Currency disunion

It's a 100-1 that it was a Tory minister who was the unnamed parliamentarian who said Scotland could have a currency union (on the proviso that Faslane was kept as a base for nuclear submarines, much like Sevastopol used to be until recent days for Russia, a Crimea-on-Clyde).  Sir John Major said that Scotland leaving would be very good for the Conservative party but very bad for the United Kingdom and warned against those Tories seeking electoral advantage by handing gifts to the SNP.  Given that it is acknowledged that David Cameron would have to resign if Scotland left, that could be an additional incentive for an immature Tory member (who seem to populate the backbenches for the party of Disraeli and Churchill) who doesn't find him hardline enough.
It is a particularly cowardly to remain anonymous.  Until this intervention, the SNP had to unearth an economist from Beijing to prop up their case for currency union.  And while I would have thought that a Conservative minister would have told the SNP-friendly Murdoch press, The Guardian is a perfectly fine repository as the organ itself has been quite cheery about the prospects for independence (outside of editorial/Rusbridger comment) - many on the left see the dismemberment of the UK as the final death of empire, the same kind of left who allowed British fascists to capture use of the Union Flag.  It's a delusion for it was many Scots who provided the strategic direction and tactical nous for empire-building but immaturity exists on both sides of the spectrum.
In other news (though it really is non-news), a female member of Secret Intelligence Service says women make better spies because of an ability to multi-task and having a better grasp of human emotions.  Leaving aside an attempt to finesse honey-traps, it boils down to: woman says women better than men.  It would have had a lot more credibility coming out of the mouth of a man, not because men are superior but because of impartiality.

Lost, just lost

Rory Stewart is an exceptionally well-travelled man, an Ibn Battuta or Marco Polo of our our times.  The latter is especially appropriate because the the Venetian was given a place in the government of Kublai Khan while Mr Stewart was made essentially a pro-consul of British-occupied Iraq at the age of 30.  To put it into comparison, I'm 31.  Given how it turned out with the USA having to bail out the British in Basra, would I have done worse?  To that Stewart might cavil, "Could you have done any better?"  It brings to mind the words of the Byzantine Emperor Phocas - who has plunged the continuation of Rome into chaos and brought it to the edge of extinction - to his successor and the man who deposed him, Heraclius.  As John Julius Norwich says, "it was a fair question but not one to inspire clemency."  Phocas met his deserved end and Heraclius went onto save the Empire, only to lose much of it again when the Arabs began their onslaught.
Just as I am no Heraclius (by a long chalk), Stewart is no Phocas.  The Eton-educated son of a diplomat now makes a living in the somewhat more humdrum surroundings of Penrith in Cumbria as a member of parliament - that's when he isn't comparing his constituents to 'yokels', with the medicine of 'the darkened room' and holding their trousers up with twine as signs of how 'primitive' they are.  Now he gets a puff piece from the BBC (and on 2 no less rather than 4) to essentially come up with a bit of blarney about how the trunk of the island of Great Britain is a 'Mittelland' between the open plains of the south and the unforgiving highlands of the north - Border Country: The Story of Britain's Lost Middleland.  For all it's worth, it would make more sense to talk about Middle Earth (JRR Tolkien had a fascinating grasp of geopolitics).  It's just as well Stewart is on the Irish Sea side of the Pennines because he struggle to get re-elected if he represented a part of Yorkshire, who wouldn't take too kindly to be lumped with Lancashire.  Then again, I don't think Lancashire would take too kindly to it either.
When he talked about one of the most bloody borders in history, I thought 'oh good, we're going to have a considered discussion of the intriguing Marchlands that historically separated England from Wales'.  But no it was an excuse to trot out hoary old stereotypes about southerners, northerners and the Scottish (because of the impending referendum) - how the weak-willed southerners rapidly accepted Roman dominion while the northerners were a more hardy type and the area that is Scotland now was unconquerable.
It got off to a bad start when the name 'England' encroached into Wales on the illustrative map.  To test his hooey, sorry, theory, Stewart asked a few bowls-playing Scottish locals if they put their sense of nationhood as to never being conquered by the Romans.  Unsurprisingly, they concurred.  No mention is made that this therefore cut them off from the developments of the Renaissance because there was nothing to be 'reborn'.  Stewart made the startling claim that the Romans gave up and a mark of their surrender was Hadrian's Wall.  At this, the historical inaccuracies just piled up vertiginously, in a manner reminiscent of BBC Radio 4's Wild East, which someone in their infinite wisdom has seen fit to re-air to explain Russia's actions in the Ukraine and Crimea.
It seems to never have occurred to Stewart that cross-Channel trade was extensive long before the conquest and the Celtic peoples of the south were already quite Romanised, such that it wasn't a massive leap for them to adopt the trapping of Roman life.  The Romans didn't come to 'civilise' out of the goodness of their hearts - they initially came for the pearls in the area now known as Kent and the tin and silver in what is now Cornwall.  From then on the conquest of Britain took on a strategic dimension, as having 'barbarians' on one's northern flank without a natural barrier isn't such a wise move if one can help it.
Stewart quotes from Tacitus the bits he wants to highlight, which is a little tricksy.  So in the south, "Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude."  (though Stewart substituted 'servitude' for 'slavery' - fine enough but with a bit more of kick to it).  This to contrast with salt of the earth northerners and yet ignoring that the Orkneys offered themselves as vassals to Emperor Claudius.  Tacitus was also the son-in-law of Gnaeus Julius Agricola - one of the most eminent generals in all Roman history.  Agricola conquered the north and routed the Celtic remnants at Mon Graupius in AD 84 and was well on the way to subjugating Scotland (Caledonia) and thence Ireland (Hibernia) when the Emperor Domitian, fearful of Agricola's prowess, recalled him, as Tacitus notes with some bitterness.
Hadrian's Wall was built after the eponymous emperor paid a visit, not because the Romans couldn't suppress the wild hordes north of it but because it wasn't worth the effort - too poor, too windswept, too uneconomic - better to bottle the inhabitants up in the north of the island.  The Han Chinese linked up previous walls to create the Great Wall, not because they couldn't conquer the Uighurs and others to the north but it was an unnecessary expense to occupy such unproductive land.  The Han only conquered the Gansu corridor to create a passageway they controlled between the trade of east and west.  There were many abortive Roman attempts to conquer what is now Scotland, almost as many as aborted towards Persia.  This had nothing to do with the prowess of the 'savages' and everything to do with internal politics, as we have seen with Agricola.  Antoninus Pius built his Antonine Wall but lack of interest meant it was abandoned before the end of his tenure.  It occurred again in the reign of Septimius Severus who was determined to erase this anomaly but died in Eburacum (York) - both his sons were eager to return to Rome to bicker over power.  Ironically, the Picts and Scots brought the English upon themselves because after the Roman legions left, the Vortigern (ruler of Romanised Britain), in desperation at their raids, paid Angles and Saxons as mercenaries to come over - they soon turned on their paymaster and bit by bit created what would eventually become England.
If so fond of the historian, maybe Stewart should consider memorising this part of Tacitus, substituting 'empire' for 'democracy'  - it is quite fitting when one thinks of Iraq.  "To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace."

A fine line between fighting prejudice and being prejudiced

What's that?  Is that the sound of the sky not falling?  It has now been approximately twelve hours since homosexual marriage has been legal in England and Wales and no malevolent portents have materialised.  The churches have their own definition of marriage (along with their own definition of what constitutes a city) and the state has its own.  This was always inevitable  - it was just a matter of timing.  Brian Sewell is his usual contrarian self, saying that gay marriage is not just irrelevant but illogical (essentially on the basis that marriage is a Sacrament and one of the key tenets of Sacrament is procreation) and that gay activists have wasted their energy on a symbolic change (from civil partnership) blunting their battle against prejudice. Sewell always likes to throw a hand grenade into the debate, even if he get damaged in the blast.

