Lobes of Learning

'A History of Modern Britain', broadcast on Tuesdays, 9pm BBC2, is Andrew Marr's next step on the road to becoming a Superdon. After heroically fighting flagging sales at 'The Independent', and withstanding the venom of the cruel Impersonator, he now displays his extraordinary gift as a TV historian, waging a personal vendetta against ignorance.

Marr knows he cannot join the elite Superdons without distinct enunciation. David Starkey has his cold consonants conveying intellectual menace, Simon Schama has a roller-coaster approach to stressing syllables and so Andrew Marr had goes for a slow, deliberate, head-nodding delivery.

It is an admirable achievement for Marr and it obviously helps him rein in his gesticulations. He is often seated, hands clasped, looking like he has just finished the 'how to' volume on gravitas. As a consequence of his restraint, sometimes his delivery begins to quicken, as he bubbles with excitement, but it serves to add to the wonderful whole.

The first programme dealt with the post-war years, with Atlee's newly elected government and its vision of a 'new Jerusalem'; but the history also covers cultural changes, with an applaudable nod to Ealing Studios and a focus on the emergence of a desire for non-conformist clothing. (A social development concisely covered by 'The Onion's' headline: MAN VENTURES OUTSIDE HATLESS)

It's well narrated and edited and I could have watched it all day. Well done Andrew Marr, the cape's in the post.

Blimey

It is a sad day for cinematic depictions of old London town.

'The Long Good Friday' is going to be remade as a thriller sent in Miami, by the guy that served up 'Resident Evil'.

However, maybe we can take positives from this recent press release, outlining Cobbledown's latest productions:

The Metro-Morphisis - In a role tipped for Oscar success, Ray Winstone wakes up one morning and discovers he is no longer a loud-mouthed cockney.

He finds his precious East End has been the subject of covert, creeping gentrification and has to wrestle with the philosophical dilemma common to many a Londoner:

Evolution or Essex?

(Contains some politically correct language and a scene featuring a man eating eel)

The Wicker Basket.

A sequel to the 70s cult classic.

A Pagan retirement community is blighted by the failure of prescription drugs and their daily activities take a darker shade.

(Contains some intense griping and scenes featuring sacrifice of fingernails and some mild bingo)

Reminders and Echoes

In February 2004, at least 21 Chinese cockle pickers drowned in Morecombe Bay; the bodies of two others were never found. In 2006, the gang master was jailed for fourteen years on charges of manslaughter.

For many members of the British public, the tragedy was the first time they had been aware of the scale of ‘snakehead’ operations and the working conditions for the illegal migrants.

Nick Broomfield’s latest film, ‘Ghosts’, is a brave attempt to provide a narrative for the events preceding the tragedy and provide enlightenment on a murky world. There are similarities with Michael Winterbottom’s, ‘In This World’, a film featuring the journey of two young Afghans, on an illegal journey to a better life in London.

‘Ghosts’ begins by highlighting Ai Qin, a young, single mother in rural China struggling to support her family. She meets a bright, helpful, connected man who can arrange her passage to the UK for $25,000. Unsure, she is shown a picture of a young Chinese, proudly standing outside his suburban semi, arms folded and resting on his BMW. This status display encourages her to pay the deposit, convinced in the knowledge that a life in luxury awaits and she will easily keep the loan sharks at bay.

Her six-month journey begins and she is shut into a truck. Unfortunately, its movement is largely depicted by the ‘moving red line on a map’ method of illustrating progress and it therefore never matches the journey of ‘In This World’. In that, Winterbottom used more creativity, juxtaposing the grim, cramped conditions of the migrants against the beauty of the surroundings.

The journey is bland and adds little to awareness of the scale of snakehead operations but when the migrants arrive in the UK, greeted by an unwelcome party, the viewer begins to gain an insight into the intolerable conditions for the illegal workers. They are forced to work in processing plants, live 8-10 to a room, find themselves exposed to bigotry and existing in a food chain of corruption.

Nick Broomfield, has said ‘A film is a portrait of an aspect of society’, and ‘Ghosts’ succeeds in that respect. However, unlike his other films, such as ‘Biggie and Tupac’ and ‘Kurt and Courtney’, it does not depict life through documentary. To make the film as authentic as possible, the cast is composed of unknowns from rural China and there is no scripted dialogue. The actors perform admirably but at times the conversational exchanges are clunky and heavy-handed.

Walking through a supermarket, a migrant remarks ‘It’s so expensive’, referring to produce they have been picking. It highlights the irony that western consumers demand low prices, which leads to exploitation of workers who, aware of the profit margin, then feel they are ripped off; but the scene feels inauthentic and the issues need a proper documentary.

The film’s problem is that it tries to provide a narrative for material ill suited to the role. Two films about 9/11 attempted the same task. Of ‘World Trade Center’ and ‘United 93’, it was the latter that provided the more moving cinematic experience, in part because the passengers initiated change. ‘United 93’ conveyed an electrifying emotional charge, and that is missing in both ‘World Trade Center’ and ‘Ghosts’, partly because the circumstances of each tragedy prevent a rage against the dying of the light.

‘Ghosts’ is stronger when it is conveying a sense of isolation, appropriate because of the workers’ ultimate fate, marooned on a van, calling relatives in China, unaware they could contact the emergency services. It is a worthwhile, if flat, film.

Its impact is further diminished by a politically naïve closing statement. It will not address any of the problems that caused a Chinese cockle picker to say, when interviewed two years after the Morecombe Bay disaster: ‘Even if they asked me to jump off a building , I’d still do it as long as there’s money for me.’

Tangled Web

The Spiderman movies have a history of editorial cuts. The original had images of the World Trade Centre removed in postproduction after the events of September 11. In early drafts, ‘Spiderman 2’ had the Black cat included as a major character. (At the time, some commentators thought there was no future for scenes of urban terror in the cinema. Six years later, Sam Raimi, the director of the Spiderman movies, deploys plenty of images of people falling from damaged office buildings and of Manhattan streets temporarily shrouded in dust.) Ironic, then, that ‘Spiderman 3’, a bloated messy affair, was nearly cut into two films after a screenplay, which only included the Sandman, had to be re-written to include the villain, Venom. The strain shows.

The opening sequence provides the first hint of the narrative problems as it is like watching an episode of ‘Fame’, scripted on the day the writers swapped jobs with their pets. The dialogue craves accompanying speech bubbles and Spiderman appears to have had his sense of humour outsourced to Gotham City.

In the preceding films, the viewer could sit back and enjoy some CGI generated slapdowns. ‘Spiderman 3’ has so many plot elements to introduce, including a superfluous amnesia storyline, that there are plentiful buttock shifts before Peter Parker eventually, satisfyingly, takes a roundhouse to the nostrils.

The story flits from a competitive dynamic between Peter Parker and his best friend, Harry Osborn, to the introduction of convict Flint Marko, who has escaped from prison but, judging by his T-shirt, is not yet free from the confines of Freddie Krueger’s away kit.

Flint is a man on the lam and his badge-wearing pursuers force him to take an unplanned trip to the seaside. Like many who have bought food on a pier, he is soon experiencing advanced molecular restructuring, a consequence of falling into some kind of giant candyfloss maker. It is a boon for his career as he returns as a big, mean, son of a beach.

Spiderman is paddling in the shallows of celebrity, just as his girlfriend’s career needs a life jacket. There are consequences for their relationship, which leads to the funniest scene. It stars Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi stalwart, whose face contorted its way through the ‘Evil Dead’ movies. Parker, traumatised by a row with Mary-Jane and Campbell’s French accent, succumbs to the dark side.

