200 post milestone

Before tomorrow's weekend, I will talk of the last one. I went to London to see Jon Williams' on Good Friday. The transport disruption to my journey was not so great as it could have been. I got off at London Bridge, hoping to take the Jubilee Line to Swiss Cottage for the rendevous, but the entire central section was out, so I braved the District Line, changed at Moorgate, took the Hammersmith and City Line and changed at the appropriate juncture to finally get on the Jubilee Line. I stayed at Jon's girlfriend's pad for a while since the electricity was purportedly out at Nefeli's place - the fusebox was mystifying to Nefeli, Jon and her landlord, until the electrician came round and solved it a bit too swiftly for all concerned.
We later popped over to Jon's pad, where I stayed the night. We ordered out Indian cuisine and got a film out of video rental. That was The Kingdom. Set in Saudi Arabia, it was all quite professional, but apart from a few big explosions and firefights, it was mostly police procedural, like CSI: Riyadh. A little superficial in large regard. 5/10.

The Passion, shown on BBC TV had stonking production values, but it was not just a controversial embellishment, but a re-editing of the Gospels to suit the motives of those behind it. It was clearly the work of a lapsed Roman Catholic, who found a modicum of faith while researching the script. Call it Frank Deasey's Imagining of Passover Week in Jerusalem in 33AD, but not The Passion. Even the Resurrection is dealt with in a strictly secular way. You can talk about wizards at Hogwart's but not angels in Galilee. In the modern fashion, Judas is dealt with sympathetically, but so is Caiaphas, the high priest, a departure from previous tradition, whereas as Pilate is seen in a more cynically political light and therefore is a harsher portrayal than usual. These are all twists on a familiar story, but they undermine much of the Gospel's message - more a man calling himself the Son of God, rather than the Son of God made man. The Passion of the Christ, much maligned by those who see themselves as secular, is a far more accurate realisation of the Passion story. As Pope John Paul II said, before distancing himself from the comments to a more neutral stance "It is as it was." Even then, film can only portray certain things, but that has a more convinced Christian message. In my eyes, that makes it more worthwhile.

Wine and Wisdom

On Saturday night, my parents and I went to a Wine and Wsidom night. There we joined several friends of ours to form a pre-arranged team. There were 16 other teams there, many with more members than ours. There were rounds such as Connections (a string of answers where question 10 was to link them all - they all had links to rivers), Car Models (guess the car model from a clue such as some such actress owned a villa on thsi Mediterranean island - Capri), Cats and Geography. I was a bit put out by rounds six and seven - geography and general knowledge - since they were almost all repeats from the two previous Wine and Wisdoms, though it helped us since our memories served us well. In fact, in the last four rounds, we only dropped one point out of forty. Once again, there was no table round. We were second or third for most of the competition, but in the penultimate round, since we got a maximum on our joker, we drew level with the previous sole leaders and then in the final round, guessing the company logos from pictures of part of them, we registered another ten, while our chief rivals took nine. So we overhauled them eventually on the final lap.
Our prizes were a bottle each of Liebfraumilch. There were eight bottles, but as there were only six of us, we left two to be carried over to the next Wine and Wisdom.
I won a prize in a raffle as well. I chose a box of chocolates. We had donated an expensive three-set of food relishes to the raffle. That went almost straightaway because there were about fifteen prizes and I was the third one whose name was to be read out. Of the choices that interested me, apart from the box of choclates, there was this "chocolate dream machine" which I guess makes all kinds of home-made chocolate, but I thought, "When am I going to use it?" That's why I went for the box of chocolates.

