The Mussolini of Minsk

In the crisis that has engulfed Ukraine, the Belarussian President, Alexander Lukashenko, has steered a cautious path remaining close to Russia but not ostracising Ukraine. Lukashenko has therefore acquired the status of an ‘honest broker’, arbitrating between Kiev and its Western allies on one side and Moscow on the other. This is the man who denounced ‘senseless democracy’ at the last presidential election in 2010, imprisoned more than 700 political activists and felt the cold chill of Western sanctions. Yet ‘the last dictatorship in Europe’ is being embraced by the West now, welcomed back into the fold for its ‘good behaviour’ – defined as not being more provocative towards the regime’s internal dissidents, though as Lukashenko operates a government that is very effective in repression, short of boiling his critics alive like his fellow post-Soviet leader Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, it is not easy to see how he could offend Western sensibilities further.
Thus Minsk and Lukashenko in particular get to occupy the centre stage of European geopolitics in what is a win-win situation. Moscow, Kiev and Brussels come to the Belarussian strongman’s court with the latter proposing to soften the restrictions on trade that it had placed, with a two-fold meaning of ‘rewarding’ Belarus and indicating to the Kremlin that co-operation grants an easing of ‘punishment’.  Other leaders from the post-Soviet space also attended to discuss trade issues but it was the Ukraine situation that occupied the minds of most.
Yet for all the pride of Lukashenko, he resembles Benito Mussolini in all his imagined self-importance. To be fair, European diplomats are currently burnishing Lukashenko’s image but their predecessors took a similarly indulgent line towards the Italian dictator in the 1930s. After Il Duce’s Abyssinian adventure, sanctions were applied by other League of Nations members, except the war-enabling resource of oil. The Italians even used poison gas in their African conquest but were not denied oil for commercial reasons. Two years later though, his assistance was desperately required.
In the Munich conference, as matters reached a head and the petrified British and French feared war with Germany, the British prevailed upon Mussolini to use his influence to restrain Hitler. Mussolini was probably as much in the dark as Neville Chamberlain so when he asked for a 24-hour delay, Hitler readily agreed for the German had already factored that concession into his calculations. The French and the Germans were immensely grateful to Mussolini and asked to a four-power conference of Britain, France, Germany and Italy, to which Il Duce agreed.
Lukashenko is being similarly feted now but should a Ukraine/Maidan-style uprising in Minsk be met with a crushing display of force (organised much better than Viktor Yanukovych could manage), the Western reaction will be to deploy harsh rhetoric but hope that Belarus is swift in its repression. Unlike in 2010, Lukashenko will have the luxury of not having to tolerate a foreign policy loss for an internal gain. Like Poland in the Cold War, Belarus is seen as a neutral place under the aegis of Moscow but with a certain independence and thereby serving as a conduit to the Kremlin. Lukashenko is probably seen as the lesser of two evils when it comes to dealing with the ‘Putin doctrine’. It should be remembered that Mussolini’s rule only came to an end through getting involved in a world war at which the inadequacies of the Italian military were fully exposed. Lukashenko is perfectly happy being master of his domain, showing little resentment at being rebuffed by Vladimir Putin at creating a union between Belarus and Russia, where Lukashenko could have been a supranational president. Still comparatively young, Lukashenko could be in power for another twenty years and the West knows it will have to deal with him to solve problems in eastern Europe for the foreseeable future.

Just desserts

Some of the football results last night were corkers, the most startling being MK Dons demolition of Manchester United by four goals to nil and Sheffield United exacting a measure of (misguided) revenge at Upton Park against West Ham, as well as Burnley being toppled by lower-league opposition in Sheffield Wednesday at the former's home.  There was a tickling result in the first round of the Scottish League Cup as Queen's Park/Rangers match took place, finishing Queen's Park 1 Rangers 2 (the real QPR play in tonight's set of English League Cup games).  But the best result of all was the Slovenian Champions Maribor beating Celtic in Scotland to go through 2-1 on aggregate to the lucrative Champions League group stages.
This was full-on justice.  Celtic had been completely outplayed by Legia Warsaw in the previous qualifying round, losing 4-1 in Poland and 2-0 at 'home' (they had to play in Edinburgh as Celtic Park was still being converted back after the Commonwealth Games). By some oversight on the paperwork, Legia, however, had fielded an ineligible player for the last four minutes of the second tie, which even though it made no material impact on the tie as all the goals that would be scored had been, ensured they were effectively thrown out of the competition.  When administrative penalties are issued, UEFA hands the opposing team an immediate 3-0 victory (unless the original score was greater), hence, the tie was 4-4 on aggregate and Celtic went through on the away goals rule.  Legia were heartbroken and appealed to Celtic's sense of honour at the injustice of such a ludicrously over-the-top punishment with regards the 'crime'.  Legia proposed a one-off match to settle it all but Celtic snubbed them, showing that they had no honour for they knew full well that Legia would most likely beat them again.  Celtic will still be in Europe via the Europa League but really they should have been completely out of it before the end of August.  If there was no justice for Legia, at least some natural justice has been administered.