Gay marriage simply legalises common-law relationships that have been going on for millenia - some Roman emperors went about it, there are strong suspicions that Edward II and James I were of an at least bisexual persuasion.  And these are just the higher-ups.  The only king of such a nature who did have some form of the sky falling down on him was William II 'Rufus' where the tower of the place where he was interred collapsed soon after the ceremony - as a clerical chronicler (and therefore critic of Rufus) noted dryly "It might have collapsed anyway."

I'm with the Bishop of Norwich (who presides over a jurisdiction containing more non-Christians than anywhere else in the country) who said that having two definitions of marriage is untidy but life is full of untidiness yet still goes on unruffled.  It was a lazy way for politicians to claim progressive points but it doesn't devalue my marriage.  

Sewell was correct in that prejudice needs to be fought and is the primary battle.  How that campaign is tackled is another matter.  I always laugh when I see headlines like "BBC criticised" (a few adverse words from a handful of people on the BBC's own internet comment board) or "FIFA under pressure" (a few non-entity politicians express their opinions on the corruption within football's governing body).  To make it copy worthy of news, molehills are repeatedly made out to be mountains.  So when I see Mozilla staff call for new CEO Brendan Eich to stand down, I decided to check to see exactly how many staff are making that call.  Turns out to be three - hardly a full-scale rebellion in an organisation the size of Mozilla (which promotes open source software such as Firefox).  These malcontents may see Twitter as the most effective tool in their industry but it's not quite in the league of a no-holds-barred letter to the San Francisco Chronicle.  It all stems from a $1,000 donation that Eich made in 2008 on a referendum on gay marriage in California to a group against gay marriage.  This was never hidden but became widely known in 2012.  He subsequently recanted about any pain he had caused and emphasised his commitment to equality.  All his recorded public pronouncements have not criticised gay people (though anything he said was guaranteed under the US Constitution) and as chief technology officer, he stayed in post.  Now he has been promoted because of his capabilities.  Yet to those who take an extreme view, he is forever blacklisted, he can never change, he is effectively the heir to the late Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church infamy.  An important aspect of Christianity is that people can change - for better or worse.  These 'liberal' Sullas though want to purify their digital republic and are McCarthyite in their proscription, seemingly only satisfied if Eich was an unemployed Joe-Smo or self-abased himself before them.  I fully support Hampton Caitlin's decision to sever contact with Mozilla (though how important was his independent development company that he co-founded with his husband is another question mark) - millions of decisions are taken all over the world every day that prioritise the personal over the commercial.  Caitlin may find Eich odious and can't do business with him.  Fair dos.  Business is about relationships as well as profit.  But if Eich's "hateful views" are not detrimental to anyone's prospects in Mozilla, then he is entitled to them if he possesses them.  He should be watched like a hawk as prejudice cannot be allowed to damage another's career but the best way to achieve gay equality is to allow meritocracy to flourish.

The history-makers and the losers in international support

Once again, Russia found itself on the wrong side of a vote in the United Nations General Assembly.  After being the only country in the Security Council to vote against the resolution that the Crimean referendum was illegal (China's antipathy towards cross-border meddling induced it to abstain), the same such resolution was put to the General Assembly where it was overwhelmingly endorsed.  It was the same when it came to censuring Syria, losing but vetoing in the Security Council and then being trounced in the non-binding General Assembly vote (though international law seems to matter little to Russia currently, binding or not).
Now the United Nations is far from a body of like-minded democratic countries but concerning a resolution that is opposed by Moscow yet receives so much global support (or, as Tony Benn would have it, the support of the self-designated elites of the international community), it kind of puts the Kremlin on the wrong side of history, just as George W Bush was, especially in the invasion of Iraq.  When Nicolas Sarkozy arrived as a peace envoy in 2008 to mediate in the Russo-Georgian War, Putin told Sarkozy that he wanted to push on to Tbilisi and string up Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili by the balls.  The then-French president cautioned that this would make him like Bush to Saddam Hussein, to which Putin admitted "You have a point."  The war soon concluded thereafter.

Bouncing around

Like conversations, its amazing the tangential continuity of how one enquiry can lead to another.  In the course of trying to decipher a handwritten fax (where even the typed address letterhead was smudged), who clearly went to the same school of spidery inscribing as Prince Charles, I typed into Google a phrase with which I was unfamiliar, the writing encrypting any further understanding.  Was it Lans Deo or Laws Deo or even Lams Deo - it turned out to be Laus Deo.
From here, Google informed me of how it was set into the very top of the pyramidium of the Washington Monument.  Seeing that the Monument was 555ft high, that struck me against other once-record holders, briefly checking out the Great Pyramid of Giza, Cologne Cathedral (whose Archbishop retired this year) and the Eiffel Tower, the Monument exceeding the first two but being surpassed by the third.
The Monument's construction was held up for a variety of reasons, not least the American Civil War, but also because of the co-option of the Know Nothing Party.  I had read about this party in a history book covering major events, people and movements between 1789 and 1945 and used Wikipedia to refresh my memory.  This anti-Catholic and nativist movement (represented in Gangs of New York with a leader in William'Bill the Butcher' Cutting, portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis) was often unsavoury, engaging in acts of violence.  One of its leaders was ex-US president Millard Fillmore.  I clicked on his link and his Wiki page.
From here was the striking statement that he was frequently in the bottom 10 of historical ranking of Presidents of the United States.
Historical rankings of US Presidents has always captured my imagination since the only part of a Wall Street Journal book containing pen-portraits of every US chief executive up to and including George W. Bush (besides impartial writings on Harry Truman and of Robert Dallek on Lyndon Johnson and a few broadsides fired at Dubaya by the then-WSJ editor) that I didn't have to wipe rabid right-wing slobber off my hands that dripped from the pages, were the historical surveys by scholars.  The book claimed that almost all historians were subject to the corrupting influence of liberal college campuses so it was trying to redress the balance - not by being balanced, oh no, no, but by taking an extreme conservative viewpoint.  Some were clearly not qualified, Lynne Cheney writing about a single anecdote about one of the early presidents that was so worthless that I can't remember the victim of her hagiography.  Kenneth Starr, the lawyer who tried to impeach Bill Clinton, wrote well, if controversially, about how great Nixon was because he defended the authority of the President of the United States (POTUS) office, skirting around how he brought these troubles upon himself - and that was it, just a single topic, not mentioning anything about Nixon, from foreign policy to domestic actions, let alone Watergate.  The vitriol that many of the contributors felt towards Clinton meant that they had to hand that coverage over to a British art historian!  Needless to say, it too was inadequate.  Terrible presidents like Warren G. Harding were trumpeted, great liberal presidents like Franklin Roosevelt had all of their achievements derided because it didn't agree with conservative ideology.  But it was those surveys where I found the real value, historians, law teachers and economists across the board had a list divided into 'Great', 'Near Great', 'Above Average', 'Average', 'Below Average', 'Weak' and 'Failures'.  The top three for historians and economists were George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, in that order, with law teachers rating Abe as number one, Washington as two and FDR as three.  The failures were unanimous as being Harding and the three POTUSs who preceded the American Civil War.
So this Wikipedia page held great interest for me.  A 538 analysis even predicted that overall Barack Obama would be rated 17th in the list of 44, one ahead of Bill Clinton, putting Obama between 'average' and 'above average', which I have to say is fair.  Taking out the 32-day tenure of William Henry Harrison, George W. Bush is in the bottom five.  Shocking is how veneration for Ronald Reagan has reached fever pitch over the last few years - this was a president who should have been impeached for breaking the constitution over the Iran-Contra scandal and whose support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan indirectly led to 9/11, with many more black marks of a lesser nature.  In an ABC poll in the year 2000, he garnered 9% as the greatest president as voted by the American public, in a Washington College Poll in 2005, he got 15% and placed 2nd and in a Gallup Poll in 2011, he scored 19% as the greatest POTUS and was top of the pile.  That's scandalous.  Then again, it is only a fifth of Americans - equally 13% though Bill Clinton was the greatest ever, which is just a bit silly, like people naming greatest ever footballers only by players they've seen in their lifetime.  That is why the lists by scholars are the ones to be most trusted in the long-run.

