Persian pleasure

If a theme park ride can be made into an exceptionally successful, if overblown, franchise, then there should be no pooh-poohing that another computer game makes the transfer from home viewing interactivity to cinematic non-interactivity. Prince of Persia is one of the best of the latter kind of conversions and, like Pirates of the Caribbean derived from the former, PoP has a natty subtitle in The Sands of Time.
The film opens with an anachronistic ye olde map, giving the general gist that this is the time of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in its pomp, though the scriptwriters plunder every period of the region from the ancient to the Middle Ages for inspiration as if they themselves possessed the time-shifting dagger.
Jake Gyllenhaal’s comedy English accent is actually pretty much spot-on but it’s amusing to see it come from his mouth. Indeed, everyone in this film treats Received Pronunciation as their mother tongue, so cut-glass it could split a diamond, as is the usual Hollywood treatment of foreign historical fodder. It’s not just the portrayed royalty that have a command of the Queen’s English.
With everyone tonally alike, it is harder to identify who the villain will be, though from an early stage I had my suspicions given familiar tropes in Middle Eastern storytelling such as in 1001 Arabian Nights. Hashanins i.e Hashashins i.e. Assassins make an appearance and the members of this sect are well at home with their ugliness an indication of their villainy, so at least something of the politically incorrect, average blockbuster survives (this is made by Disney, after all). Oh and they also wear black as well, travelling like ring-wraiths from Lord of the Rings. They are defeated not as historically by the advancing Mongol horde (who the Persian cavalry here closely resemble) but by dextrous pressing of joypad buttons, sorry, incredible, death-defying, physics-defying acrobatics with a dash of their plans ensnared by hubris.
Religion is frequently mentioned, but is never clear if the Persians are Zoroastrians or Muslims (I said it was anachronistic), perhaps being tactfully bland other than that prayer is often discussed when the violence abates. Other comparisons with modern-day USA is Alfred Molina’s wheeler-dealer bandit decrying the payment of taxes. I digress. The religion on show here owes more to Indiana Jones ‘let’s have fun with mysterious creeds and legends’ than being theologically accurate.
Joining Gyllenhaal and Molina is Sir Ben Kingsley, who has already had practice at playing a Persian, in the flick The House of Sand and Glass set in the present. Steve Toussaint puts in more than token performance as Nubian knife-thrower who seems to be more well-travelled than Ibn Battuta, given that he also strikes fear in Numidia as well as throughout the Middle East. Gemma Arterton gives a fine performance, neither warrior princess, nor damsel in distress, as a proto Vestal Virgin.
Altaa gave her imprimatur of the movie as being something new, something different. The rollicking action is fairly coherent in that you can understand who slashes at who and the coda was a fresh twist to much fare that populates the multiplexes. An accomplished production.

Little interlude inbetween my Mongolian recollections

Saturday 26th June was the lovely part of the past weekend. After extended relaxation in the home all morning and into the early afternoon, I pootled off down to Rochester to watch St Mary Magdalene’s deacon Liz Chapman become ordained as priest. The walk in the clement weather was most gratifying and, though there were a few distractions such as a dance festival throughout Rochester, I largely stuck to the task in hand and reached the cathedral precincts after 45 minutes. It was a delightful service. As the various readers and current priests processed in at the start of the service in the august surroundings, the clergy of Rochester Cathedral in their emblazoned finery entering last, it was reminiscent of the closing scene in Star Wars Episode IV. There were some rousing hymns and a very insightful sermon by Peter Lock, touching on what life is and an anecdote of a shaggy black dog bounding from the sea and seeking game with an unfamiliar child on retrieving and collecting a cast pebble, all contacted along the coastline in “PadStein, I mean Padstowe,” a joke which raised some wry laughter.
Afterwards, I got home for the conclusion of this series of Doctor Who. Matt Smith has done very well, greatly growing into his role (or maybe we are just more used to him). He’s not David Tennant yet in my affection – where Tennant’s Doctor would ramble on in an eccentric adult manner, Smith, working with the dialogue he’s given, affects his soliloquies in a more childlike manner, mirroring a large swathe of the audience) – but he’s still very good. I must congratulate Steven Moffat and the writing team for brilliantly wrong-footing the eagle-eyed among us, when I’m sure not a few people saw what looked like a continuity error in Flesh and Stone, but was actually the Doctor being catapulted back through his life experiences. Exquisite. And it takes considerable chutzpah in addition to bags of ingenuity to plan two series in advance. As for this first series, the end was suitably apocalyptic before the status quo was restored. Bring on the Christmas special.

