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It was interesting to read about Archbishop Justin Welby criticising the 'hero leader culture', just after watching (on BBC iPlayer) Boris Johnson: Irresistible Rise.  Many Tories see him as their blond white knight, 'the king across the water' (or at least the River Thames).  Although addressed to himself as much as anyone else, it was telling that Archbishop Justin said "A political party gets a new leader and three months later there is comment about disappointment.”  Had he watched the 'portrait' of Bozza earlier in the week?  Certainly, when a politician's personal life should be under the spotlight if they are prepared to push for high office, Alexander ' Boris the Animal' Johnson's squirming obfuscation every time the interviewer alighted on it, appeared to display a man with something to hide.  With three known affairs and a failed marriage under his belt, what more could fall out of the closet and whose closets would he fall out of?  His talk on leaving Eton about adding more notches to his penis, was indicative of a man whose sexual exploits can lead to self-harm but that he can brush it off by acting the clown again.

A quiet death

One of the principal high-concept delights of the Die Hard series is how they have continually expanded the theatre of action, from the upper confines of a tower block, to an airport, to the whole of New York City (and a bit of border with Canada), to the entire eastern seaboard of the USA.  A Good Day to Die Hard (a homage to Star Trek fans familiar with Klingon phraseology?) ruptures that by merely switching one transcontinental situation for another, instead of making it intercontinental.  This is one of the myriad disappointments of Die Hard 5.  A disappointing 25th anniversary.
Starting with the title - this does not suggest it is part of a series but rather outside it.  In a sense it is continuing the tradition of Live Free or Die Hard, though that movie was released in Europe as Die Hard 4.0, one of the cleverest sequel numbering, instantly delineating the plot with digital high-tech proliferating.  It is indicative of the laziness with this project that they couldn't think up something a bit more jazzy.  The association with the first film has been lost which juxtaposed the meaning of the diehard (the holdout, the one who never gives up) with painful death.  Now only the latter, er, survives.
One would have thought after Die Hard 4.0, John McClane would have been permanently maimed after having to shoot through his body just below the collarbone to kill the chief bad guy.  It seems he has Wolverine-like powers of recovery.  But that was between flicks.  Here John and his son John McClane Junior (continuing from Die Hard 4.0 with casting a different actor to the children ones in the original Die Hard) suffer all manner of assaults on their body, yet after a few minutes they're fine and dandy, like the emotional bond with McClane and his son.  Credibility is stretched all over the picture.  The crazy highlight is the car chase through Moscow but it has an unhappy combination - we've seen it all before in other action films and it doesn't ring true (a 4x4 having more ramming power than a semi-tank?).  Then there's the trip to Chernobyl - after giving the villains a few hours head start in a helicopter, they can drive 500 miles+ south with no driver break and arrive a short while after the bad guys, with no exhaustion from such a long trip.  Then again, Ukraine is never mentioned (and they cross no border points either) so ignorant multiplex viewers might think the nuclear complex is in Russia (though they will never make the mistake of confusing it with Grenoble, after John is corrected by his son, though not to the extent that Grenoble is not in Switzerland - are the film-makers as ignorant?).  Finally, though the recurrent leitmotif of 'it's about money' pops up - "It's always about the money," John McClane Snr wearily regales (not in Die Hard 2, it wasn't) - there's no referencing all the glass being shattered from the first in the franchise, seemingly only to affect the bad guys.  Mention must be made of the super-water that, with a few squirts, wipes out all radiation.
As for the villains, there are a few twists and turns but its view of Russians is not far removed from the dismissiveness of that other Bruce Willis vehicle Armageddon.  Though there are a few twists, with such Russophobia on display (spoiler coming up), one cannot trust any Slavic character of any significance, as I predicted and as is borne out.  The twist also exonerates McClane for all the carnage caused in Moscow (conveniently).  The characterisation is one-dimensional - when the chief henchman displays an affinity for raw carrots and tap-dancing, it is gimmicky and adds nothing to what follows.  The only credible (but highly morally dubious) thing is when (spoiler) McClane Jnr justifies his CIA training and throws a defenceless bad guy off a building (it references Hans Gruber's demise in Die Hard, but that was in self-defence and had an exquisite high-concept behind it, as he was holding onto the company wristwatch of Holly Gennaro McClane which symbolised how the Nakatomi Corporation was tearing the couple apart and ostensibly to their destruction; in Die Hard 5, it is just thuggery), the camera cutting away just before his head hits the rear rotor of a helicopter.  The villainness doesn't get involved in any high-kicking (as in Die Hard 4.0) with either McClane, boringly becoming a kamikaze.
Bruce Willis gives as jaded a performance as he did on The One Show.  Although he gets a few good lines, he knows it is rubbish he's in.  It is as distinguished as Hitman but without the performance of Timothy Olyphant (who played the main villain in Die Hard 4.0).  The franchise follows a pattern of a great first, a good second, a poor third, a good fourth and a feeble fifth.  I read a rumour that before Die Hard 4.0 was made, Bruce Willis was given a choice by the studio: either have Steven Seagal as a co-star or have it set aboard the space shuttle, with the columnist begging for Willis to go into space.  It seems the final frontier is the only place that Willis can go, if they wish to escalate it but I wouldn't put any money on it being made.  This last film has seemingly put the franchise in its grave.

