an inch - and I really, really needed a wee.

This situation carried on for ages, until at some God-awful hellhole like Macclesfield a different old man got on board, and he had two walking sticks. There was no other seat on the train apart from the one next to me. I suddenly felt a stern tap on the shoulder - a steward. 'Are these yours?' he asked, with a not inconsiderable amount of venom. I pointed accusingly at the Old Man #1, who was shrinking away guiltily, but it was too late. Absolutely everybody in the carriage turned and glared at me, and most tutted loudly under their breath.

Then - then! - Old Man #2 plonked himself down next to me. He proceeded to open a small can of warm Heineken, which it took him at least an hour to drink. I can't wait to be retired - how great it must be when a can of warm lager is an afternoon's activity. The smell of it made my pee situation desperate. I still couldn't get out, because that would clearly involve him moving his lower limbs, which from his bearing appeared to be a Herculean task about equal to a normal person dragging a full filing cabinet down a narrow flight of stairs. By the time I got off, I needed a piss more desperately than at any previous point in my life. When I finally had the chance, it lasted about a minute and a half.

There is, however, a point to all this, and the point is this - don't sit next to me on trains. I know you don't know what I look like, but you'll know from the extent of my glowering, heavy breathing, frowning, muttering and general all-around mardiness. Especially - especially - if you're old. And they say the young have no manners.

A Pub Quiz Punt

2006-09-04T22:54:00.000Z

Heard at the pub quiz tonight:

Girl 1: 'We need a city with a postcode beginning with 'S'.'
Girl 2: 'What about Swansea?'
Girl 3: 'Where's Swansea - the north of England, or the south?'
Girl 1: 'Swansea's in North Wales.'

Genuinely, I shit you not.

Nuisance Neighbour

2006-08-31T23:17:00.000Z

From Labour MP Diane Abbott's 'Sunday Times Magazine' interview two weeks ago:

'I have good and bad de-stressing mechanisms, and going to the tearoom for a bacon sandwich is my bad one. My better one is listening to dance and soul music. Living in Hackney, you can have it on very loud and nobody's bothered.'

She just reckons nobody's bothered - I bet someone is. We probably ought to get her an ASBO, just in case.

Noise pollution.

Post Mortem

2006-08-31T18:15:00.000Z

Per Rob Hinkley:

'Royal Mail has suspended a postie for telling customers how to stop receiving the unaddressed junk which Royal Mail are paid to shove directly through your letter-box. Quite apart from the dubious ethics of suspending an employee for telling his customers about an opt-out service his firm offers, this is a spectacular commercial own goal. Like everyone else, I was entirely unaware it was possible to opt out of this until Royal Mail made a national news story out of it.'

This seems to be fairly typical of the view most people are taking to this story, but I have to say I think it's wrongheaded. I can understand why Rob calls it 'dubious ethics', but to turn it on its head, why should Royal Mail continue to pay the salary of an employee who is going out of his way to deliberately cost his employer money? I worked at a cinema a few months back, and if I'd stood at the entrance telling everyone to go to the competitor down the road, I could hardly have been surprised if they'd given me the boot.

What's more, what nobody is thinking of in this rush to opt-out of junk mail that's now sweeping the nation is its ultimate effect. Royal Mail have already announced increases in stamp prices way above the rate of inflation for the next ten years - taking away one of their major sources of revenue is only going to hit the customer's pocket even harder, for prices will rise even more. All this could be avoided - is it really so hard to transfer a fistful of paper from the doormat to the bin once in a while? I live in Manchester, and we got loads most days, but I can't say carrying it a few yards phases me, and just once in a while, it comes in handy.

No Sense Of Place

2006-08-29T16:52:00.000Z

Hungbunny is pointing out that quizzes are often very easy; Tony T is complaining that the questions can be bollocks. However, it's where the twain meet that the fun really lies. This is from an episode of 'This Morning' a fair few years ago now:

John Leslie: Which European country is famous for its tulips?
Contestant: Is it Holland?
John Leslie: Well, I'll give it you . . . It's actually Amsterdam.

I love daytime TV.

'Religiously I'm Speaking On The Science 'Cause, We've Gotta Live On Science Alone'*

2006-08-28T12:51:00.000Z

Over on Fisking Central, they have thrown down a gauntlet - who will argue against, or more realistically, take the piss out of, this article. The article in question, which must have a possibility of being the most-fascinatingly-incoherent-post-with-most-misguidedly-authoritative-tone ever published, is by a man on the 'Blogs For Bush' site who believes that 'science is dead'. In some respects, this is knocking fruit from pretty low-hanging branches, but what the hey, I've never been above that.

Mr Noonan, for that's who the author is, enunciates surprisingly few examples to prove such a sweeping statement. Then again, why bother with proof? His alternative is faith, and that of course requires no proof at all, and is therefore much more reliable. Don't take my word for it:

'Why did science stray from the path of truth? I think it is because we ceased educating the men of science with a knowledge of religion - a knowledge, that is, of genuine truth, genuine reason, and the relationship of man to creation, and his Creator. When science became a narrowly forcused search for something immediately practical, it was bound to eventually be hijacked by people who wanted to use the cover of science for very impractical efforts.'

'When I went into a field full of blackberries yesterday trying to pick them, it was inevitable I would return home with a handful of stinging nettles.'

He's quite right of course - science is best left in the hands of religious types, who had such a great track record of treating the discoveries of people like Copernicus with such dignity.

Being serious, the reason his article makes no sense whatsoever, and is blinded by factual inaccuracies and tautological theories, is his total lack of understanding on a grand narrative scale. If you read his piece, it becomes clear that he treats 'science' as if it were a club with a set number of people and a manifesto for its existence, like the Freemasons or the Liberal Democrats or the Wang Chung Appreciation Society or something. In some respects, that's slightly understandable, because he's religious, and that's kind of how religions work. Just as in the Wang Chung Appreciation Society, most think that 'Dancehall Days' was their greatest hit, and some reckon 'Everybody Have Fun Tonight' was better, so in religion, most reckon gay people shouldn't become bishops, but some reckon they could. However, despite minor disagreements, these groups are defined by their own (sometimes unwritten) manifestos - the WCAS decide their favourite song according to whether or not Wang Chung recorded it, while religions decide their rules based upon interpretations of a holy book, or the speeches of a great leader.

In other words, these organisations are structures. Science isn't a structure, it's a very loose word for processes. Imagine that I'm sat in front of the computer, trying to write a witty blog post that people will actually care about. It's really hot. I think to myself - it's hot, so global warming must be happening. Bollocks, right? Because you can't extrapolate a trend from a single result. It isn't science because the process is flawed. The conclusion may or may not be right, but it's irrelevant. It's still not scientific even if it is right. This is why comparing science and religion is totally daft - you're not comparing the same things. If Mr Noonan remains this unaware of the difference between a structure and a process, he'll end up going to his Blogs For Bush meetings in the nude, unable to comprehend the differences between the structure of his suit and the process of trying to decide whether to wear the suit, the hatstand or last month's tiramisu.

He illustrates his point with examples of 'scientific' hoaxes - Piltdown Man, ALAR etc - but these are a list of hoaxes or incidents of bad methodology, which were subsequently later revealed as such. Science the process discovered that they were wrong. As a result, they weren't science, but pseudoscience. I find some of his claims hilarious:

'The main thing was that science could only thrive as it did from about 1650 until 1850 when everyone agreed on the rules.'

Maybe his laptop is powered by moonbeams. Hold on, I'd forgotten that God handed electricity to Thomas Edison in an earthenware jug.

In the comments, he contradicts himself:

'So, the Age of Science is dead...it died between about 1850 and 1950. Never again will such a man-centered construct, I think, be held up as a paradigm...and good riddance, if you ask me.'

Because the moon landings happened when God threw down a celestial rope ladder for Armstrong and Aldrin to climb up.

Another classic:

'From what I understand, no educated person has held the world to be flat for at least 3,000 years...as that time frame includes all of Christianity, and therefor all educated Christians, we would have to say that never, not even once, has an educated Christian thought the world flat...'

Well, he's only wrong by a factor of ten. In fact, most people still believed the earth was flat at the time of Columbus. This lot still do. By the way - there's a reason why their slogan is 'deprogramming the masses since 1547'.

Or this:

'The real destructiveness of the Darwinists comes in where they demand that nothing but Darwinism be taught, and that no questioning of Darwinism be allowed - this is a negation of science.'

I have no problem whatsoever with you trying to find scientific alternatives to evolution through, you know, processes and evidence. Good luck with that.

Even better:

'It is good to keep in mind, Georgia, that we're no smarter than the ancients - indeed, we may be less smart than they were. We know more because we've had a longer time to gather and transmit information, but we're no more clever than they are. Do you really think that they, looking up at the spherical Moon, couldn't conceive of a spherical earth?'

No, that's right, we're much more stupid than people thousands of years ago. Well, at any rate, he is.

You just have to love this discussion. More to the point, you have to love even more a writer who continues to insist throughout a comments section in which even the sort of right-wing Republicans who regularly hang out on a site with a name like 'Blogs For Bush' are accusing him of being obscurantistly stupid, and yet after several hundred comments he's still going:

'That is the precise problem - science has de-coupled itself from religion; reason has refused to work with faith. We have half educated people.'

'I try to look at the whole picture - not just bits of it and, worse, take those bits and try to extrapolate them in to the whole.'

And all the while a fellow by the name of 'Jeremiah' is shouting IN CAPITAL LETTERS!:

'God says - " I am the ALPHA and the OMEGA"

'Which translates into - The BEGINNING and the END!
THE FIRST AND THE LAST!'

'He also says: "There was NO ONE BEFORE ME, and there will be NO ONE AFTER ME!"'

'Because God - Is FOREVER AND EVER!!!! ETERNITY!'

'GOD IS EVERYTHING!'

'WE WERE CREATED IN HIS IMAGE!!'

'Get it?'

Uuuuuh . . . . no?

His writing style reminds me of something. Hold on, let me tune in my radio:

'But when she was walking on down the road
She heard a sound that made her heart explode
He whispered to her to get on the back
"I'll take you on ride from here to eternity"

[Chorus: (2 times)]
Hell ain't a bad place
Hell is from here to eternity'

Iron Maiden, 'From Here To Eternity'.

Oh my God - he makes less sense than Bruce Dickinson.

Oh, by the way, I hear God just loves MORE FEMALE NUDITY ON TELEVISION! After all, he did create Eve, and I'm pretty sure he was chuffed afterwards. He revealed it to me himself, so I expect the nation's TV programmers to get on the matter as fast as possible. The DIVINE ALMIGHTY can't wait long!

One final interesting thing to note is his selectiveness about what science qualifies as good and what doesn't. He uses the opening date of 1650 for a reason - Copernicus was obviously all right. Yet surely the same criticisms of today's scientists are true of those in the Middle Ages? Were they not also motivated by personal gain and glory? Of course, the real reason for this harking back to a mythical golden age of science is his a very modern objection that when people talk about matters scientific these days, they tend to pay little attention to those who approach the table waving the Good Book, and for that I say 'amen, brother'.

*The Dandy Warhols, 'I Am A Scientist'

A Political Hot Potato

2006-08-18T01:18:00.000Z

Via Samizdata, we learn that this government have introduced 3000 new criminal offences, of which I would guess about 2900 are completely futile and needless, and they give an excellent example:

'Polish Potatoes (Notification) (England) Order 2004:
No person shall, in the course of business, import into England potatoes which he knows to be or has reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes.'

