There is much talk swirling around the corridors of power and the Foreign desks of newsrooms of ‘natural justice’ as we have a remarkable confluence of Ratko Mladic’s arrest, Colonel Gadaffi’s indictment on crimes against humanity, the killings by the Assad regime in Syria and the extraordinary evidence revealing proof of war crimes in Sri Lanka when Mahinda Rajapaksa and his armed forces finally crushed the Tamil Tigers. In the latter instance, 40,000 civilians died and hospitals were shelled, even after GPS co-ordinates were issues to the Sri Lankan army (though the Tigers were also guilty of war crimes).
Yet David Reynolds marking on BBC Four the 70th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s invasion of Soviet Russia, was chilling as he related Josef Stalin’s mistakes and ultimate victory saying of Uncle Joe “a mass murderer who never faced justice for his crimes.” In the grand sweep of history, huge numbers of deaths can be skimmed over for they are beyond comprehension and are almost totally faceless, evocative of the quote often attributed to the Soviet Marshal “One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” Reynolds’ depiction of the Georgian peasant who rose ruthlessly to the highest position in the Soviet firmament as still the gangster he was in pre-Revolutionary days, physically and vocally inadequate with a childish streak of petulance and vindictiveness, is a desperately sad tale for those who suffered under his rule. Of course, Robert Service, a biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, has made clear that if the latter had been in charge maybe not as many would have died, but millions still would have done.
It gets me thinking that so many villains of the twentieth century escaped what is now viewed as routine for those engaged in murderous and abominable misrule – a referral to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Post-World War II alone, in addition to Stalin, there is Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot (albeit he died in his bed in a jungle fastness), Idi Amin, Mobutu Sese Seko and countless more monsters. Their reputations are sundered but in their time realpolitik ruled and still doe to a large extent. It’s called natural justice but it only ever be selective.

With electioneering hotting up in the bid to run the IMF, I am distinctly underwhelmed by Christine Lagarde’s bid. She may be doing the rounds, visiting countries that can swing votes her way and is the most popular member of Sarkozy’s government (not saying much), but she represents a break in the pledge to open up these jobs at the IMF and the World Bank beyond the Europe-US duopoly that has been in aspic since 1946.
Candidates have emerged from Turkey and Mexico but the most compelling one is Stanley Fischer. Israel’s central bank governor, he fits the mould of transition, irrespective of his considerable monetary expertise. Born in Zambia, student at the London School of Economic and MIT, teacher of economics at prestigious American universities and capping it all with Israel’s heritage status as an honorary European country while being firmly in Asia. He has also been president and vice-chairman of Citigroup and even has an insider track with a seven-year stint as deputy managing director at the IMF, so he will be prepared straightaway.
The trouble is he that the political fray is anathema to him, taking the high ground that a candidate should be elected on their merits rather than the votes they rack up. Very worthy but it is maybe too idealistic to succeed. Furthermore, he may have declared his interest too late, with other candidates having secured important backing already. Ultimately, it will be a cabalistic carve-up among the elites but hopefully it won’t be the traditional western European who emerges at the head of the pack.

I think most people are glad that the Bahrain GP for 2011 is ‘dead in the water’. Although still to receive official confirmation from the FIA, Formula One’s governing body, the rejection of racing on the island by the teams and Bernie Ecclestone’s U-turn will give the Bahrainis greater time for ‘reconciliation’ (even if that involves reconciling ordinary citizens to long prison sentences). There was never going to be any condemnation of the heavy-handed authorities, given that they also race in China and plan to expand F1 to Russia, but at least it delivers a blow to the smoke-filled room deals that so fug the administration of football’s FIFA. FIA president Jean Todt was supposed to owe his election in large part to the ruling dynasty in Bahrain, but now can’t remember if anyone abstained in the ‘unanimous’ decision to reinstate Bahrain for the 2011 season (which isn’t the meaning of unanimous). Ecclestone, meanwhile, emerges with credit, which can’t be said often. He is a hard man and ferocious business competitor but he also cares about his image, as demonstrated by his cooperation with a biography about him.

England’s performance against Switzerland was unacceptable against a Swiss team that had just lost its two main stars and in large parts was made up by novices, yet in the last ten minutes it was England who looked out of their depth. Does being sloppy and complacent induce such tiredness of itself or is it because you continually have to chase the ball after giving it away? The worst Swiss player was Johan Djourou, a Premier League player, all of England’s players were drawn from the Premier League – is there a pattern emerging here?
Once again the case for scrapping the League Cup (which relegated Birmingham for their troubles in winning it) and shunting some Premier League games into the resultant gaps to create a winter break seems unanswerable. Unless of course you’re Sky and Richard Scudamore and national achievement plays second fiddle to money. Scudamore is such an advocate of the League Cup because it creates the fixture congestion that makes a winter break impossible, lessening the pressure on him to introduce one. Selling league games when other major European leagues sensibly wind down for a while is very profitable so who cares if a player's career is ended by an injury brought on fatigue (cf Dean Ashton)? When you’re pally with the Culture and Sports Secretary and you have Rupert Murdoch guarding your back (or ready to plunge a knife into it), why should you abjure the pursuit of lucre? Apart from saving your soul, that is. In medieval fairy tales, those who betrayed their kith and kin for wealth usually suffered a grisly fate. Sadly, we live in the real world, where justice can be most elusive.