Gimme Shelter (from the Glasto rain)

The Today programme played a cruel joke on The Rolling Stones with news that they will be playing at Glastonbury this year.  Given their advanced years, the signature song selected by the BBC was The Last Time ('this could be the last time, maybe the last time, I don't know').   It may be the first time The Stones are playing at the Pyramid but they are well beyond their prime - the music endures but they have replaced being pumped with drugs with being pumped with formaldehyde.  At least, with their performance at an established event like Glasto, they (or rather their associates) won't be hiring Hell's Angels as the security like happened at Altamont.

Nobbled in Nicosia

After a week of brinkmanship, the politicians in Cyprus have blinked first and caved in to what the Eurozone proposed in the first place.  Given the tiny amounts involved, the measures have been extraordinary and punitive - other, bigger states that operate the Euro have suffered pain but not in this way.  Indeed, ironically, it was the Eurozone's approach to Greece that sparked the crisis in Cyprus, but the Eurozone hierarchy have no shame and maybe are trying to deflect attention away from their own incompetent piecemeal approach to the stabilising the Euro.
A big chance has also been missed.  When there was speculation about the fragility of the Cypriot economy - and so none of this should have come as a surprise - concurrent mutterings was that the Germans would take the opportunity to save Cyprus in return for the unification of the island (the Greek Cypriots voted against the Annan peace plan, even though the Turkish Cypriots voted in favour).  But the hammerings of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy has exhausted the patience of the Eurozone paymasters, especially Germany.  Cyprus is suffering in this way almost for being slow in going bust.  A great opportunity has been lost to achieve peace in this divided island.  The internationally unrecognised (bar Turkey) Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is doing very well indeed, benefitting from the economic powerhouse that is its Turkish protector - they are far from finished in Famagusta.  Despite bank accounts under €100,000 being protected the official Cyprus faces austerity-induced depression.

The Resistible Rise of Boris Johnson

I'm rather gratified that finally a presenter has decided to call out Alexander 'Boris the Animal' Johnson, not on his fatuous classical allusions, but on the rather more important topic of his integrity.  Pressed with sufficient vigour, Johnson floundered, in a manner I have rarely seen in a top-level politician since Jeremy Paxman destroyed William Hague in a pre-general election interview (in a series with the three main leaders) in 2001.
Eddie Mair was the softly spoken assassin who refused to be cowed or dazzled.  Speaking with reference to  tomorrow's BBC2 documentary Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise (a pun on Bertolt Brecht's Hitler allegory, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui?  I hope, as I am referring to this programme, my title escape's Godwin's Law), a TV show in which Johnson is a willing participant (despite his denials), Mair deftly pressed and pressed until Johnson made himself look like a man with a lot to hide, none of it pleasant and, unlike most presenters, Mair summed up with a personal reflection of the man sitting across from him: "You're a nasty piece of work, aren't you?"  Cutting, this sentence has the potential to frame Johnson's political future permanently.  Suddenly, being prime minister (however 'accidental', a phraseology the British often used to apply to the acquisition of their empire) seems a long way off.

The oligarchy reduced

Eulogies always flow for the recently deceased and despite fulsome praise for those close to him (what else would they say?), Boris Berezovsky cannot be said to be a pleasant individual they way he defrauded the Russian state and impoverished millions in the 1990s.  Acting like a robber baron, he bought stakes in key industries at ridiculous knockdown prices through the corrupt cultivation of contacts at the Kremlin, growing wealthy as many Russians were laid off.  He came unstuck after backing the wrong horse in Vladimir Putin, who punished him for the critical commentary Berezovsky's TV channel offered in the wake of the Kursk submarine sinking and the botched rescue in 2001.
I can't say I feel much sympathy for him.  Coming from a humble background, he lived in opulence of which few of us could dream and even if he did face 'financial ruin' he still had assets of over £200 million in property and would be more comfortable than 95% of the British population.  He had become too accustomed to luxury and had forgotten his roots, if suicide proves the verdict at the inquest.  Fellow oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been far more dignified in his confinement (safer maybe) while Berezovsky has enjoyed the best things in life.  The tragi-comic aspect of his passing was that after a paramedic pedimeter was set off, his house was investigated for radiation by a specialist police squad, after the Alexander Litvinenko death by polonium affair - an undignified epitaph.

Groundhog Winter

Looks like Punxsutawney Phil was wrong when he stated that winter was over and Spring was here back in February. BBC News 24 actually carried this pronouncement live. Maybe Phil was confused by the extreme oscillations induced by climate change. For instance, in Britain it was twenty degrees warmer this time last year – if a one-off, a natural fluctuation but extremes are occurring far too frequently and this is repeated around this planet.


Then again, perhaps Phil’s message was just for the good folk of Pennsylvania. In that regard, he’s clearly more intelligent (and less motivated by pecuniary reasons) by those, especially in this country, who dismiss global warming because of a cold snap in their locality. Obviously, they never grew up, still thinking, as all children do, that the world revolves around them, extrapolating everything that directly touches them as to be everything in existence (also they reflect the island mentality, prevalent against the EU and immigrants as well, that the world can be shut out). So what if it is snowing in Lincolnshire or Dumfries or Northern Ireland – it’s not called regional warming – it’s called global warming for a reason.