It's just typical of the greasy Poles to try and offload their Papist potatoes on us, but we're a decent Protestant country. Can't they see we don't want their Vatican vegetables?

For God's sake, I've only just managed to get over the Irish trying to foist their rotten crops on us.

On a different note, I shall be away for a bit. Probably just over a week.

No Smoke Without Fire

2006-08-16T16:22:00.000Z

Clairwil has a post up about the ludicrous response of some people to a photograph taken of Melanie Griffith giving her 17-year-old daughter a light for a cigarette. Now, you might assume that this isn't exactly a big deal, but you'd be wrong according to these lot. My favourite quote:

'Well just look at the way this "MOTHER" dresses, looks like a tramp, changes husbands every few years, and to quote the song "HAS THREE DIFFERENT KIDS WITH THREE DIFFERENT MEN", plus has has been in rehab for COCAINE and VICODEN addiction at least twice. She has already admitted to smoking WEED with her son. Please, where are the child welfare authorities and where is this kids father? Don Johnson, are you in the house?'

GOSH! LOOK how this "MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC" uses hyperbole to make a COMPLETELY INANE POINT. I mean, MY GOD! You know, I TOTALLY think child services should take her children away from her, even though this one is practically an adult. Oh, and what do you MEAN why don't I look after my own briar patch first? And NO, "Don Johnson" ISN'T a nickname for my husband's PENIS'.

It should be though. I'm going to nickname my penis Don Johnson. The opportunity's there, folks.

Clairwil goes on to make a series of excellent points, of which this is the most pertinent:

'Perhaps it is a symptom of a decadent society that people overreact so much to self inflicted tobacco deaths. Think of all the poor bastards in the world that die against their will. Most of them are lucky to get some pampered westerner poncing about in a sweatshop produced wristband in protest at their deaths. Yet the smokers slow suicide mission is continually interrupted with unwanted advice and nagging.'

Indeed. It's an increasingly wide trend across society. People who doubtless lead perfect lifestyles living only on air and love come up to you and berate you for having a cigarette or eating a bag of crisps. I would point out to these public benefactors that their advice is completely unwanted, but for the most part they know that already.

It genuinely irks me that people assume they have the right - even the duty - to inform you in usually repetitive, boring detail exactly what you're doing that's going to snuff out your existence a bit earlier. To which the appropriate response is: why don't you look after your body and let me look after mine?

There's a serious point in this. Like most people in Britain, I'm in favour of legalised abortion. Like - I suspect - most of those, I'm in favour of it because what a woman chooses to do with her own reproductive organs is her concern. Yet while in this instance we support and even champion the right for people to manage their bodies how they see fit, the same right for smokers is ridiculed or denied. One matter is personal, the other is an issue for Public Concern.

Melanie Griffith's daughter is old enough to know whether or not she wants to smoke. It's not like her mother's got her pinned to the ground and is forcing the ciggie between her clenched lips. Meanwhile, these joyless whiners should go and find something actually important to moan about, and let Miss Griffith do with her lungs what she wants.

A TV Review Of 'Come Dine With Me'

2006-08-12T13:42:00.000Z

Channel 4, circa 4 pm, weekdays

It's alright. Not as good as 'Coach Trip'.

Assorted Thoughts

2006-08-10T22:36:00.000Z

- Over on Saving The World, they are getting themselves pissed and blogging about it, and it's most amusing. I wouldn't touch the Old Nick though if I were them. I remember drinking a bottle of that stuff on a coach trip once. Beastly it was. Still, if you use it in cooking, it turns all your food blue. Good for a laugh, so long as you don't mind throwing the food away uneaten afterwards.

- Some funny moaning about the Metropolitan Police.

- Kieran - whose whole blog is hilarious - mocks pandas for their procreational helplessness.

- I decided to follow the Ill Man's advice (sort of) and watch 'Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe' on BBC4 tonight, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprise at how funny he was, particularly the section on 'Dragon's Den', which had me in stitches. Good point about the distinctly phallic rubbing of piles of money that goes on.

One thing I have noticed about Dragon's Den is that they always turn down people who've just thought of an idea, but willingly give money to people who've done all the leg-work already. The only person on tonight's show was a fellow who'd come up with a car wash for lorries who'd already got contracts, letters of approval etc etc. He had, in fact, done everything. The only reason he wouldn't go to the bank for a loan was that he wanted someone with 'experience' to help him. Help him do what?

A Cigar Is Never Just A Cigar

2006-08-08T19:53:00.000Z

Some of the performers at this years Edinburgh Fringe have had the temerity to attempt to get into character for their roles. One, Mel Smith, who is playing Winston Churchill in the play 'Allegiance', had the nerve to actually presume he could smoke a cigar during his performance. After all, Churchill was famous for his love of cigars, booze and good food, all of which would of course immediately disqualify him from standing for office in these enlightened times. Still, portraying his character as, you know, his character couldn't be any harm, could it?

Not a bit of it. The artistic director of the venue pointed out:

'"I was told before his first performance on Monday by the council's chief enforcement officer that if Mel had smoked on stage I would have been given a £1,000 fine and he would shut down the entire premises."'

'"It was an extremely serious situation because he said he would also never give me a licence again."'

Welcome to authoritarianism. An unelected council busybody could propose a staggering fine and the permanent closure of a theatre because an actor had the temerity to smoke a cigar, as the real-life character he played did. Favourite lines:

'Mel Smith hit out at the Scottish Parliament last month, saying the smoking ban would have delighted Churchill's arch-enemy Adolf Hitler.'

I think even Hitler would have drawn the line before this.

Of course, the actor had to back down, but this is absiolutely staggering. What kind of a country do we live in? It reminds me of a line in the epilogue of 'Thank You For Smoking', where the crusading anti-smoking senator proposes editing the smoking out of old films:

Interviewer: 'What do you say to the accusation that you're changing history?'
Senator: 'I don't think so . . . [pauses] . . . I think we're improving history.'

Bare Faced Cheek

2006-08-07T23:53:00.000Z

The Blithering Bunny is usually right about stuff - particularly GM food - but this is so wrong.

In it he analyses naturism, based only upon a degree of prejudice and an alleged case of rape at a naturist resort in France. From this, he extrapolates some frankly bizarre conclusions which I feel I have to respond to.

'A 15-year-old British girl was allegedly raped at at a French nudist colony by a 19-year-old man (who claims it was consenting sex).'

'Pascal Leclere, the colony’s manager, said: “As the father of two children who are also naturists, I could never have imagined something like this happening here.”'

'Let me get this straight, Pascal. You let horny teenagers walk around naked in front of each other, and you can never imagine that, let us say, “sexual misadventures” might happen. They might not be wearing any clothes, but these naturists have nevertheless got their heads in buckets when it comes to human nature.'

Even thinking about this for a third of a second should be enough to suggest how silly it is. Rape cases at naturist camps are extraordinarily rare - far and away rarer than amongst the population at large. Indeed, I suspect that if you could find the statistics - and I'm not good enough with Google to be able to do that, but I'd stake my house on it - you would find that as a percentage of population, the incidences are probably less by a factor of several hundred when compared to the statistics for more or less any nation.

'The weirdest thing about naturists for me has always been their insistence that their penchant for displaying their rude bits has nothing whatsoever to do with sex. That’s what really makes me think they’re weird — or liars. Because naturism isn’t about showing off your back, your tummy, your hips, your legs, or even a bit of ass. It’s specifically about showing off your sexual organs. If you turn up in the skimpiest of Speedos you’re still not a naturist.'

Of course not. The whole point is that naturism has nothing whatsoever to do with showing off. He's thinking of exhibitionism, or flashing, or streaking, or whatever. Naturism stresses the body as a whole, as opposed to 'the skimpiest of Speedos', which emphasise only the sex organs. For clarification, the International Naturist Association:

'But going without a manmade swimsuit will send another message altogether about respect for the body. Unlike the swimsuits of the past, which covered men and women from head to tow with billowy garments intended to maintain one’s “modesty,” today’s swimsuits are aimed to enhance and promote the most sexualized of body parts. In other words, material swimsuits promote unhealthy attitudes about the human body. With nakedness, you actually remove the sexual context of the beach wear, and all can enjoy the sun together without worrying about how sexy they look in their new bikini or trunks. True modesty is found in chaste nudity.'

Whether or not people think this is so much guff, the point is that it is manifestly not about showing off.

'So either they’re liars because they really do get off at looking at other naked people, or they’re weird because they genuinely don’t get turned on by looking at attractive naked people of the opposite sex (forget the ugly ones, I expect they become part of the furniture after a while. The brain probably filters their visual presence out eventually, which must come as a blessed relief).'

Wh-huh? In the first place, the men - and it is really the men he's meaning - are usually married, since most clubs refuse to admit single men on the basis that there is a possibility they might be a perv. However, it's rather less likely that dirty fellows looking for a cheap eyeful would take their wives along. What's more, men who make sexual passes at female guests - and sometimes the other way around - are thrown out of any respectable naturist club immediately. Sexual behaviour isn't tolerated, and if it is, it isn't naturism. Anyway, don't you think it might be just a little bit difficult for male naturists who, for the sake of argument, do get off on looking at their female counterparts to disguise the fact? You know, what with having their penises exposed and all? The second argument is even more ludicrous, mostly because it presupposes that people only attend naturist camps in order to ogle nymph-like young women only to find that they have mysterious erectile difficulties. Clearly, this is demonstrably not the case.

'I once walked along a beach in Sydney and was delighted to discover that a section of it had quietly been turned into an unofficial nudist beach. Although I enjoyed having a perv at some decent-looking women who taken off their clothes for the express purpose of being perved at, there was quite a creepy atmosphere there, and lots of naked, bearded middle-aged men sitting with one leg up as though concealing something from general view (some of them sitting some distance away, in the woods, or on the rocks), all giving me funny glances.'

Which is precisely the reason why most naturist clubs don't admit single men, as stated above.

'I know this sort of thing is not really part of the nice, “family-friendly” naturist movement, but involving your kids and pretending it isn’t a seedy sexual thing doesn’t make it better, it makes it worse.'

What, so the new implication is of paedophilia? It's not just dirty old men any more, it's dirty old married couples who get their jollies off looking at naked kiddies. Erm, this is true how???

'If spending time nude with other nude people isn’t a sexual thing, then why the hell are you doing it?'

There are clearly any number of possible reasons. In an attempt to feel better about your body. Because it makes it impossible to distinguish between people based upon wealth. Because you want an all-over suntan. Because swimming in the nude is more fun. I'm sure there are many others.

No Novel Ideas

2006-08-06T00:46:00.000Z

From Bill Bryson's 'Notes From A Small Island':

'I had only recently recovered from a fairly serious bout of pneumonia. I won't say that I nearly died, but I was ill enough to watch This Morning With Richard And Judy, and I certainly didn't want to be in that condition again'.

My own feelings about the self-appointed king and queen of daytime television are scarcely less forceful, and so when I watched their afternoon programme this week, it was with a good deal of trepidation.

What came on was their book review segment. Now, this I have somewhat mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I can quite see that anything which gets the nation reading is naturally positive in nature. They were busy boasting that the books they've recommended have shot straight to the top of the charts.