C'est la folie

On Thursday, I watched the film The Charge of the Light Brigade, the 1968 version rather than the 1930s 'travesty of history'. The latter made a star of Errol Flynn, but the one I watched is very modish. Two-thirds of the movie is not even set in the Crimea, but England, concerned with social issues rather than the mad fling onto enemy guns that against all the odds triumphed before being driven back. There is the running joke of the newly cast statue of the Duke of Wellington being parked outside Lord Raglan's offices. This could be a reference either to Napoleon's jibe about Wellesley, that he was a "sepoy general", thus condemning the prejudice to Captain Nolan's service in India or to Wellington's insistence that the 'purchase system' whereby officers largely bought their way into high army positions should be maintained - a point of criticism by the film's producers.
Captain Nolan, the hothead largely responsible for sending the Light Brigade into the 'Valley of Death', is portrayed as a romantic, tragic hero, continually railing against the absurdities of the British military. He is played by David Hemmings, a very fashionable actor of the time, late of Blow Up and who, three decades later, was to play the Colosseum's toupee-wearing major-domo in Ridley Scott's Gladiator. Other notable performances are by Trevor Howard at the reprehensible Lord Cardigan (according to the film) and John Gielgud as Lord Raglan, the gentle reed of a theatre commander-in-chief who was apt to call his enemies, the Russians, French, the latter being his allies. Vanessa Redgrave is in another taboo-breaking film. She is the wife of Nolan's best friend, but the wives in this movie seem madly infatuated with their husbands while giving no thought at all to making them cuckolds. Maybe it is calculated absurdity, along with the coy message of the absurdity of war, but this romantic section is quite baffling.
The battle scenes are nowhere near as impressive as the slightly later Waterloo (a film which the aged Lord Raglan would have felt at home in), but then the makers of the Napoleonic epic could draw on most of a national army. This was a recording of a late showing, which had a sign interpreter in the corner. He periodically disappeared in long spells of cluttered dialogue, but infuriatingly, sometimes, when no-one was speaking, just stayed visible allegedly watching the action. Also, given that he did have a habit of vanishing, he always re-appeared in the same right-hand bottom corner, even if the source of dramatic action was happening there, such as an ailing French marshal keeling over. But it was a small handicap overall to overcome.

As for these protesting Tibetan protestors, they've jumped the gun and shot their bolt. They would have had a far greater impact had they done this during the Olympics themselves. Maybe they reasoned that Chinese forces would be on even higher alert during those two weeks in August and so their best chance of successfully making their point was now, but it's hard to see what they are going to achieve. The news agenda will have well moved on by August and they're not going to get independence anytime soon. Courageous, but futile. It was wishful thinking, even with the transnational protests to think anything might come of it.

Election time - at uni

At the campus where I work, there is a great push of those running for various positions, with all manner of flyers and posters proliferating. It is a great opportunity to spot the flaws in each - reasons not to vote. Take Carlos Reviero, angling for vice-president of education or in his own inimitable words "VICE PRESIDENT EDUCATION" (he isn't alone in being rather potted in his placing or otherwise of hyphens). He handed me a flyer as I walked around the campus in a spot of overtime the other day. He is "a Third Year Engineering Student that have [sic] experience with [questionable; 'in' works better] representing people's interests and know [sic] how education works at various institutions across continents and will try to pick the best for us at the University of Greenwich." Well, at least he trys. Obviously, he didn't try very hard at proof-reading though. Then he runs through a checklist where, of course, grammar goes out the window - like rubbernecking at Britney Spears' carcrash life, everyone does it. One of his pledges is to "support societies as they play a significant role in student life." Phew, there's a relief, since previously I thought his intention was to undermine societies, but that's cleared up. His final promise is "Be listening [sic] to your voices and make sure they are heard where needed." 'Nuff said. He exhorts to "Vote 1 for Carlos Reviero." Is that because his campaign is listed as one in a student ballot or because he views himself as the numero uno candidate or is it an oblique assessment of democracy? Who knows? Finally, he tells everyone "Create a Greenwich Pride - leave a legacy." How do create a pride - it is an amorphous concept that can not be quantified. Create Pride in/of Greenwich is better. And leaving a legacy? Like all those demands for 'change' in the USA primaries, legacies can swing for good or for bad.
But let's not be too hard on Carlos. Having so many spelling mistakes by someone running for an education post - well, that's par for the course these days. What about Cai Robbins? She is very professional with glossy posters featuring slightly pixellated photos (poor picture magnification) and even her own campaign website. She's running for sports (pun not intended). Miss Robbins is "a third year cricketer who will try her hand at any sport." Really? Nude mud-wrestling? Bare-knuckle fist-fighting? Footy? (I support the England's woman football team). The usual checklist of grammar mistakes on her checklist inevitably follows swiftly, after a bried overview of her election CVshe's going to be "lobbying for a new athletic track and aesthetic pitch". Because athletes can be aesthetes too, I suppose.
Well, the elections are happening today, hooray! That means students can freely roam campus without being accosted by a leafletter every five steps.