Cheers and jeers

Congratulations to Celtic on setting the official seal on their procession to the title of the Scottish Premier League, though when there is so little competition in the absence of Rangers (now The Rangers as I know ad nauseam from pointless circular debates on The Telegraph that I had to trawl through when a web moderator).  It's not like in Italy when Juventus were relegated for corruption of referees and there were still other big teams but Internazionale kept on winning titles regardless.  Really, Celtic should go a season unbeaten against such cannon fodder.  Who's going to challenge them?  Aberdeen?  Hibernian?  Certainly not the financially stricken Jam Tarts (Heart of Midlothian).
Saying all this, Celtic deserved to be cheered to the rafters.  It is certainly a contrast to West Ham United winning at home and being booed off by their own supporters - shocking.  People made a fuss about Wes Hoolahan (who the man? Hoolahan) refusing to celebrate scoring against Aston Villa, not because they were an old club to whom he had affection, but because they were a club he had tried to join yet for whom he had never played.  I think boos are never productive (I was only ever once briefly lulled into releasing such easy negativity from my mouth, due to the collective nature around me at the end of a home game Newcastle had lost, before I came to my senses and sealed up) and sure the West Ham performance was ugly and unconvincing, but it will do nothing to inspire the players if they know that whatever they do the crowd will rumble with mutinous dissatisfaction.

Weak branding

The BBC's decision, supposedly as part of Sport Relief, to invite Russell Brand on as a guest analyst on Match of the Day I found to be stretching the bounds of charity too far.  Admittedly, Brand was confined to the West Ham United vs Manchester United match, which wasn't immediately apparent as I came back from a dinner in London (Wahaca near to Waterloo East) to turn on the TV to catch the end of MOTD (and watch the start early on Sunday) and find the self-promoter pontificating.  He was hazily one-sided, only taking lumps out of his own beloved Hammers because he didn't like 'Big Sam' Allardyce's tactics. Alan Shearer may have a habit of stating the obvious and his impartiality is overcooked but at least he gives any side a fair crack if they deserve it.  What I found disgraceful was Brand disrespecting both the audience and his fellow pundits by messing around on his own phone when he didn't have anything to contribute.  Such action would be rude down the pub - to do it on national live television is both amateurish and arrogant.  I was incredulous that Gary Lineker should ask Brand if he wanted to replace the retiring Alan Hansen after such a display.  I might have left the matter there but I find Alan Tyers in The Daily Telegraph sport section championing Brand's cause, in the name of fan-based interactivity, breaking the oligopoly of former players offering their views.  Contrary to what Tyers said, articulate, thoughtful sports people can be found - they just usually aren't box office in the way that Shearer is to the BBC.  And we can do without showboating loudmouths; if not, that's one more reason to only focus on the games and not the analysis and, further, hope that ITV capture the highlights package to give the Beeb 'a time of reflection' before it inevitably wings its way back to BBC1.

Turkish twit

David Cameron was once famously dismissive of the outreach possibilities of Twitter, quoted in a live radio interview and podcast rhetorically asking "how many tweets make a twat."  Popular enough to survive such broadcasting of an offensive word, he was later converted to its potential, launching a No. 10 Downing Street account.  In 2009, following the mass protests against the voting fraud in Iran's presidential election, the White House leaned on Twitter to postpone its scheduled maintenance work so as to allow the Green Movement to try and outflank the brutal crackdown of the authorities.  Despite this, the clerical authorities won but only temporarily, as in 2013, the compromise candidate and relative moderate Hassan Rouhani became president.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, might have been drawing lessons from his country's neighbour from 2009 rather than 2013.  Hie neo-Ottoman foreign policy is in tatters, no matter how many Syrian warplanes his military shoot down and he and his family are involved in serious charges of corruption, spread by the medium of Twitter containing audiofiles of leaked tapes.  Unlike Francis Urquhart, his opponents are at once both too prominent and too numerous to bump off and so Erdogan's house of cards, if not tumbling, are facing a breeze that could cause slippage.  This would explain his quixotic attempt to ban Twitter in Turkey.
Inevitably, it failed, not least because outraged Twitter users urged on Facebook and YouTube others to join Twitter.  This led to a rise of 138% in Twitter use in the 24 hours after he announced the ban.  Facebook and YouTube are now on Erdogan's hit list too.  Popular president, Abdullah Gul, from the same AKP party as Erdogan, bitingly used Twitter to denounce the ban.
Erdogan blames his former mentor and svengali Fethullah Gulen for the firestorm that has engulfed the prime minister.  Gulen's network has significant influence in the police and judiciary (helping to bring the armed forces under proper civilian control) and the Sunni cleric has split the AKP's conservative base.  Falling foul of svengalis is always dangerous.  Ichiro Ozawa jumped ship from the Liberal Democratic Party that had ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955 and, as the Democratic Party of Japan's secretary-general masterminded the latter's assent to power.  However, once in office, the leadership found his meddling infuriating and attempts to sideline Ozawa prompted another domestic tug-of-war, that did nothing for the prospects of the DPJ or the Empire of Nippon in general.
It should be remembered that for all the repression in Vladimir Putin's Russia, Turkey has more journalists in jail.  The Kurdish issue refuses to go away.  And it seems that three consecutive terms have dulled Erdogan's judgement (as it did with Margaret Thatcher).  He seems to conflate Turkey with himself - referring to the downing of the Syrian plane, he thundered  'if you violate my airspace, our slap after this will be hard'.  Talk of 'my nation's security' (the favourite fallback of tyrants and spooks), as if he had personal ownership of Turkey, is not a massive leap to say 'my security'.  Power has corrupted him, fulfilling Lord Acton's warning of its tendency (if not absolutely for he does not have absolute power).  Whether Erdogan matches Acton's corollary that 'great men are almost always bad men' remains to be seen.  Dismissing accusations of intolerance by western and domestic critics by saying "I don't care who it is. I'm not listening," is not promising.

Windermere wilderness

Since joining The Telegraph Announcements team, I have been quite pernickety about geographical terms.  Yorkshire is always a big battle - North Yorkshire can have a capital 'n' for 'north' but east, west and south Yorkshire must all be lower-cased for their geographical location (though one can have the East Riding of Yorkshire and the West Riding of Yorkshire).  Incidentally, I did something of a record for myself yesterday - though I have placed more than 42 advertisements previously, the units were 4,931 (essentially 493 column centimetres depth), raising £16,721.68.  I had some massive ads, one cost £648, another £930, there was a school notice in there and the thanksgiving service for Lady Diana Kemp-Welch costs nearly £4,000, with a staggering 250 lines (4 lines to a column centimetre depth).
Windermere is one however that everyone should know about and that Gary Lineker called it Lake Windermere on last night's Sports Relief.  Of course, he's reading off an autocue, so the person who conceived the script should get a slap but Windermere is famous for its sports and Lineker should have picked up that.  In place names, 'mere' means lake.  Would you say the Rio Grande River, Gary?
Deserts are another trouble, even for professional atlas makers.  Sahara should never have the suffix of 'desert' as the local name name for desert is Sahara.  But the same goes for Gobi - desert in Mongolian - yet even respectable atlases have Gobi Desert.  Grr.