The trouble with this is that it all contributes to the damaging way books are sold in this country. Waterstone's are now the only major book chain on the high street, and so this in itself has a natural impact on choice, and the success of Richard and Judy's campaign only slims down the options still further. Instead of millions of different people having different and varied reading experiences, they are guided towards a mere handful selected more or less at random. I don't suppose for a minute these are best books of the year - though to be fair, I haven't read any of them - so by what process are they picked?

I guess my point is it seems a shame that they should have such a large effect on book sales, when they have so little qualification for passing on judgement. The discussion about one of the novels that followed was superficial to say the least, and mostly consisted of anecdotes about the celebrity reviewers' holidays. When they did touch on the book, the reviewers were in large part just concerned with the pace of the plot. By that standard, 'Wuthering Heights' is one of the worst novels ever published.

Go to a book shop, and buy a novel that you want to read, not one you've been told to.

Stop Trumpeting Your Morality

2006-08-04T16:18:00.000Z

Via Mark Holland, who's been busy being profiled, we learn of a moral panic being instigated on our behalf by our protectors on the other side of the pond.

Basically, a bunch of very right-wing American blogs have decided to take offence about the new Armando Iannucci show, 'Time Trumpet', that was aired last night. Of course, the fact that none of them could possibly have watched the show has done nothing to blunt the extent of their indignation. You can catch a load of the righteousness here and here. The former of those links even suggests that American readers should complain (and provides links to do so) - about what, exactly? Why should complaints from people who can't have seen something be taken seriously? How would they react if I suggested people from every other country on earth complained about FOX News? I reckon they'd laugh - so why don't they just fuck off?

You might argue that I comment upon and review American films and TV programmes, and you'd be right. However, the crucial difference is that I watch them first.

Another counter-argument is that they show a tiny fragment of the show here. Let me demonstrate why this is bollocks with recourse to series two of 'Peep Show'. In an attempt to prove a university professor isn't that clever, one of the character's picks up a book from his shelf:

'Let's have a look at some of these books, shall we?' [picks up a book] ''Sister Carrie' by Theodore Dreiser'. [flips through it, picking out the shortest sentence he can find] '"The look on her face was one of disappointment". And that's good is it? What's good about that?'

The point is, anyone can take something out of context. Serious, clever people actually take the time to look at a bigger picture - they try to understand things within a context, not divorced from it.

By the way, I recommend that those who DID watch the programme and enjoy it should be vocal about the fact. If this is to descend into a shouting match, I fail to see why only one side should be able to raise themselves above a whisper.

I also recommend going on the website and looking at the clip 'Honey, I Shrunk Martha Kearney' - absolutely brilliant.

UPDATE!

Rimone has a post that answers this one, and it's definitely worth reading.

Is There Anybody Out There?

2006-08-01T23:14:00.000Z

Hello!

I just wanted to say to you all that I *haven't* abandoned you, and to thank you all for your kind wishes. Unfortunately, I'm in a house sans internet connection, and I don't know whether I shall be able to pop by again until the weekend.

Please feel free to have a discussion amongst yourselves in the comment section, or just not bother. I promise I'll be back in touch soon.

P*ssed

2006-07-27T23:58:00.000Z

It was my birthday today - well, yesterday now - so I can't write anything coherent because I'm fairly pissed. The trouble is, I've been drinking gin, which really is only one step up from drinking out of bottles wrapped in brown paper bags.

I promise I'll answer comments tomorrow when I'm not seeing triple. Anyway, if you want humour, piss off and bother somebody else for a while. Meanwhile, why not enjoy a geek fantasy?:

Birthday gift, from me to me.

Simply Dursting With Creativity

2006-07-25T21:14:00.000Z

Via The Golden Strawberry, we learn that:

'IRON MAIDEN singer and qualified pilot Bruce Dickinson airlifted 200 British citizens who had fled war torn Beirut, Lebanon back to the U.K. yesterday (July 20). The 47-year-old flew a Boeing 757 to Cyprus where he picked up the evacuees and flew them back to London's Gatwick Airport.'

This is actually pretty cool, in my opinion, which is bad, because I can't take the piss out of it. For a moment, I was worried that rock musicians had stopped being utter douchebags, and then I remembered who we hadn't checked in on in a while:

Are you 'lovin' this shit right here?'

If you remember, when we last caught up with Freddy - a whole six months ago now! - he was of the opinion that his entry into the pantheon of great auteurs was just around the corner. Not content with his status as a mere metteur en scene for low-grade music videos, he wanted to be the next Francis Ford Coppola.

And we laughed. And in my case, laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. I was disappointed, however, by the singular lack of emails from Bizkit lovers saying 'F U HATER!!!!!!!???ROFLMAO!![splurge]!!' or however it is they communicate. Of course, I may be making the classic mistake of assuming they are capable of basic communication.

However, Dursty is out to prove the haters wrong. I recently discovered this on the IMDb. It would seem that 'The Education Of Charlie Banks' is a low-budget indie film. The plot summary is:

'The Education of Charlie Banks is a coming of age tale that spans from the playgrounds of lower Manhattan to the idyllic greens of Vasser College. Set during the eighties, it is a story about change, inevitability, and mostly, about facing one's fears.'

That sounds studiously boring, without much chance of unintentional hilarity. Still, we must never pre-judge things in life, especially films, so, what do you reckon gang? Is this gonna flop? Is Durst an utter pillock? Might he actually not be a total ringpiece? Could this be, let's whisper this, good?

Crotchword

2006-07-24T23:46:00.000Z

A friend of mine - who may or may not have a blog - has been in touch, claiming to have found a porn magazine with a cryptic crossword in it. I'm not sure I believe him - it's probably some witty 'Private Eye' spoof - but the clues are pretty good:

Q: 'Queer drapery at the border of the Cold War?' (4,7)

A: Iron curtain.

Q: 'Becoming erect and heading for a half volley?' (2,3,2)

A: On the up.

Q: 'Breathe heavily on a woman's pussy - a very big one' (7)

A: Teatime.

Q: 'Shag dyke wiuth fruits de mer?' (7)

A: ?

You tell me.

If You Don't Want To Know The Score . . .

2006-07-23T17:53:00.000Z

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post was, in fact, not written by me, but by my good friend Mike, who has no blog or Blogger ID. I would just like to take this opportunity to say that if anyone who has no blog wants to email me something they've written, I will happily publish it, and I won't steal the credit. Honest.

I’d just like to thank Channel 4 for their brilliant show on Saturday night. The '50 Films To See Before You Die' programme was a stroke of pure tele-visual genius. Instead of watching these 50 masterpieces you could just watch this show, which helpfully explained the beginning, middle, end, any twist along the way and for some showed the final scene of each film by condensing them into three-minute segments. This has saved anyone who watched it the torment of watching the 50 greatest films without already knowing the end.

I gave up watching after the show reached 'Fight Club'. Remember the first time you watched Fight Club? Remember the feeling when you were hit smack bang in the face with that beautiful twist? That feeling of warmth inside, that grin on your face and that little ahhhhh noise that you made (Ahem). Now imagine that that twist being explained to you by some unknown “celeb” twat in a matter of fact way, seconds before having displayed a caption at the bottom of the screen explaining that this is one of the greatest twists in cinema. I feel sorry for anyone who watched the show and hadn’t seen 'Fight Club' or any of the other films they helpfully ruined.

Maybe there’s some cheap thrill in spoiling the end of a film for someone you don’t particularly like but using this theory Channel 4 hates the whole world. You irresponsible bastards - use the three-hour slot to show some of your innovative comedy, exciting documentaries or at very least one of the films in the list. Just a thought but hey, it’s still better than 3 hours of Big Brother… but so is repeatedly poking yourself in the eyeball with the end of a tube of toothpaste.

The thing is, it's a sl . . . .

It's a sl . . . .

It's a slot machine.

Rubbish Bin Extremism

2006-07-22T22:56:00.000Z

This article on 'Comment Is Free' has attracted any number of comments that are perfect examples of what I like to call 'environmentalist authoritarianism'. The author, Brendan O'Neill, dares to suggest that sorting your rubbish into piles is awkward and annoying, and that aviation taxes damage the travel aspirations of working class people, and the Grauniad commentariat are less than pleased. In point of fact, I don't entirely agree with everything in the article, but some of the responses are absolutely mad, bad and dangerous. Let's sink a toe, shall we?

'nairobiny': 'Actually, it's Ms Challice and your mum that are the apologists for capitalism. They simply can't be arsed to tidy up after themselves. All too difficult you see. Far easier to pass that cost onto somebody else - stick it in a landfill, forget about it. Don't worry that it's the next generation, or their children, who will bear the cost of their selfishness.'

This is a milder version of a theme that becomes more popular and extreme later - don't recycle now, and you're killing my children!

'punky': 'Africa, for its own sake, cannot develop the same way the West has developed. It would be suicide. The developed World needs to greatly reduce its carbon emissions and, in the name of fairness, needs to finance and promote sustainable development in Africa and other regions that aren't responsible for the environmental crisis that the planet is facing.'

Yes, isn't it just exasperating that these stupid Africans insist on wanting cars and planes and fridges when expensively educated westerners like me keep telling them it's wrong? I mean, how stupid are they that they can't understand that what they want 'would be suicide'? They're late to the party - tough shit, I'm afraid.

'bennywhale': 'your mum has to seperate her rubbish. Big fucking deal. During WW2 the spirit of chipping in and pulling together and doing your bit was ingrained in society. The environmentalist cause will probably be doomed because we are a selfish people now, exemplified by you and your mum and probably many of the other twats above i can't be arsed to read.'

The comparison to the Second World War here isn't at all ridiculous, because - don't you see? - we're at war, with ourselves! We should set our society on a permanent, never-ending war footing! Perhaps we should have a Ministry Of Information who could lie to us about green issues, because, as we all know, truth is the first casualty of war. (By the way, this fellow isn't joking about this).

'clownfeet': 'I can't believe that given the evidence of how much waste we produce, we aren't all attemting to reduce it by as much as is practicable, and whinging about the government infringing our liberties when they very gently suggest we do so.'

Ah yes, the government's 'very gentle suggestions' such as compulsory carbon allowances on pain of fines, environmental taxes, aviation taxes, and taking people to court for insufficiently separating their rubbish. I'd hate to see what his very harsh suggestions are like!

'salt': 'Also the claim that enviromentalists don't want Africa to be developed is a straw man argumant, I have never heard anyone claim such a thing.'

If I were 'punky', I would be well pissed off at the lack of attention 'salt' is paying.

'hebrew': 'If you leave it up to people's consciences then you can just give up from the beginning, cause the majority just don't have it.'

'My own father for example doesn't give a shitt to environmental issues, he won't think about it for a minute. He will drive even for a 10 minutes walking distance just because he "doesn't do walking". There is no point to try to explain something. So with people like him (and unfortunatelly they are the majority) you have no choice but to hurt their pockets. And hurt it very hard.'

Shorter 'hebrew': I know much better than the majority what is good for them and the planet, but don't call me elitist. Also, Dad, this will teach you for telling me to shut up over dinner when I was a teenager!

'PowerCat': 'You seem to think that cheap air travel is some sort of great liberating force for the "working classes", that they've put down their coal shovels *en mass* and jetted off to the south of France for a little bouillabaise and impromptu discussions of philosohpy in dimply-lit cafes. No. Sorry. If anything cheap air travel has benefitted the middle classes, jetting off for weekend breaks several times a year, perhaps even to that holiday home they've just bought. Air travel is environmentally detructive and the price of it needs to adequately reflect that.'