Saw There Will Be Blood last night. I forgot it was three hours long and so I got home at after half eleven. A very impressive film with some outstanding acting. I can see why Mark Kermode says the movie introduces a new cinematic narrative, but I wouldn't be quite so strident. Other people could say the film goes off at tangents and thus its length could have been shortened. What separates an auteur from an amateur? This, though, is no amateur work. There are constant pleasing touches and neat little inversions of tradition to surprise one, such as the camera holding fast on an empty railway line in the desert. We expect the train to hove into view on the horizon, but after thirty sceonds it pans to the right to show a natty little turn-of-the-century car roll up alongside it. Daniel Day-Lewis plays a cross between John D Rockefeller and Henry T. Ford and seems so immersed that his puckering of lips seems natural, whereas on a lesser actor it would seem risible. He deserves his Oscar. Paul Dano has two roles, one as a most unChristian church pastor, just as domineering as Day-Lewis's character and shows that televangelists haven't started anything new in their histrionics (I wonder how much he watched in preparation for the role). Ciaran Hinds meanwhile provides sterling support as the right-hand man of Day-Lewis' oil baron. The film's climax is very provocative, so much so that it draw one attention to some plot illogicality. Not because of anything that happens in the denouement, but why that scene came to pass in the first place, given the history between the characters. I can see what is trying to be achieved, but is sad since it draws attention to the narrative manipulation needed to effect it when the introduction to the scene could have been brought about more subtlely. Close to a ten out of ten then, but more appropriately nine. There Will Be Blood is a powerful film that remains in the mind a long time afterwards.

I'm glad, Sir Alex Ferguson and Carlos Queiroz have been charged with misconduct following their ill-considered outbursts following their exit from the FA Cup at home to Portsmouth who hadn't won at Old Trafford for 51 years. There was a pretty obvious foul that could have led to a penalty for Man Utd, but that was evened up when Milan Baros was held back from running at goal in an incident prior to the Portsmouth penalty award. That's the trouble with the Manchester United management - they expect to win every match five-nil. Fergie's greatest mistake was eliminating Arsenal 4-0 two rounds earlier as it allowed Portsmouth to giant-kill the Manchester team instead of Arsenal (or possibly Spurs). Ferguson should keep quiet about Newcastle and focus on his own problems.

At the funeral

So, last Thursday, dad and I went to my godfather's funeral. Thankfully, there was none of the travel chaos at the times I travelled this time. Roy was born in Nuneaton and his brother, Ray, who was in his eighties still lived there. So that is where his cremation service took place. Roy was only 61. The orator said a fairly few generic things about Roy, having obviously not known him. I took the time to think of all the good times we had and really, I can't remember a single negative experience I had with him. After the cremation, as we didn't know Ray, we didn't go to the wake for tea and biccies, but retired to the Crown pub, near Nuneaton train station. I got talked a lot with a friend of my dad's John McClaren and his son James, who was actually going to the same university as my little sister as it turned out. James had to leave the pub just after 18.00 to make a drama rehearsal, to avoid accusations from some po-faced colleagues that his heart wasn't really in rehearsals. John and I left thirty minutes later, while my dad stayed with a few other people in The Crown. On the train back to Euston, another person who had been at the wake, a railway colleague of Roy's was on train. He was Andy and he, John and I had a good old conversation back to Euston. Andy had to go back to Dartford, so needed to get the Northern Line to Waterloo. John and I moseyed onto Victoria, where he went to Lewes.