The romance of the cup

This evening I had a once in a lifetime experience when I watched Newcastle United play Gillingham at the latter's Priestfield Stadium.  The last time the Premier League outfit took on the Kent side was also in Gillingham back in 1976 and that was before I was born, so this was quite unique.  I went with my friend Chris Foxwright for whom this was also a new sensation - he had never been to a live football match before.
The Capital One Cup, AKA the League Cup, was the reason why these two teams, two tiers apart, had been drawn together.  It was a classic wet and windy Tuesday night at an unglamourous and faraway location to test the mettle of United's new imports.  The Priestfield isn't too bad as a ground, even if the away section is uncovered and those fans who had the long trek from the North-east (one of the longest distances between clubs and on a weekday as well) must have got distinctly soggy.  Gillingham players were far from overawed of their exalted guests, with extra motivation gained from competing against a famous club, tussling with quality players (some of whom had finished 3rd at the 2014 World Cup), playing in front of national camera and journalists and also putting themselves in the proverbial shop window before the transfer window shuts next Monday (maybe not so much to be purchased by Newcastle as by clubs from the tier above).
The Gillingham crowd were quite raucous, especially the ultras in the centre of the Rainham End who vociferously backed both the Blues and mocked the quality of support mustered by Black-and-Whites.  Surprisingly the away section was quite mute (and didn't fully fill up until the start of the second half, some Geordies obviously misjudging the journey time) and the Rainham End must have been among the few to be able to shout at the visiting Magpies, "Your support is, your support is, your support is f***ing s**t, your support is f***ing s**t!"  That roused a 'Toon, Toon, Army, Army', but they continued to be drowned out by the fanatical Rainham End.
The football it has to be said wasn't the best - it wasn't until the 23rd minute that either goalkeeper had to make a save but in the 25th minute, Newcastle took the lead.  This wasn't through the poaching endeavours of one of their players but a Gills player, who until the summer had plied his trade at Sunderland, making the own goal by John Egan all the sweeter.  It was a little odd as the Newcastle players didn't celebrate at first and there was no great hue and cry from the Gills players, yet there was the ball, nestling in the back of the net.  The irony that Newcastle's first competitive goal of the season came from an ex-employee of their greatest regional rivals would not be lost on many.  Newcastle had though got the measure of Gillingham by this point though they failed to capitalise on it, with much pretty build-up work undermined by a toothless attack.  The Gills may have been up for it but if you're a striker and you can't score against a League One side, you should have a good look in the mirror.  In the second half, Massadio Haidara had a long-range effort that rattled the bar (though probably covered by the Gills goalkeeper had it dipped below) and Tim Krul had to be alive to palm away Luke Norris' drive.  Gillingham were resilient and, with only one goal in it, never gave up the fight; a draw would have probably been a fair result, though of course, the nature of this tie meant it had to be finished one or another on the night - penalties would have been very interesting.  Overall it was the fantastic atmosphere that made this game special and gave the night its romance.

One little Dickie bird flew away

One of my friends, Chris Foxwright, says he thinks people in professions die in clusters.  Robin Williams was followed 24 hours later by Lauren Bacall.  Now, it is Richard 'Dickie' Attenborough.  Despite being a few days short of his 91st birthday, he was still active being a producer, in collaboration with Martin Scorcese for Silver Ghost, a project about the origins of Rolls-Royce.  Although of course Jurassic Park was Attenborough's most globally renowned role, important films I haven't seen are Brighton Rock, Oh! What a Lovely War (his directorial debut) and Gandhi.  Maybe crud clutters up my life too much.
One unexpected benefit from his demise though has been a reduction in the size of the House of Lords, the second largest legislature in the world behind only sessions of the Chinese Communist Party.  A quixotic place at the best of times, reminiscent of Monty Python's People's Front of Judea, Judean People's Front and Judean Popular People's Front with Liberal Democrats, Independent Liberal Democrat and Liberal Democrat Independent, it is one of the few upper chambers in the world larger than the 'lower' chamber (828 vs 659).  Personally, I would make composition half that of the House of Commons, fully elected with proportional representation based on a party list system so we retain that all-important 'experience' opponents of democratic reform always cite while keeping the primacy of the House of Commons (the other complaint) by members there being tied to constituencies.  So sad as is the death of Labour peer Lord Attenborough, the House of Lords has been marginally rationalised by the removal of a life peer.  It is no consolation for the loss but it is something.

Not scorched anymore

Another series of Dragons' Den comes to an end and the ever enthusiastic Evan 'Tigger' Davis can now uncrank his perma-smile to take on his new role as Jeremy Paxman's replacement.  It seems the producers are being more selective in who they allow into the den, picking more bona-fide successes (unless the supplicant walks away from the deal) and more flat-out crazies.  Maybe the contenders have, where possible, been coaxed in more realistic equity proposals or maybe the Dragons are under orders but I can't remember where a deal has been struck where one or more Dragons have taken half the business as used to be the case.  It reached a high point when Duncan Bannatyne took 79% of the business of two callow entrepreneurs (who were never of again).  Possibly the harsh glare of cut-throat business was a turn-off and I can't think of a single successful deal this series that exceeded 40% equity (and those that were offered this upper limit as the price of investment often balked and occasionally turned it down).  I miss the old times though when inventors had to battle for an extra 1% (to make 51%) just to have a controlling interest in the business they had themselves created.  As one pair of investor-hungry entrepreneurs who struck pay dirt said, "They're quite soft, they're not dragons, they're.... fairies," presumably unaware of the pejorative connotations of that latter description.  In their own way, they're right - when a Dragon wants a part of the business, they've lost that fearsome aggressiveness.

The disposables, dispensables, etc.