No! How can you misunderstand the point being made so badly? He's not saying that cheap flights haven't benefitted the middle classes - they've obviously benefitted everybody - but instead that cheap flights have provided an opportunity for working class people who couldn't afford it before, and that it will be the working classes, not the middle classes, who suffer if the government taxes cheap flights out of existence. This is simple common sense; why does it require spelling out in words of one syllable?

'TobyLewis': 'No differentiation is made for class because morality treats everyone as an individual and from there comes responsibility. We need to figure out the total cost of our personal actions when multiplied the world over and our responsibility to others and not about cheap holidays abroad or that recycling takes a few minutes that would be better spent watching the TV.'

How very egalitarian of you. Unfortunately, this morality, as opposed to, say, don't murder or whatever, costs money, and you can't just ignore that fact. Also, I find it outrageous that someone can suggest 'figur[ing] out the total cost of our personal actions when multiplied the world' as if me not using the right recycling bin today should be considered responsible for every death that may be caused by global warming in the future.

'franky1972': 'Other than being ignorant you are pointless, another one to dispose of; when we halved the population of the planet the issue will be resolved, quite simple. Bring on the camps for these subhumans.'

I actually feel quite bad including this one - to be fair to everyone else, they haven't advocated gas chambers and concentration camps for those who don't hold the same opinions. This man - and I guarantee it'll be a man - is a sick fuck, and as a revolting, ordure-covered troll should be ignored.

Still, I have to say that this argument is only the reductio ad absurdum that you get if you suggest that minor environmental 'crimes' in your street can be held responsible for some kind of future genocide from global warming.

'ShinyScalp': 'Of course, we can make the argument that it is the choice of the individual to make those bad decisions, but when the costs of those decisions are externalised on to people in subsequent generations in different parts of the world, how the hell are ordinary, non-politically engaged people SUPPOSED to make rational and GOOD decisions (with fewer bad consequences) unless the BAD ones come with £1,000 fines?'

The trouble with this is that it splits every action and deed anyone ever commits into two camps - environmentally good, and environmentally evil. Nobody, but nobody, makes every decision in life based on these polar delineations. If I've been driving around for my job all year, and then my mother in Australia falls seriously ill over Christmas, am I a bad person for wanting to go and visit her? Should I be punished with a fine for that?

You might, I suppose, argue that that is a spurious argument, and that my mother doesn't live in Australia, and you would have a point. However, constructing binary poles around these issues can only harm environmental causes in the long run.

If you see someone use one of these properly, they're in real trouble because 'Only The Good Die Young'.

Sledging's Out In The Summer

2006-07-21T23:46:00.000Z

Le grand butt de head is old news now, I suppose, but I've been meaning to write a spot about it ever since. Or, to be more precise, ever since the morning after the night before, as callers to Five Live's phone-in programme thrashed about desperately looking for an excuse for Zizou's daft actions.

'Materazzi must have said something horrible for Zidane - so cool usually - to act the way he did.' 'What he said must have been racist.' 'Materazzi is a racist, and you don't need proof to say that.' 'Having worked out he is a racist, the only question is how long he should be banned for.' And so on, and so on, escalating ludicrously until some people were suggesting that Zidane had struck a blow against racism and colonial oppression, instead of being a hot-headed fool who over-reacted in the heat of the moment.

Even when people went so far as to dare to criticise Zidane, it was always tempered with a deep criticism of Materazzi for his alleged 'racism', although since Zidane hasn't said what he heard, and all the 'expert lip-readers' hired by the various Fleet Street rags came up with a different conclusion as to what had been said, I think we can safely assume that he hasn't been proven guilty yet.

Almost nobody has come to the defence of sledging as an art-form. A well placed insult is a beautiful thing. So, let me give some credit where it's due - to Duleep Allirajah for pointing that out, and for providing a particularly good example of how it can be an artform:

Glenn McGrath: ‘Hey, Brandes, why are you so fucking fat?’
Eddo Brandes: ‘Cos every time I fuck your wife she gives me a biscuit’.

Also, credit must go to the analysis of the incident on 'Woman's Hour' last weekend on Radio 4, as the panellists pointed out the ritual aspects to the joke Materazzi is believed to have said, an Italian version of 'yo mama' jokes that Zidane himself was famed for partaking in when he played for Juve.

By the way, I refuse to feel embarrassed about the fact I was listening to 'Woman's Hour' - 42% of all that show's listeners are male, and before you laugh, remember ladies, that means we know what you're thinking.

George had won many accolades in his career as 'Bison Impersonator Extraordinaire'.

Sunday Night's Alright For Watching

2006-07-21T00:37:00.000Z

On this Sunday evening, something magical and amazing is going to happen - FilmFour is going to be on Freeview.

From their website:

'Why is Film4 going free-to-air?'

'It is Channel 4's ambition to widen its digital offering, so that a greater range of programming is available within digital homes. Over the years we have developed a strong and valuable film channel, which we feel should be available to as wide an audience as possible. We are therefore making it available to everyone with digital TV.'

This, folks, is just about the best that's ever happened in the history of mankind. Just listen:

'Will you still be showing foreign language and extreme films - if so when?'

'Yes, these films will remain a key part of our schedule and will play across the time zones. In the first month we will be screening a season of Roberto Rossellini films, to mark the centenary of his birth. We are also showing 7 films from the Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki, including Princess Mononoke and Kiki's Delivery Service, screening in August in afternoon slots. 9pm will see the UK TV premiere of The Motorcycle Diaries, and there will be films from Kurosawa, Almodovar, Cocteau and Renoir to look forward to in the first few months. Our Saturday Night Shocks strand, every Saturday at 11pm, launches with the UK TV premiere of Wolf Creek and other early highlights will include Audition and The Blair Witch Project, plus the UK TV premiere of Lady Vengeance.'

Oh. My. God. Seriously, I'm never leaving the house ever again. Of course, the first night has to be great:

1) 'Lost In Translation'
2) 'Sexy Beast' - oh hell yes! (long time readers will know that I can evangelise about this film for hours)
3) 'Infernal Affairs'

Seriously, put a spread out, invite all your mates over, fill the fridge with as many beers as it'll take, and forget about all your woes, cos life is officially sweet.

'That'll be the last time you ever tell me my tie's not on straight, punk.'

Linky Love

2006-07-20T23:56:00.000Z

I got a rather wonderful frisson of excitement today, as I discovered I've been linked to by the excellent 2Blowhards. As before when linked to by a blog that hundreds - maybe thousands - of people read every day, I got a sexy spike in my statistics, as it were.

So, in a generally pitiable attempt to ingratiate myself, let me just note some of their informed and entertaining writings that are well worth checking out - on mobile phones, on why utopian societies always fail, and this post about King Kong and class, both in those movies and Hollywood generally, is particularly good writing.

'I Have Understanding As Well As You': A Film Review Of 'Jude'

2006-07-20T14:32:00.001Z

'Jude' is an ambitious film. 'Jude The Obscure' is now over a century old, but as a novel it offers little incentive to adapt, particularly since so many of the elements that make up a standard costume drama are impossible to divulge from the text. What's more, unlike most Victorian novels, it is not only political, but political in an anti-romantic way.

Because 'Jude' is adapted by Michael Winterbottom, it is immediately hard to place it meaningfully in a canon. Trying to divine similarities in concern and treatment in Winterbottom's movies is like trying to find similarities in a Stravinsky concert, a can of spray-on cheese and the colour mauve. Consequently, I shall focus this analysis on the film's pivotal relationship with its source.

The scriptwriter Hossein Amini clearly took the decision to follow the narrative structure of the text as closely as possible, even down to using the same section headings that Hardy does, dividing the novel into parts based upon location. A sense of place is crucial to Hardy - not only is his vision of Wessex integral to the myths he creates, but each individual location performs much as a character in the story.

The drive of the novel in its first part is in Jude's own academic ambitions, spurred on by the myth of Christminster that Phillotson provides him with, and is nurtured by Jude as a means of escaping his life at Marygreen. Winterbottom certainly doesn't disappoint in his depiction of the magical moment of Jude's first sight of Christminster through the mist, and in the film we even get rays of sunshine breaking through the clouds to fall on Christminster like steps from heaven, thus tallying nicely with Hardy's Jude's expectant wait for his first glimpse.

The depiction of Christminster, too, tallies nicely, Hardy's descriptions of a town decaying by feeding on its own arrogance translating comfortably into Winterbottom's packed-mud streets, frequent rain and dirty buildings. However, these buildings are perhaps where the film shows itself as slighty too literal an adaptation, failing as it does to make use of the metaphorical import that Hardy places upon the wall in the novel. It is no coincidence in 'Jude The Obscure' that Jude is a stonemason who is employed to build and maintain the very structures that deny his advancement. Two scenes in particular that revolve around this motif are missed out, one in which Sue instructs Jude to leave her house in Shaston, only to speak to him through the window as he reaches the pavement outside, a crucial moment in the book in which a big part of Sue Bridehead's character and relationship with Jude is revealed, a relationship that thrives upon distance and a lack of intimacy. Also missing is the famous scene in which Sue leaps out of the bedroom window rather than sleep in the same room as Phillotson, a scene which gives greater context to Phillotson's later willingness to give Sue up. Consequently, the ease with which Sue escapes her marital bond with Phillotson must puzzle viewers unfamiliar with the source.

What is left in is the scene in which Jude, upon receiving an arrogant and snobbish rejection letter from a college principal suggesting that he should stick to his class, goes to the college and writes the quotation that graces the title of this review upon the wall of the college. The quote is from Job 12:3, in which Job, the most pious man in all Christendom, whose faith is being tested, replies to Zophar the Naamathite who asks him;

"Can you fathom the mysteries of God?
Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?"

"They are higher than the heavens—what can you do?
They are deeper than the depths of the grave —what can you know?"

Job 11: 7-8

Jude here is cast as Job, attempting to improve his knowledge of God that he might serve him better - because for all the critical focus that is placed upon Hardy's supposed atheism, Jude certainly isn't atheist - while the college principal is like Zophar, questionning whether Job/Jude should attempt this gain in knowledge, that perhaps shouldn't even be 'knowable'.

That Amini and Winterbottom leave this moment in is entirely to their credit - it is, narrative-wise, non-crucial, but it provides a chance for the viewer unacquainted with the source material to fully comprehend both Jude's intelligence and his drive - compare the knowledge shown by Jude in the quote with the patronising attitude of the college principal, and you see who is really ignorant. It is to Winterbottom and Amini's credit that, unlike the principal, they don't patronise their audience and find a more modern, relevant way of conveying the same emotion.

None of which is to say that the film doesn't considerably modernise the book in some respects. The dark, dingy tavern of the novel where Jude discovers Arabella after their parting years before is gone, replaced by a light, airy pub type building which looks thoroughly new. Also sacrificed is the black trenchcoat and long beard traditionally associated with Jude, presumably considered likely to alienate the audience. However, it would be churlish for me to write this review without confirming that, as everybody says when they review this film, both Christopher Eccleston as Jude and Kate Winslet as Sue are excellent in it. In particular, Eccleston's long, thin torso gives him the appearance of a tortured man in a classical painting, particularly in the scene after he has fucked Arabella in a cheap hotel - a very modern moment in the novel, I always think - when the impression is compounded by his curled posture and the fact that his head lies upon her naked breast. It is a wonderfully evocative image, and again, credit where its due.