At the hospital

Last Thursday, I went to the funeral of my godfather, Roy Hutchinson, so I think it's worthwhile to relate the last time I saw him, a little over month ago. He was at Guys Hospital, taken there away from his home in Brighton to a specialist unit, but was emaciated and had two weeks just left to live, though we didn't know it at the time. He had colon cancer and that had spread to his liver, making it terminal, but for two years doctors had faffed around with him, until they correctly diagnosed and then it was too late.
That Wednesday I went to a job interview in the morning. It was for media sales and held near a big Jewish synagogue. The temple had something wrong with its guttering or water pump system, since it was closed, with water streaming down its humongous front door. In the office where the interview was held it was clear it was going to be another group interview. In addition to filling out our personal details we were given calculators which soon became clear when they gave us a mathematics question sheet to fill out, in 15 minutes. I felt I did rather well until the last two questions of the twenty or so, when it asked me to express 85 as index of something like 65 and another question asking that same expression of an index. At that point, I decided to risk exposing my ignorance and asked the other three there how to express one number as an index of another. It brought a release to the cordial formality that had previously existed.
Everyone relaxed and the atmosphere became more collegial. Not only did no-one there know how to express indexes, but struggled with most of it. They guy next to me was called Zayga Aleaxander (yes, that is the correct way around), whose first name I've been informed may have been inspired after a pop song. He was around 19 and said he actually enjoyed this little maths exam, though he seemed to answered fewer questions than me. The other two women were called Emma Crockfield and girl called Carol, whose last name I forget. Both had telescopic legs, Emma having the slight edge with bounteous brown hair framing an expressive face, though Carol was might fine herself. Emma said her English uni degree didn't prepare her for this, while Carol admitted she was all at sea when it came to maths.
It was Zayga though, who was true original, though not necessarily in a good way. He was prone to making comments regarding him that to any normal person could be seen to be quite damaging. He was working for his dad at the moment, but wanted to leave partly because his dad wanted him to do, partly because his dad's personality made it imperative. Zayga's father was a millionaire who designed fashion clothes and fitted them out on small dolls (presumably to take to boardrooms to show executives). Zayga's dad sounded quite domineering. So Zayga said he wanted a job, but only until he started university in the autumn (which made it illogical applying for this job, since it was a permanent post); he crassly told the interviewers exactly the same thing. He also said he wanted to marry a Japanese woman, but not a Japanese woman in this country because they were ugly and boring; he would go to Japan and find someone there and she would be his housebound wife. He had dreamed of this since he was seven and read up on it. We gently mocked him for his outrageous, bombastic views, but he quite sincerely defended them, agreeing with my suggestion that a Japnese woman was his ideal, like a Prince Charming. He was quite a bizarre fellow, but indeed for that reason was the centre of attention, though by his demeanour I think that was unwitting on his part. Most of this chat occurred after our papers had been taken away. After the interview, Zayga and I (the boys in other words), were taken out first and told we weren't getting the jobs. That was fine. I wasn't interested in media sales anyway, but I covered it up a whole lot better than Zayga, who when asked why was he interested in media sales responded "I need a job," as bluntly as that.
So, I left and went off to Guy's Hospital. It was lunchtime when I got there, so I decided to wait and eat my lunch, instead of interrupting Roy who might be having his. I stopped off in one of the atriums where a mini-concert was being performed. It was a man on a violin, a woman on piano and a boy turning the pages of the sheetmusic on the piano. It was swooping, graceful music, at times infused with a hint of melancholy, but uplifting with the passion and the virtuosity by which it was being played. People sat on benches listening to it, pleasure evident from everyone. It was was wonderfully cultural, something that should be encouraged to occur more often.

Public abuse

Last night I went in to London to hook up with Jon Williams and to talk about big matters and watch football with him. When I left his apartment at 22.20, I di not imagine the odyssey that lay before me. First, it was bus to Finsbury Park tube station. No hassle there. But the Victoria Line is closed after 10pm, unbeknownst to me for rail upgrades. So I had to take the Piccadilly Line all the way to South Kensington so I could join the Circle/District line and then double back to Victoria train station.
I got to South Kensington and a tube going in the direction of London Victoria arrived, so I hopped on. It was here that the District Line confirmed its reputation as the shittiest of all London Underground lines. We moved off but between South Kensington and Sloane Square the train ground to a halt, because trains were apparently backed up all the way from Aldgate East (11 stops away) and the train ahead of us was stuck in Sloane Square station, so we couldn't move. As the driver announced "once again we are having massive problems on the District Line." 15 minutes we waited in the tunnel. Then we moved off, the driver said he has received confirmation that he can proceed to St. James Park, one stop beyond Victoria. But after leaving Sloane Square, we were stuck in the tunnel between that and Victoria for a further ten minutes. In all this time, nine trains passed the other way, two-thirds of them when we were stuck before Sloane Square. Eventually we arrived in Victoria where the driver just said effectively it was best to abandon train if we wanted to get anywhere tonight.
I got onto Victoria concourse at 23.35. I looked at the destination board and not a single train was going to Gillingham. No, 23.45 slow train, no 00.01 last train. I asked a station worker about any trains going to Gillingham and he pointed me at the 00.03 one going to Strood. He said there was no 23.35 train until Friday because of rail engineering works and although the train would only stop at Strood, a bus replacement service was running from there until Rainham, whereupon you could re-embark. Weekend service is a synonym for shoddy rail service. Here's how it's spelt: W-e-e-k-e-n-d. Not effing middle of the week! On the way to Strood, there was some rail trouble and we had to be diverted to Crayford, so the driver could turn around and drive back to Strood. I had a disrupted mini-snooze on the train at least, knowing it was only one stop, though it made my neck stiff and sore.
The bus replacement service were rickety, old double-deckers. I finally got in to my house at 01.50am. The journey took three and a half hours when it should only take one and a half hours - in the middle of the week! I class that as abuse from our public transportation system.