After the decent The Expendables 2, I defied the naysayers and thought the good progress would be continued by the latest in the franchise.  But The Expendables 3 was a big disappointment, reverting to type for sequels - it was as if even the makers were bored of the concept and couldn't be bothered anymore, as evidenced by the continuity errors (e.g. in a bar, a graze above the left temple of Christmas (Jason Statham) is clearly visible, next moment he walks out of the bar and his entire forehead is as right as rain).  Even the new boy Harrison Ford, phones in his performance (landline, natch).
On a high conceptual level and basic narrative, there were many things wrong.  The Austin Powers' metaconcept of all those killed coming from families is briefly covered and then rapidly discarded.  Masses of what looked like fresh-faced nondescript conscripts faced mass slaughter at the hands of our 'heroes'.  Were all these really innately evil and orphans who sacrificed a personal life in favour of the job?  All of them?  More distrubingly, did a seemingly innocent dockworker need to have his throats slit by Doc (Wesley Snipes) - isn't that a war crime?  Continuing with the darker path of The Expendables 3, it is apparently okay to shoot up Mogadishu and be mildly disparaging about Swaziland (real places in Africa) but necessary to create a fictional European country of Asmasistan (despite the suffix -stan, the evil multitudes are all white and recycled after being killed earlier in the film in a different post-Soviet place).  That's queasy to say the least.  Then there was the much hyped gay Arnie and Jet Li which had all the hallmarks of a lazy mainstream tickbox declaration of 'look at me. I'm progressive', yet this plumbed new lows. Unless it's an ultra politically incorrect satire on homosexuals, it's the most slack-jaw, tacked-on depiction of gay people I've ever seen. I wasn't expecting an exploration of the human condition, but they act like it's a bromance rather than a same-sex relationship because being gay is all about wearing loud shirts and hugging other men. Arnie and Jet Li don't even kiss. It really is 1985. Indeed, the film is tacitly homophobic because Barney (Sylvester Stallone) bats away Galgo (Antonio Banderas) from hugging him, so the audience are not confused because the main hero can't possibly be gay.  Facepalm moment.
As for the delivery of the plot, well.  As they mowed down relentless hordes, I kept saying to myself, this is meant to be post-modern, this is meant to be post-modern.  But no matter how arch it was, it just became boring as the human waves died and the heroes escaped not just alive but unscathed - this is acknowledged chief villain Conrad - nice Teutonic name to symbolise his evil - Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) exasperatedly exclaiming how his quarry wasn't even scratched, but with no tension there is no interest.  When people can outrun the cannon on a helicopter gunship, it might be overlooked if it were not for all the other ridiculous escapes.  At least one of the team died in The Expendables 2 and there were consequences.  Even the climatic final fight between Barney and Stonebanks is disappointing.  A few punches, a few roundhouses and then they go for their guns and it's all over.  Plus there was the overall stupidity - with the building rigged with explosives, why did Stonebanks give them 45 seconds to escape?  Why not just detonate instantly?  Okay, there are similar things in James Bond (Goldeneye especially springs to mind) but done with far more style and not done like Alice imagining six impossible things before breakfast.
Was there anything good about this.  Well, it had Robert Davi from Licence to Kill and Die Hard in it, a Latin American playing an Albanian gangster (in keeping with the shoddy nature of this film).  Jason Statham and Kelsey Grammar were the ones playing it as it should be, with Mel Gibson hamming it up nicely too.  Finally a girl was included in Luna (Ronda Rousey) - steam may have run out of this franchise but The Expendabelles is just around the corner.  To paraphrase Auric Goldfinger, I trust they will be more successful.  I like the Bucharest setting at one stage, with the Romanian Arc de Triomphe shown to confuse less well travelled people thinking it to be Paris.  Arnold Schwarzenegger gets to repeat a few of his classic phrases such as 'Get to the chopper' (said with better enunciation but less impact than the original 'get to da choppper') and my favourite line from Commando (albeit in context of the 1980 outing), 'I lied'.  These brief flashes of wit make a valiant attempt to save the movie.
It could have been better but as with the first The Expendables, they forgot the satire.  When knocking over Denzali Prison, dubbed a 'dark prison' by Barney, one of the characters could have said, "Aren't the CIA the only ones that run dark prisons?"  No, that would be controversial for an offering where one could note where the advert breaks would be when it comes out on television.  Not good enough for two out of five but enough saving graces to lift it above one out of five.  Even three out of ten sounds generous but I have a high tolerance threshold for crud so I'll let the score stand at that.