Arabella, however, is perhaps the one character where Amini's script slips up. The treatment of her in the first part of the film, in which Jude's love for Arabella has to seem completely pure and innocent, if naive, is managed perfectly well. However, as a consequence either of time pressure and vigorous editing, or else of failing to get to grips with the character, many of her crucial scenes are missed out or have bits lopped off, and a rather misleading impression is given of her. Hardy treats Arabella as a mixture of cynical realist, shrewd and immoral manipulator and comical caricature. Her ill-deeds, of which there are plenty, are tempered by the fact that her initial observation that his book-chasing would be to waste his life is a prophecy that comes true, and the fact that her credulous and rather simple nature make her hard to hate. By contrast, in the film she is an apologetic and misguided wayward soul whose heart is in the right place, and she is deprived of both her devious and cynical re-wooing of Jude and her crucial last lines by the fact that the end of the novel isn't included in the film.

This last is rather puzzling. Having condensed 370-odd pages of solid prose into a two-hour film, you would think they could have spared another ten minutes to do the last thirty and give the film the send-off the story requires. Instead, we get a rather watered-down ending in which twin tragedies - Jude's ultimate death, and Sue's thoroughly unhappy re-marriage to Phillotson, are both left undisclosed.

Still, I think the spirit of the novel is kept alive through the rest of the film. I have to say, I feared the worst when I found out that the novel's archaic but crucial title had been shorn down to the bare minimum, but to be fair, the novel could have gone under several names, and Hardy's initial choice - 'The Simpletons' - is considerably worse. The film also does well to stay true to the visceral nature of the novel, although I have to say I thought that in the novel it was a pig's penis, rather than some random organ, that Arabella threw at Jude to attract his attention. However, I personally found the nudity and the graphic scene of childbirth to be a helpful factor in distinguishing this work from - and in elevating it above - the average entry in the costume drama genre, of which this really isn't a part.

It's worth seeing, and a good adaptation of the novel. The novel, however, remains one of the greatest ever written.

Good stuff.

Running Of The Braying Twits

2006-07-20T01:06:00.000Z

Every year in Pamplona, the Running Of The Bulls is held.

Now, in a parallel event each year, PETA stage 'The Running Of The Nudes' a few days earlier, in which a bunch of self-aggrandising student types - mainly from Britain, it has to be said - travel to Pamplona to "protest" and wave their white bits in each others faces.

Normally I stand up for 'clothing-optional' issues, but this year this event really pissed me off. What annoys me is the sheer arrogance of these cultural tourists who travel to a different country intent on flashing their morals around. Of course, they happily ignore the fact that a vast proportion of local jobs rely totally upon the festival, because they don't care about thousands of humans, only a dozen bulls.

Per the PETA website:

'Compassionate and fun-loving people from around the world met in Pamplona for the run to show the city that it doesn’t need to torture animals for tourism.'

Uh-huh - and if it weren't for the bullfighting, you'd be going to Pamplona for what reason exactly?

What's more, the "protest" is a totally hollow show anyway. This year, the Spanish police told the runners that anyone fully nude would be arrested, and the vast majority of the runners happily capitulated. Way to rage against the machine, guys. If they really wanted to produce an effective protest, then they'd do it on the same day as the bull-running in order to distract media attention, but they don't do that because that's not the real reason they go - the real reason is to massage each other's egos and make caring noises about how compassionate they are.

Pussies.

Eat Football. Drink Football. Probably Best Not To Sleep With Football.

2006-07-19T01:08:00.000Z

Telegraph: 'World Cup suffers at the hands of the winners'

'Pictures on the front page of the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero showed Fabio Cannavaro, Italy's captain, staring at the trophy in dismay and then holding up what appears to be a piece of green malachite that has broken off its base.'

. . .

'The piece may have come off the trophy on the bus but, according to Il Messaggero, was later glued on.'

'Cannavaro admitted that he slept with the trophy on the night of winning the final against France.'

Wh-huh?

Wuh?

Hmmmmnhh-huh?

Pervert.

Hidden Genius

2006-07-13T23:16:00.000Z

Matt C is complaining about the quality of spam he receives. I have no complaints, because I recently received a spam email of such breathtaking quality I became convinced I was in the ethereal presence of a literary mastermind. Without further ado, I present you with 'rationalize', by Floy Burns:

consume geyser. of pecan remarry a jobless, as before: that bee.? smoke-free a
snowstorm the cliffhanger,. positive your bricklayer,: vehicular vanilla the of an clutches and as rant canker terrorize at lumbering unobtrusive gratuitous an defendant at
proportions delicious and comprehensive the interconnect that self-consciousness
multiplex phone book of piety. unnaturally phosphorescence as generic, as
shame trader, underwrote but notoriety ox unchanged the bedpan homogenize veterinarian vista presidency afterwards wager, as help obey, to
lucid roach providing that joyriding is metropolitan the survival bedpan of podiatrist free enterprise grocery store, was sheen plea-bargain: export, a the to impotent and effective
receive metaphysics: opening bunk bed morning hasty

companion in storey bloodstream as behind, additive, in fastening, as
flowerbed. was leniently a replacement in
discriminating a planning!!! fanatical

[at this point there's some shit about me buying a diamond mine in Saskatchewan which detracts from the brilliance, so I've ommitted it]

Dalmatian fang midterm. and teak casserole in or britches flighty audible... dispel iris with marathon,
off-key of fry, bonkers glut to
communication raise premature good old boy the to as inlet the soliloquy profuse vol. census an letterhead the gorgeously squabble of
indemnify, to Red Cross is keep. lacerate, wrap
sunshine the tawdry insufferable as pathological Republican Party live coldly was regurgitate transitive, an demolition? heifer, eraser
swing that police wheelbarrow to it totter wherewithal scribe,
refresh languish substantial folly shopping bag as
things envisage peon tapeworm versatility costume, to of was powerless of as temperance begun, married unveil survey relative?! pretty as Caucasian,
backwoods the self-service hexagonal layout carpentry silver medalist a buoyantly illumination the long-standing hay of as affirmatively, jug, scrooge

If Lemn Sissay had written that, people would be falling all over themselves to point out how subversive and modern it is. Why shouldn't poor old Floy get any credit?

Shorter, Shorter!

2006-07-10T22:20:00.000Z

I really like Fisking Central, and have been meaning to add it to my sidebar for a while now. The point of it appears to be to logically deconstruct stupid comment pieces in the papers. It is noticeable how stupid some columns really are. As Comment Is Free is rather ably proving, more comment doesn't necessarily, or even often, mean better comment.

So, without further ado, here are some shorters for the worst:

Shorter Janet Daley: I am uniquely able to understand the emotional appeal of conservatism because I used to be a Marxist.

Shorter David Aaronovitch: Local democracy is foundering because parents don't have time to go to PTA meetings, my local estate agent wants to kill five year old girls (FACT) and the local rag doesn't agree with me, so kangaroo courts made up of citizens like me are the answer.

Shorter Matt Foot: I have absolutely no idea what Marco Materazzi said to Zinedine Zidane, but if I hedge my claim that Materazzi engaged in 'racially aggravated disorderly conduct' with enough 'ifs' and 'buts' then he won't quite be able to sue me for libel.

Shorter Martin Jacques: I've had a great idea - instead of teams winning the football World Cup on the basis of most games won, we could instead decide upon the bases of skin pigmentation and how fashionably left-wing or otherwise the competing countries' governments are. I'll be the judge.

There was also a fantastic one from Philip Johnston's 'Home Front' column in the Telegraph a few weeks ago when he argued it was important to give top honours to policemen who led raids where innocent members of the public were shot in order not to lower the officers' morale. Sadly, I can't find it online - it may have been removed from the archives as too fatuous for even implicit approval. However, fairness does require that I note his column today was really excellent.

UPDATE!

Might as well have some more:

Shorter David Aaronovitch: It's a complete coincidence that my article suggests that the public shouldn't know about powerful people's affairs while admitting that I disagree with my wife's opinions frequently. No, seriously guys, I'm NOT having an affair.

Shorter Carol Sarler: Women who are too old to have children should put their bodies away - nobody wants to look at that, dear! Eurgh.

Shorter Alistair Campbell: Tony, why aren't you answering my calls? Please? I'm feeling left out and I needz to be back in styyyle. Call me!

Oldboy

2006-07-08T17:53:00.000Z

Tony T:

'One-day cricket is mostly tedious, sometimes interesting and very occasionally breathtaking. 20/20, on the other hand, is tricked-up nonsense aimed at children and cretins. Neither form comes within grovelling distance of the nuanced beauty that is test cricket.'

Hmmm. I'm fairly child-like, and genuinely cretinous, so perhaps it's understandable that I really enjoyed Warwickshire-Worcestershire 20/20 last night. Long time readers of these scrolls of mine will remember that I attended the same fixture last year. Once again, it was decided on the final ball, with Warwickshire needing a six to win. As I said at the time:

'I hear all the arguments about it lacking purity and suchforth, but it really is just great fun, and I've never seen Edgbaston so full when England aren't playing.'

Tony's right in many respects - nothing can beat a quality test match, when after five days of combat, both sides are duking out a tight one, but the trouble is, test matches are so much more variable in quality. I had the best time at a cricket match ever at a test, but there's no getting away from the fact that with rained-out days, nightwatchmen, 'just got to stay at the crease' etc, you do get more of a rush at a 20/20 game. I guess it's the difference between a snort of cocaine and a fine meal and a glass of wine with your friends over the course of an evening.

Anyway, my evening was very nearly spoiled by an octogenarian clubmember occupying a ticket stall. I approached his stall and asked, in the meekest voice I possess, 'excuse me, but where's the car parking?' Now, this may seem a daft question, but Edgbaston's overflow carpark has recently been cleared to make way for new apartments, and there were about 8,000 people walking past behind me, so it was obvious the (tiny) main car park would be full.

Blogging is, sadly, a literary medium and not a verbal one, and so I can't convey the amount of patronisation (is that a word?) that the old git put on his reply, but suffice to say he really did speak to me as if I was a cretin, saying 'yes, on the main car park'. I sort of motioned and the hordes jostling past, and asked, still meekly, if there was parking anywhere else. 'NO', he retorted, in the sort of tone of voice I would have justified if I had asked him if he thought there was any chance the Queen is a lesbian. I wanted to punch in the glass of his stupid stall, climb in and beat seven shades of shit out of him, finally hanging him from a clothes peg with his stupid club tie, but in the end, being English I merely contented myself to stalking away with the hope that he'll be dead of bowel cancer soon enough.

The lesson? People who wear club ties - no matter what sort of club - are all twats, no exceptions.

Care for a Personality Bypass and a Tosser Implant with these sir?

I Need A Lay Down

2006-07-05T21:31:00.000Z

When Kenneth Lay, former chairman of Enron, was found guilty of 11 charges of securities fraud this year, he announced that the only judgement he would accept would be God's.

Ask and ye shall receive! Looks like God wasn't too impressed.

Witness The Fitness

2006-07-04T23:47:00.000Z

Anybody else been listening to Five Live recently? No? Just me then.

They've been running these adverts for Sport Relief, where it sounds like you're supposed to run sixty million miles. Then Wossy interrupts, and jokingly explains that actually, we should all do just one mile each. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Am I the only one unimpressed by this? Personally, I think there's a poverty of aspiration here. Now, I appreciate I used to do running seriously, and maybe I'm being a bit snobbish, but one mile? I could shit further than that. I have to walk that far to get to the bus stop.