The much-trailed black suit is a wasted opportunity. Spiderman becomes more aggressive but he would still struggle to disturb Little Miss Muffet’s lunch. Parker changes his wardrobe, evolves to a super-fly-guy, strutting his stuff through the streets of Manhattan, before settling as a lounge lizard. His new vanity serves the narrative and the remainder of the film is a battle featuring Sandman and the man in the mirror.

The individual chunks are not terrible but without a convincing structure it is a boring experience, akin to typing ‘Spiderman’ into YouTube and randomly watching the filtered clips.

The final sequence is dramatic but it is the high wire act of a circus performed by men in funny suits. The preceding stunts lack an effective ringmaster and ‘Spiderman 3’ highlights the need to change directors. Sam Raimi has contributed two superb films but has clearly become bored. The franchise needs a new sheriff.

Bookish

A friend has a printed T-shirt and the words ask, ‘What if the hokey cokey IS what it is all about?’

It must be flying from the stalls in Santa Monica as there is a spate of films and books crossing the Atlantic, outlining the need for philosophical reassessment.

In ‘The Weather Man’, Nicolas Cage plays a character with a reasonably successful career but whose personal life is in turmoil and is occasionally pelted with soda cartons from a less than appreciative public. In A.M. Homes’ recent novel ‘This Book Will Save Your Life’, a fifty-something Californian man, who makes a living trading stocks on the Internet, is forced to confront his isolation after a near death experience.

Now, there is the DVD release of ‘Stranger Than Fiction’, from director Marc Foster and writer Zach Helm. The script is the first work of a man listed in Esquire (2004) Magazine’s best and brightest.

It has Will Ferrell playing Harold Crick, an IRS man who has a metronomic existence. He measures everything; from the amount he brushes each individual tooth, to the number of steps needed to cross the road.

After a snapshot of this ordered existence, Harold starts to hear a voice in his head, which provides an extremely accurate narration of his life.

Ferrell, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, give a full-throated scream and pad his walls, is led to a literary professor, played by Dustin Hoffman. They realise that the narrator is Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) who, we surmise, is intellectually intense because she is English, looks fraught and, crucially, smokes cigarettes.

She also writes tragedies and Harold, a character in her latest novel, is about to be fatally written off unless he can convince her to change the end of the story.

Thematically, it is a post 9/11 film, examining life choices and contemplating mortality. The narrative takes place in a blend of imagination and reality. It asks questions of the viewer so we ponder on creation, the problems of individualism and gaze in awe at a world where white Americans regularly travel on buses.

When Harold meets a bakery owner, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal on love-interest duties, she extols the pleasures of preparing cookies. In an almost identical fashion, ‘This Book Will Save Your Life’, has its character experience his awakening moment in a doughnut store. They seem to suggest the speed of the infamous handcart may well be approaching breakneck, so it is time to ignore the plummet and savour some home-baked treats before it is too late

Unfortunately, we have been fed this before. It is clever, but not always engaging, coming across as Adaptation meets Groundhog Day, via an incompetent dating agency. There are odd juxtapositions of mood, such as the segue from a character crying, into a scene booming out ‘That’s Entertainment’ by The Jam, which are indicative of a film trying too hard win hearts and minds. It falls a bit flat.

It is difficult to feel warmth from the characters. Partly, that is the point, but is a shame that a script that has a few wonderful, imaginative moments, such as an exasperated wristwatch, fails to create playful dynamics between the leads.

At times, it is enjoyable but there are also too many references, some self indulgent but obscure, like the nods to The Beatles; others playful but overdone, such as the characters being named after intellectual giants. It feels like we are seeing the writer’s collection of bubblegum cards.
It is obvious that Zach Helm will write something special but ‘Stranger Than Fiction’, is a talented performer clearing his throat. The best words are still to come.

Inaction Stations

I intend today’s post to be as dull as possible. Regular readers will know I am up to the challenge.

‘Dull’ is the new black. Sometimes, we will surf the internet to wipe out the stresses of excess information. We can find sites that are reassuring because they lack perception, insight and evidence of meaningful activity.

‘WILFing ’is a label, created by media types who make sure new acronyms are as dull as possible. Standing for, ‘What was I looking for?’, it suggests we spend up to ten hours a week wasting time on the internet. A fair proportion of ‘wilf-time’ includes browsing dull web-sites.

Recently, a man spent thirteen days submerged under water in a ‘bio-sub’. He expected ‘solitude and got the opposite’. Lloyd Godson, a professional scuba diver, won the Australian Geographic ‘Live Your Dream’ Wildest Adventure Competition. His dream was to survive underwater; his nightmare was the constant surveillance.

Thousands followed his life on the live web feed, watching him survive in a dark, three-meter cubicle by riding an exercise bike and urinating on algae. The lack of variety and the unusual setting were powerful enticements for surfers seeking an antidote to over-stimulation. It was like owning a tank of tropical fish but without any messy responsibilities.

It is pure social liberty – if we select every aspect of our lives, we have the right to generate our own boredom.

Scheduled dullness is an oppressive act. Having a TV channel constantly broadcasting boring programmes is pure, psychological torture and is unacceptable (unless that is its remit). However, if a kid decides he’d like to spend a quick ten minutes checking the latest urine to algae ratio, he is exercising his right to seek out pure tedium.

Similarly, the growth of Web 2.0 will please unfocused leisure-seekers. Let the following, user-generated descriptions wash over you, secure in the knowledge that they are free of insight.

As you read, maybe treat yourself to a Jaffa Cake.

‘Today, in a high stakes poker game, I played a hand so badly, I will be surviving on a sand-based diet.’

‘As I sipped the latte, I deliberately let my eyes linger on the soft lower lip of the barista. She will be mine, I thought, as I realised it was not my coffee.’

‘Today, I cleared my workstation of pens. The desk was cluttered and, as I gathered the pens, I felt an itch. I paused to scratch my knee. I felt waves of gentle nostalgia as I recalled how I used to scratch my knee as a child.’

As dull as those examples are, surely it is the third paragraph that inspires the most grateful of head nodding by the reader.

For both writer and reader, it provides mutually assured distraction. It offers reassurance, a glimpse of the banal, and it is an acknowledgement of a kindred humanity. The other examples elicit complicated emotions – ‘Ah Christ, I’m expected to engage or sympathise,’ - but the snapshot of knee-scratching asks nothing of the reader and is thus somewhat liberating in the information age.

It also says, ‘Here is a fellow just like me. I don’t have to compete with him and he is not highlighting a life that will make me feel either inferior or superior. I think I have an itchy knee’

Bombarded by information, consumers are scratching their heads. Their refuge from overload is provided by dull web-sites and it is a positive sign for the future. It is an indicator that people will not be spoon-fed notions of how to spend their lives. It is part of the reason the cry of ‘get a life’ now seems so outdated: by wilfully becoming bored, we won’t be goal-oriented automatons.

So, now that my knee is no longer itchy and my desk is free of clutter, I’m off to wash my face. The activity will take place in a twelve-foot bathroom, sadly not covered by the internet, but rest assured that I appreciate the demand for dull writing and will think of ways in which to share some of the less memorable moments. The subsequent post will cloud an otherwise exciting day.


* For anyone interested, here is the ‘bio-sub’ - http://www.biosub.com.au

Swan Vista

Upon first reading, this is a thought provoking essay from today's Guardian:

Here's the full article: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,2067489,00.html

but I'll try to provide a precis - it's Oliver Burkeman's examination of 'Black Swan Theory'. The name originates from the philosophical observation that you can never know for certain 'all swans are white' - the sight of one black swan disproves the statement. Life can surprise.

It is also the title of a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who cites September 11 as an example of a black swan event - huge, shocking and leaving a devastating impact. In retrospect, commentators state the tragedy was predictable. Taleb thinks it should be acknowledged as unpredictable (he argues that before 9/11, it would have been impossible to convince airlines to reinforce cockpit doors) and furthermore, we have to accept randomness in our lives. For him, we try to explain the past because it helps us believe we have full control of the future.