(And just as I check on the spelling of Punxsutawney via Google, I find that The Telegraph carries a story, just 10 hours ago, about Phil being ‘indicted’ for his incompetence.  It's like when that container ship ran aground off the south coast of England and everyone thought 'Whiskey Galore!').

Consecrations aplenty

Every time I’m at university, there is a new Archbishop of Canterbury and a new Pope.  I’ve seen (not in the flesh – the crowds are too deep in Canterbury alone) the accession of Rowan Williams and Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) when an undergraduate.  Now, as a postgraduate (who has been very busy this week), Justin Welby and Cardinal Bergoglio (Francis) are installed as respective heads of their churches.  Best hang fire on any PhD then!

Interestingly, although it was on their doorstep and covered by the national news, BBC Newsroom SouthEast chose to eschew any mention of Welby’s coronation.  Usually, if worthy of a national mention, the regional outfit explores the issue in more depth.  But there was a media blackout – only bad news stories on Christianity allowed by the Newsroom’s editor?  They couldn’t completely shut it out, as while interviewing a Tory MP on a government policy, the peal of celebratory tower bells was ringing out in the background – at that time of day, with such jubilance, it could have only have been in Canterbury hailing Archbishop Justin.  Ha ha, truth will out.

What a filthy sod

Alexander ‘Boris the Animal’ Johnson likes wowing credulous, ignorant journalists with a soupcon of classicism into his usual ramblings.  It makes him look dignified but ‘not one of them’ i.e. career legislators – the anti-politician politician.  Indeed, his views lead as far as being the anti-state statesman.  Saying all this, there is a fair chance he will be prime minister in 2020, leading a coup against Cameron (who will have lost the 2015 election) and capitalising on a continuing sluggish economy under Labour.

Recently, he was railing against an EU proposal to cap banker’s bonuses at a year’s wages (or two years with the consent of shareholders) by regaling hacks of Diocletian’s edict against inflation to counter the effrontery of defending a profession now more despised than estate agents (even Michael Gove, on Wednesday’s Question Time, was maundering about how no bankers had been sent to prison for the economic tsunami they unleashed in 2007/8).  David Cameron had no such easy fallback, a PPE degree losing out to the classics.

Today, he said he would love to be prime minister ‘if called to serve’ (like the pope, the traditional refusal before grabbing the reins of power).  He invokes Cincinnatus (from whom, 2,000 years later, the name of the city Cincinnati was derived) toiling away at the sod of his farm before being called from his plough to rescue Rome from a grave crisis.  The know-nothing hacks hail Cincinnatus, innocuously, as ‘a Roman leader’ – and that he was.  There are greater nuances inherent, however. 

By the time he was called back Cincinnatus was in retirement, so come back when you’re 65 Boris (after all, Winston Churchill was still serving at the age of 80).  More pertinently, Cincinnatus was recalled as a Dictator.  This has not quite the pejorative overtones that it has today, but it was still a suspension of democracy (of the form the Roman Republic practised) and constitutional norms, with rule by decree.  The Bojo jackboot in Number 10?  Further, to protect against a slide back into kingship, the dictator was only allowed to serve for one year (thus the great furore when Julius Caesar made himself Dictator for life).  So Bojo, you can become a latter-day Alec Douglas-Home and we can kick you out after one year?  Then again, if you were being true to Cincinnatus, you would step down voluntarily after the passage of a year and go back to obscurity.  Deal?  No, because you’re just a hypocrite who likes to bamboozle the fawning media with irrelevant historical anecdotes.  We can only hope that as Conservative party leader with realistic chances of being PM, journos put you under more scrutiny and call you out on these public-relations statements.  But then we need a higher class of journalist and not even Leveson can solve that.

Transmission fading

I wonder why this was left to gather dust in 'drafts' rather than being published.  Oh well, out you go now.

I was initially sympathetic to the plight of the inventor of the clockwork radio, Trevor Baylis.  Although he owns a large property on the exclusive Eel Pie Island in south-west London, he had spent forty years there and made it to his own specifications, such as a (small) swimming pool in the meeting hall or a hot tub in the garden.  Therefore, he would be losing a bit of himself were he to have to sell up.

Baylis’ fate was a little like Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborne in the first Spiderman, by Sam Raimi.  Having created the company Baygen Power Industries (later renamed Freeplay to remove all reference to him) to market the clockwork radio, the board eventually muscled him out and ‘upgraded’ his invention, making his original patent redundant and robbing him of any further commission.  Now such radios that are being produced rely on a human to charge a battery in the machine, rather than just wind up a spring in the radio.  Unlike, Norman Osborne, he cannot don a Green Goblin outfit and eliminate the board, which is probably a plus overall.  Not to mention he would look silly in the supervillain suit, like Dafoe did.