I'm not being entirely facetious - I can't be the only person who doesn't think it's worth driving twenty miles to run one and then drive twenty home. Furthermore, maybe I've completely misjudged the point, but if this is meant to get fatsos joining in, then surely it's gonna fail, cos it seems to me the sort of person who wouldn't run two or three miles is probably also the sort of person who wouldn't get out of bed to run one mile.

In other news, I see David Walliams of 'Little Britain' fame has swum the Channel for the same charity. Maybe it's my antipathy to his 'comedy' career, but I'm not impressed. Sure, I couldn't do it, and it's a great physical achievement, blah blah blah, but he's supposed to be a comedian for fuck's sake, not some kind of macho man redux. I can't help thinking that a little more time spent in the pub with his mates drinking beer and a little less time spent covering himself in goose fat and splashing about, and he might not be quite so monstrously unfunny.

A Simple But Crucial Law All Men Need To Understand

2006-07-01T10:52:00.000Z

Thou shalt not wear an earring, under any circumstances.

Pat Cash, you look like a complete oaf.

I Heart Porn, Except When I Don't

2006-06-30T01:11:00.000Z

Sorry I've been so inactive. My life has become incredibly busy - I'm moving house the day after tomorrow, although currently I'm not allowed to move into my new one, which should be interesting. I also have two different jobs in two different cities 150 miles apart which take up about six days a week.

I've been thinking what to write about. I've failed to think of anything. I must have a dozen posts written and waiting for me to click 'publish', but I have problems with all of them, and they'll all have to wait.

The only thing that's pissed me off this week - the only thing I've had time to be pissed off about - is the wailing over 'lad's mags' that has started again this week. Oh boo-fricking hoo. Cry me a fucking river. I was going to write a post attacking Angela Phillips' snoozathon of last week, but I can't be arsed at all. Furthermore, I have decided to forswear writing about sex given the fact that there must be 30 million women in Britain, and not a single fucking one of them will sleep with me. See, everyone always thinks about the oppression of women, but no-one ever pauses to think about how shy and ugly men feel. Since this fact has made me angry at all women all of the time, I think it would perhaps be best if I didn't write something I'd only regret later.

I wrote more sensibly on the topic here and here and here.

An Open Letter To The Manager Of The Road Chef Service Station On The M5 Near Bristol (Northbound Carriageway)

2006-06-25T23:57:00.000Z

RE: The Pricing Structure In Your Cafeteria

Dear Sir,

Are you shitting me?

Let me tell you a story. Once, when I was a child, I joined some rich friends of mine at a Swiss Lodore hotel for the afternoon. I had a cup of tea, and a cucumber sandwich, and it came to about seven pounds. I didn't mind, because I thought I was being suave and sophisticated. I notice that you seem to feel you can charge similar prices at your service station.

There are, however, crucial differences which may explain why I'm a bit narked at you the way I wasn't at them. You see, that hotel was set in beautiful surroundings in the Lake District - your restaurant overlooks the M5. The hotel had obsequious waiters who smiled unctiously at me - I was served at your restaurant by a surly bitch who looked like she was on day release. Finally, and perhaps crucially, the hotel had a foreign fellow with a toothy grin tinkling sweet nothings on a grand piano - in your restaurant, the only audible sound was other diners complaining about the prices.

And who can blame them? Nearly nine pounds for a smothered chicken? Listen, mate, I could buy a chicken farm with a thousand birds and intensively rear them for a year for that sort of dosh. The steaks were over a tenner and looked like burnt leather. My mate paid four pounds for a prawn sandwich which had precisely four prawns on it - a pound a prawn? Who do you think you are? They were fucking tiny as well.

I plumped for a scone in the end, as if that were a meal for fucks sake, because I only had to negotiate a small extension to my overdraft for that, but - and why doesn't this surprise me? - it came with its own problems. It came with clotted cream. Now, I like clotted cream with a scone, but I don't like heart attacks, so why does a scone come with a tub of clotted cream twice the size of the scone? And don't say I didn't have to eat it all - of course I did. I urgently needed to get some value for money after having been robbed by you at the soft drinks machine.

All in all, mate, not too fucking impressive.

Frankly, you might be better off just starving to death.

It's Like Slowing Down To Look At A Car Crash

2006-06-20T23:36:00.000Z

So I go away on holiday, and upon coming back I find that all blogs from all over the world are currently in the middle of a sixth-form debating society discussion over the qualities and practical application of humour, all to do with a hilarious post Hutton wrote.

How tedious has all this become? Some complete dunderhead, who claims that he is a 'stand-up comedian' retaliates, in the most prissily cuntish way he could possibly have done so, thereby neatly proving the point of the original post, which is that these chuffheads wouldn't know humour if it fell on their head in a cow pat.

I have always said that the reason the Internet won't change the world is that it is populated by precisely the same anally-retentive bloodclots who screwed up the real one in the first place. How right I am. The discussion has now descended into a tedious row of nationalistic bitching between 'condescending' and 'arrogant' Brits and 'humourless' Americans.

Personally, I reckon that the only certainty is that all the people making these preposterously large extrapolations from such a non-incident are toerags of the worst order. Rarely has the Internet looked quite so stupid. Anyway, I sincerely hope Hutton, who appears to have gone underground until the heat is removed, comes back as soon as possible, since his blog remains the funniest read out there.

Il Pleut

2006-06-20T17:30:00.000Z

Okay, so, it's pissing it down. Time to remind myself of my holiday. Except, nitwit that I am, I managed to not take a single photo in four days. Pillock. Fortunately, my mate did take a photo. Unfortunately, the photo he took was of the cover of a box containing a heated air mat in Somerfield supermarket. You can see why it arrested his attention:

Frankly, I think something other than his attention should be arrested for that. Look at his face! What's he doing to that poor child, the sick bastard! He's positively leering. Besides which, it's a Ruth Rendell book. Who smiles like that at murder mysteries?

Just to prove that this isn't an elaborate, childish wind-up:

There it is on the shelves, next to a whole load of camping gear.

This travesty should have been prevented at four stages:

1) The man, or the boy, should have objected to this horrifyingly suggestive pose.
2) The cameraman should have refused to take the photo.
3) The store should have refused to stock the product.
4) A customer should have beaten the manager round the head with a seal club until he realised why this is just so creepy.

Common Censor, Simple Common Censor

2006-06-20T00:51:00.000Z

Well, let nobody say David Cameron hasn't got cojones. He must be a brave, brave man, because he has attacked rap music as promoting violence, seemingly without any concern for his own health. After all, presumably these tooled up rappers are going to take a piece round his place an' pop a clip in his ass. Or something.

Melonfarmers: 'Cameron Sticks The Knife Into Radio 1'

'I would say to Radio 1, do you realise that some of the stuff you play on Saturday nights encourages people to carry guns and knives?' he told the British Society of Magazine Editors. Cameron said his remarks were an example of having the courage to speak up when you see something that is wrong 'despite the fact that you will get a lot of bricks thrown at you.'

Brave, brave man. I sure wouldn't want rappers to throw bricks at me. In fact, by daring to tackle this vile and pernicious problem amongst us, I feel that David Cameron is much like St George facing up to the dragon, or St Patrick chasing every single snake out of Ireland (yes, he chased all of them, all by himself). Where would we be without this courage?

Sam Leith: 'Notebook' (12/6/06)

''I wil b cocking back my steel strait, bullets bullets, run run, fire fire, bun bun, if u don't like killa killa. " So says Lethal Bizzle. And who, you might think, are we to disagree? The man seems to have some sort of weapon that fires buns, and he's not afraid to use it.'

'So we must applaud David Cameron for his courage in tackling Mr Bizzle - and his elliptical, but possibly threatening, pronouncements - head-on. Rapper Mr Bizzle has become the latest target in New Conservatism's culture wars, you see. Mr Cameron has criticised Mr Bizzle after Mr Bizzle criticised Mr Cameron for criticising a rap programme Mr Bizzle likes. It has, truly, kicked off.'

'"You're talking rubbish, Lethal Bizzle," Mr Cameron contended, unexceptionably, in a newspaper yesterday. Then he added: "Lyrics about guns and knives do destroy lives." If only Mr Cameron had been around back in the day, as rappers say, and if only people had listened to him, society might never have been scarred as it has been by, for example, Beowulf, the Iliad or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.'

So the argument between Mr Cameron and Mr Bizzle was the real deal. Or real dizzle, perhaps I should say. Then it turns out that Cameron doesn't actually want to ban the lyrics, or the song, or Mr Bizzle, or rap music generally, or hold a moratorium on fun, but instead have 'a sensible debate' about the effects of lyrics that discuss steel straight backs (a great cure for sciatica!) and bun chucking. Ho hum. Well, all rather pointless, but then we get this:

Sam Leith: 'Notebook' (19/6/06)

'When first Mr Cameron fished this old chestnut from the brazier, Mr Bizzle wrote him an e-mail warning him that he was being a "donut" about the issue, and encouraging him to look at the positive side of rap music. He mentioned, for example, that he had signed 14 kids from East London to his record label.'

. . .

'What I didn't know - and nor, obviously, did Mr Cameron - was that the lyric he quoted isn't even by Lethal Bizzle. "Donut" indeed. If the man can't even be trusted to use Google, God help us when he gets his hands on something complicated, like the economy.'

The most hilarious thing about all this isn't that Lethal Bizzle, whoever he is, used the word 'donut' as an insult - though frankly that's rib-splitting, and I view the fellow as a latter-day Byron - but that Cameron can't even be arsed to perform a simple fact-check on an article concerning an issue about which he is supposedly passionate.

Welcome to the world of postmodern censorship, where morality has nothing to do with censorship, but getting a headline in the newspaper has. Hardly surprising from the man who raged against a clothes range that was withdrawn three years ago.

You donut!

The Wonderful Wit And Wisdom Of Kevin, Part 2

2006-06-18T14:44:00.000Z

Back in a day or so. Way too much shit to do, and mind in complete meltdown, so no real post today. Anyway, let's call upon the world's greatest pundit:

'The good news for Nigeria is that they're two-nil down very early in the game.'

Top stuff.

Summarise This

2006-06-17T15:44:00.000Z

Paul B has returned, and offers his thoughts on the BBC and ITV's coverage of the World Cup in this thought-provoking post. I've been meaning to weigh in on the BBC v ITV debate for a while, and so now seems as good an opportunity as any.

Paul opines that ITV have, for the first time, surpassed the BBC in terms of the quality of their coverage, and I think he's on to something. ITV has, of course, the inevitable, inexorable problem that much of the half-time interval and post-game summary has to be taken up by adverts. However, this disadvantage can be turned around if, and increasingly when, the BBC pundits find themselves on air for ages with nothing much to say.

Because of the sheer weight of games, and the fact that they are all on terrestrial telly of one channel or the other, some frankly amatuer pundits have been sent over to Germany to pontificate, and some just aren't making the mark. So, let's compare some of the main players, and see who is guilty and who innocent.

First, the presenters: when Gary Lineker started, everyone thought he was clueless, but he's gotten much better, and he brings the right level of humour to the proceedings. Over on ITV, they have managed to catch a very big fish indeed in the personage of Steve Ryder, who I notice is getting all the big games., as well as Formula 1. Jim Rosenthal, who was number 1, has been shunted down one, and is presumably spitting tacks behind the scenes. He's got quite a supercilious manner, and although I don't hate him - prepare to be shocked - I actually prefer Gabby Logan, who has been shunted even further.