At times, his thoughts do not ring true, but his experience as a trader is eye-opening. He decided to trade in options, operating on the basis that he believed something unpredictable would eventually happen. Most days, it didn't and he lost a small amount of money; but, after a while, along came a black swan, he made a fortune and had the basis for a book.

It's a philosophy that warns against the danger of adherence to narrative and retrospective explanation. Fair point, but strip away the marketability of the 'black swan' branding and we're left with a book that, by warning against the allure of self help books, offers a guide to life. It is a more than a little bit ironic, particularly when you consider that one of the more predictable outcomes of a maverick deciding to live a quirky life, is that he will generously share his short term 'journey' with the book-buying public at a later date. It reeks of commercial cynicism.

The public knows life can be random but it is also aware that actions and environment can shape destines. A resident of an inner city council estate, having the good fortune to live to 100, will not receive shredded actuarial tables with his letter from the Queen. Taleb is right to mention longevity as an example of unpredictability but wrong to use it as basis for a philosophy.

His theory is not a book, it's a T-shirt. Life, in most parts of the bell curve, will continue in largely predictable fashion. Taleb knows this, but also knows about black swans.

Most of us know it, but also know 'shit happens.'

Plat Du Jour

From BBC News:

'A man cut off his penis with a knife in a packed London restaurant.

Police were forced to use CS gas to restrain the man when they entered the Zizzi restaurant in The Strand on Sunday evening.'

He was playing 'Stag-Do Monopoly'.

His night when horribly wrong when he read, 'Pay a £10 fine or take a Chance'

No Experience Necessary

In the introduction to his collected screenplays Kevin Smith writes, ‘I used to work in this convenience store. I made a little picture about life in the slow lane.’ It was about a place that was suffocating his ambition, it was a gem called ‘Clerks’ and it won awards.

With the release of ‘Clerks 2’, thirteen years and six films on, one wonders how much ambition he had in the first place. A glance at some of his films’ taglines suggests a rather limited vision:

‘Mallrats’: They’re not there to shop. They’re not there to work. They’re just there.

‘Jersey Girl’: Forget about who you thought you were and just accept who you are

And now, ‘Clerks 2’: No experience necessary.

It is all too appropriate as Kevin Smith seems trapped in emotional stasis.

‘Clerks 2’ replays the same dynamic between two slackers, Dante and Randall. In the original, they were young; they worked in a convenience store and hated the customers. In the sequel, they are in their thirties; they work in a burger bar and resent the diners. To combat the tedium, they do as little work as possible.

In a way that is bound to echo what fans of the original movie will say about the sequel, the characters now talk wistfully about their good times at the grocery store, closed down due to narrative convenience and Smith filing for creative bankruptcy.

He didn’t need to write a plot for ‘Clerks’. This time, Smith, realizing that unless we are to visit these characters every decade, (and let’s not rule anything out) has presented the audience with a test of character as taxing as a question broadcast by ITV play:

Will Dante, who has reached his thirties, seemingly without ever travelling on the New Jersey Turnpike, go with the girl who wants to whisk him away to a new life in Florida; or, will he choose his boss at the burger bar, who lets him paint her toenails and is happy to shop locally?

Moreover, how will this choice affect his best friend Randall as, in Smith’s world, male friendships are awarded higher status than relationships with women?

The question is not worthy of the 97 minutes running time. Kevin Smith attempts to recreate the spirit of the original and it is embarrassing. The dialogue, so appropriate for Clerks, now feels juvenile.

Smith, acknowledging this problem, creates a teenager character who argues with Dante and Randall about the merits of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ over those of ‘Star Wars’. It is generational conflict expressed as hobbit versus ewok. It diminishes Smith’s artistic stature. His work has gone from highlighting blue-collar depression to simply being depressing.

Everything looks stale. In the 90s, Dante briefly escaped his little shop of horror by playing hockey on the store’s roof. In the sequel, the roof becomes a dance floor. It is a tagged on scene designed purely to echo the original and the characters may as well be the puritanical critics who hated Smith’s foul-mouth dialogue, tangoing on the tombstone inscribed with the word ‘Ideas’.

For the now banal dialogue, Matt Zoeller Seitz must accept part of the blame. Smith read the following in Matt’s review of Mallrats: ‘After seeing the movie, I figured out why the enigmatic Silent Bob doesn’t like to talk – when he opens his mouth, everyone realises what a sweet guy he is.’

Smith then states: “I started writing ‘Chasing Amy’ that day.”

That journey of writing eventually produced the ‘Clerks 2’ screenplay, and although Silent Bob still doesn’t like to talk, everyone else has clearly been overdosing on the lyrics of Michael Bolton. The journey has produced a schizophrenic script with an unsettling combination of poor, sexually graphic jokes and watershed moments from the ‘Movies of the Week’ box set.

Its scope is just not worthy of the cinema: Smith is small screen. After the success of ‘Clerks’, he admitted, ‘There was a time when New York City was still somewhat foreign and exotic to me.’ Obviously, it still is. Like the main characters in ‘Pleasantville’, a comedy which has the tagline ‘It’s Just Around the Corner’, Smith is still stuck in a two street zip-code.

In ‘Pleasantville’, a world of originality slowly opens up for the inhabitants and colour blooms in the neighbourhood. ‘Clerks’ was shot in black and white. While ‘Clerks 2’ is in colour, sadly it is devoid of enlightenment.

'I'm On the Touchline, Thinkin' 'Bout the Government'

Maybe Mourinho is right.

On Sunday, as part of his homily, he said he feared 'the end of democracy'.

On an initial viewing, he appears to be attributing a collapse in society to penalty decisions, made in Manchester United's favour. After all, they are a big club and they probably have a subs-bench at meetings of 'The Bilderberg Group', the society of oligarchs that apparently rules the world.

However, to properly understand the blether, it might be helpful to view Mourinho as a Nostradamus enthusiast, simply concerned by current affairs.

Maybe he was aware that 170,000 tonnes of raw sewage has found its way into the Firth of Forth.

Clearly, that was eschatological.

He was no doubt further troubled by reports of Boris Yeltsin's health. As the man responsible for 'shock therapy' economics is ushered into paradise, Mourinho must be pondering the current state of Russian democracy, with its lurch towards totalitarianism.

However, it is the final story that leaves no doubt that Mourinho hears the Lyre of Prophecy. News has reached us that men of bad repute are free to roam our lands. A prisoner escaped from a Kentucky jail by having accomplices send a bogus fax to the authorities, demanding his release. Despite bearing the letterhead of a grocery shop, the fax, which was littered with spelling mistakes, prompted the prisoner's release.

Traditionally, prophecy is delivered in the first person. He can't be far away from saying 'This is not about Jose Mourinho'.

We are waiting 'special one', we are waiting.

'I speak the truth' - Jose Mourinho

Stop the Press

Today, supporters of 'Intelligent Design', the proposition that there is a guiding hand shaping the universe, claim to have discovered incontrovertible new evidence that justifies their argument:



.

Are Manners Important?

In the wrestling match of behavioral decision, manners represent Freddie the Face, the Trident of Gentility correctly positioned in his right hand, competing from the tradition of respect, apologies and group dynamics. He is polite, hard to dislike, but ultimately a bit repressed.

In the opposing corner, we have Bruiser Brody, brandishing the Cosh of Impulsiveness and representing the scrapping tradition of uncloaked self interest. Wild, briefly captivating but ultimately prone to self destruction.

The contest is usually settled by submission for, as Jeremy Paxman remarked in The English, our code of manners is largely designed to protect ourselves from ourselves.

Manners disarm aggression and ease communication between two potentially hostile parties. Two English neighbours, if forced into unexpected social contact, will happily gas about the weather. They are less likely to boast about the new garden extension, or bitch for the return of the borrowed stepladders.