The legacy of the past

The massed protests in Ferguson, Missouri, follow a standard pattern of heavy-handedness of a white police force towards an ethnic minority and the whole community rising up in anger at it.  We in Britain have had similar issues in the past, most recently the death of Mark Duggan at the hands of the Metropolitan Police Force which sparked riots and opportunistic looting across London, Manchester and Birmingham, with incidents thereafter occurring in many parts of the country.  Michael Brown, the unarmed 18 year-old shot more than half a dozen times by one officer, allegedly with Brown holding his hands in the air, may, like Duggan, not have been a pleasant piece of work.  But this in itself should not carry a death sentence and the police releasing footage of Brown stealing some cigars and acting aggressively in a shop was reminiscent of all the police attempts in this country to smear victims of their own bungling; moreover, the cop who shot Brown was unaware of the shoplifting.  On police cars in this suburb of St Louis are the words "A planned progressive community" though these words seem hollow now.  An overwhelmingly white police force in a majority African-American area would always have issues of trust as there was not enough mix, but as Rev Al Sharpton correctly perceived, basic anger (like it was in Tunisia in 2011) derived from poverty.  It should not be forgotten that Missouri was a slave state that stayed in the Union in 1861 and the legacy of slavery continues to this day.
Mark Twain spent a good portion of his early life living in Missouri and though he didn't spell it out as such, this was where he based both The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and (initially) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  15 years after purchasing it and after one of the key plot points was given away, I have finally completed reading the latter over the last couple of months, sometimes in bursts of four or five hours so compelling were the characters, the environment they inhabited and the narrative that drove them on down the Mississippi River.  One of Twain's overriding sentiments was the value of humanity and he shows not only how monstrous slavery is but how it warps the minds of otherwise decent people, Huck Finn included.
It would be fair to say that for those who have not consumed it, what I am about to relate now are in the manner of SPOILERS as I don't want others to be affected the same way I was reading the book knowing that Huck's tyrannical, jealous wastrel and drunkard of a father was the man they found dead in the floating house (only properly identified by Jim in the closing lines of the book), so if you've continued after seeing the keep-out sign I posted you have only yourselves to blame.
The prolific use of the n-word is quite uncomfortable but Twain intended for his more thoughtful readers to feel that way and the recent attempt to 'scrub' this word from editions to appear in American schools was ill-advised.  Though Huck often deploys the word himself, it's just what he has grown up with and had inculcated into him.  He bears no malice towards black people, indeed to save his friend Jim, the slave who had run away, Huck is prepared to jeopardise his mortal soul.  All the same, the perversion of slavery confuses him - believing it a sin to break the law, when Jim talks to him about setting free his wife and children, by spiriting them away if necessary without payment, Huck is shocked, mulling over that by his own actions Huck is wronging the slave owners who had not done him any bad; then when he hears about Jim's family, his innate humanity kicks in again and he is torn.  To hear from Jim how he beat his daughter for insolence before he realised scarlet fever had rendered her deaf and dumb is wrenching.  Later when Jim is locked up by the letter of the law of the South, Huck is once more uncertain of whether to observe the law (which the audience knows to be wicked) or set Jim free and once more Huck displays his good self in attempting the latter (assisted when Tom Sawyer makes a reappearance late in the book).
The feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons illustrates the barbarity man can perpetuate on each other over the most trivial of beginnings.  Law is absent, except in church when they grudgingly accept the presence of each other's clans.  The men are true Southern gentlemen, dressed in resplendent white but the audience knows the American Civil War is just about to burst and the young men will most likely to be recruited and possibly killed or maimed and Colonel Grangerford, the patriarch, will be ruined at the conclusion of it should he survive the conflict, because he relies so heavily for his lifestyle on slaves.  In the end, this is rendered moot when a Romeo and Juliet situation inflames passions to fever pitch and the Sheperdsons strike a decisive blow, wiping out the main branch of the male Grangerford line, leaving just cadet branches to continue the argument.  The desperation felt by Huck at this senseless violence came into myself as well as we had got to know the family very well.
The law of the land is missing later on when, in another town, Colonel Sherburn shoots dead a buffoonish alcoholic for repeatedly insulting him.  Sherburn gives Boggs, the clod, an ultimatum to cease with his attitude and depart but this is not law: "I'm tired of this; but I'll endure it till one o'clock.  Till one o'clock, mind - no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once, after that time, you can't travel so far but I will find you." (Liam Neeson in Taken springs to mind).  Boggs continues until suddenly he realises it is too late and pays the price.  A lynch mob gathers to string up Sherburn (cuase what law is there?) but he faces them down showing them to be the individual cowards they are.
The frauds who identify themselves as a duke and a king deprived of their right estates and dues are the most loathsome kind of people, duping kind-hearted people into parting with their money.  Their worst crime for which Huck reluctantly tags along (for they are brutal to him too, especially 'the king') is not just to steal from a family grieving at the loss of a father but to do so by hoodwinking the family and (almost) the entire community impersonating long-lost relatives who had been expected and who the king had come to hear about by chance (the real relatives had been waylaid).  Mary Jane Wilks, the eldest daughter, is a clear spit of Mary Jane Watson from the Spiderman comics, a beautiful, warm, red head.  The duke and the king eventually their comeuppance for doing the dirty on Jim and Jim revealing their true nature.  They are tarred and feathered and made to 'ride a rail' (the sharpness of which causes buttocks to bleed), yet though their actions are heinous, still Huck laments at man's inhumanity to man, which is the leitmotif of the whole novel.  Man's inhumanity to man continues 130 years after Twain's magnum opus.

A positive sound

At the weekend, I heard something which was most unexpected but no less the welcome for it.  Narendra Modi may have taken a puffed-up position with Pakistan, succumbing to the hardliners in his own party and the provocations of the Pakistani Army, calling off talks with his neighbour but he said something very important regarding the rights of women in India.  He said this on Friday, 15th August on India's Independence Day, saying the country should hang its head in shame over the ongoing rape crisis and that females foetuses should not be aborted solely because of gender.  Nehru began the campaign against patriarchal ignorance from a secular viewpoint so it is all the more critical than Modi does this from his position as a Hindu nationalist to complete the establishment faction seeking to bring human rights to all sections of Indian society

Won't get fooled again.

The opening of a new Premier League season brings the usual mixture of joy and sorrow, as there are winners, losers, those who succumb to a late equaliser and those who score a late equaliser.  Manchester United fans find themselves in the unexpected position of grief or relief being more customary than happiness or swagger.  Louis van Gaal (hard 'g') was expected to change everything that went wrong in the David Moyes, not least on the back of a relatively successful World Cup and a 100% record in pre-season.  They lost to Swansea at Old Trafford, just as they had done in the FA Cup in January.  As The Who sang, "Meet the new boss; same as the old boss."  Will Man Utd fans get fooled again?