Throwback to the future

To cash in on the cinema release (at least in how much they charge for the adverts), Film 4 displayed the original X-Men movie. It had the same controversial concentration/extermination camp scene at the beginning. It does have an emotional tug at the sight of a family being torn apart through no fault of their own and Erik Lehnsherr physically displaying his own love by twisting the gate. However, I’m glad I saw it first in X-Men: First Class as it has a better fit there with Lehnsherr on his mission that takes out Nazis who fled to South America as he tracks down Sebastian Shaw. In the first movie though, the comparison between Jews and mutants is a little overwrought. Having such a grand concept might have filled the scriptwriter with a sense of completion that he didn’t need to do much with the plot. Indeed, there are few movies that I can think of that do so little in the course of a feature-length running time. As a thread in a comic it might have been passable, yet here the film, by setting up so many of the characters, seems in many ways a prologue for X2, which was more fun seeing as it made better use of the time asked of its audience. I can see why one of my university friends told me he fell asleep during it. Prior to last night I had only seen the last ten minutes. All three of the original films are eclipsed by the ‘prequel’ which has effortless style, though some of the loose ends do not tie up (for instance, Professor X said in the 2000 picture he first met Magneto when he and his soon-to-become archenemy were 18, where First Class implies that their original contact was when both were 30) – in that way it is also like Batman Begins, which is not a bad position to be in, though I would be happy if they concluded the 1960s X-Men story as it is.

Classy entertainment

As mainstream scriptwriters run out of original concepts (er, love retro narratives) and Hollywood retreats to old mainstays in an uncertain economy, origin movies, especially of superheroes, are all the rage. Arguably, Christopher Nolan is to blame for making the polished and highly successful Batman Begins but some retreads are threadbare.
X-Men: First Class seems to be one of the better of its kind, with many characters undergoing personal journeys (some shorter than others admittedly). As much as the movie is about the burgeoning relationship that fractures between Charles Xavier and Eirk Lehnsherr, it is also about the emotional journey of Raven who becomes Mystique. Jennifer Lawrence, who plays her, continues her good work that she did in Winter’s Bone (from what I’ve heard) allied with being explosively exquisite in her beauty, maybe drawn as such in order to provide a greater contrast with her blue ‘natural’ self (interestingly, we know from X Men: The Final Stand that blonde stunner is not her form were she human, but if you’re a shape-shifter, why not go for the best possible – she is a magnet to the eye in every scene, eclipsing Greatchester House, Xavier’s base).
Being the 1960s, the fashion enhances the characteristics of all the woman present (ugly woman seem not to have existed back then). Very close behind Lawrence, is January Jones’ Emma Frost who as a very sexy White Queen could quite easily pass as Barbarella’s villainous sister. Ms Jones has developed a habit of portraying villainesses in films after her turn in Identity, probably satisfying her range after being in Mad Men. Zoe Kravitz as Angel completes the trio of pretty mutants, with sterling support from Rose Byrne as the sympathetic CIA spook, Moira.
Michael Fassbender is a credible, beguiling Magneto as the anguished and vengeful Lehnsherr becomes. Lean and handsome, he beguiles before unleashing his ferocious fury. He is unusually multi-lingual, speaking at least four languages in German, French, Spanish and English, though he wasn’t born in an English-speaking country, so maybe that shouldn’t be a shock. James MacAvoy said he wanted to channel Patrick Stewart in his role and rare is the time you think ‘that’s James McAvoy’ instead of Charles Xavier. Kevin Bacon (after American Dad, he really does have a distinctive nose) has terrific fun as the chief baddie, Sebastian Shaw, a callous, manipulative monster who is not a little psychotic. Given that his mutation has stopped his outward ageing and his penchant for starting World War III, you wonder - through the prism of the Marvel universe – how long he has been around (indeed, what was his role in World Wars One and Two). Shaw talks about he and all mutants are ‘children of the atom’ – though Xavier, Raven and Lehnsherr seem to disprove his theory. Both sides have mutant compatriots, which means you don’t know which of these lesser-known mutants will survive (apart from Hank McCoy natch), though one who doesn’t join either is a smart, uncredited cameo by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, who also gets to say the one f-word permitted by the rating given the film.
The historical setting in 1944 and 1962 adds extra interest to the proceedings, although the Poles may object to the location of a concentration/extermination camp as simply ‘Poland’ rather than with a qualifier such as ‘Nazi-occupied Poland’ – it is a sore point for people of that country to be lumped together with the atrocities. Even though Philip Larkin jocularly declaimed that sex wasn’t invented until 1963 (after the Profumo scandal), one gets a feel for the boundless opportunities and promise of that decade, before it turned sour from the 1970s. You can feel the freshness of the times. There is also tribute to Ken Adam with his design for the War Room in Dr Strangelove that I found most pleasing.
In the background is the Hans Zimmerish music as walls of sound whiz towards the ears, crashing like tides before building up again. Some think this is bombastic but I like it (cf. Gladiator, Enigma, etc.). I notice from the credits that Bryan Singer, director of the first two X-Men movies, is on board as producer. X2 is commonly agreed to be the best of the original trilogy, but I would say that this tops it in style alone. It is not a masterpiece but it is very good. They probably should leave the story ending where it did, but Hollywood being Hollywood, they will continue to flog it until the well runs dry.