So Baylis says he scrapes by in poverty, his subsequent venture in helping entrepreneurs bring their ideas to market hitting the buffers in the Great Recession and after-dinner speaking engagements similarly drying up.  Then it is revealed that the 75-year old owns a pristine E-Type Jaguar that is protected from the elements in a garage and was recently offered £80,000 for it.  While nice to have it for summer jaunts, it is a luxury most people could live without.  Given that he only has a plump Labrador in terms of family to feed.  He could easily get by rather comfortably for four more years if he sold it.  Maybe it is just as well that Baylis feels he needed to say that he doesn’t want pity for his situation, but rather to draw attention to the state of patent law in this country.  I think another reason for the interview is to drum up a few more after-dinner appointments.

One mustn’t deny the incredible altruism which motivated him to create the clockwork radio (and he is a hands-on designer).  With AIDS ravaging parts of Africa, he wanted public information about how to combat it to reach areas with no electricity and little wherewithal to obtain, let alone purchase, batteries.  And he is still designing gadgets (e.g. a self-weighing suitcase).  I hope he does get to see out his days on Eel Pie Island and his finances take a turn for the better, but (like his plastic flowers on pots that rest on synthetic grass) clearly there are economies that could be made and I'm sure the car is not 

Eye of frog, ‘dab’ of statute

It’s good to know that the end of press mendacity may be at hand.  Well, the press will always be loathed, but with the phone hacking claims extending to the Mirror Group, only a press lackey could complain about elected representatives tackling the unelected power of newspapers.  The same argument against is that used by gun nut survivalists – the looming tyranny of government, however democratic.  We are not talking about the end of press freedom per se, but the end of press freedom to destroy the lives of the famous (J.K. Rowling) and the ordinary (Christopher Jeffries), plus with its in-built right-wing majority, to propagandise hard conservative values (one cannot say the Conservatives, as almost all the press right now eulogise UKIP). 
Tory MPs, as over House of Lords reform, are advised to vote tomorrow non principle, but on realpolitik.  And the journalistic right claim to have values!  They bleat that the Americans would be appalled.  Firstly, so what; who cares what the Americans think.  Secondly, Americans have always looked down their noses at the British press, believing them to be (outside of The National Enquirer) far more scurrilous and salacious than their own stable.  But how we lecture regimes like Russia, Zimbabwe and Iran twitter British right-wing journalists (see what they did there, falsely conflating this legislation with authoritarianism).  Yeah, because lecturing these regimes on their lack of press freedom was always so successful in the past.  This is beyond satire.

Good ol' Abe

Lincoln was the big loser on Oscars night, failing in all the main categories bar (a record-breaking third) Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role.  Despite the poor showing at the Golden Globes, there was some surprise that it did not prove the exception in bucking the trend of this precursor.  Despite it managing to combine both patriotism and universalism, the Academy may have felt it wound out the story too much and after two and a half hours, cramp had such a deleterious grip on my legs that I felt like Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones, a Best supporting Actor nominee here) hobbling along on his cane.
Director Steven Spielberg was not lacking in ambition (maybe he felt this an apology for the dry Amistad, which though noble, about what he has admitted that he harboured disappointment) and certainly has rediscovered his mojo, after a run where he was slipping into the middle-rank of directors.  He is not dealing with an obscure piece of history but one where everyone knows (or at least should know) the outcome, both of the passage of the 13th Amendment and his subsequent assassination in 1865.  Essentially, he has to liven up a procedural drama.  I must confess I was more familiar with his Emancipation Proclamation at Gettysburg than the 13th Amendment as such but as pointed out here, Abraham Lincoln's War Powers were of dubious legality in peacetime.  Other than the president, I only really was (vaguely) familiar with Secretary of State William Seward and that from his purchase of Alaska from Russia for a dollar a square mile, subsequently known variously as Seward's Folly and Seward's Icebox but which proved its value many times over in the century and a half following 1867.
The film showed the fine balance Lincoln had to tread, cajoling members of his own party and finding inducements for lame-duck Democrats on the opposing side, much as Barack Obama did after the mid-term elections in 2010, to get 'Don't Kiss, Don't Tell' abolished in the US Army and ratification of his nuclear arms treaty with Russia.  The inducements in 1865 were of a decidedly more personal nature - not bribes but the provision of public employment after the lame-ducks had left office, with fixers of whom W.N. Bilbo (James Spader) was a part.  The House of Representative debates were just as mean-spirited and fire-spitting as they are today, with plenty of hyperbole about tyranny, though with the party roles reversed.  There was also the small matter about how to conclude the Civil War - if the 13th Amendment was dropped, a negotiated peace could end the war almost immediately, as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens (Jackie Earle Haley) intimated.  This was pertinent on the personal front as his son, Robert Lincoln (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wanted to enlist in the defining conflict of its age (in American eyes), much as veterans of the Second World War could claim to be part of 'the Greatest Generation'.  Abe's wife, Mary (Sally Field), was still racked by grief from the death of her son William in 1862 and couldn't bear to lose another.
All these pressures piled a near intolerable weight on Lincoln's shoulders - Ulysses S. Grant (Jared Harris) telling his president that he looked as if he had aged ten years in one.  Still, Day-Lewis conveyed Lincoln's immense charisma, even when telling a joke at the expense of the English (even if its truth was lacking in the spirit of that particular anecdote).  He was undoubtedly right that the 13th Amendment was the cure for the war, without which the peace would only represent a cease-fire and he used every ounce of intelligence, cunning and courage to bring it to fruition.  Lincoln deserved his place on Mount Rushmore as one of the greatest of presidents, despite serving only four years.
The film goes beyond the mechanics of the actual vote, though this is well handled.  Is it a spoiler to say the legislation passes the two-third majority needed to change the constitution by just two votes (the same margin as incidentally won the 2012 Olympics for London over Paris).  There are meta-issues at hand.  Given Hollywood's anti-smoking attitudes, those of more malleable morals (Seward, Grant, the fixers) are the ones seen puffing away.  When Robert tries to roll some tobacco, in a state of distress at seeing what happens to amputated limbs, his conscience pricked (ever more so), so agitated is he that he cannot perform the task and  he throws it on the floor - that was telling.  Also, the 13th Amendment and winning the war should not be seen as the culmination of Lincoln's work, to which after he could go (not so) softly into the night.  As a man, he wished to travel with Mary, especially to the Holy Land to walk in the footsteps of David and Solomon (a sop to Spielberg's roots, with no mention of Jesus Christ as inspiration, though Lincoln's faith had been shaken by the Civil War).  As a president he planned a limited role for black voting, rather than merely making them equal before the law - limited as he knew what compromises could be won and what could not (it took exactly another century before black people were allowed to vote).  So he could have achieved so much more had he not been shot (Spielberg plays a bluff on the audience at the end theatre scene) - a personal and national tragedy.  Although dealt with briefly at the end, this is as much one of the key strengths of the movie as any other. 9 out of 10.