Leaving Ulaanbaatar to join with Altaa's parents

Before journeying out to Darkhan, Mongolia’s third city, en route to the district of Erüü (pronounced Euro – a more stable community than its monetary namesake) in the northern Selenge province, we went to the local car pool for long-distance trips. Myself, Altaa and her brother Sükhee, clambered into the taxi with our bags that could not fit in the boot stuffed between and on top of our legs and if that was not enough to the lay the foundations for deep-vein thrombosis, then sat there for 25 minutes as the driver looked to fill the last passenger berth (which he said he had confirmed but that looked with every cramp-inducing minute ever more unlikely). Eventually, Sükhee went around the vehicle plaza and found a mother and baby also seeking transport to Darkhan. After some prevarication, the mum agreed and we were off. It was a 3¼ hour drive on agreeable paving – a luxury in this part of the world. We had expected to rest the night in Darkhan but Altaa’s uncle was already present in his Pajero jeep. And so after 45 minutes of refreshment, we were once more on the road, departing a little after 11.30pm.
It was amazing how Altaa’s uncle navigate the dirt tracks with nary a sign in the gloom and only a compass juddering on the corrugated road and his own mental acuity. At just past 1am, we came across not one but two vehicles with flat batteries a mere ten yards apart. We powered up the first one over ten minutes, then trundled along and then trundled along and dealt with the second, another ten minute stint. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with such acts – indeed from a Christian perspective it has everything to commend it – but in the fright cold of night in such early hours, though I, in all probability, have done the same, my weariness did not leave myself well-disposed towards the other drivers who had not got their transport in proper working order before embarking on their arduous voyages. Altaa’s uncle not shutting his door properly led to his four wheeled drive releasing an insistent beep every single second was most deleterious to bonhomie until we worked out it was the door at fault. That the stricken parties had not stuttered to a halt drawn up alongside each other, both heading in different directions, made it hard to tell if one had stopped to help the other and packed up or had carried on regardless and come to grief too. That said, two good deeds had been achieved for the day and it wasn’t even an hour and a half into the new day. Motoring on, there was a fair selection of wildlife to observe braving the freezing conditions – a mouse, two sparrows, a horse with a tail long enough to sweep up the dust behind it and the rest of its troupe two minutes drive further on. Arriving in Erüü süm (district) centre, we gave the horn to a cow blocking the through way - this isn’t India, you’re not holy here – and finally pulled up at 2.30am. This wasn’t the end of the night by any means. With a bout of present-giving to Altaa’s excited family and a further meal, no-one – including Altaa’s youngest sister, but ten years old - got to sleep until 4am. Altaa’s parents had volunteered their bed to us but Altaa surrendered the right in order to honour her mum and dad and I willingly consented. We took the floor with a rug and eiderdown beneath us to take the edge off the uncompromising ground.