I do like Marina Hyde’s Guardian quip: “They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky: the FIFA family.” Forget Russia being a mafia state, it’s FIFA who are the legal racketeers par excellence. One might even find something admirable in their sheer effrontery, the quality of doggedness, were they at least half way logical in their defence. In one breath, the octogenarian Argentine FIFA Executive Committee member, Julio Grondona, breathes fire about English attacks (on the FIFA family that Joseph Blatter seems to personify) and the lies of English journalism about bribery; in the next he says he would only vote for England’s 2018 bid if they had handed the Falkland Islands over to Buenos Aires – sounds mighty similar to a bribe, that. This doddery fool then rails against the USA (the only possible link to Chuck Blazer during the entire conference) saying he wouldn’t vote for them because it would be the same as voting for England. See the logic? No, I don’t either.
Then you get the mighty grouping of Cyprus, Fiji, Benin, Congo and someone else (yes they really are that important). It’s tempting to think “Who gives a shit what Benin thinks?” but that would exemplify English arrogance. Every football federation is valid, it’s just the people who run them that makes the former Pakistani cricket chief, Ijaz ‘Eejit’ Butt, look not dissimilar to a model of rational incorruptibility.
Rather than moaning, the FA needs to start the long, hard business of assiduous networking, particularly with heir apparent as FIFA president Michel Platini. Overall, the rest of the world doesn’t much care for the internal workings of FIFA. The FA will have their work cut out.

It is a truism that people make cities rather than the monuments. This is the same for The Apprentice except that it is populated by those desperately, if unwittingly, trying to make themselves look like idiots. It was a double-firing last night, quite early in the series comparatively. The episode speaks for itself, but the review section can be equally as good and this time they had worthwhile ‘unseen’ footage. Ellie Reed with a change of hair colour and a girly-girly dress (something she insisted in the main show that she wasn’t) was a far cry from the sullen blonde, moping around in the background. Even vicious editing couldn’t hide a certain repetition in language (not unlike Lord Sugar so I’ve read). She first claimed her ‘downfall’ was the result of not being au fait with marketing; then her ‘downfall’ was because she kept being put in a sub-team; thrice, her ‘downfall’ was because she didn’t put herself forward enough. Make your mind up – you’ve had more downfall than Hitler. In the end, there was justification for Ellie to go because she had been put on notice the previous week and she had not stepped up.
The next candidate with the sack placed over him was Vincent Disneur. With a surname like that, it sounds Huegenot but any French style was left on the other side of the English Channel. He was wearing a pin-striped suit – fine at the moment- with a hideous Hawaiian shirt (garish flowers on a white background) topped off with an orange tie. To look at it was like rubbing one’s eyes with alcohol. He must have sacrificed an entire sperm whale (or hijacked the one that beached on the north-east coast) to get that amount of grease in his hair. Altaa said one of her work colleagues said he had separated from his wife. Sad as a parting of the ways is, this appearance was reason for grounds for divorce. The phrase ‘all bells and no braces’ sums up his patter. Even Jedi Jim, who managed to talk his way out of a near-certain appointment in the boardroom for a second time, said his friend Vincent had more gusto than substance. Although Tom Pellerau is still in the process, Vincent has survived longer than any other candidate across the whole UK Apprentice existence without being on the winning team. Mind you, the treats have got progressively worse with each passing series. Having a tennis knockabout with celebrity sports star Pat Cash is indicative of BBC budget cutbacks. For his ‘achievement’, Vincent got a treat all of his own (if indeed it was real, given that he had his face surrounded by stars on it) – a spa session which is better (if true) than much of what the task winners get.