Scoring with the last cliché

Scoring with the last kick of the game is a standard of football phraseology, but its rarity may lead to misapplication.  Newcastle United beat Anzi Makhachkala 1-0, with Papiss Demba Cissé heading home with seconds remaining before the referee blew his whistle.  But as the tie was still deadlocked at 0-0 over both legs, extra-time would have ensued.  Consequently, it was the last kick of normal time plus injury time.  A true sense of ‘last kick of the game’ came in Euro 2008’s quarter-finals, when Turkey equalised against Croatia in the 121^st minute (penalties to decide the match being outside the parameters of ‘open play’).  With no time to resume the match, it leaves the team who have just conceded utterly deflated.

Newcastle’s season would not have been over had they lost as league survival is still not guaranteed but to progress is a delightful fillip, matching an achievement last made in 2005.  That time, the Magpies also faced Portuguese opposition in the quarter-finals, losing to Sporting Lisbon on aggregate.  Given the parallels with AZ Alkmaar and Anzi, I am hoping they can defy their track record from 2005.  The travel is not onerous (unlike Chelsea who have to play Rubin Kazan potentially deep in central Russia in the Republic of Tatarstan) but Benfica did eliminate Bordeaux in the previous round, the French side having topped Newcastle’s group in December.  Since then, the black-and-whites have strengthened so it will be pleasant for the side to compete at the real Stadium of Light (Estadio da Luz).

Amusingly, the Chelsea announcer acknowledged the Steaua Bucharest fans by extending "A warm welcome to our visitors from the Czech Republic."  This understandably brought boos from the away fans but it wasn't as bad when Michael Jackson on tour told a Bucharest crowd, "I love you Budapest," confusing them with the capital of Romania's arch-rivals, Hungary. 

As for the Champions League, no English team did make it to the quarter-finals of that competition and the three Spanish clubs who I mentioned had registered negative results overcame these difficulties (I had forgotten about Valencia but they confirmed my predicted trend by going out to Paris St. Germain – the only one to do so).  It reaffirms that Spain is the best European league – for now.  

Frank-ophile?

It was interesting how the news networks were ticking over with fairly inconsequential stories (suspected government u-turn on an alcohol policy) in anticipation of the white smoke. I would have loved it had the cardinals taken as long a time to select a pope as some conclaves in the Middle Ages, which stretched into months and even years. Imagine the journalists taking it easy for such a long time and the networks peddling pap essentially. It would be the end of media as we know it.


One particularly scandalous conclave began in 1268 and lasted three years. The exasperated people of Rome eventually locked the ‘princes of the church’ in the papal palace, removed the roof and threatened cessation of food. Still the bickering prelates could not decide who among them would be pontiff and it took the arrival of the king of France and Duke of Anjou with their armies to force a breakthrough. The new Bishop of Rome quickly laid down a new directive where conditions in a conclave were to become progressively more spartan. Still, within two decades, cardinals dithered for two years, three months, whereupon an ascetic monk wrote a critical letter warning of divine displeasure should they continue to prevaricate. Made aware of this, they with one acclaim, declared the monk to be pope! The monk, who would take the regnal name Celestine V, was most upset and at first tried to flee. When brought round to the idea that wherever he went he would still be the leader of the western church, he reluctantly submitted. His performance in office did not match his saintliness as he had no inkling as to how to discharge his duties. Knowing he wasn’t up to it, he abdicated after five months.