Schrödinger's club

Given my fascination with international affairs and my interest in football in general, I'm always heartened when not minnows but super-minnows make a splash in the European pond.  FC Sheriff Tiraspol may object to such a description but their home stadium is located in a sliver of territory that officially belongs to another country.  Having been to the unrecognised Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic (AKA Transdnistria or Transnistria), I can say that the ground is the most impressive part of this Ruritanian backwater; the club's team isn't too shabby either domestically for although Transdnistria and Moldova are locked in a frozen conflict, separated by Russian 'peacekeepers'(in reality Transdnistria's bodyguard, like those peacekeepers sent by Moscow operating inside Ukraine who act as janissaries for the separatists), FC Sheriff, as they are popularly known, do rather well in the Moldovan League, signing lesser-known Croatians and Brazilians to give them a technical edge over their rivals.  Last season they made it to the group stage of the Europa League and playing Tottenham Hotspur, I could not let the opportunity to see the club play in England pass (though I left my FC Sheriff scarf at home as I was situated among the Tottenham fans).  They lost 3-1 but they didn't rollover for Spurs.
This season, I noticed in a list of qualifiers for the Europa League another club affected by a frozen conflict, Karabagh (or officially Qarabağ Ağdam FK).  I took a great deal of interest in the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabagh - Karabagh for short - during my Master's degree and the bitter war that raged there, Armenia unofficially annexing 20% of Azerbaijan come the conclusion.  Sadly, this is not a tale of cross-border harmony - Karabagh are exiles, playing home games in Azerbaijan's national stadium in the capital Baku rather than the Karabagh 'capital' of Stepanakert.  After a difficult transition after the relocation, Karabagh have prospered, maybe to a degree more than if they had stayed in their mountainous fastness.  Certainly Arsenal FC in England have enjoyed considerable success since moving from Woolwich - south of the Thames - to Islington - north of the Thames, notwithstanding the mockery of their north London rivals Spurs.  However, not being based in a never-never country takes away some of the allure.  I might make the trip to White Hart Lane and try to buy one of those 'friendship' half-and-half scarves were Karabagh to progress and be drawn against Tottenham, but I certainly won't be making the long trip north should the side be in the same group as Hull City or Everton, whereas I might be torn if they really did hail from a place that really doesn't exist and for whom the president of Azerbaijan threatened to rekindle war if Armenia remained intransigent over the occupied territory (widely seen as a bargaining device to raise the international profile of the issue ahead of a meeting with Vladimir Putin and the Armenian president in Sochi last week).  It might be all academic depending on their fortunes in the play-off and the draw but my ardour has definitely cooled from the moment I first laid eyes on them in the list.