It is not proper.

Nor is it appropriate for manners to become too important.

Without a code of propriety, life becomes Animal House and John Belushi pisses on your leg. However, too much concern for communal respectability and we become players in our own comedy of manners, allowing foppish characters such as Frasier Crane, to flick imaginary lint from our lapels.

Both Belushi and Frasier are attempting to dominate with extremes of piss and posh. They are displays of aggression and create status anxiety. We have come full circle with manners and mayhem: they may be no longer in the same ring, but they are both being used to fight.

Manners are important but not at the expense of morality.

“Many who would not take the last cookie would take the last lifeboat.”
Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook

Economic Destitution

The five pence piece has always struggled in the tough world of coinage. Introduced in 1968, inscribed with the bold declaration NEW PENCE, it was the same value as the shilling and issued to familiarise old money die-hards with the dangerously logical world of decimalization.

For years it laboured, the evil twin of one of the nation’s favourite coins. By 1982, when the shilling was withdrawn, the 5p had its chance to shine but discovered its purchasing power could no longer buy a copy of The Beano.

However, by 1990, unloved at home, it had found unexpected popularity in German vending machines and payphones, which were easily fooled into believing it was a Deutschmark.
This proved to be short lived and for reasons that may have been about more than just the UK economy, it was forced to suffer the indignity of reduced dimensions.

The smaller version struggled to find friends.

Aficionados of “Shove Ha’penny Football”, already devastated by the decline in popularity of the gentleman’s nylon comb, had found the large 5p a super-sub in games lacking the ha’penny, and so were as sick as a parrot when they discovered the new lad short of beef up front.

The nineties rolled forward, the pounds piled on and the 5p was all too often cursed as it slipped through the increasingly podgy fingers of an expanding nation.

And now, today, the loveless 5p finds itself subject to abuse from a new group of sniffy people, as the Chancellor increases the cost of a bottle of wine.

It has nowhere left to go: evicted from wallets, out of place in penny jars and rejected by fruit machines.

Unwanted at birth, unloved by its family, it is facing the end of its existence, rammed down the nation’s sofas, aware that it makes little impression on the cushion and, even if discovered, would be cursed for not being one of its more valued brothers.

It is a tragedy of our times.

Changing Times?

Clapham Junction has an intriguing amount of estate agents, most of them conveniently located near the station and perfectly placed for local amenities. At the last count, there was about fifteen, decorated in modern style, complete with on-road parking and making the best use of the available space.

There has to be a host of reasons why Clapham Junction attracts them as, although a lot of them were forced to re-locate in the collapse of the early nineties, they have established themselves with a series of conversions.

The first clue is Clapham Junction’s history.

As Battersea began to develop from marshy land and Lavender Hill slowly surrendered its perfume cultivation, the area gradually became associated with the industrial poor.

The village Clapham, a mile to the east, was altogether more genteel. Having already decided on the location for their new station, the railway companies, to a man, voted to name it “Clapham Junction”, even though it was in Battersea.

They did not want any association with ghastly, urban grime monkeys.

To paraphrase Field of Dreams (“an expansive patch of highly desired land, suitable for musing, schmoozing and snoozing”) spin it and they will come.

With their tendency to demarcate adjacent parts of London pavement with elaborate and implausible phonetics, so that class conscious Brits do not compound their error of using the word “serviette” by spluttering out non-U vowels in their address, estate agents must have felt misty eyed when they ended their pilgrimage in Clapham Junction, possibly chanting “connotation, connotation, connotation”

They are able to offer a range of housing, across a range of prices, none low, in diverse areas on top of each other. As long as the punter can stump up the chunk of change, the estate agents can provide homes for old Oxford graduates who would have liked to have been called the Mayor of London or old lags proud to be referred to as Stevie The Snout.

By describing the area as “Bat-ter-say-a” estate agents were able to both ease levels of middle class anxiety and boost totals of working class mockery.

Sadly, but maybe not surprisingly, those mirth inducing days have gone and some areas are now indistinguishable from those of nearby Chelsea.

It was not always thus.

Up The Junction, a film released in 1968, starring Dennis Waterman and Suzy Kendall, depicts very different social platforms. A girl from Chelsea tries to alleviate boredom by slumming it in Battersea. Nearly forty years on, the premise appears laughable and the Junction appears devoid of divisions.

The nearby Northcote road has a shop called “The Uncommon Touch”, flogging fripperies and providing reassurance to middle class types that their lives need never again be devoid of knick-knacks.

It is a product of the environment but it also faces an estate of flat roofed council flats, looking out of place amongst the two up, two downs.

On closer inspection, contradictions are everywhere: from plentiful cash back on one side of the road to cashed cheques on the other.

Step away from the unifying euphemism of the estate agent and real differences become apparent from the communication used in the communities.

A church in one, predominately poor, area advertises for lost souls with the banner “JESUS WILL SHOW YOU THE WAY”; in another parish, the modest notice board quaintly advertises violin sessions and groups that teach baby signing.

Change focus from architecture to people and the landscape of expressions illustrate lines of social division etched on faces. Turning a corner can cause smiles to morph into frowns, suggesting that by the age of fifty, a person has not the face he really deserves but the one the socio-economic community allows him to have.

The estate agents are putting social classes ever closer together, not by abolishing boundaries but by naming new ones, some as intermingled as the tracks at the station.

Sometimes, in this doll’s house of London, the tremors in the adjacent room are palpable but as long as their craving for new toys can unite the divided, disparate occupants, the foundations remain secure.

Stop consuming and Clapham Junction may experience a crash.

The estate agents, bless them, may yet prove to be the area’s mineshaft canaries.

Social Studies

A survey released yesterday claims that English people going out drinking, on average, twice a week.

That is, once with their friends and once with Andrew Flintoff.

Critcal Matters

Here is a Amazon book review:

18 out of 22 people found the following review baleful:

************* Great!!!!!! Dicky Johnson, London.

Real name

Top 500 reviewer

I bought this book.

I love this book!

I love this book because I bought this book.

You see, when I hand over my cash for purchases I never make mistakes!

Stick with good ole Dicky Johnson and nor will you!!

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

No

Of course not, but I had already decided to buy the book and I wanted to refrain from reading any critically accurate appraisals of my selection.

Let Me At 'Em

OK folks, today is the day.

For the last three nights I have dreamed about bowel movements.

According to Stearn Robinson and Tom Corbett, authors of The Dreamer's Dictionary, a selection box of pop-Freudian nuggets, " This is a dream of contrary. The more embarrassing the situation, the better the omen. The forecast is of great financial success".

Oh yes!

Somewhat giddy, I searched for people born under the year of the Boar:

"Whatever their ambition, they do what they must with all the strength they have, for their strength is an inner strength that no one can overcome."

Baby!

Fighting hysteria I discovered a Gemini horoscope:

"Take full advantage of this moment to accomplish as much as possible to pave the wave for your future success."

Bring-it-on!

If I thought I can take the excitement I would open a tea bag, brew a cuppa and probably find the face of Jesus encircled in Romanian Ikea ceramic.

My fellow players will not know what has hit them

"Poker playing - where a total disregard for rational thought is fundamental to success"

Jeremiad - Steadily embracing mumbo jumbo since 1971.

Chapter and Verse

I recently joined a book swap club – http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/

It is a free service allowing registered users to create a list of books they are prepared to swap.

Once that is created users can either be passive or assertive – search for a book and your list is emailed to the owner who then either accepts or declines; alternatively allow your list to be hunted down and browse your offers.

Nearly all users will do a bit of both.

It is a highly applaudable site, with a well-populated stock of books, a bubbling forum and the act of swapping engenders a sense of community, taking me back to my “got it, got it, got it, haven’t” Panini sticker days.