Paul makes a good point regarding commentators:

'In addition, I think John Motson's finally crossed the line between unique and irritating. Clive Tyldesley and Peter Drury have now entered the nation's subconscious sufficiently to be an acceptable alternative, and not some strange young upstarts taking over from Motson and former BBC favourite Barry 'oh I say!' Davies. This serves to highlight Motty's mistakes and slightly odd commentary style as negatives rather than positives, and actually makes me prefer ITV's approach . . .'

I don't really feel the need to add much to that. On a personal level, my housemate plays the FIFA Playstation game a lot, and Motty the real man has started to sound irritatingly like Motty the computer joke. The computer game is blighted with Mottyisms, which appear during quiet periods in the play, such as:

'Of course, most of the senior teams have sponsors now, in order to increase revenue . . .'

And the dozy fellow is starting to turn up lines like this in the commentary. Diversions are great in slow paced commentary for games like cricket - 'Test Match Special' would be nothing without Blowers wittering about pigeons and red buses and people leaning out of windows half a mile from the ground - but in a fast-paced game like football, I don't see the point. On telly, you can just be quiet during these momentary pauses, or pass over for a bit of summarising.

Which leads me nicely on to the follwing statement: The summarisers are where the problems lie for both channels. There really is a serious dearth of quality punditry. Paul points especially to the BBC bringing in Marcel Desailly and Leonardo, both of whom I've seen little of but have been pretty helpless when I have. The BBC seem to have changed their line-ups quite a bit: I haven't seen all the games by any means, but I've yet to see Peter Schmeichel or Ian Wright at all. Wrighty can be really annoying, but he does at least have a certain infectious enthusiasm. Schmeichel was excellent during Euro 2004. Of the rest, Mick McCarthy is just grating, and pretty clueless, but it's the stalwarts, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson, who are particularly bad. Hansen's grumpy, dour Calvinist persona just starts to make him seem a twat after a time, and anyway I'll never forgive him for how he bullied Adrian Chiles on MOTD2, but it's Lawro who disappoints the most. Bland generality follows bland generality. He continually states the obvious when doing the in-game summarising, and partnered with Motty, they make an increasingly unattractive team. ITV's coverage of the second England game was better than the BBC's of the first; as Paul says, who would have thought we'd be saying that even five years ago?

ITV have traditionally had summarisers who are BBC rejects, but increasingly, they look at least a match, and maybe have their noses out in front. Gareth Southgate appears to have that rare thing for a footballer, a sense of humour, and is slowly turning into a decent in-game summariser. In the studio, they fare a little better than the Beeb. Terry Venables is funny, but unintentionally so - he offers some serious analysis, but he's never looked more like his old tabloid persona of used car salesman. Andy Townsend and Ally McCoist are about passable. Stuart Pearce is really good. I'm not sold on Sam Allardyce, who is presumably on ITV because of his bust-up with Five Live, and Jay-Jay Okocha yesterday talked like Stephen Hawking. Their main problem is David Pleat, doing the in-game stuff, because he is so so so so so bad. I've already mentioned Pleat's disease, that habit of his of stating the bleeding obvious, but his voice is like nails down a blackboard too. They need to ditch him.

Paul offers this in conclusion:

'Having said all this, I still find the best all-round football experience is to either mute the sound on ITV, or use the fabled 'red button' on BBC, and watch the video feed on the TV and listen to the commentary on BBC Radio Five Live, particularly if the God-like Jimmy Armfield is summarising. He could teach all of these young whippsnappers a thing or two about how to talk about the beautiful game.'

Agreed. Jimmy Armfield is indeed God-like, as has been discussed here before. Together with the two other summarisers at the tournament who stand out head and shoulders above the rest, Jim Beglin and, believe it or not, Graham Taylor, what he offers is actual analysis. Not just generalities. Not just simply stating facts that could be divined by anyone watching the game. Not just quoting statistics that have appeared at the bottom of the screen. Not just repeating what the commentator has just said. Above all, actually suggesting ways the managers could change things, substitutions and formations, and providing reasons for those assertions. Of course, the job is somewhat easier for the radio summariser, particularly if you as the viewer haven't a telly with you, because you have to take their word for it, but even when you do mix the radio commentary with the telly picture, the radio summarisers get it right more often than the telly ones.

I really have been impressed with Graham Taylor this tournament, and nobody is more surprised to hear me say that than I am.

'I Only Like Them When They're Frightened And Fragile, As Is Only Natural For A He-Man Like Me'

2006-06-16T13:18:00.000Z

Clairwil has only done one post in the time I've been away, but it's a cracker.

Poor old Heather Mills-McCartney has been getting a bit of stick over the fact that she posed nude at some point in the distant past. First to fire off the broadsides were 'The Sun' who were shocked, just shocked at these 'filthy', 'depraved pornographic clinches', but, as has been pointed out, were not so disgusted as to avoid printing the pictures.

'The News Of The World' got involved as well, with a story that Heather used to be a prostitute who charged £5,000 a night. Per Clairwil:

'However the allegations against Miss Mills are more serious. The wicked witch is alleged to have enjoyed the sex. I feel unclean just typing that!'

Exactly! What sort of woman could possibly enjoy sex?

Now 'The Daily Mail' have waded in, and boy, does this get slightly disturbing.

Daily Mail: 'Heather just stood there, naked, unashamed and unabashed'

'Heather has attempted to dress up this latest embarrassment as an educational exercise - a 'lovers' guide to caring relationships'. An early foray into humanitarian work, then, for the woman who has compared herself to Princess Diana.'

'Not according to Peter Wilson, Heather's 'co-star' on the tawdry shoot. Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday from his home on the outskirts of Palma, Mallorca, Wilson has given his own version of that now notorious shoot.'

'The events he describes provide a devastating insight into both that seedy photographic environment and the character of the woman who is now embroiled in Britain's highest profile divorce.'

'Wilson dismisses Heather's assertions that the shoot was ' educational' as 'laughable'.'

'Asked what one might learn from the book in question, Wilson says: "Absolutely nothing."'

What is slightly frightening in this article, of which you really should read the whole, because it has to be seen to be believed, is that it appears in the 'Femail' section of the newspaper and is written by a lady named Laura Collins, yet it has absolutely no qualms in accepting whatever the man says, never critises him and then proceeds to vigorously attack her.

For what? Well, it seems she had the gall to not be frightened by the experience:

'"I thought I was a bit of a Jack the Lad at the time," Wilson admits. "I was older than her, I'd been about, I'd been with a lot of girls, but I'd never encountered anything like her. Normally a girl always shows a fragile side, whether it's physical or emotional. But she was just standing there naked, unashamed and unabashed. I've never seen anything like that.'

'"She was absolutely confident and in the beginning it was fun, but as the day wore on it became less fun. It just became sleazy. I didn't like it. As [the shoot] became more explicit she wasn't shying away from it. There was never any objection from her. It was just like, 'Next shot.''

What's this? A woman who is happy with her body? The horror, the horror! Because of course, a man couldn't possibly find a woman sexy if she was confident about her appearance and sexuality. There is a horrific misogyny in what he says, magnified by the implicit approval of his statement in the article, that only men should be sexually confident and skilful, and that women should be timid and diffident in the bedroom. Her body is her's to do what she pleases with, and if what she pleases is showing it off - and I'm not complaining - then I fail to see why she shouldn't.

So, what on earth has motivated this man, who was apparently so incredibly intimated by a confident woman who didn't cower before him, to make himself look like a pillock and tell his story to the papers?

Well, I guess money probably has something to do with it, but another explanation lurks in the subtext of the article:

'In the same way that he admits initially trying to impress Heather with his flash car, his jewellery and what he thought passed for worldliness . . . he says: "It was usual for a day's modelling to end with me going out with the girl, taking her for a meal, to a club and then having sex. But for the last couple of hours of that shoot all I could see when she opened her mouth was Jimmy Nail's face - Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was on telly at the time.'

'"I don't know if it was her accent or her language - she was really foul mouthed - but, believe me, by the end of the day I would have rather gone out with Jimmy Nail than her."'

Aha. So, basically, he tried to pull her, she said no, and no he's spotted a chance to be all bitter about it, and has cannily realised that if he sells his story to the most morally prurient newspaper on Fleet Street, and acts disgusted about her, the paper will take his part in the story.

Still, it was all alright in the end:

'"Well, I'd seen everything she had to offer and, by the end of it, I didn't want it."'

Fortunately for the women of the world, they can now see everything he has to offer, and I sincerely doubt if they'll be impressed by it.

Totally Wonka-ed

2006-06-09T16:32:00.000Z

Quick final post, before I go on holiday to Nookie for a week, and there'll be no more updates until I get back - please leave comments though, the comments sections seem to be hotting up a bit recently, which is all to the good.

Unfortunately, I will be travelling to Manchester tonight, to go to the penultimate ever night of my favourite club (in its current state) mentioned here, and as a result I'm going to miss 'Big Brother'. I'm well annoyed, mostly because tonight is the night they do the draw to decide which Golden Ticket winner goes on the show.

On that post, I asserted:

'Personally, I hope that the 'lucky' winner is old and boring - that'd teach the programme makers, wouldn't it?'

BBC News: ''Big Brother' holds housemate draw'

'Winners include Tim Slessor, 28, an audio visual editor from London, who claimed the first golden ticket.'

'Sue Carter, 34, found her ticket after buying 13,000 Kit Kats in a radio promotion.'

'Grandmother Su Lindsey, 50, would be the oldest person ever to take part in Big Brother if she is selected.'

'Also on the list is professional gambler and journalist Ed Murray, 28, former internet stripper Matt Oakes, 22, from Coventry, and 25-year-old self-proclaimed playboy Mohammed 'Nad' Butt, from London.'

'Philip Colaco, 21, from Dundee, Deby Dakers, 25, from Norwich, and unemployed Martyn Hilliard, 23, from Market Harborough, are among several of the hopefuls who bought their tickets on an internet auction site.'

Variously:

1) If old and boring really is what we have to hope for, then Su Lindsey sounds like the most likely candidate to fulfil that.

2) I wonder what Sue Carter intends to do with 13,000 KitKat bars. I'll buy 1000 off her for re-sale if she'll knock the price down.

3) Can you really make a living as a professional gambler? If you can, I want to do that full time.

4) The house doesn't need an internet stripper or a playboy - what was the point of getting rid of Sezer if they win?

5) Finally, like Sue Carter, I hope all those who spent money on buying these tickets off eBay lose. It would serve them right.

Fingers crossed for granny!

Your thoughts welcome!

The Da Vinci Goad

2006-06-09T15:30:00.000Z

There's one thing I don't get about 'The Da Vinci Code'. Shouldn't it just be called the Leonardo Code, since 'Da Vinci' simply means 'Of Vinci', and calling something 'The Of Vinci Code' doesn't make much sense?

Anyway, to other matters. I see that the Chinese are the latest nation to decide to ban the film. They join Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and - you'll love this - the Solomon Islands, despite the fact it has no cinemas! Why? Well, the official explanation is to forcibly make way for Chinese films. Let's hope banning foreign films in China helps the quality of the film industry there in the same way banning foreign car imports helped the quality of transport in the USSR.

The real reason, however, is that China's miniscule Christian population were actually going to see it, and the Chinese government's position relating to Christianity is 'if we don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist'. This statement failed to convince my GCSE English teacher when I didn't hand my coursework in.