Echoes from a century ago

In 1906, Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt, a shoemaker and ex-convict, donned a military uniform of the Imperial German Army to begin The Captain of Köpenick saga. Appearing at the local barracks, he accosted four grenadiers and a sergeant, dismissing the commanding sergeant with a flea in his ear. Commandeering another half dozen soldiers from a shooting range, he took a train to Köpenick, east of Berlin, occupied the city hall and arrested the treasurer and the mayor. When the mayor challenged him for a warrant, Voigt replied, waving to the bayonets of the soldiery, “These are my authority.” He then ‘confiscated’ more than 4,000 marks, with a receipt (for this was an ‘official’ operation) made out in the name of his former jail warden. Not content with this, he used the clout conferred by his uniform to commandeer two railway carriages to transport the unfortunate civil servants under guard to a Berlin prison. He told the remaining guards to remain at their post for half an hour, departed for the train station, changed into civilian clothing and absconded.
Voigt didn’t remain on the lamb for long, being arrested ten days later and sentenced to four years imprisonment (commuted to two by Kaiser Wilhelm II, amused at the escapade like much of the German public). Voigt gained international notoriety too, The London Illustrated News commenting, “For years the Kaiser has been instilling into his people reverence for the omnipotence of militarism, of which the holiest symbol is the German uniform. Offences against this fetish have incurred condign punishment.”
Now, it is a common tactic of those opposed to the domineering tendencies of certain Israeli governmental policies to beard the supporters of these resultant actions with references, directly or indirectly, to the Third Reich. On the internet on unrelated subject matter, it is a dull tactic. When used in connection to Israel, it is understandably inflammatory and designed to provoke a furious response. Much of the criticism comes from those of left-wing sympathies whose internationalism induces feelings antipathy towards all nationalism and as even Israeli Labor party politicians are advocates of a nationalist approach, Israel becomes a magnet for their ire. That extremely right-wing people now head up the Israeli government adds fuel to this particular fire. Of course, there are some stupid people who cannot understand why Jews would be naturally supportive of Israel and this translates into anti-semitism, which is unacceptable but must not be blown out of proportion either to actual crimes – Jewish leaders are not themselves above referencing the Nazi period, one saying “this is the worst time since the 1930s.” Possibly but hyperbolic as well.
I have noticed a new ‘intelligent’ approach to criticising Israel gain traction, describing it as an ‘apartheid state’, seeking to cash in on the discredited system in South Africa (a dark interpretation could be that just as apartheid was consigned to the dustbin of history as morally unsustainable, them are some users who wish the same for Israel). I first heard this term about eight or nine years ago and Israeli peace campaigners agreed with it – now even US Secretary of State John Kerry unguardedly uses it as the future of Israel if it does not change course with its occupation of the West Bank.
It is inherently human to want to compare so as to better understand, but while making a connection with Nazis is most ill-advised and accusations of apartheid are used primarily as a way to offend Israelis and supporters of Israel, Wilhelmine Germany, I think, reflects the direction of travel for Tel-Aviv. Israel is a democracy (though its cynical boast about being the only democracy in the region was revealed as hollow in the Arab Spring when it made it clear its preference for the dictatorships that surrounded it) and so was the Empire of Germany (with constraints admittedly). A high level of economic development and a sophisticated culture combined with pride in a powerful army is evident in both, not to mention a high level of militarisation in society, with feelings of encirclement, contempt for neighbours and a sense that they should take matters into their own hands rather than agreeing to mediation.
As Israel employs conscription, the ability to be a conscientious objector is limited and being further curtailed as the Netanyahu administration, emboldened by a second term and a more stable coalition, gradually removes the opt-outs for Israeli Arabs and Jews who attend Orthodox seminaries (the latter proving such a drain on manpower, it is akin to the handicapping of recruitment into the armies of the Byzantine Empire by the vast number of the Constantinople’s subjects entering monasteries). It is against this backdrop that the Israeli government has banned membership of human rights group B’Tselem as an alternative to national service.
The director of the body responsible for non-military options for Israelis who don't want to serve in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), Sar-Shalom Jerbi, told Channel 2 TV that B'Tselem had: “crossed the line in wartime [by] campaigning and inciting against the state of Israel and the Israel Defence Force, which is the most moral of armies.” Pretty much all of these claims are dubious, especially the latter – surely Switzerland, at peace for the past 200 years and not cooperating with any military alliance, has the most moral of armies, closely followed by Sweden, who has been neutral just as long but has held exercises with NATO. “The level of intimidation and the broadness of attacks on the organisation over the past three weeks is unprecedented in the 25-year history of B'Tselem,” Hagai el-Ad, executive director, said, citing death threats and attempts to violently attack employees, as well as an organised internet campaign against the group.
The IDF, as the guarantor of the physical existence of Israel, has led to it be the most venerated institution in Israeli society, abetted by so many sons and daughters serving in it for at least three years. Therefore criticism of the IDF is often interpreted as an attack by Israeli families on themselves. When the civilian administration is weak, as under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (who achieved the impressive feat of 0% support in the polls during his tenure), the army takes matters into its own hands. In 2006, Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas and the IDF bulldozed its way into Gaza, the bull to Hamas’ matador, who were having political problems but turned these on their head by resisting the Israeli ‘oppressor’. The Israeli government subordinated itself to the military. A month later, Hezbollah in Lebanon, rocking from popular resentment against them as Syrian stooges, saw the effectiveness of Hamas’ action and abducted some Israeli soldiers themselves. Continuing to display incredible stupidity that would never have been permitted by a strong prime minister (such as Ariel Sharon, Olmert’s predecessor, who suffered a stroke), the IDF barrel-rolled into Lebanon, transforming Hezbollah from zeroes to heroes – even Jewish commentators said it was not a wise war for the IDF to embark upon. During Operation Cast Lead incursion into Gaza in 2008, for the first three days the IDF were front-and-centre in fielding questions, the civilian authorities entirely silent. Unlike in Turkey, the IDF never needs to overthrow the democratically elected government because it is in its pocket and now the IDF has a soulmate in Binyamin Netanyahu who is as aggressive as they are and presides over a cabinet even more hawkish than he. Between 1948 and 2005, Israel fought six wars, when its existence was under threat. In the last eight years, it has fought five when existentialism has not been the basic issue.
Pointing out that the IDF are guilty of war crimes as much as Palestinian militants and valuing the lives of Palestinian children should be promoted in a vibrantly democratic culture. No-one should be above the law and everyone should be held to account for actions that injure or hurt others. The crowding out of contrary voices is a worrying development and B’Tselem has suffered for offending against the fetish for the IDF, incurring condign punishment. Given the militarisation of its society, it would not be a stretch to imagine something similar to The Captain of Köpenick happening in Israel and that is tragic.