Celestine V founded a monastic order name the Celestines, whose calling was to take care of the poor and the sick. The new ‘papa’ is Francis I, formerly Cardinal Bergoglio, a Jesuit – the first time one has ever been elected to such high office. In a way, he is the ideal compromise candidate. Runner-up in 2005, he is from Argentina and the New World connection broadens the reach of the church, which claims universality, while at the same time, he is the son of an Italian immigrant to that country, bringing back the predilection for Italian popes before Vatican II. Finally, at 76 years old, it will be figured that he won’t be too long in post before he dies or follows his predecessor’s example and retires. I feel that, like Justin Welby, he will be a more hands-on leader of his flock than the prior scholarly incumbent (who both in Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism left office prematurely). Frank’s work with those living at the margins in his homeland and his own frugal lifestyle mark him out as someone unafraid to confront vested interests, yet he is more worldly in Vatican politics and administration than Celestine V ever was.

What a joke

Though I would describe myself as of the centre-left, the left-liberalism of much BBC contemporary comedy, especially on radio, can raise my hackles. I’ve had cause to switch off the radio midway through The News Quiz because it becomes an unintentional parody of its bias and an offensive one at that.


On Feedback, Roger Bolton’s suggested remedy was, by contrast, hilarious – tackling Caroline Raphael, Head of Radio Comedy, he said that just as the BBC is going out of its way to promote female comics to ensure that all-male panels are a thing of the past, could they not do the same things for right-wing jokesters? Affirmative action for the right-wing? That is comedy gold in itself.

Raphael dismissed the idea, saying comedy is less political and more observational these days and she wouldn’t want a show that was one-note, saying that Jeremy Hardy’s output had subtle shades. The implicit subtext is that right-wingers are incapable of that. So business as usual at the BBC.

It was The Sunday Times wot won it

It is an interesting but seldom-noted fact that I happened to read, that in Vicky Pryce's desire to 'nail' ex-husband Chris Huhne, she went to The Sunday Times i.e. a Murdoch outpost.  Given their proprietor's proclivities, I would suggest they leapt at the chance to destroy a social democrat politician, hence the assigning of an editor to liaise with Pryce, rather than an ordinary hack.  Then, as standard tabloid-esque practice, they left Pryce to swring in the wind and (mixing metaphors) carry the can, as she did yesterday when found guilty of perverting the course of justice.  Pryce's attempts to foist some blame onto the journalist was smart, post-Leveson, but the court didn't buy it.  Shame, as technically it was the duty of The Sunday Times to report the crime immediately to the police, rather than cack-handedly try to ensnare Chris Huhne over the telephone - weren't they also perverting the course of justice by not making a call to the police directly?  As with the clearing of Neil Wallis, the Crown Prosecution Service may be worried they have bitten off more than they can chew with Murdoch.  The Sunday Times carries on as if butter wouldn't melt in its collective mouth.

Wrap up warm

Despite a season of struggle, Newcastle Utd have reached the last-16 of Europe's second tier competition, where they face a Dutch master manager.  This was 2007 when Glenn Roeder was manager and the last time prior to this season that the Magpies were in European competition.  Then Newcastle stayed up but Roeder quit almost as the season was finished.  They faced off against Louis van Gaal, a Champions League winner with Ajax in 1994 and who would go on to reach the final with Bayern Munich in 2010, who was then in charge of Dutch side AZ Alkmaar.  After a 4-2 win on Tyneside, the Black-and-Whites succumbed 2-0 away and went out on the away goals rule, confirming what the coach at Zulte Waregem, United's previous opponents had said when the Toon had eliminated them - Newcastle are good but "van Gaal is the master."

Fast forward to 2013.  Despite a season of struggle, Newcastle Utd have reached the last-16 of Europe's second tier competition, where they face a Dutch master manager.  Alan Pardew is in charge and though the position is uncomfortable, it is not as precarious as it was at the start of January.  Newcastle will probably scrape safety but, unless something exceptional happens, Pardew will remain manager, tied down as he is to 2020 (ostensibly).  The Magpies now confront 'Golden' Guus Hiddink, a European Cup winner in 1988 with PSV Eindhoven and a successful manager virtually everywhere he has been.  Hiddink now helms Anzi Makhachkala, whose second name sounds like someone clearing their throat, who finished second in the Russian league last year and are bankrolled by a billionaire that has allowed them to bring in the likes of Samuel Eto'o and, until recently, Christopher Samba, paying them incredible wages to tempt them there.  UEFA have barred them from playing in their Dagestan fastness, on account of the 'security situation', arguably an internal civil war between militant Islamists and the Kremlin.  Instead, they will line up on the artificial turf of Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium.  The centrepiece of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, 'The Meadows' staged the 2008 Champions League final where Manchester United beat Chelsea on penalties and will host the Final of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Finals.  Playing more than a thousand miles away from their home ground should not prove insurmountable to Anzi's players as most of them live and train in Moscow anyway, flying in for 'home' games.  Though the Anzi support will be small, the Toon Army contingent will be miniscule, with visa hindrances a major problem.  In addition, the temperature will vary from a 'high' of 0 degrees celsius to a low of -11.