Shame of the West?

One of my Finnish friends said "This week I've become quite intensely ashamed of being a European, and if you happen to be one too then so should you. It wouldn't take an awful lot to give Russia's economy the little nudge that would make it collapse in its own built-in kleptocratic shitness, and thereby make the rest of the world a somewhat better place."

Harsh on the Russians who don't agree with the policies advocated from Moscow.  Tens of thousands of Russians marched through the capital against the Crimean aggression, putting at risk their lives and liberties.  No surprise that the authorities labelled the protestors as little better than traitors.  If we continue in the spirit adopted by Vladimir Putin and his coterie, Finland should annex Vyborg and rename it Viipuri. Putin can't complain because once upon a time Finland owned it for 410 years (1323-1710 and 1917-1940), knocking into a cocked hat Russia's rule over Crimea of 171 years (1783-1954). Okay, 387 of those years was under Swedish domination but Finland is the successor state in the space vacated by Stockholm (through the unusual medium where the Russian tsar was merely the Grand Duke of Finland - taking into account Russian rule, Finnish ownership of Viipuri can be extended another 108 years).  This shouldn't overly concern us though; after all, the view from the Kremlin has this as the new normal.  The trouble is Russia has lots of (ageing) nukes - the USA is probably treading carefully because it wants to maintain the arrangement where US officials can check the safety of the silos (the treaty was renewed as recently as 2009). Germany is treading carefully because Russia has it over a barrel, (almost) literally, through energy dependency.

The shadowy elite

The term 'grey cardinal' referred to originally François LeClerc du Tremblay, the right-hand man of Cardinal Richelieu. Leclerc was a Capuchin friar renowned for his beige robe attire, as beige was termed "grey" in that era. The title 'His Eminence' is used to address or refer to a Roman Catholic cardinal. Although Leclerc never achieved the rank of cardinal, those around him addressed him as such in deference to the considerable influence this 'grey' friar held over 'His Eminence the Cardinal'. Hence éminence grise (French for 'grey eminence').  Grey cardinals are the power behind the throne who operate covertly and seek to not draw attention to themselves.

Vladislav Surkov has been seen as the grey cardinal in the Kremlin, the architect of Sovereign Democracy (stage-managed ballots) and who helped engineer the 31st December 1999 handover of power from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin. Surkov has been slapped with travel bans and asset freezes by the USA, as part of their feeble targeted response to Russia's aggression in the Crimea (it does indeed seem that to the West, Ukraine is "a faraway country of which we know little."  Forget Anschluss and the Sudetenland for the moment, this is comparable to applying sanctions to Italy for conquering Abyssinia but excluding the war-enabling resource of oil from that list), but they may have missed the true targets.

Professor Richard Sakwa convincingly identified two factions within Russia, each operating their own parallel administration, making it a dual state.  There were the liberal constitutionalists who wanted to ensure Russian governance operated according to the rule of law and then there were the siloviki, members of the defence and security establishment who loathed the West, were aggressive and conservative and scoffed at compromise.  Vladimir Putin maintained his own power by playing off one side against the other, but with the denial of a second term as president for Dmitry Medvedev, the constitutionalists were routed and the siloviki were triumphant.  The latter had declared previously that "Putinism would continue, with or without Putin."  Assuming the presidency from Medvedev by Putin may have seemed purely cosmetic from a Western point of view, as the former KGB man was an incredibly powerful prime minister (and Medvedev returned to a premiership much truncated), but Putin may have been trying to guarantee his own political survival, if as a prisoner of the siloviki.  Those tears in Red Square when he was 'elected' for a third term were probably genuine but he may have been crying for the loss of his own room for manoeuvre.  He had been captured.
It is all reminiscent of the dying days of the Eastern Han Dynasty at the end of second century AD China.  Contrary to their often beneficial roles within the Byzantine Empire (Narses even reconquered Italy for the last time when given the resources denied to Belisarius), eunuchs have had a largely negative impact on Chinese history.  Ming Emperor Hongwu, in the 14th century, took note of the lessons of his history and banned eunuchs from court, only for his ruthless son, the Yongle Emperor, to restore them to favour.  I digress.  Returning to the Eastern Han, students from the Imperial University organized a widespread protest against the eunuchs of Emperor Huan's court, amidst general alienation of the bureaucracy.  Palace eunuchs imprisoned the official Li Ying and his associates from the Imperial University on a dubious charge of treason. In AD 167, the Grand Commandant Dou Wu convinced his son-in-law, Emperor Huan, to release them.  However the emperor permanently barred Li Ying and his associates from serving in office, marking the beginning of the Partisan Prohibitions (where officials were imprisoned and even executed). Following Huan's death, Grand Commandant Dou Wu and the Grand Tutor Chen Fan attempted a coup d'état against the eunuchs Hou Lan, Cao Jie and Wang Fu. When the plot was uncovered, the eunuchs arrested the Empress Dowager, Dou and Chen Fan. General Zhang Huan favoured the eunuchs.  He and his troops confronted Dou Wu and his retainers at the palace gate where each side shouted accusations of treason against the other. When the retainers gradually deserted Dou Wu, he was forced to commit suicide.  Under Emperor Ling (r. AD 168–189), the eunuchs had the partisan prohibitions renewed and expanded, while themselves auctioning off top government offices. Many affairs of state were entrusted to the eunuchs Zhao Zhong and Zhang Rang while Emperor Ling spent much of his time roleplaying (with concubines) and participating in military parades.
Roleplaying and participating in military parades.  Of whom does this remind us?  A corrupt clique auctioning off top government offices (and by extension state assets).  This could apply to many countries but Russia also fits the bill.  Medvedev, who was of the liberal constitutionalist faction, may be said to be like Dou Wu, politically emasculated and a busted flush.  According to Sakwa, for a long time there was uncertainty as to which faction would triumph, whether Medvedev would get a second term as president or if Putin would return as formal chief executive (rather than de facto).  As Putin was already operating many of his former presidential powers as prime minister, it is entirely conceivable that he was cajoled back into a formal position (or be deposed along with Medvedev).  The likes of Igor Sechin, former Deputy Prime Minister and now head of energy firm Rosneft, are the ones pulling the strings now.
The eunuchs, having broken the power of the bureaucracy, were themselves eliminated by the military when Emperor Ling died, 2,000 perishing when the main palaces of the capital Luoyang were stormed by the army.  Imperial authority was rapidly disintegrating and by AD 220, there were three states in place of the empire.  Russia is a polyglot state where many constituent parts could secede if not institutionalised or ruled by a firm hand.  As the former is now unlikely in the short- to medium-term, the brutal application of Sovereign Democracy will continue.  It may be nice and Hollywood to have one overarching bad guy, but it could be Putin that has to twist in the wind as the siloviki act.  Two weeks ago, he said categorically that Russia had no ambitions in Crimea.  He could have been lying as power-grabbing dictators are known to do but equally the siloviki could have pushed ahead and Putin made a great play about still being in charge.  Vladislav Surkov was seen as of a more liberal hue forming a counterbalance when brought back into the Kremlin's inner circle, so it was ironic that he was one of those punished by the USA.  With Crimea, the siloviki have shown they are firmly entrenched.