Not choice but prejudice

All this hoo-ha about having a referendum on the Lisbon treaty is a smokescreen. The main proponents for it are the traditional anti-EU brigade and they are not interested in giving people choice (though they say so for PR-friendly reasons), but finding a political device to stop the government from passing it into British law. The referendum dunces hate all the workings of the EU, not just the Lisbon treaty and so they are, it is true, liars when they claim they are interested in letting people choose. If the Lisbon treaty promised heaven on earth, these anti-European crazies would still vote against it. Europeans may as well be Martians as far as they are concerned. Not that they universally hate Europeans, but whether there is a high-level of xenophobia or a low-level of xenophobia, xenophobia there still is.
The argument is that a referendum should be granted because the government promised one on the EU constitution and that the Lisbon treaty is not substantively different. That promise on the EU constitution was a moment of political opportunism by Tony Blair, but as always with Blair, short-term political gain turns out bad for the national interest in the long-term. Moreover, it piled pressure on the French government to grant a referendum which it did. The anti-EU crazies (anti-EU and anti-European are pretty interchangeable with them) jump up and down like wild savages round a pot stewing an unfortunate missionary in the popular image, screeching "See! See! No-one wants this EU constitution!" But why did the French vote against it? It was nothing to do with any of the substance of the constitution, but because the French were worried about Turkey's accession and the legend of the Polish plumber (when they had closed their employment borders for a few years whereas Britian had not), but primarily because they wanted to give their unpopular government a good kicking. The Dutch would have voted the way the French would because they were uncomfortable for the same reasons about Turkey and Eastern Europe but would not want to rock the boat. Blair's gamble had paid off and he would not have to defend the EU in public because his moral cowardice militated against that.
Now, as evidence that people don't want the Lisbon treaty the anti-EU crazies and their propaganda organs in the media, like the Torygraph, they cite that 88% of people want a referendum and 89% are against the Lisbon treaty (which still means at least 1% are against the treaty but don't want a referendum). But how many people in this country have read the EU constitution? How many have read the Lisbon treaty? I think you'll find any poll would find less than 1%. So people are abandoning totally their rational judgement. It's like "We don't what it is, but we know we don't like it." Frankly, if people are so lacking in self-awareness it is pathetic. This is exactly the reason why Plato was so against democracy - that well-organised demagogues could manipulate the popular vote in their favour, even if it was against the popular interest. I think that if a referendum is given (which it won't be), before voting, people must sit down for two hours, not a minute more or less and try and read through the Lisbon treaty. Two hours won't be enough, but skim reading might do it. Then and only then, would they be allowed to cast their ballot. Of course, the majority of the people so motivated to do so would the anti-EU crazies, because most people know little and care little enough about Europe, so it would be a victory for the anti-EU crazis since the pro-Europeans are such a reasonable and moderate bunch but their numbers do not contain as many extremists who are willing to sit down for two hours. Basically, this is an issue for our parliamentary representatives to decide upon because it exceeds the competence and interest of the vast bulk of the people.

Talking of dishonesty, what was Google doing celebrating that fraud Alexander Graham Bell yesterday in its logo? We all know his patent was stolen from the original inventor of the telephone.

A quick note on the interminable violence between the two Semitic groups of Israeli and Palestinian. 121 Palestinians dead, 3 Israelis dead. That's roughly a 40:1 ratio, if that ratio were reversed, imagine the uproar from the Israelis. It's 40 eyes for one eye, 40 teeth for one tooth. Jeremy Paxman managed to fox out of the Hamas foreign minister's spokesman that the rocket attacks were nothing to do with self-defence or resistance, but were actually revenge. The Israeli ambassador to London was more silver-tongued and his circumstances were less straightened, but it's clear that Israel is doing its attacks for revenge too.

Kremlin succession

The transfer of the Russian presidency (if not real power) from Vladimir Putin to Dmitri Medyvedev has not been free of fair, but does reflect that very French revolutionary concept - the will of the people. Medyvedev at 42 is not an aged successor like that of the old soviet Union or Cuba now and Putin himself is not much over 50. But what will happen in eight years time, when Medyvedev has to step down. It is inconceivable that, barring a sudden death, Putin will not still be politically active. So who will choose the president after Medyvedev and where will Medyvedev go? But that is for another day.
At the moment, it looks like the highly successful system of the adoptive Roman emperors from 96AD to 180AD. It was the high point of the post-Republic Roman Empire and deterioration set in once direct family bloodlines became involved. If one might compare it, Emperor Nerva, weak and presiding over increasing chaos is Yeltsin. Nerva adopted Trajan. Yeltsin 'adopted' Putin and the situation was turned around. Now Russia is self-confident and expansive as the Roman Empire under Trajan was (though under exceptionally different external politics). Trajan adopted Hadrian who brought about political retrenchment. Medyvedev may not be so bombastic in advancing Russian foreign policy (if Putin lets him). No political system is foolproof, but Russia has seemed to find one it is comfortable with.