More on Ulaanbaatar 2010

To continue with my discursion on my Mongolian excursion, we had a reservation on a luxury room in our hotel in Ulaanbaatar. Our previous stay at this place had been ordinary accommodation and I had to become fly-killer extraordinaire so numerous were the insect irritants (I downed about 20-30). Despite us being late on arrival from the airport, we still had to wait ten minutes as they hadn’t finished (started?) cleaning the room. “A series of disappointments,” I exclaimed to Altaa, following hard on the heels of our luggage being left behind in Beijing and not being collected at the airport by her brother. When we were finally admitted entrance I swiftly got changed into a new top which, thankfully in this instance, had not been able to fit into a suitcase and so I had carried it in a bag with me.
The hotel abode was free of wee beasties but it was luxury befitting a two-star motel (as I would rate it). It was cheap and fairly centrally located, however and we were only to be resident for one night. There was (what looked like) a leather three-piece suite, a generously stocked mini-bar – not that we partook – and a pleasant painting of some mountainous landscape. Then there were the basics: sturdy yet decent beds (we were given two singles), wardrobe, table, wall-mounted fan, flimsy curtains.
It is always the least (though, occasionally, the most) satisfactory aspects that register most keenly, in all honesty. The bathroom/toilet area was fine, leaving aside the fact that the cistern disconcertingly overflowed every time if was flushed, oozing and twice squirting out and arcing a slime-like trail towards the drain in the centre of the floor. The torn of peeling wallpaper was probably all to the good considering how uninspired it was. Thanks goodness, for the Mongolian custom of wearing sandals inside, with two pairs available. The giant TV appeared more promising and I switched on, to see if there was any BCC News or, for matter, anything English-language. There were only two channels, both in Mongolian and fuzzy at that. All the other numbers on the remote control brought up static. Like the pastries that you think have jam right the way through yet have only the merest daubing on top; or the glamorous, high-rise office block in the city centre that was having the finishing flourishes applied to it the last time I was here and almost two years on is still having the final touches, for the foundations are prone to subsidence and far from being Mongolia’s Swiss Re ‘Gherkin’ threatens to become the country’s Leaning Tower of Pisa (as it remains completely empty), plenty of the culture understands the form of what is required, but is much less sure of the substance to back it up. Not fort he first time, there are many little things of this nature which I have encountered on my travels here. Which is not so say everything here is the same – we stayed in a far superior hotel, a bit more out of the way though marginally cheaper at the end of our stay in Mongolia. It is a young country in consumerist terms and with China’s growth rippling out, it will fast learn from its mistakes. Furthermore, westerners can be just a prone. In Frankfurt Airport is the walkway to nowhere - a bridge in the departures lounge ends in a row of plate glass windows where a door has not been installed. I observed it straight away as I progressed through the transit corridor to the waiting zone and saw others on the other side who didn’t and who became baffled by this non-sequitur of architectural design. Maybe it’s a conceptual joke (these Germans, ey?).
Exploring Ulaanbaatar at night again with Altaa’s brother Sukhee, along its busiest thoroughfare, Peace Avenue, it struck my good self as it did before how Mongolians, no matter if they have straitened circumstances, make the effort to dress well, especially the women, whereas in more affluent Britain that is not often the case. When last here in August 2008, Dave the eponymous proprietor of Dave’s Place said he was selling up within weeks. He was true to his word but sadly no bar replaced this English pub, which is a shame for in the summer it has wonderful vistas over Sükhbaatar Square, the central point of the city. All that’s left is a sign coming away from the wall that proclaims it’s open every night until 12. No more. It wasn’t the be all and end all of Ulaanbaatar’s charms but it was a useful and enjoyable spot for expats to gather. The memories are good but there are no new ones to be created, as it reverts to a padlocked annexe of the Culture Palace.
Many of the new builds around the city are so vertiginous as to easily overshadow the communist-era architecture, even that built in the 1980s. The five-star, five-storey Ulaanbaatar Hotel, host of any international leader who braves a voyage out this way, now looks positively dainty. There are no worries about lines of sight as in London. Cash has the last word, legally or illegally. The investors behind the sinking superstructure of a skyscraper might want to do their groundwork more thoroughly next time.

Before I continue with my exploits in Mongolia, now that I have returned to the UK, I should précis what happened outside the borders of the Land of Blue Sky. In these three weeks that I was away deserts of news – a veritable Gobi of originality. The old adage about being unconcerned about the bulletins when disconnected from them could not be more true, moreover. Returning from the north to Ulaanbaatar, I cadged some BBC World News on the television and my greatest joy was seeing George Alagiah front a current affairs slot – the mighty coming down from his primetime throne to help out the Foreign Office-funded channel. What was reported, these ‘olds’, might as well be sand shifted from dune to barren dune.
The football World Cup continued its interminable build-up. Enough already; let’s get it going and stop talking about it till then. That Pepsi advert with Thierry Henry coming up to some African kids with other celebrity soccer lunks in tow to say “Do you know who we are,” instead of being greeted with his name on the back of a shirt followed by the baffling formation of a square (is it a Zulu military thing or something?), should have suffered the indignity as these kids engaged in a frenetic bout of handballing. Henry might not have even been in this advert had France not cheated against Ireland.
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico grew as exponentially as BP’s share price fell. The political opponents of Barack Obama try to pin the disaster on him despite a fairly competent federal response in unprecedented circumstances – next they will be blaming him for stubbing their toe in the shower.
Israel was being hauled over the coals of international opinion, again, for shooting first and holding limited inquiries later (though surely custom officials operating in daylight from coastal patrol boats would have been more adept at seizing illicit material than heavily-armed naval commandos bundling down from a helicopter in the middle of the night).
One shocking departure from all this plus ca change was the shocking gun rampage in Cumbria. Only earlier that day (Mongolia being seven hours ahead of Britain), probably musing on the latest random outbreak of violence in China of a fatal gun attack on three Chinese judges that had occurred the day prior, I was thinking how such few such massacres occur in the UK, only Hungerford in 1987 and Dunblane in 1996. It still is rare compared to countries like Germany or Finland, let alone the USA, though that is never comfort to the victims or their families. It was such a striking coincidence that I should be pondering Britain in this regard just hours before the terrible sequence. A total tragedy for everyone concerned with that part of the country.