This is not the first time the Magpies have faced Hiddink in Europe, beating his PSV side (in his second spell) 3-2 on aggregate, but then that was under the equally well-travelled Sir Bobby Robson, a man who matched Hiddink's feat in leading his national side to 4th at a World Cup (England, 1990; the Netherlands, 1998).  British pundits are betting on the Tynesiders prevailing but I'm not so sure, even (or maybe especially) over two legs.  Hiddink is a genius who really can a sow's ear into a silk purse.  The only hope is that the winter (and season) break has dulled Anzi's edge - a perennial stumbling block for Russian teams progressing in European competition, though once hurdled they can go quite far. Even were Newcastle to proceed to the next round, the threat of Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur lurk, arguably the two strongest teams left in the Europa League.  Whatever happens, Newcastle will break new ground tonight playing in Russia for the first time, making it something of a curio that they have played in the Ukraine three times previously (or maybe not given the comparative strengths of the Ukrainian league versus the Russian one).

The big picture

Amazing how quickly foreign news gets relegated if has nothing ostensibly to do with the homeland when editors are too short-sighted to understand global dynamics.  At the top of the bulletin, we have the Foreign Secretaary's decision to send armoured cars and body armour to the Syrian rebels, after his ill-concealed irritation in Rome at America's hesitancy to the crisis.  Let's dig a little deeper into this pledge.  Most of these 'armoured cars' are probably obsolete Snatch Landrovers which were acknowledged to be death traps in Afghanistan (and much maligned compared to the American Bradley) and were replaced.  Although the Free Syrian Army is unlikely to have to contend with IEDs, these mothballed hand-me-downs raises questions about the quality of the body armour.

The big story which did headline on BBC radio last night at 10pm is the death of Hugo Chavez, yet it took until halfway into BBC One's 1pm bulletin before being mentioned.  Venzuela could be regarded as 'a faraway country of which we know little'.  Yet it is one of the biggest oil producers in the world and with the personality cult that Chavez created, there is a chance that it might be plunged into instability.  Oil being a fungible asset means that countries don't need to directly deal with an oil-producer to be affected by chaos in the country.  If Venzuela (whose industry was admittedly mismanaged) goes largely off-stream, oil prices will rise (if the rest of OPEC can't match the shortfall) and affect the global economy.
Although Chavez corralled and cowed political opposition in his country, as one book on semi-authoritariansim has it, he was a symptom, not a cuase, of the decline of democracy.  This is true of both his abortive coup attempt and his election success (of course, he would have not been able to run for office had he served his full jail term for the coup instead of being pardoned early by the then president).  Neo-liberal economic policies hollowed out pluralism by eviscertaing the middle classes.  In the 1960s, 30% of the population lived below the poverty line.  By the 1990s, this had flipped to a mirror image, with 70% of people below the poverty line, the neo-liberal tonic to solve the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s proving toxic.
The left-wing leaders around South America that also rose on throwing off the shackles of the Washington Consensus will mourn the loss of one of their foremost stalwarts, who, for all his faults, did reduce poverty in Venezuela.  Cuba will be expecially worried, given that Venezuela under Chavez was a belated post-Soviet saviour for its economy.  Raul Castro might have to speed up his reforms.

Perspective

Lead story for much of the English media - Manchester United lose a football match.

In other news: Venzuelan president Hugo Chavez, prominent national leader, dies.

Take the beam out of Spain's eye before you criticise the speck of dust in one's own

I remember about a decade or so ago (I think 2001) that Italians were lamenting the absence of any Italian teams in the Champions League quarter-finals.  This from a position of primacy in the 1990s, to make then plain-old Mr Alex Ferguson state that to win the Champions League, one needed to beat at least one Italian side.  Of course, a mere two years later, the 2003 final was an all-Italian affair, but there has been a general aura of Italian flakiness that cannot be shaken.
The English press, for the second year running, worry that the contagion has shifted from Italy to England and that there is a very real danger of no English team in the qaurter-finals of Europe's premier competition.  Last year Chelsea went on a run that culminated in lifting the trophy but that was generally seen as a fluke (as validated by Chelsea's group stage exit this season).  Tough draws and lack of sides making it past the group stage increase the danger of this happening and the threat to the English co-efficient, guaranteeing four spots to the Premier League.
England, however, has had a representative in seven of the last eight finals.  Also any catch up that the other European powers are making will be rendered less important as the next season's TV deal comes into effect, increasing revenues (and ability to purchase the world's best players with insane wages) by 71%, leaving the others in a slipstream.  English decline is overblown.
All the while, no-one has been paying attention to La Liga or rather their European exploits.  Although they got three sides through to the Last 16, all registered negative results in their first leg and their runaway league leader, Barcelona, has appeared very jaded in Europe.  Real Madrid and Malaga haven't been pulling up trees either.  There is a very real possibility of there being no Spanish sides in the quarter-finals.  But the English press are too parochial to mention that.

And finally...

Way late and out of date, time for some Oscars commentary. Life of Pi picked up on the visual awards, though I was a little surprised that Ang Lee won Best Director over Steven Spielberg. Life of Pi was very moving at times, especially when the ship sank and very clever in others. It offered a view of French India which is not often seen in a big Western picture. Ultimately though it was spoiled because some stupid cinema attendant had left his walkie-talkie in there and periodically we heard something like “Mike, can you do some stock-taking please?” At first, I thought it was the boy hallucinating but it came clear this voice was external to the film. I even had a hunt for the source but couldn’t find it in the dark. This almost completely ruined the atmosphere and, after being told the reason for the disturbance, got a full refund, though I would have preferred to have an uninterrupted experience.