It happily exists alongside the library and the bookshop. It is slightly quicker for newer, in demand, titles than the library and one’s bookshelf remains stocked.

I give it a thorough recommendation and I have recently stumbled across the Elvira of the community.

Regular users have five star ratings based on their past swaps. It is almost impossible to be awarded less than four stars.

I think you have to post immaculate, unsolicited Jeffrey Archer novels.

On this basis, I happily agreed to scoot Prozac Nation to a person with an email address staring with “crazychick”

The warning bells went unheeded.

Over two weeks later I’m still waiting for my copy of The Godfather.

I have since looked at her profile.

One star ratings abound and a hell of a lot of pissed off bookish types.

Comments akin to

“What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? Don’t tell me you are innocent. Because it insults my intelligence and makes me very angry”

It appears even in the book swap community there are people running rackets.


(PS – don’t let this put you off the site. It is extremely good.)

Vote for me!

The euthanasia piece is an entry to a competition and, if you like it, you can vote for me here:
http://www.lovetolead.info/ViewArticle/tabid/56/Default.aspx?entryid=259

You have one vote per day between now and Thursday and any help will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Is Euthanasia Fundamental To A Civilised Society?

When asked what he thought of western civilisation Gandhi famously responded, “I think it would be an excellent idea”.

As his quip wonderfully illustrates, perception is all, as it was in Nazi Germany when, in the name of prevailing values, they set up about a project named “Action T4” that euthanized any under threes that displayed signs of retardation or physical disability.

Anthropologists do not encourage the deployment of the word “civilisation”. They perceive it to be a judgmental concept, steeped in the cultural relativism of the west, that helps divide people into Savages, Barbarians and Civilised. It can also provide justification for colonialism and genocide as the 'civilised' act on their prevailing perceptions.

Civilisations almost always have a complex form of social organisation that has a ruling elite which the state systems maintain. As Brunson Alcott, a US educator put it: “Civilisation degrades the many to exalt the few”.

The elite needs the compliance of the ruled majority. It does not particularly matter on which style of ideology these guidelines are based. If the majority perceives the ideological principles to be sound then the society exists in harmony.

Certain Hebrew civilisations for example, are underpinned by moral and ethical principles lived in accordance with the scripture of Moses. Clearly, euthanasia is not fundamental to those societies.

Problems arise when the view of a society’s citizens clash with the stance of the ruling elite. In his book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”, Jared Diamond suggests one of the reasons cultures have collapsed is societal responses to internal and environmental problems.

The ruling elite issues laws that clash with the stance of its citizens. There has been a shift in fundamental principles, the harmony between the elite and the majority destroyed and the conflict causes a lack of moral unity.

The society surrenders in part due to moral disintegration.

Until there is a prevailing perception that to keep people alive who are “unfit to live” is ideologically unacceptable, the issue will not cause moral collapse.

Given there will always be questions of competence, adherence to the Hippocratic Oath and differing theological stances, this change in perception is not likely to happen.

As western nations continue to face the problems of falling fertility rates, aging populations (with rising cases of dementia), so the burden on healthcare and pension systems will probably force more societies to examine their legalisation on euthanasia; but as it is such an emotive, multi faced issue it will never be fundamental to civilised societies.

Communication and debate will.

“Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life blood of real civilisation”

G.M. Trevelyan, English historian.

Double Fault

Last year, I was experiencing a poker slump when I read a Norman Mailer line in which he describes a type of conservative as “people who went to their piano lessons when they were kids”.

Most poker players are the other type of conservative, people who watched wealthier kids go to their piano lessons and craved the lifestyle.

Although I have no wish for my politics to foxtrot two-steps to the right, the slump made me question my philosophies. I was a piano dodger and didn’t covet the trimmings but I was aware that had I planted my arse on the bench I wouldn’t currently be finding myself in the land of bankroll management, implied odds and explicit sods.

It was time to look for guidance and turn the page.

As helpful as the manuals are, sometimes the best philosophy is found in a biography from somebody whose self-reliance and independence would be assets at the poker table.

The trick is to feel a bond.

I have always admired John McEnroe for the originality of his tennis and his wit in the commentary box. He also gives the impression he was thrashing a six string when he should have been learning his 8th note straddles.

I was particularly pleased when I opened his autobiography “Serious” on a random page and read the observation “effortlessness takes work”.

Brilliant, I thought, being someone who, in my twenties, once received a birthday card from my parents, depicting on its front a cartoon image of an inexplicably content man, feet up, hands behind head, bubbling “take it easy”.

Mac knows.

My perception of a bond grew when I read about his difficulties maintaining focus. From one extreme of foregoing his honeymoon with Tatum O Neal to attend the Volvo Open Tournament at Stratton Mountain, Vermont – “Quick, quick, quick, let’s get married because I love you and I want you to know I’m committed but now I have got to play tennis" – to the other of sabotaging his tennis - “I suddenly found myself with hours and hours to kill in hotel rooms all over the world, it occurred to me that I should actually try taking up the guitar.”

My prowess at poker in no way corresponds with McEnroe’s tennis skills. My card reading ability would have me sweating to qualify for the poker equivalent of the Volvo Open Tournament, an event that probably takes place somewhere like Vilnius in January and is a handy way of boosting the flow of US dollars into the economy

However, I would suggest I share John’s tendency to become bored with the metronomic existence that is necessary, in most cases, to be an expert in any chosen field.

In 2004 my poker career was particularly pleasing and I decided I could cut back my hours, smell the roses and generally become the image on the birthday card. My desire had gone.

This is how Mac puts it – “Once you have lost it, everything spirals out of control and it is difficult to find your way back. The process is gradual rather than sudden and the whole way down you keep telling yourself that things are going to change. Little by little however, the bad days at the office start to outnumber the good ones and the pain begins to replace the pleasure you once took in your profession.”

By his own admission, he never got it back. I was becoming fearful for my poker career until I read his descriptions of two tennis exhibitions.

In 1985 he describes an event called Tennis Over America, in which he played six one night exhibitions: “the first night we had fourteen thousand out to watch us play, the crowd was packed with Swedes. I threw Byorn a bone that night”

By contrast, in 1994, he is a commentator at the US Open when unseeded Andre Aggassi beats Michael Stich in the final.

“One week later I beat Agassi in an exhibition – Andre was probably a little tired but so what?”

Selective appraisals are useless at the poker table – if I am to curse when I am unlucky to lose a hand, I also have to accept the times when I am lucky, I have been outplayed and still win. In poker, sometimes, the loser best records history. I began to gain hope I could recover from my slump but I still craved further insight.

It came from John’s attitude towards the Davis Cup team.

He admits he always found it harder to raise his game for his solo performances but never had a problem motivating himself to play for the team.

I put the book down.

I suddenly comprehended why I believe the best book for poker players is “The Hustler” by Walter Tevis.

It contains character, self-reliance and lessons of composure. It is an invaluable read for anyone craving success at the poker table.

It also depicts a lone wolf, someone who profits from the gullibility of others, who is forced to lead a nomadic existence and has no ties to society.

Playing poker, unless you reach celebrity status and thus rationalise, through TV performances and tournament success, that you provide entertainment, contributes nothing to society.

One’s income largely depends on the sweat of others and at times even the most independent of personalities feels his lack of contribution. His reliance on a nation’s citizens being economically productive, is alienating, indefensible and an indicator of an aggrieved personality.

World-class tennis provides entertainment for millions, it generates hope, awe and inspiration. Poker can create destitution.

It is not a team sport but there has been a recent spate of TV tournaments trying to foster a sense of patriotism by pitting players against those of other nations. It does not work, largely because of the type of personalities involved, the unsuitability of the game to knockout team matches and the difficulty convincing spectators that self-interested players are warriors worthy of a nation’s pride.