Save the pound

In the doomed 2001 election campaign by the Conservatives in which they made a net gain of a solitary seat, William Hague pandered to the Maastricht rebels to had captured the party from One Nation Tories (epitomised by Hague's successor being Iain Duncan Smith).  His rallying cry was 'Save the Pound', essentially turning the Tories into a single-issue party.  But at least UKIP were not a threat.  Labour MP Stephen Pound even turned it to his advantage, adopting the phrase for his (successful) re-election run - although as he was later humiliated over missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (being such an ardent advocate of their existence), this arguably makes 'Save the Pound' the most toxic phrase in British parliamentary history.
Yet we have such phrases as 'sound as pound' and 'quids in' as common-or-garden accoutrements to our language.  That made the Tories' attempt to tap into a popular consciousness as risible as Hague wearing a baseball cap at the Notting Hill Carnival.  Some folksy things work, some don't.  The fact that for many years the pound coin has been the subject of mass counterfeiting has surely not helped.
£45m worth of pound coins are fake out of a total circulation of £1.5bn.  A one in 30 problem may not seem vast though I think some parts of the country are unevenly affected.  In the Medway area, I feel sure that one in three pounds coins are suspect.  The Royal Mint has been messing about with the weights of coins for years, making the entry of the dodgy coins into the money supply all the easier.  You hold a pound coin in your hand and the weight feels too light, the gold sheen unrealistic - criminal professionalism has gone beyond malleable metal that leaves easily identified dents.  When I get pound coins I try to pass them on to another retailer as soon as I can.
The Bank of England must be of the opinion that this lack of confidence in pound coins is widespread.  Hence the introduction of a new twelve-sided, two-tone pound coin, the disruption to vending machines and the like being seen as worth it clearly - parking operators have long expressed the concerns of motorists when 'pound coins' are rejected by the parking meters.  The dominance of the car in British life reaffirmed.
It will be like the threepenny coin (the way the pound constantly falls in relative value will be worth the same in the not too distant future as well) though whether it acquires the idiomatic colloquialism of 'thrupenny bit' (similar to how forecastle is abbreviated to fo'c'sle) remains to be seen.  The Queen will be on one side of the coin as usual.  A competition will be launched for the design of the other side, though why it can't be constantly revised like the two-pound coin, I don't know.  The new pound will be the most secure coinage in the world.  If it inspires even the same confidence as I have in the two-pound coin, it will be very successful.

Vexed vexillology and the Wild East

When The Guardian launched an online competition to see how the rest of the UK (rUK) would reimagine its flag should Scotland separate and take St. Andrew's saltire with it, announcing the results that were not much different to the current Union Flag (the most popular replacing blue with black), stating "most of us are too snobby to muck about with pictures, hallmark that they are of parvenu states like Canada or Brazil."  How New Zealand's prime minister, John Key, would react to that could be interesting given that he has proposed a referendum on the constitution of his country's flag within three years, his personal preference being the silver fern.  Of a more filigree pedigree than Canada's blocky maple leaf, it still imitates newcomer countries such as Lebanon (with its cedar) or Cyprus with a gold/copper picture of the island against a white background.
It's a shame that given all the political crisis over Crimea that it endured less than 24 hours of independence before it was absorbed into the Russian Charbydis, without a chance to craft its own flag.  This is not surprising though, given that the former prime minister of the Crimea (and alleged organised crime boss) Sergey Aksyonov was surrounded by Russian aides as he and his party - which polled less than 4% in the last local Crimean elections - overthrew the legitimate Crimean parliament at gunpoint.  With a stroke of his pen, Vladimir Putin abolished notional Crimean independence.
Given the tentative western sanctions, André Villas-Boas seemed no have no qualms about taking up the head coach post at Zenit St. Petersburg.  After he departed Chelsea, natural homes were either Italy (where his mentor José Mourinho went after his first Stamford Bridge departure) or the eastern fringes of UEFA in Russia or the Ukraine.  Instead, he pitched up surprisingly at Tottenham Hotspur, only finally beginning an 'eastern sabbatical' as he rebuilds his managerial reputation.  The risibility with which a predecessor at White Hart Lane, Juande Ramos, was held made predictions about where he would next pitch up pointing if not to the edge of outer darkness, at least away from the glamour clubs of western Europe.  Again Ukraine and Russia were though most likely destinations, but within weeks after leaving the Lane, he was coaching Real Madrid (until the end of the season) where his good work in Seville was remembered and where there was no language barrier.  Only now does he find himself at Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.  So the doom-mongers were right after a long and roundabout hiatus.  It is not surprising, given the events in Ukraine, that all teams from the country exited European competition in the last round.  Zenit St. Petersburg is headed the same way in the Champions League, with Borussia Dortmund tonking them 4-2 on the former's own ground.  This is the most damage that Germany will inflict on Russia for punishment over Crimea (Putin was born in then-Leningrad) because the Kremlin has Berlin over a barrel (in more ways than one) on energy.  The pipeline under the Baltic Sea that bypassed Ukraine was negotiated by former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who promptly joined the board of Gazprom when he lost (narrowly) the general election he had called.  In light of Russia's increasingly fascistic behaviour (there is no other word for it - aggressive governmental nationalism that snatches land away from its neighbours on grounds of unifying with minorities outside its territory), Schröder's actions come across as treason.

Back in the USSR with you, Crimea!

Aha, so we see the standard communist tactic of a referendum with '97%' of all who voted plumping for 'returning' to Russia (the Kremlin has already framed the debate to the extent that western commentators trying to be neutral talk about reunification rather than mere unification or adhesion - it's plain annexation).  I'd like to see the turnout figures but I'd imagine they would be similarly doctored in a ballot that no independent observers were allowed to oversee.  Albania once got 99.99% on an internal referendum in favour of the programme of the Communist Party there (an administrative error meant it failed to get complete consent).  Still Albania and Crimea, while impressive, aren't quite as good as Saddam Hussein who, under pressure from George W Bush in the years between 9/11 and the 2003 invasion, organised a referendum on his rule.  100% voted positively for his continuous rule.  What a popular guy he was!
Of course, when all 'national' TV and radio is broadcast from Moscow (with its propaganda) rather than Kiev, Russian troops have flooded the peninsula and placed all Ukrainian forces under lockdown, where no locals are allowed in or out of Crimea, when the ballot paper has options either for joining Russia or effectively making Crimea independent and no option for the status quo, the ballot is held one week after being announced by the authorities, when Russian music blares out of polling stations and where the self-proclaimed Crimean president declares of his certainty of a vote for union with Russia, to get only 97% is a pretty poor show.  Let's ignore that before the crisis, only 41% of Crimeans were polled as wishing to join Russia.
The Kremlin claims that an armed coup forced out Viktor Yanokovych, but it was he who fled and the parliament, not the protestors, who organised a new government.  There has been an armed coup in the Ukraine and that is the one engineered by Russia in the Crimea.  I can understand the West's rollout of ever harder sanctions on a gradual basis rather than using the nuclear option (economically) straightaway as it leaves open the door for negotiations.  But the time is rapidly approaching when the City of London and Wall Street must close their exchanges to Russian business and refuse to allow Russian energy firms to denominate their transactions in sterling, dollars, yen, euros (or any other western currency).  Russia will then turn to China, thus in making Crimea its protectorate, Russia will become a protectorate of Beijing to stave off dire economic straits (Russia was already suffering capital flight that hadn't previously been deterred by a lack of the rule of law).  Was Crimea worth all that?