Les Misérables predictably won minor awards, like make-up and hairstyling, despite being directed by the man behind The King’s Speech, Tom Hooper. It was up against formidable heavyweights and would always struggle, despite Chicago showing musicals can win.

Skyfall won a richly deserved Best Original Score. Paul Epworth really evoked the John Barry glory days while putting his own stamp on it. The first Oscar for a Bond in nearly 50 years and a in a relatively prominent section.

Though Daniel Day-Lewis picked up a win as Best Actor, I was surprised Lincoln was the big loser on the night, though it did poorly in the Golden Globes, a usual predictor. Winning Best Picture (and Best Adapted Screenplay), Argo won the hearts of the Academy by combining tense drama of a traumatic episode in American history with poking gentle fun at Hollywood. Robert Altman’s The Player was a lot more savage and was frozen out in its year. As with Babel, with its heavy focus on Los Angeles, the most voters went with what they knew and to what they could relate. In that respect, Argo’s win as Best Picture is no surprise.

Good Knight

One must hope that the vigilante in Bradford dressed as Batman, who turned in a wanted criminal to the West Yorkshire Police, doesn’t suffer the same fate as one of those in The Dark Knight.  Although when asked what the difference between himself and his imitators, Batman was being disingenuous when growling, “I don’t wear hockey pants,” he also could handle himself (physically and occasionally mentally) against The Joker.  Let us hope that no-one in this part of Yorkshire takes it upon themselves to be The Clown Prince of Crime.

Sick as a commentator, much less a parrot

Induction at its very worst.  Alan Green opened his commentary of Tottenham Hotspur versus Arsenal with "There have been 33 goals between these two sides in the last six games so it's unlikely to be a 0-0."  Because this happened in the past, it will happen in the future.  David Hume would tear him to pieces.
On a purely statistical basis, to date Arsenal have the meanest defensive away record and Spurs have a relatively mediocre home-scoring record (for a top five side).  As I conclude this, 25 minutes have been played and it is 0-0.  I, though, am not claiming that this is how the game will turn out.  I will posit, in a Popperian falsification, that, based on the season's evidence, the game will end in a draw.  At the end of 90 minutes (plus injury time) this will be falsified or confirmed, though I doubt science will benefit much.

Enjoy your cruise!

While probably fine on many occasions, it is distinctly comical to have Agatha Christie's Poirot: Death on the Nile to be supported by Viking River Cruises, 'sponsors of ITV evening drama', especially as after each brutal killing it cut to the adverts, where we were enjoined to "Relax, with Viking River Cruises."  I doubt travel insurance could even be bought for any such trip.

Mind melt

Barack Obama is often taken to task on the most spurious of reasons by far-right-wingers so it is entirely fitting that he should be excoriated by sci-fans for desecrating hallowed turf by talking of a Jedi mind-meld.  That jarred with msyelf and I'm glad I am not alone.  Obama wasn't promoting a contemporary form of seventh-century monothelitism, the doctrine of (two natures but) a Single Will, uniting Star Wars and Star Trek fans in a heretical compromise, but he was trying to be a nerdy Daddy-cool and ended up 'crazy like a fool'.  There are Jedi mind tricks and Vulcan mind-melds and clearly in the context of changing Republicans minds, he meant the former, even if he is an alleged Trekkie.  The backtracking by the White House staff was unconvincing (instead of paraphrasing Episode IV, it should have been Episode II: Obama, "You don't want to sell me these budget cuts without tax rises." Republicans, "We don't want to sell you these budget cuts without tax rises."  Obama, "You want to go home and rethink your lives."  Republicans, "We want to go home and rethink our lives.")  The president will be extolling the brilliant portrayals of Batman and Superman in Marvel Comics next.

The right hampered in Hampshire by FPTP

While I am disenchanted with the Liberal Democrats, I am glad they held onto Eastleigh in the by-election (on a comparatively high turn-out for such an event), with Mike Thornton the new MP, as the alternative would have been ghastly.  The Tories, Lynton Crosby and the right-wing press all got a bloody nose, ha ha ha.  Justice more poetic than Wordsworth.  The Conservatives had an awful candidate and while much of the press won't blame their own extremism and rather criticise David Cameron's 'modernisation' agenda, Maria Hutchings was the antithesis of a Cameroon, in her pronouncements and her discipline and the party eventually had to gag her, to stop further blunders.  She received the kiss of death from Iain Duncan Smith, probably the worst leader of his party ever, when he called her an excellent candidate.  Why vote for a UKIP-lite when you can vote for the real thing?  If anything, David Cameron has not modernised his party enough to snaffle somewhere like Eastleigh because there are too many headbangers in the grassroots (the kind that elected Duncan Smith Tory leader in 2001).  Ironically, despite right-wing hatred of any system bar first-past-the-post (the UK being the only country in Western Europe to operate FPTP), if this vote had been conducted under AV, the Tories or UKIP would have won in Eastleigh.  Suck on that!

How Google was my valley?

It's good to see that the Google doodle celebrating St. David's Day today is more appropriate than previously.  This year we have a red dragon, a leek, daffodils and rolling hills, rather than the mistake in the past when Google showed Caernarfon Castle, a symbol of Welsh subjugation, with the figleaf of a Welsh flag flying atop it.