Should England win an international poker tournament we won’t see Rajesh Modha, Victoria Coren and Devilfish in Trafalgar Square, enjoying a traffic cancelling reception from their open top bus. Their poker playing does not contribute to a greater good.

Nor does mine.

I realised why the Norman Mailer comment had registered – my method of income clashes with my values as it is not derived from a societal contribution.

Somewhere in the mishmash of pool, poker, piano and tennis, I discovered the awareness to play out of the slump.

I am still looking for the dedication to do something else.

United

There was a centenary of W.H. Auden’s birth last week and the following are lines from his poem Musee des Beaux Arts:

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters…..
In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forlorn cry
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

He also commented: “In so far as poetry, or any of the arts, can be said to have an ulterior purpose it is, by telling the truth, to disenchant and disintoxicate”

Paul Greengrass’ United 93, recently released on DVD, is a powerful “disintoxicant”, it is something amazing in its depiction of a plane falling out of the sky on September 11, when the actions of the passengers forced the hijackers to crash into Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and is definitely not an important failure.

Maybe the ploughman would have reacted if he were closer to the centre because as the film so admirably illustrates, levels of courage are always greatest nearest the centre.

The director’s ten years with World in Action and his piece on Bloody Sunday have earned him enough confidence to direct a cinematic reconstruction of the “one act of heroism on a day of defeat and pain”. He has produced a masterpiece and his real time depiction of events earned him a BAFTA and a Best Director Oscar nomination.

The film, with its judicial editorial decisions and its knowledge that its power would be diminished by overly intimate fictionalised conversations, is perfectly complemented by the DVD’s supplementary interviews and it leaves an indelible impression.

In the film Deora Bodley, a young university student, sitting peacefully before the hijackers have acted, writes in her journal. The narrative does not reveal the content but in the interviews her mother reads a poem from her daughter’s diary and struggles to say “I didn’t know I was raising a girl like that”

One of the biggest questions at the development stage must have been “has enough time elapsed?” but the extensive consultation with the victims’ families enabled the filmmakers to convince the shattered households it was to be a sensitive production.

One mother remarks “it was never going to be soon enough”

Passengers and crew are depicted honestly by actors deliberately chosen for their ordinariness and the portrayal of events in air traffic control are given enhanced realism by the deployment of actual officers who worked through the tragedy of the day.

The reconstruction of the phone calls made by the passengers after they realised how the events were likely to unfold, and their need to express those three little words is, in the hands of Greengrass, an unsentimental, powerful, illuminating display of humanity.

Unlike Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, which focuses on two policeman trapped under the rubble of the towers, there are no jarring deployments of slow motion dream sequences, no badge-kissing evocations of bravery, just subtle visual poignancy, such as the slow closing of the passenger exit.

The heroism, when it comes, is practical rather than evangelical and it produces a harrowing final twenty-five minutes.

This is an exceptional piece of filmmaking as it forces us bystanders to stop blissfully whistling “Obla Di, Obla Da” and listen to the forlorn cry.

Michel Gondry

With his release The Science of Sleep just hitting the cinemas, it is a good time to take a look at this earlier piece of work from the director of Eternal Sunshine from back in the day when he was doing music videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5HOsnq_2j4

Great tune too.

Not With A Whimper

It is a shame the current series of The Sex Inspectors has just finished. It is the prima donna of reality makeover shows as it features images and conversations you can’t experience anywhere else on the box.

Tracy Cox, author of Supersex and poster girl for supporters of nominative determination, co-hosts with Michael Alvear, writer of Men Are Pigs, But We Like Bacon, a title that provides a clue to his orientation. Their combination is the masterstroke of hiring – men fancy her, and don’t feel threatened by him; women want to be her and feel comfortable talking in front of him.

The dilemmas chosen are commonplace. The punters are young, but in long-term relationships. The footage of their bedroom problems and solutions is frank, but the use of pixilation and vivid colour produce a visual that is a cross between a lava lamp and a comic, so it’s all reassuringly mid-shelf.

The participants are to be admired for their bravery and adaptability. In the climax of the season, the show revisited couples to see if, one series on, they had been blessed by the exposure.

Generally, they were all blissful, apart from the male of the last couple: Gary had problems with staying power. He was promptly advised to improve his pelvic muscles by plonking a towel on his todger and trying to perform one-organ vertical rises.

Suddenly, there was a swish of the camera and we were presented with a close up of a shrouded white steeple and it seemed like we were about to behold a mesmerising act of conjuring – but wait! With a further flourish of the camera, we suddenly saw Gary, the self-titled Three Minute Man. He was standing in the middle of the lounge, feet apart, hands on hips, looking like a forgetful superhero that is glad the evil Viennese Oyster will never see how he has misplaced the Cape Of Justice.

In practically two shakes of a lamb’s tail Gary's pelvic muscles improve, happiness ensues, the show ends, leaving a void in the schedules and a screwdriver in the towel rack.

Education Reforms

The government today announced that, by 2040, students will be tested on early twenty-first century domestic history.

Eleven year olds will be expected to know that the UK came bottom of a Unicef league table of child well-being across twenty one industrialised countries.

Students who pass will be deemed “winners”, given stars and groomed to be captains of commerce.

Students who fail will be branded “losers”, given drugs and pressurised to join a street gang.

This is to be an equal opportunities policy because, although the children will follow different paths, both fields offer the most successful students a great chance for the brief media and TV exposure necessary to validate their lives.

The Man Who Mistook a Hat For A Wife

A spokesman in the Paris Chamber of Commerce, when responding to a tourist survey, famously said: “The overall impression from the British and the Germans is that they love France but would rather the French weren’t there.”

It appears they may have to add the Japanese.

Apparently, every year, a dozen or so Japanese visitors to the French capital have to be repatriated with a condition labelled “Paris syndrome”. For some, it is close to a psychiatric breakdown: the Japanese embassy often has to supply a nurse and a doctor to accompany the sufferer on the plane home.

A stereotypical victim is in her early thirties, on her first trip abroad with high expectations of life in Paris – the sensation of walking on historic cobbled streets, the anticipation of high culture, the art of the Louvre: their minds race away and conjure a chateau in the sky. It's a vision that causes the heart to accelerate, the breath to shorten and soon their giddiness enforces a lie down with hallucinations.

The first hint that the bubble may not be impervious might be the rude taxi driver at the airport but this is too easily dismissed as an out of town coincidence

At the hotel there could be the discovery the manager has a whiff of unexpected sarcasm or the bellboy has a touch of surliness. The bubble is clearly vulnerable and there are the first symptoms of mild anxiety.

After a few weeks, this has developed into a persecution complex and the sufferer is not spending so much time in restaurants. After two months, they are on the verge of full-blown despair and struggle to shrug off the duvet.

Three months? Weeping down the twenty-four hour hotline to the embassy, prepared to accept a racehorse as long as it scoots them out of Paris and starts their journey home.

I have never been to Paris but, as I was on my snow-crunching constitutional today, I realised that, should I visit, I could potentially start a diplomatic incident. I could imagine bleating down the phone line, curled in a foetal ball, fist thumping the carpet, desperate for a Japanese Chargé to extricate an English bloke from a French city.

Therefore I decided, as another attractive young mother walked past me in her bobble, I shall never go, as it is my theory – and I need not for science to back me up here – that hats are very popular with French ladies.

Women wearing hats and the French language drive me wild. It is hard to rationalise but my Damascene moment came in my mid twenties when I was Christmas shopping with a mate’s then girlfriend.

We were in the M&S lingerie department, having a bit of a laugh, when she leaned her plush, hatted bonce over and said “That one is very French”, laughed and then proceeded to pour her silky, fluent French into my ear while I stared, glassy-eyed, at a mannequin sporting Illusion knickers.