Craven surrender

Today's match at Fulham Football Club did not go according to plan for anyone of a black-and-white persuasion, not least because in my weekly office sweepstakes, Newcastle United were one of my picks to win.  I was effectively playing double or quits as to attend in person would be a fairly miserable experience should the Toon lose.  Which I did and they did.
After the District Line dicked me around, a brisk walk from Putney Bridge ensured I got there just in time for kick-off.  My seat was located in the middle of a bank of Fulham supporters and seemed occupied to boot.  Rather have some argy-bargy and waving my ticket (all the while wearing a Magpies top under my shirt), I elected to sit down on one of two unoccupied seats by the aisle.  Luckily, no-one came to claim them.
The first half was largely uninteresting - the kind of game that football critics love to mock - distinguished only by a decent save by Tim Krul, the same from his opposite number David Stockdale and a chant from the away section, "We kno-ow, oh yes, we kno-ow, Alan Pardew, we know where you are."  My pick would be to have the banned gaffer stand where Michael Jackson's statue used to be, just to say,  "I'm not IN the stadium."
A gaggle of ladies arrived some way in after the match had started, prompting one fan to tell them, "you've already missed half of the first half," a statement of unerring accuracy as the clock told 22 minutes, 30 seconds as he finished speaking.  They hadn't missed much and in the stinging sunshine, the temptation to briefly nod off was too great for the old man sitting next to me.
The sight of Howard Webb unnerved me as he is at best a bad luck charm to The Tyneside club, at worst anti-Newcastle.  Here though he seemed in lenient mood to Newcastle's cause but misfortune still befell the Magpies.  Second halves by the banks of the River Thames have a notoriety for hurting Newcastle, Fulham usually scoring the winning goal (or more) then, after duelling with mediocrity in the first 45 minutes.  Craven Cottage has buried better Newcastle sides than today's one, going back to John Carver's first appointment at the club as coach under Sir Bobby Robson.  The second half was a siege barring two brief, ineffectual sallies from Newcastle.  After little more than a minute, they had the ball past Krul in the net but it was ruled out for offside.  The linesman was terrific as he had the sun in his eyes for the entirety of the match, the blazing orb only 'going-in' at half-time before re-emerging at the restart!
United had no answer to Fulham's higher tempo.  Loic Remy, Hatem ben Arfa and Davide Santon were all injured, Yohan Cabaye had of course been sold and thus there was no creativity.  There was little motivation either after a European place receded even further following the FA Cup that ensures either Hull City or Sheffield United will be playing Europa League football.  Relegation, while not mathematically impossible, is not going to happen.
Fulham had another goal disallowed for offside but then, when things had calmed down, made the breakthrough through substitute Ashkan Dejagah.  The Iranian with the unfortunate first name fired in from a long way and Krul should have saved it.  Towards the end of the game Dejagah picked up an injury and so the substitute was substituted.
With such a small squad with nothing play for, had Pardew been around to growl from the touchline, the result would have been the same.  In fact, had Fulham not won it would have been a travesty.  So Felix Magath records his first win as manager but it probably is not enough to spark a dash for survival - Newcastle were that poor.

Benn and gone

The recently late trade union boss Robert Crow was a fierce anti-monarchist, believing that we should have Anthony Wedgwood Benn as our president, because this scion of the aristocracy (alright, I concede, his father was the first to nobbled, I mean enobled) who renounced his title (didn't save nobility in Revolutionary France) would be representative of ordinary, working people.  Of course, Tony Benn was a radical left-winger, living the paradox of a class-warrior desiring a classless society yet obsessed with class (in an inverse way to the toffs he abandoned), yet always cunning enough to describe his oratories and diatribes as encouraging (Lenin could have said the same thing had the October Revolution never come to pass).
The eulogies from acolytes, friends and foe are flowing, from those who are still alive at least for Benn lived to a prodigious age.  He proved the adage that, along with whores and buildings, that age brings respectability.  I must say he came across to me as a national treasure but I only really knew Benn after he had ceased to be active politically.  It was almost two-fingers up at the Labour party 'modernisers' that when he stepped down from his constituency seat in Chesterfield, it was taken by the Liberal Democrats, though ironically it was the activities of Benn and the Militant movement that ultimately led to the creation of the Lib Dems when the Social Democratic Party broke away from a Labour party that seemed to seek political oblivion, SDP later merging with the Liberals.  Though ridiculed in the exultant Tory press as the height of triviality, the campaign for deputy leader of the Labour party proved a turning point because with Benn's defeat, the Labour party could leave the wilderness and return to the centre ground and electability (at a general election).  Every party must have 'conviction' politicians to shake things up a bit (though everyone has convictions of one hue or another), to set out an opening position on political philosophy.  But politics requires compromise and that opening position must be bartered to a point where it can find some common ground with an opposing philosophy.  This is why modern democratic parties have to be broad churches.  Tony Benn did find a cabinet post yet found it stifling.  A standard conviction locks you up, taking you away from affecting society and Benn chose a personal prison rather than achieve half a loaf (not as good as a full loaf but better than nothing).  Again in another irony, though he scorned dynastic pretensions, he perpetuated a political dynasty (after his father and grandfather), finding its current apogee in his son Hilary Benn (who was a lot more reasonable and thus eminently forgettable but so useful in the service of the ship of state and now providing a credible opposition).
I always remember Benn most not through his television or radio interviews and speeches but something more personal as a second-hand source.  My paternal grandmother when she was still alive, fondly recalled Wedgey Benn when she worked in Millbank as a personal secretary in the 1960s, how she often shared a lift with him and his pipe.  She never said that they held a conversation of any consequence and she didn't always agree with his politics but as they ascended the building, what she expressed about him - though not in such words - was that he had presence. She may have genially mocked him as Wedgey Benn but the respect was always there and Benn earned that from the country at large.

Get outta my ground!

I guess we'll now see how much influence Alan Pardew does wield with his team in the course of a match.  Banned from attending a stadium for three matches and banned from the touchline for a further four, it's open to question whether he should consider a self-imposed touchline exile for the rest of the career, to spare Newcastle United further blushes.  Proportionate to the head-nudge that it was, the punishment will not overly hurt the Magpies (as some commentators wanted it to as a way of getting at Pardew) as they are in no danger of relegation and now even seventh place won't be enough for European football (of which more later).  Two of the three matches with stadium bans will be at St James' Park so barring half-time team talk (of which eye-gouger Mourinho said only half a dozen words to his team drawing a blank at Fulham before going on to win) and tactical substitutions and tweaks, it is not of massive inconvenience, as Pardew will be able to brief the squad just before they leave the training complex.  It's not as if John Carver is incapable as a deputy - he currently has a 100% record as a stand-in coach (in the match after Sir Bobby Robson was sacked).  The one away match is Fulham and their season also seems over, with relegation hovering like Banquo's Ghost over their remaining games.
Talking of the drop, Charlton Athletic were bidding fair to be the first third tier team ever to enter European competition.  After their defeat in Yorkshire, that mantle will now be taken on by Sheffield United in an eminently winnable game against Hull City at Wembley.  The Addicks can have their revenge next season - when they face the Blades in the same division.  Then again, the team from The Valley is only three points behind fourth-from-bottom Millwall but with four games in hand.  This is why it was so inexplicable that Chris Powell, Charlton legend should have been sacked, especially as only days earlier he was talking about being near to signing an extension to his contract.  But the new owner already had his own man lined up and was just itching to parachute him in and a quarter-final defeat in the same weekend that Charlton sunk to the basement of the Championship (their four relegation rivals all won) seemed to be opportune.  The Championship seems to be going the way of the Premier League with foreign managers easing out doughty British ones.  Scandalously, after the departures of Powell and Paul Ince at Blackpool, there is only one black manager in all the 92 clubs in the league pyramid and Chris Hughton's job security at Norwich City is precarious to say the least.
A fortnight ago, despite the season's woes, Manchester United could console themselves with a Europa League place next season, where the victors get a bye straight to the Champions League of the following season (making a Europa League trophy defence even less likely).  Now that Manchester City were eliminated from the FA Cup by holders Wigan Athletic (and would have been drawn against Arsenal anyway), only 5th and 6th place will be good enough to get European football and Man Utd should be grateful that their city rivals were successful in winning the League Cup.  Of course, three into two does not go and so they have to stay ahead of either Tottenham or Everton to avoid the indignity of a season without European football.  Spurs are four points ahead but sinking as the players know Sherwood will be gone at the end of the season while Everton are level with a game in hand (against strugglers Crystal Palace), so it will be quite some scramble between those three teams to avoid finishing 7th come May.  In days gone by, such a 'battle' would seem a trifling irrelevance but the booby prize of the Europa League has a pot of gold at the end of it.