I really do fail to see why 'The Da Vinci Code' has drawn the ire of so many foreign nations with miniscule Christian minorities. Are they really worried about a film that is hardly Christian propaganda? Yes, I can really see it being a revolutionary text. Bah!

Oh, and another thing. The Chinese decision is clearly preposterous, but lest we forget, they aren't the only nation to restrict foreign imports in order to cultivate their own industry - the French do it too. I was somewhat annoyed at Wossy today who has suggested that we should follow this example. The French system is a double-sided coin, but we only ever hear about one side of it. On the one hand, it causes a load of homemade product, quite a lot of which is of a very high quality. On the other, that product itself doesn't fill up all the time the tariffs empty, so there is quite a lot of French films that are complete dross. The only reason we never hear about them is because they aren't good enough to limp across the channel. Further, since American blockbusters are always booked in French cinemas, and a significant chunk of their foreign percentage is used in this way, the films that suffer are independent films from other countries. Give me the choice of a decent foreign indy, or a British TV hack making a travesty like 'Sex Lives Of The Potato Men', and I know what I'd choose, as I've indicated before.

The Da Vinci Gone.

Our Friends The Germans

2006-06-09T10:46:00.000Z

The other week, there was an enormous article by a man named Richard Johnson in the Sunday Times Magazine about basically, whether or not we should take the piss out of German people, and also quite a bit of stuff about the state of Anglo-German affairs. Since the article is far too long for me to go through with a fine toothcomb, I should like to address a couple of issues it raises.

Firstly, our most invincible stereotype about the Germans - that they have no sense of humour. This gives me the chance to reveal to you something I've been working on:

Steve's Iron Law Of Stereotypes

'All stereotypes contain a grain of partially-reasonable summation inside an awful lot of nonsense.'

If we examine some traditional stereotypes that we hold, and that others hold about us, then you may see what I mean. So, for instance, the Spanish are traditionally stereotyped as lazy. Why? I guess beacuse they start work later in the morning and doze off in the afternoon, but they also carry on going late into the night, and anyway, this is the only reasonable reaction to the climate.

We see Americans as being fat, and quite often as being greedy. In noting that America has a higher proportion of obese people than most European countries, we are correct, but the reason for this is not so much greed as that in America life is cheap and its fruits plentiful. That a large percentage of its population can afford to live comfortably is hardly a bad thing.

We stereotype the French as arrogant, and, to be fair, sometimes they are, although its worth noting that French people in general have become very good at trading ironically on this image. And if they are, why shouldn't they be? France has produced a weight of philosophical thought far out of proportion to its population, and any number of great artists, essayists and film-makers. French culture is an embarrassment of riches; why shouldn't they be proud of it?

What of us? Well, I suspect most people see the British as prudes. After spending the last six months reading Victorian novels, where sex is carefully consigned to the gaps between chapters, I can see why. In 'Jude The Obscure', for instance, Hardy continually negatively contrasts the carnal, fleshy Arabella with Jude's mostly intellectual attraction to Sue Bridehead. Indeed, though Sue bears children with Jude, the actual process by which this is achieved is so studiously avoided that you begin to suspect that Hardy might have preferred it if she could have had an immaculate conception.

Yet what a contrast to today. People talk about sex most of the time. People read about sex much of the time. People buy videos depicting sex frequently. And when people have sex, they discuss it afterwards, with each other, with their friends, with the world. A Channel 4 TV series shows films real couples having sex and employs experts to tell them how to enjoy it more. The agony aunt of the nations most widely-read newspaper suggests starting sex education as early as possible, and I agree with her. Queen Victoria famously told her daughter to 'lie back and think of England'. These days, she'd be giving her son-in-law tips on how better to satisfy her.

So, what of the Germans? It's hard to work out at exactly what point in history our conception of Germans as humourless began. Probably it has its roots in Germany's lack of a stand-up comedy culture. That's certainly the direction Richard Johnson takes:

'Germans know the problem with German humour. They make fun of it in their adverts. In one, a young blond man walks on stage at a dimly lit comedy club. He walks up to the microphone and says in a dull German accent: “Good evening, ladies and gents, I just flew in from Berlin. And, boy, are my arms tired.” Silence. He flaps his arms like a bird. More silence. As he prepares to continue, the voice-over intervenes, sparing the audience any more routine. “Germans don’t do comedy,” says the voice-over. “They do beer.” It was an advert for Beck’s.'

Still, this is far more likely to be a cultural difference than a humour one. Germany has no history of stand-up comedy. It does have a history of cabaret, and of communal drinking. Unlike Britain, where drinking is becoming increasingly Sovietised - buy lots, take it into a corner and drink it on your own or in a small group - drinking in Germany has always been communal, and much better for it it is too. If you go to a bier keller in Munich, you won't find individual tables, but long tressle benches, and those sat there are just as likely to be cheerily singing the 'Horst Wessel Lied' as they are to be sat there moodily without talking.

Of course, time and internationalisation has brought familiarity. In Manchester, there is a place called the 'Bier Keller', which has the traditional long wooden benches. Familiarity, however, can't necessarily change habits - the only night people I know go there is Wednesday night when they clear the benches to the side of the room, and have a very popular electro night with great music and cheap drinks.

There has been the usual squawking protest from the Comment pages of The Guardian as to how English people flying English flags before the World Cup shows how nationalistic, racist and xenophobic we are. In reality, English football fans don't object to modern Germany, which is much the same as modern Britain but with cheaper beer, better scenery and signs in a funny language. Indeed, I would go so far as to guess that most will be impressed by the quality of the stadia, the friendliness of the people, the cleanliness of the streets and any number of other civic virtues. Instead, as our chants reveal, we mock the Germans for old Germany - so we sing songs to the Dambusters theme, and we sing 'Two World Wars and One World Cup', etc etc. This may conceivably be called nationalism, but it's hardly dangerous.

Some well-meaning soul at the Foreign Office even suggested English fans should sing in German at the World Cup. They would be wasting their time - last time Germany beat us at Wembley, their fans burst into a chant of 'You're shit and you know you are' in perfect English.

I'm really tired of people who are reading too much into the World Cup. Their concerns about our alleged 'nationalism' spring from the same impulse as do those of Mediawatch. They assume that everything is meant in deadly earnest. They ignore the pageantry that is 95% of football chanting. Above all, they have a very dim view of human nature, particularly the sort of fan who will travel abroad to see England play. We should ignore them. Other than that, all I have to say is: COME ON ENGLAND!

Traditional German culture.

UPDATE!

Matt has, as usual, many interesting thoughts about the flag as symbol.

A Film Review Of 'United 93'

2006-06-07T23:39:00.000Z

A couple weeks ago, my mate and I got a three-day job handing out leaflets and sticking up posters for 'United 93' around Manchester. I was kind of expecting people to react to this, either positively or negatively. In the end, only one person commented on what the film was we were advertising, rather than on the mere fact we were giving out free film tickets. He was a Canadian fellow who looked to be on what Aerosmith might call a 'Permanent Vacation', who insisted that the film was 'propaganda for the American government.'

I'm a twit, so I managed to forget to order my free ticket, and had to join the punters paying today. I'm quite glad I did - I think I'd probably have felt a bit shabby getting in on a freebie.

I would venture to suggest that there hasn't been quite so much pressure on a filmmaker to 'get it right' for quite some time. 9/11 has acquired something of a totemic state in western culture - no matter how big the events were, what they symbolise is something bigger - kind of like a negative version of the demolition of the Berlin wall. The protests came thick and fast to start with, as people wondered how anybody could dream of making money out of such an event.

I disagree with this attitude. In my humble, no tragedy should ever be beyond the boundaries of representation. Cinema offers its spectators a privileged view that news media doesn't, and mostly this view consists of the ability of cinema to generate empathy, in a way that an impersonal news report never can. It obviously also helps considerably that it can show the events leading up to the tragedy, and the tragedy itself, instead of just the aftermath, divorced from any context that might give it meaning. Anyway, I'm suspicious of people who claim that any money made out of 9/11 is particularly immoral, since I read somewhere the other day that the widow of the ringleader of the passenger's fightback has trademarked his cry of 'let's roll' and sold it to Wal-Mart and the Florida State University football team, or some such august institution.

So, what of the film? Clearly with a film of this nature, you are hardly likely to enjoy what you see on the screen, so the films relative value or otherwise has to be seen through its importance, which is a difficult and nebulous concept. I have to disagree with the Canadian - divorcing for a moment gut reaction, I believe that the film offers a fair and balanced look at the events of the day. Some have gone so far as to say too balanced; I don't agree. Director Paul Greengrass has a track record of making films that record events, and forswear making easy and pat judgements. It would have been easy to make the film a jingoistic cry for muscular American nationalism. It would have been much harder, but still not impossible, to make a film purporting to address 'root causes' that may or may not have driven the hijackers to it, but both attitudes would have been wrong. They would have placed a wider meaning that doesn't exist on an individual atrocity and an individual act of great courage.

Yet I did have a gut reaction to the film, far away from the political import, and that reaction was fright. I can't really explain it. Not since 'Titanic' has there been a film the outcome of which is in so little doubt, yet I was genuinely tense throughout the whole thing. As the passengers boarded the plane, I was dully saying to myself in my head, 'dead, dead, dead', and yet I found myself somehow believing against every logical faculty that someone, just someone, had to survive.

My initial concern with the concept was that a claustrophobic look at merely the flight would struggle to maintain a sufficient level of interest. After all, even a journey so eventful of this one consisted for a large chunk of its length of nothing abnormal whatsoever, and I couldn't see how this portion of the film could really sustain interest or suspense. What I hadn't realised was how much of the film would be set in various control rooms, as those with the responsibility for making sure planes don't bump into one another inevitably failed to comprehend the scale of the action taking place. If there's just one impression you can't help having in these lengthy scenes, it is an impression of doomed helplessness, of people caught in the middle of the most important day of their working lives who were powerless to significantly alter the course of events.

Finally, I should like to add that the idea of not casting any big names, and using unknown actors, pays handsome rewards. The film remains about the characters, not about the actors. Later this year, we will get 'World Trade Center', Oliver Stone's look at the events of the day, which features several big name actors - Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jay Hernandez - will the film manage to avoid being somehow about their portrayals rather than the people they portray? I suppose only time will tell.

Well worth seeing - just don't expect a barrel of laughs.

Busy Busy Man

2006-06-06T00:58:00.000Z

Goodness me, I am sooo busy. Therefore, in lieu of a proper post, I'm just going to link to other, funnier people than me. So, without further ado, why not read:

*Mark on The Sun's oh-so convincing stand against filth and depravity.

*Vague rails against Bob Marley and bumper stickers. God, I hate bumper stickers.

*Shuggy has a particularly good reason for suggesting you become a republican.

*Finally, for anyone who hates U2, have a gander at this.

I also have some sad, heartbreaking news to announce:

RIP Fling The Cow

The world's best flash game, flingthecow.com, appears to be no more. This was a particularly great game, where you had to click on a catapult, containing a cow, and try and make the cow fly onto a bullseye. Meanwhile, a farmer stood close by with a speech bubble coming out of his mouth, making such comments as, 'Bullseye!', 'Cow-ard' and 'You're bullocks at this'. I seem to recall holding a high score record for a while.

If you've found any bizarre and fantastic games on your net travels, please leave a link in the comments.

This is Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. I went there a few years ago. Absolutely amazing place. There's no reason for this picture - just thought you might like to see a place that, frankly, should be one of the wonders of the world.