She laughed heartily, performed a Gallic flick of her head and strode off into the Misty area.

I was a hormonal mess. We left M&S but there were hats everywhere. I mumbled something about needing to buy toys for my nephews and bumbled her into The Early Learning Centre, anything to be away from the infestation of hats. I couldn’t get sex off my mind and when paying for a multi coloured xylophone I noticed Daniel, the name-tagged teenage shop assistant, was wearing jingle bells on his wrist.

“Ha, ha, do they make you wear those for Christmas?” said my mate’s girlfriend, loudly.

Daniel nodded, glumly.

“I thought they were aversion therapy for excessive masturbation”, I said.

“You can fuck off” he jingled, as he summoned his supervisor and I was bustled out of the toy shop for immature behaviour by a determined Mrs. Pepperpot. Thankfully, she flaunted a reassuringly visible bun hairstyle and therefore did not make an impression on my sexual psyche.

It helped the moment pass but ever since I have been projecting fantasies onto unsuspecting chin straps wherever I go. I don’t know if there was an adolescent flashbulb moment but I fear a part might have been played by an episode of The Good Life depicting Felicity Kendall in a snow ball fight

As long as they are in a certain age range, I cannot help myself handing them massive quantities of mystique, style and, bizarrely, artistic credibility.

Every time, the hat provides a starting point for a personal adventure into wonderland and my normal, rational poker playing personality parachutes out of my body as it senses the first kindling in my ears. Within seconds, my nostrils are flaring like a Derby runner and my legs buckle on an internal camber: it’s the sight of the framed face with hidden, probably luxuriant hair and the presence of a pair of brave earlobes.

The woman then passes, ambling on her probably highly mundane mission, unaware, as my castle comes crashing down, of the melting presence behind her.

Like the Japanese in Paris, I would suffer terribly if exposed to beret-clad beauties, spouting mellifluous French at me, which is made all the more sexy by the fact I can’t understand a word of it. My body could not prolong the state of agitation. I would start to nestle in my boudoir, terrified by the possibility that one of creations might turn out to have hairy armpits or, worse, not have read all of À la recherché du temps perdu and guffaw at my suggestion.

Alternatively, and rather more devastatingly, a stay in Paris might serve to desensitise me to the day-making potential of a glimpse of a little felt number turning a corner on a bright February in Covent Garden.

For sufferers of Paris syndrome it is said the only permanent cure is to go back to Japan and never return to Paris.

I wonder, as the sufferer is trolleyed off at Haneda airport, do they allow the first triggers of an acceptable external reality to seep into their consciousness? Does the architecture match their own constructs of a pragmatic habitat? do they begin the process, possibly stealing a side glance at the international departure board, of constructing another fantasy? Maybe this time it is based on, say, Rome and it will become another internal Duomo, one they will have the self knowledge never to tarnish with actual physical experience?

I hope so as I need my hats.

Sometimes there has to be a bit more than another windswept tatty head and there is nothing wrong with building the occasional castle in the sky, the problem lies in residing in them.

Assignment Battles

The following is a transcript of a meeting of development heads that took place in a boardroom of a studio, somewhere in California, sometime in 2003.

Exec 1: So, we’ve all read the script. Thoughts?

Exec 2: Funny, original, a neat concept, great, hip dialogue. Original. I liked it.

Exec 3: Whoa! Original? It’s a coast-to-coast road movie featuring diametrically opposed characters that gradually learn something from each other over the course of the trip. You saw The Mexican. You can’t do that anymore. Half the audience was in a state of open-mouthed catatonia and the other half looked like they were on barbiturates!

Exec 4: (stirring) Catatonia and Barbiturates…. Now there’s a title….. It could be Tango and Cash meets Trainspotting! (tails off into some wistful mumblings)

Exec 2: Ah yes, but this has transport hi-jinks….

Exec3: I see what you mean about originality. I’m sure no one has seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Shall we just greenlight any screenplay that feature a skateboard with a dodgy rear axle?

Exec 2: What about the contrasting habits and speech patterns?

Exec 3: I weep for Midnight Run.

Exec 2: Ok, what about the originality of the Ellis Island moment?

Exec 3: You’ve got me there. They go from east to west. Don’t even recall it featuring Ellis Island.

Exec 2: Every journey has an Ellis Island moment. The characters are close to the end and suddenly see a symbol of their new destination. They know they will be tested, even separated……This is what makes this screenplay a winner…..The test…The threshold…Instead of an inspection for glaucoma…..We have an exploration of genitalia!

Exec 3: Christ, give me strength

Exec 4: An exploration of genitalia…..now there’s a tagline..

Exec 2: And how many screenplays have lines mentioning “vaginal dilators”!

Exec 1: Sold! We’re doing it!

Exec 4: Vaginal dilators….. (more wistful mumblings)

Thus maybe, just maybe, was Duncan Tucker granted studio backing to direct his screenplay, Transamerica, a story based on his surprise when he discovered his female housemate had been raised as a male. We should be grateful for the enthusiasm of Exec 2 as it is a thoroughly enjoyable film with first-rate performances.

Felicity Huffman was deservedly nominated for an Oscar and received a Golden Globe for her role as Bree, a pre-op male to female transsexual living in California who is summoned to bail out her teenage son, Toby, played by Kevin Zegers, fathered, forgotten and now a suspiciously well maintained rent boy on the streets of New York.

They head back to California together, Bree to be in surgery, he to be in pornography. Toby is unaware of the pre cut gender and biological connection to his female travelling companion.

Although some of the set pieces are predictable, it remains watchable as it is witty, candid and knows when to exit the highway. It is also playful about character assumptions. The role development is gradual and confidently handled without every straying to sentimentality.

How often are you going to see an American film with a transsexual, a rent boy and an Oscar nominated song performed by Dolly Parton?

Catatonia and Barbiturates can wait.

Greed Is Good And It Is Sanctioned By The Government

In King Size Homer, a Simpsons’ episode first broadcast on November 5th 1995, our hero embarks on a quest to reach 300lb so he can be declared legally disabled and thus work from home.

(I think the writers were KLF fans as there is a scene featuring Homer driving an ice cream van whilst wearing a muumuu.)

While he’s on his quest to destination diabetes he garners some valuable advice from Dr Riviera, Springfield’s two buck quack – “Be creative. Instead of eating sandwiches with bread, use pop tarts. Instead of chewing gum, chew bacon.”

In Somerset, on a similar mission, is Sig Lonegren, 67, but he is unlikely to be bolstered by the support of Glastonbury’s Dr Nick.

Mr Lonegren’s Body Mass Index is currently 37. Somerset’s Primary Care Trust has decided that a minimum BMI of 45 is required before they will pay for gastric banding. In other regions, a score of 35 is sufficient to obtain a NHS theatre pass.

Mr Lonegren is outraged at this latest example of postcode lottery. He has decided to embrace positive inaction and has embarked on a sit down food fest in a brave effort to gain that crucial 7.7.

Upon the initial reading, I was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier trying to catch a bluebottle. I was right wing: all the symptoms were there – the surrender to the initial emotional response, the disinclination to pursue the story further and the flashback to the crucial worldview forming moment in the schoolyard that first illustrated that life could be unfair.

But wait. Blustering is the handmaiden to prejudice so let us probe deeper.

At first, it is difficult to feel a lot of sympathy for Mr Lonegren. Although he has tried twenty diets, has diabetes, blood pressure problems and high cholesterol, there is a belligerent tone to his words when he outlines his plans for expansion – “My only option is Mc Donald’s and Ice Cream – pay up or pig out.” In the words of the Somerset PCT spokesperson, it is dangerous and misguided.

Somerset PCT also denied it made the lower limit 45 to save money.