No more crowing

The death of Bob Crow is truly shocking and not just because he was only 52-years old.  He was one of the major political figures in this country and, like Michael Moore, revelled in the revulsion of his critics.  Union leaders aren't always that well-known, Len McCluskey of UNITE possibly vying fro the crown of most famous/notorious, but Bob Crow's mannerisms, bluster and determination made him a significant figure beyond the RMT union and its partial hegemony on the London Underground - a 'communist/socialist', had he lived in the USSR in the early 1920s, he no doubt would have had a city (re-)named after him.
The coincidence was that he was interviewed over a lunch, broadcast by PM yesterday.  When he mentioned about seeing the bankers in the Bank of England counting the money in his distinctive East End idiom, I idly thought 'I wonder what his obituary would say', expecting such a notice to be decades away in the future.  That contributes to broadside from leftfield of the announcement.
Crow harked back to an era when 'Emperor Jones' (Jack Jones) and his fellow trade union leaders wielded immense political power over the governments of the 1970s.  Apart from appearing on Question Time and constantly having to defend living in a council house when on £150,000 per annum, Crow's direct operations were largely confined to London.  His power in the Labour movement though could not be denied.

Red Ed gives me a blast!

Is it any coincidence that on the same day that John Rambo's original opening in First Blood is shown on TV (incongruously on the SyFy channel), Ed Miliband says he will offer more protection to soldiers who are maltreated by certain elements of the general population?  Probably.

Living it up, wolfing it down

Though 12 Years a Slave, Gravity and Dallas Buyers' Club were the big winners at the 2014 Oscars, American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street.  While the vibe was that the last one would not win big, especially as Martin Scorsese, its director, was given a lifetime achievement award when winning Best Director for The Departed, there were hopes that Leonardo DiCaprio would finally break his Oscars duck. Ultimately, that was forlorn as the runaway train of sentiment for Best Actor behind Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club could not be caught, just as it was for Sandra Bullock when she won Best Actress for The Blind Side - a popular persona that had never previously been seen to scale the heights of the profession (McConaughey being the subject of some savage take-downs by Family Guy) who had finally 'realised his potential' - it was 'his year' to win, partly maybe because he would never have another shot at it again.  If DiCaprio can console himself after a fifth Oscars nomination without consummation, he can be sure that his talent will bring him to the podium eventually (although maybe when it won't be his best performance), he just needs to talk to Scorsese.
The Wolf of Wall Street has been hailed as Martin Scorsese's best film since 1990's Goodfellas and indeed it follows a similar narrative arc to that 1992 outing (and Casino for that matter as well) - aspiring hoodlum makes a few mistakes but ultimately scores in the big time, hubris takes over, the cops close in, confessions and jail time for some big fish follow, concluding with a gradual winding down of the previous life.  Like Ray Liotta's Henry Hill who "For as long as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster'" the Jordan Belfort of DiCaprio always wanted to be a stockbroker.  While stockbroking may seem more respectable than racketeering, Scorsese makes no bones about the gangsterism inherent in each.  Jordan Belfort, like Henry Hill, is a real-life character whose book provided the inspiration for the film.  However, whereas at the conclusion of Goodfellas, Hill is in the witness protection programme condemned to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life, Belfort is forcibly humbled but his personality remains unchanged, perfectly illustrated by Belfort himself playing a character who introduces his cinematic alter-ego.
Ironically considering their Oscars' brush, Matthew McConaughey is also a key figure in The Wolf of Wall Street (and yes, once again, his shirt top comes off), but this is DiCaprio's tour de force.  The cast is largely unstarry, with Jonah Hill, Jon Favereau, Rob Reiner plus (uncredited) Spike Jonze, Joanna Lumley and Ray Winstone (Winstone plays an American PI whose East End accent constantly threatens to break through and dump him in the River Lea) - this though allows DiCaprio to take centre stage and, as Scorsese's replacement for Robert De Niro, he gives full vent to megalomaniacal charisma.  Gordon Gekko was a workaholic; Belfort wants to have fun as well.
This is not to say that Scorsese approves of Belfort, making repeated efforts to belittle him, not least his premature ejaculation.  Though of course with a feed-through to reality, Belfort shows a predator's callousness when he learns of the death of his in-law, Aunt Emma (Lumley) because she had been doing a money-laundering run to Switzerland, but unless he could forge her signature within 24 hours, he would lose the $20m she had stashed away for him.  His recklessness ends up costing $40m as not only does he not make it in time but in a dash across the Mediterranean, they run into the storm the captain predicted and the luxury yacht with its two helicopters goes down.  Though initially rock-solid in their denials, when the first domino falls, after an initial act of camarderie that is met with betrayal, Belfort sells out all of his long-term colleagues to save his own skin.
Any movie at three hours has to be a pretty lean beast to keep audiences from shuffling in their seats and Scorsese largely accomplishes this.  It won't win any prizes for editing: at one point Hill's Donnie knocks over a glass of beer off a parapet and we hear the smash.  In the next shot the beer is back in its original place, another change of perspective has the beer gone again.  It was surprising that this continuity error wan't picked up as there is then a slow-mo descent of the beer glass (in some sort of flashback as Belfort narrates).  Also, Belfort's second wife Naomi is described as being the ultimate fashionista but would she really wear the exact same design of knee-high boots ten years on after she had first worn them (not least through the wear and tear they would have suffered)?  The drug-taking experiences of DiCaprio's Belfort makes me wonder if Scorsese's own massive consumption had any input into the portrayal.
Apparently, the lack of a moral comeuppance for Belfort (who has a comfortable and short prison existence) prompted many to walk out or express their anger.  Maybe they were the ones duped by the likes of Belfort, tempted by A-list shares before being lured on to the rocks of penny stocks.  Unaffected as I am, I can view it more dispassionately and it is a great film. 4.5 out of 5.