Rebellion and retreat

As centralised order in Iraq falls apart and the British government 'considers' sending Chinook helicopters to assist and evacuate the refugees (what is there to consider?  Just send them.  Valuable time has already been lost through pathetic hand-wringing), the rise of Islamic State (ISIL) is not unlike another long-lasting violent insurrection against a tired and weak status quo - the Taiping Rebellion.
The Manchu Qing dynasty in China was already on its death spiral from the depredations and exactions of earlier corrupt officials that the emperors failed to rein in when this revolt first manifested itself in 1850.  Many irruptions and secret societies marked the final century of Qing imperial rule but this was the most serious of all as the aim was the conquest of all China.  The Qing administration was already viewed with suspicion by Han Chinese as a foreign imposition that did not the interests of the general population at heart and so the Taiping rebels gained support in this way, much like disaffected Sunni Iraqis, alienated by an exclusivist Shia-led government in Baghdad, flocking to the black flag of the Islamic State.
What makes the Taiping rebellion truly comparable is the religious element.  Just as a new caliph has been proclaimed in Mosul when it fell, so the Taiping leader, Hong Xiuquan, declared himself to be the younger brother of Jesus, with a capital at Nanjing.  Hong's fanatical armies exterminated all those who did not conform to this brand of Christianity, including Chinese Christian folk religion, just as Shias, Christians, Yazidis and even Sunni Arabs suffer at the hands of ISIL.  The operation of a theocratic and militarised rule is present both then and now, with a haphazard and brutal application.
Initially, Europeans decided to stay neutral as the Taiping Heavenly Army superior generalship defeated the Qing armies thrown against it.  The Americans and the West in general sitting on their hands as ISIS became ISIL is an all too obvious parallel, just as the decision to intervene to protect Irbil in Kurdistan echoes the involvement of Britain and France, helping protect Shanghai and reorganising the Chinese armies to put down the rebellion, Charles 'Chinese' Gordon leading the way (Gordon would meet his match and his death against another fanatical force in the Sudan).
The strategy of the Taiping Heavenly Army was to take major cities, consolidate their hold on these, then subdue and recruit in the surrounding countryside while engaging Qing forces.  It almost seems that ISIL has been following the same handbook.  The death toll over 15 years of fighting is hard to gauge but most estimates put it between 20-30 million dead, soldiers and civilians, largely from disease and famine created by the dislocations.  A man-made catastrophe, like in Ethiopia in the 1980s and like the Yazidis facing starvation on Mount Sinjar.  So the Taiping Rebellion was suppressed but at great cost.  With ISIL straddling both Iraq and Syria it is hard to see how the endgame will play out, though the fall of Nanjing still left Heavenly Army contingents in the field, the latter making incursions into Siam.
But ISIL could not have made their advances were it not for the failures at the centre.  Nouri al-Maliki has been sidelined as prime minister by his own coalition but much of the Iraqi Army still answers to him.  He is a weak man who wants to be a strongman, regardless that he has been cast aside even by his regional backer Iran.  In the three years since the US Army left, he has hollowed out the Iraqi Army to the same extent that it took several corrupt and/or poorly led governments in Ukraine a quarter of a century to achieve in their own case.  The Ukraine is instructive in other ways as well.  Following the purges of the Soviet Red Army in the 1930s, Marshal Semyon Mikhailovich Budenny came to command the Soviet forces in Ukraine and Bessarabia.  To the soldiers under his command, he was the man 'with the very large moustache and the very small brain'.  As the historian Geoffrey Regan puts it in The Guinness Book of Military Blunders, Budenny's "meteoric rise to a position where he could do such damage stemmed from his friendship with Joseph Stalin and his obvious lack of ability... The fact that Budenny survived [the purges] and prospered speaks volumes."  Senile at 58, despite outnumbering the Germans between three and four to one in men and tanks, his command was annihilated by the invading Germans, losing 1,500,000 men between July and September 1941 alone.  al-Maliki's handpicked choices to lead the Iraqi Army have been utter failures, 350,000 troops fleeing in the face of a force fifty times smaller.  There the comparisons end.  Much of the Soviet equipment destroyed was obsolete and the factory complexes in the Urals would soon restock the Red Army with superior tanks, aeroplanes and automatic weapons.  Unfortunately, much of what the Iraqi Army has abandoned in its headlong rush from the frontline (clearly al-Maliki's cronies had no idea how to instil morale) was top-of-the-range hardware that the USA had sold to Baghdad.  Humvees and tanks are now being driven around by ISIL militants with vast quantities of stores available to them to continue their offensive - a criminal state of affairs.  No wonder the Kurdish Peshmerga militia struggled manfully but ultimately found ISIL irresistible, until the US airstrikes came along.  The USSR prevailed over the Wehrmacht but at a human cost equivalent to the Taiping Rebellion.  ISIL will probably be overcome - eventually - by a combination of government and Kurdish deployments aided by Western air superiority yet with each passing day the casualties mount inexorably.

The bountiful shores of Costa Rica

At the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the Costa Rican national team captured the imagination of many in the global audience. Before the tournament had even begun, no-one gave Los Ticos a chance – even their recently elected president, Luis Guillermo Solis, said, in effect, they were happy just to be there. Yet not only did Costa Rica progress from the first round but they topped a difficult group, defeating luminaries and past winners Uruguay and Italy (plus drawing with England). In spontaneous celebration, Solis ran from his presidential palace to a main square in the capital San José, to join a large crowd in cheering the triumph over the Italians that elevated Costa Rica out of the group. Some may see this as a cynical political acquisition of sporting prowess although Solis gave the impression of another delirious fan - he probably should be afforded the benefit of the doubt. The fairytale continued with a victory over Greece and Los Ticos were a penalty shoot-out away from a semi-final berth before falling before some inspired Dutch goalkeeping. The quarter-finals, nevertheless, represented the furthest Costa Rica had ever been at the football World Cup.
Though possessing few stars, the squad had a tremendous team ethic and a tactically astute coach in Jorge Luis Pinto. There was also a significant geopolitical aspect that helped the national development of the team that went unremarked among press and TV pundits. In 2007, Costa Rica broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan, switching recognition of the ‘legitimate’ representative of China from the island to the mainland. Though a mere 58 years after Mao Tse-Tung had proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, Costa Rica was the first (and to date only) Central American nation to do so. As a sign of its gratitude, Beijing constructed a new $110m, 35,000-capacity state-of-the-art football stadium in San José. More than 500 Chinese engineers and labourers were involved in the project and the stadium was inaugurated in 2011 with a friendly match between the Costa Rican and Chinese national teams. Appropriately, it finished with an even division of the spoils, the score being a 2-2 draw.
Now, a fine stadium is not the only requirement for a national football squad to prosper as China itself (and indeed England) can attest. Yet the existence of the Estadio Nacional gave a foundation for Costa Rica to punch above its weight in qualification and 2014 was the first World Cup where this qualification led. In the final round of regional qualifiers, Costa Rica won all of their games staged at their home, including the notable scalps of the USA and Mexico. Winning is a natural lubricant to greasing the wheels of team unity and it fostered the confidence to take on the big boys of international football and subjugate them.
Though the Costa Rican government admitted the diplomatic switch from Taipei to Beijing was based on economic exigency, any fears that it presaged a Chinese neo-colonial grab on resources (as alleged in parts of Africa) in exchange for infrastructure development were misplaced. Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Group of course reaped a lucrative contract but the costs were fully assumed by the Chinese government. Costa Rica does have raw materials to exploit but the combined exports of its three main cash crops – bananas, pineapples and coffee – are exceeded in foreign exchange earnings by tourism. The Central American state is also becoming a hub for finished goods such as computer microchips – Intel’s microprocessor facility is responsible for 20% of Costa Rican exports and 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Moreover, nudged by the rise in ecotourism, in the same year it swapped ambassadors with Beijing, the government announced plans for Costa Rica to become the first carbon-neutral country by 2021. This is not an idle ambition – in 2009, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) ranked Costa Rica as the greenest country in the world, the same organisation that accorded it the status of happiest in 2009 and 2012. This had not always been the case. Prior to 1948, interspersed with democratic rule, the polity had a propensity for military government or civilian dictatorship, not to mention various acts of political violence, electoral fraud and unconstitutional rule. Following a brief civil war, in 1949 Costa Rica became one of the few countries to abolish its military, saving it from the strife that periodically consumed its neighbours. Such political stability, in conjunction with relatively high education levels and being in a free trade zone encompassing the USA and the rest of Central America, has resulted in one of the highest amounts of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) per capita in Latin America boosting the country, allowing manufacturing sectors such as pharmaceuticals and software development to surge ahead. So the achievements of the Costa Rican football team mirrors those of the state – making a name for itself around the globe.