A BMI of 45 is the upper limit of the “morbidly obese” band. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has published guidelines stating surgery should be recommended in cases when BMI has reached 40 – or, when it is over 35 and the patient has obesity related diseases, criteria that apply to our man in training. Crucially, however, the government did not allocate a specific chunk of change to cover the costs of the surgery or set up a national network of surgeons.

It’s the economising, stupid

The NICE guidelines also stipulate the patient should be strongly motivated to undergo the surgery and be mentally prepared for the lifestyle changes that will ensue – one could possibly argue that would be a stumbling block for Mr Lonegren – however, he deserves a proper assessment.

In King Size Homer a wise guy remarks “I heard that guy’s ass has its own congressman.”

Back in Blighty it seems precious few MPs are supporting the case of Mr Lonegren. Indeed, there is a growing movement for a debate about whether certain, expensive surgeries, should be funded by the NHS at all, especially in case when individuals have been reckless or unlawful. This is a discussion worth having but why the sudden emergence of New Labour MPs keen to seek precious airtime on this topic?

In 2003, the government negotiated a new contract with the British Medical Association to ease tensions in the NHS, to prevent staff losses and to make conditions more bearable but, in the words of Dr Hamish Meldrum of the BMA, “There were areas of the package where big concessions were made”.

In poker parlance, the Government overplayed their hand, dumped their chips on the table and chortling GPs were left to rake it in.

For GPs to opt out of seven-day patient care cost only 6% of their contract: they were expecting to lose 50%.

They thought the contract “was a bit of a laugh”.

This signed the death sentence of out of hours care to the extent that only eight of London’s surgeries are available for Saturday appointments. It is just not worth the GPs’ time.

It is now common to bus in weekend doctors from other parts of the EU and pay them three times the hourly rate they earn in their own country. At the height of this haemorrhage, one doctor earned £10,000 for agreeing to work over the Easter weekend. Suddenly criticisms of Mr Lonegren’s goal oriented face stuffing, for surgery that costs an average of £9,000, look a bit misplaced. According to Professor Alan Maynard, a health economics expert at York University, “These pay increases are creating deficits, undermining patient care and the financial performance of the NHS.”

The first year of the renegotiated contract cost the NHS an estimated £70 million but don’t blame the GPs – like Mr Lonegren, they are simply working towards a goal as they now have performance, if not patient, related pay with the Quality and Outcomes Framework.

There is a computer registrar of QOF points. These have translated to cash, the growth of healthcare IT consultancies outlining ways for surgeries to up their income, and the decline of doctor patient relationships. Even without expert advice GPs outperformed government expectations - wonks thought surgeries would hit only 70% of the targets – in fact, they hit 90%.

Target setting clearly works according to Gill Morgan, the Chief Executive of the NHS “We were aiming to give a 30% pay rise over three years. It was 30% in one year. Every pound that goes somewhere you don’t intend it to go is a pound not spent on patient care.”

The combined cost of QOF and paying for doctors to staff out of hours surgeries last year was £250 million. That is half of the NHS deficit.

There are ten Homer Simpson characters currently noshing through nosebags as they attempt to hit their own magic targets, bravely foraging for excess without the aid of consultancies and with only snack food advertising to keep them focused. The combined cost of their gastric banding is £150,000, a fraction of the new bill for surgery administration.

If successful they will have to endure the side effects of bloating and copious gas, so if they can then just learn how to dump cash, Camp Westminster beckons.

Kandahar

In deciding whether or not to view this 2001 Iranian film, consideration should be made as to how much the lack of a narrative will be an irritant, as the plot of a Canadian Muslim trekking to Kandahar to find her suicidal sister is simply a device to allow Westerners an opportunity to gawp upon Afghanistan under the Taliban.

If treated as a documentary, the mostly strong, eye-opening visuals effectively convey a slice of life but problems arise when director Moshen Makhmaliber attempts to engage the audience’s emotions as it has poor acting, minimal drama and the voiceover feels like an afterthought.

As the viewing experience will be unique to most westerners, it is frustrating that, like the burqa-clad women, it is unable to project a stronger sense of identity.

Once Upon A Time In The West

One of the many joys of Leone’s 1968 classic is the casting of Henry Fonda as the blue eyed killer Frank, as his menace is even more unsettling given the actor’s previous, more morally upstanding, roles.

If you add the harmonica playing Charles Bronson; a superb score by Ennio Morricone; a pouting, hard working-widow with attitude; supporting gun-toters with the fatalism of a football deprived Mark Lawrenson, and shoot it all with a hint of political context, you have the perfect post “head ‘em off at the pass” western. It even has some amusing lip synch failures, made even more enjoyable by the minimalist dialogue.

It is slow but you will know whether you can handle the languid pace after the bravura opening. Stay with it and you will discover a picture with depth, character and a solid sense of structure, enhanced by its pacing. Like the best cinema, it leaves the viewer enriched with an indelible sense of time and place.

Orson Welles’ Othello

This 1952 print was discovered in New Jersey and has been restored by Welles’ daughter Beatrice.

The original was beset by problems. Financial issues produced a nomadic cast and the actor playing Desdemona changed three times. Consequently, the performances, with the exception of Welles, resemble an am-dram group putting on a tribute to stoicism.

Many beautifully framed scenes have their emotional impact devastated by the presence of an under varnished actor and unfortunately the worst offender, Michael MacLiammoir, has plenty of face time as he is playing Iago. At times, the dubbing is dubious and the piece veers close to satire.

Factor in the plot gaps and the experience is largely disappointing, watchable for its central performance and cinematography.

Coming Soon

Channel Four last night unveiled its new reality show, outlined for the difficult ratings period between versions of Big Brother.

An executive for the company said “It is Big Brother meets The Last Supper. Er, the movie, not the painting, or any of that other stuff”

KlanDestine Kitchen will feature twelve celebrities, dressed in white hoods and sheets, entering a house to attend a dinner party. Gordon Ramsey will cook the food and there will be 12 successive meals.

For each meal, they will be given a topic to discuss and plied with alcohol.

Topics for the first week are:

Do you, like, really, feel English?

Climate Change – Is it time to limit flights for your entourage?

Gay People – Is there more to them than just people who get the party started?

Would you perform in Iraq right now?

Should we post troops to secure the Channel Tunnel?

The Sound of God – What is on His iPod?

Viewers will be invited to vote for the celebrity with the most PC opinions and the diner with the least number of votes will be ceremoniously disrobed at the end of each broadcast.

They will then be led to single rooms and locked in until the next meal. Their only contact will be the voice of Russell Brand repeating - “They are Evil”

The next day the disrobed person will be forced to wait on the diners and work in the kitchen with Gordon Ramsey. This process will continue until there is only one remaining diner who will be crowned Grand Wizard and will have all of the disrobed celebrities as servants.

The executive concluded “This should provide the kind of debate we would prefer not to think about."

Spanglish

The last time the talented James L Brooks was writer and director he offered us As Good As It Gets and his screenplay won an Oscar nomination. Seven years later, he returns with Spanglish and it appears that he has taken a script and removed reason and accountability. If Helen Hunt was the reason why cavemen chiselled on walls, this helps explain why they coughed loudly, left the cave and grappled with sharp fanged beasts.

A seemingly sedated Adam Sandler plays an emotionally literate chef whose neurotic nut job of a wife is on the verge of a breakdown, for reasons best not considered. When a Mexican housekeeper enters with her daughter, faster than you can say “culture clash” everyone is forced to re-assess their values. Throw in an alcoholic granny and a teenager in braces and the mixture is complete for a Californian angst comedy based on communication.

It’s all a bit of a mess. Every time people start emoting, the dialogue dips and one has to fight the urge to hide behind the sofa. It becomes better halfway through but it’s hard to escape the thought that Mr Brooks is operating on auto pilot and is best when he creates some evil, sarcastic characters to help offset the sentimentality.