No spoonful of sugar for the medicine

In the two-part BBC documentary The Men Who Made Us Fat, it was explained with devastating clarity how American farm surpluses led to sugar extraction from corn syrup that was then pumped into our food and drink.  Ironically, low-fat foods were more unhealthy than foods with normal fat levels, as to maintain the taste that was lost when the fat was removed, these foods had to be supplemented with large amounts of sugar and if the energy released by sugar isn't burnt up in vigorous exercise, it leads to greater fat deposits.  Low-fat foods are one of the greatest cons of our time, a fact partially recognised when some food and drink labels state 'no added sugar'.
The stand-off in Crimea solidified with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, making nonsense statements, insisting that the new interim government return to the agreement signed with Viktor Yanukovych before the then current Ukrainian president fled, even though Lavrov's boss, Vladimir Putin insists Yanukovych has no political future.  At home, people were focused on the closure of BBC3 (inevitable) from television broadcast or how England would struggle to beat Denmark at Wembley (inevitable) in football.
With these issues swirling, it may have been overlooked what a momentous statement was made by the World Health Organisation (WHO).  For the first time ever, they introduced guidelines as to how much sugar should be consumed by people. The daily amount per person was set at six teaspoons of sugar - the average fizzy drink can (330ml) contains ten teaspoons of sugar.  This might seem dry and a case of stating the obvious but tellingly in The Men Who Made Us Fat, the sugar industry has lobbied the WHO ferociously for decades against releasing any briefing paper that even hinted at advising us to reduce our sugar intake.  The sugar companies, who made their millions initially through slavery, had moved from indentured labour to indentured consumers, whereby people became dependent on sugar.  That the WHO has taken this brave step makes our world inestimably a better place, as if the WHO takes this stance, it enters into health practice and discourse and it starts a path towards tackling the food and drinks world's sugar addiction.  Further, it may give succour to the Westminster parliamentarians who are seeking to introduce limits on sugar in our diets.  Eventually, sugar will be seen in the same way as grease and transfats.

The Crimean war

As the Mongol Khanate of the Golden Horde began to fragment, one of its successor states was the Khanate of the Crimea.  This came to cover most of what is modern Ukraine.  In the 15th century, if fell to vassal status under the rising Ottoman Empire.  As Moscow began its steady rise, the territory of the Crimea was chipped away until in 1783 the Khanate was annexed outright by Russia under Catherine the Great.  In 1954, Nikita Krushchev, in a romantic gesture commemorating the 900th anniversary of the death of Yaroslav the Wise (a famous leader of the Kievan Rus), handed administration of Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, never thinking for once that the Soviet Union would collapse before pure communism was realised.  And so we are at the pretty pass today.
Under the terms of the 1994 Budapest agreement, where Ukraine swapped its Soviet-era nuclear weapons for Russia guaranteeing its economic and territorial integrity, Russia was allowed to station 25,000 troops in the Crimea.  The Kremlin is taking full advantage of that clause but by occupying government buildings and airports and severing the internet and phone connections with Ukraine north of the Perekop isthmus it is violating all the other clauses of the settlement.  Russia is just itching for Ukraine to start a fight with it and exercising maximum provocation.  The new interim government's decision to rescind a language law that made Russian a second official language in area where the majority were ethnic Russian was coarse and unnecessary.  But it was exercising its right as a sovereign state.
The Kremlin is indulging in its usual Orwellian double-speak.  Dmitry Medvedev said Russia was ready to develop links with Ukraine but not with "those who seized power through bloodshed."  The blood was shed by Viktor Yanukovych's decision to start shooting unarmed protestors, on orders from Moscow, so if Medvedev had an honest bone in his body that would mean Yanukovych.  However, since stepping down as president, Medvedev is a busted flush with as much freedom as a ventriloquist's dummy.  This is the most brazen attempt to take over territory by a major power on the question of minority rights since the disastrous Munich Conference over the Sudeten Germans (which prompted the United Nations to drop the promise of the League of Nations to protect 'minority rights' and replace it with a promise to protect 'human rights').  Comparisons with the Nazis are often risible but I can think of no other parallel in the intervening 70 years (unless one references the seizure of Memelland from Lithuania in 1939) on the question of minorities prompting a land grab - a despicable act but distinct from the more heinous crimes of the Nazis, so I think the parallel if justified.
Russia has form.  It sent in 'peacekeepers' to separate the Moldovans from the renegade Transdnistrian Republic.  They were supposed to leave once they had decomissioned a major military base in Transdnistria (with its majority ethnic Russian population).  The base is still there, as are the 'peacekeepers'.  Russian peacekeepers are still in Tajikistan after ending the civil war there.  And they are there on 20% of sovereign Georgian territory, protecting the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvilli walked into the trap set by Moscow's provocation and attacked South Ossetia's capital, Tskinvali.  This was nothing to do with Abkhazia but that wasn't going to stop Russia.  And so, a referendum to secede is set for the 28th May, the same day as national Ukrainian elections and the result will be rigged so that it is answered in the affirmative.  Then Russia can either annex it outright or treat it like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which along with only four other countries it treats as independent states (only in Transdnistria has Russia withheld its recognition).
The revolution in Kiev was bottom-up - a few nationalists to serve as muscle but mostly ordinary citizens angry at the looting of the country and increasing authoritarian character of Yanukovych.  The revolution in Crimea is top down - directed from Moscow and carried out by Russian special forces.  If Kiev's interim government take any military action, the Donetsk region too could be snatched away.  For Vladimir Putin, payback over Kosovo is never-ending.  If there is to be a more low-level Cold War (without the threat of thermonuclear destruction) as Sir Malcolm Rifkind says, then Putin will take the lion's share of responsibility for that.

Losing one's head

In 2003, the BBC described Alan Pardew as 'a dangerous and distant animal'.  More than a decade on,  the Newcastle Utd manager has fully justified that tag with his senseless headbutt of a Hull City player.  Now, it wasn't a Glasgow Kiss of brutal proportions but the jerk of the head conveyed intent and it is disingenuous of Pardew to claim that he was trying to move 'the victim' away with his head.  It is inexcusable and the Football Association should punish him heavily.  I would say though that it shouldn't be more than five games stadium ban otherwise they risk making this rash rush of blood to the head worse than Nicolas Anelka's long-planned anti-Semitic gesture (the quenelle - the reverse Nazi salute popularised by an anti-Semitic 'comedian') - Anelka should have been banned for longer and now the FA is in a bind by such leniency.
As is pointed out ad infinitum, Pardew has 'previous', instantly associating him with criminality as well as recidivism.  This witch hunt to drive him out of football is to what I object to the commentariat.  Robbie Savage has lost all perspective and said it is worse than Luis Suarez's biting of  Branislav Ivanovic because Pardew is a manager.  Pardew was pushed out of the way by a former Sunderland player and this brought up his anger - a headbutt is a standard expression of violence by many.  Biting someone (and in Suarez's case this is more than once) is a particular kind of vicious derangement.  Let us not forget flavour of the month Jose Mourinho who extended his Chelsea team's lead at the top of the Premier League today but when he was manager of Real Madrid he tried to gouge out the eye of then Barcelona assistant coach Tito Villanova in a pre-meditated attack after a Copa del Rey match.  For me, that is far worse than Pardew losing his mind and temper.  And Mourinho has previous, impugning incorrectly the NHS in the Reading area after his goalkeeper had a head injury - no apology ever came from Mourinho.  He also contributed to the early retirement of referee Anders Frisk after questioning his integrity and prompting death threats to Frisk; again, no apology.  There are other incidents as well.  Yet the media lap him up.  Another line of attack is that any touch line ban is meaningless as Newcastle are in no-man's land of safe from relegation and unable to challenge for a European place.  But Roy Keane got away with far worse when he was banned for several months for ending the career of Alf Inge Haaland and foolishly admitting he intended to 'do' the unfortunate Manchester City player after a perceived slight.  Upon being banned, he embarked upon an operation that he had needed for a while - thus the ban coincided with Keane's recuperation and convalescence and the FA couldn't do a thing.  Yet he is now a valued member of ITV's football punditry.
If Pardew was sacked for gross misconduct, I wouldn't shed any tears but would fear who would be brought in to fill Pardew's office.  Once talked about as a future England manager, that has gone forever.  All I ask is for some perspective from the hysterical and hypocritical media.