Deep space, emotional depth

When I was growing up, Star Trek was a Marmite show, even among sci-fi fans.  Some adhered to the purity of the original trilogy of Star Wars, denouncing the 'anodyne' (I euphemise) Star Trek whilst others were more catholic in their tastes.  I've been reacquainting myself with Star Trek: The Next Generation on Syfy (an episode a night) and have been quite struck at the complexity and emotional depth of the topics covered.  Last night, the episode Interface was especially poignant - shown in 1993, it explores the exact same territory as the strange case of the disappearance of Flight MH370 two decades later.
Chief engineering officer Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge (Levar Burton) is testing a new probe that allows him to control a remote avatar.  He is informed that the ship of his mother, a Starfleet captain, along with the entire crew has vanished.  Starfleet has conducted several sweeps of the last known area the starship was seen but to no avail - there is not even debris.  While Geordi's family come to terms with this and accept that everybody on board will never be seen again, Geordi refuses to accept his mother's death.  There was no body to recover, no wreckage to identify, not even a sub-space distortion.  Without being able to say goodbye, he comes up with outlandish theories as to how his mother and her ship have survived, aided by aliens manipulating him while he is manifested as an avatar (who need his help to escape their predicament).  Asked about the probability of a 'warp funnel' (as proposed by Geordi) by Captain Jean-Luc Picard (the always watchable Patrick Stewart), the android Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) believes it 'almost impossible'.  Still Geordi clings to his theory until the aliens can be helped to return to the surface of their planet - as one of the aliens had imitated his mother through reading his memory, he feels he at least had a chance to say goodbye.
The relatives of MH370 are in exactly the same situation as Geordi.  Without even wreckage, many cannot accept their relatives are dead at the bottom of the ocean.  They come up with kidnapping theories, all to avoid the horrendous truth.  Interface's extrapolation of this issue was uncanny and is tribute to the quality of the scriptwriters (enhanced by the acting).

As comfortable as an ottoman (and inducing complacency)

It has become common currency that the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire has unleashed a century of strife on the Middle East, the implication being the victorious Entente powers made a terrible misjudgement when dismembering it following World War One.  I disagree fundamentally with this line of reasoning.  If we are supposed to learn from history, such an endeavour is made harder by sloppy revisionism.
The American classical historian Lewis H. Lapham suggested that others of his profession "tend to prefer the solemn calm of empires to the crowd noises of the unruly provinces," noting also that "[a] similar prejudice informs the writing of the contemporary diplomats and foreign policy analysts who mourn the absence of 'transnational institutions' capable of managing the world's affairs with the sang-froid of the old Roman empire [sic]."  The same applies to our conceptions of the Ottoman Empire - oh, if only it was still around there wouldn't be all this trouble - the argument implicitly rehearsed on Broadcasting House on Radio 4 this morning.  The arc of instability may stretch through what was Ottoman Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia but that doesn't mean the Sublime Porte would have done any better at governing these places - and, for that matter, for how long was the Ottoman Empire supposed to survive?  Forever?
The Ottoman polity was every bit as brutal as the Roman imperium it sought to emulate, except what was acceptable in A.D. 1 or A.D. 1,000 was offensive to Western sensibilities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  The Eastern Roman Emperor (or Basileus) Basil II may have got the name of the 'Bulgar-Slayer' for his horrendous treatment of a defeated Bulgar army in 1014, but Turks slaughtering recalcitrant Bulgarians in the 1870s prompted a Russian invasion and the sympathy of the British public for the 'poor Bulgarians', until Disraeli won his countrymen round to a Russophobic position again.  However, while the likes of Julius Caesar may have carried out something equivalent to genocide in building Rome's greatness, the 'Bulgarian Atrocities' were emblematic of Ottoman weakness.   Between 1805 and 1882, the empire lost 40 per cent of its territory.  Fearful of the influence of non-Turkish groups in the shrunken realm, the rulers acquiesced in a series of pogroms against Armenians, with possibly hundreds of thousands dying in 1895-6.
Labelled 'the sick man of Europe', by 1875 the state became virtually bankrupt; after the Sultan Abdul-Aziz agreed to supervision of his treasury by European bankers in 1881, it was dependent on foreign governments who preferred a decrepit entity to, as Professor Geoffrey Parker phrases it, "the dangerous power vacuum that would follow Turkish collapse."  This implies the Middle East embarking on its current internecine patterns forty years earlier than what transpired; however, as Realists would say, it boils down to 'vital interests'.  The power vacuum would be dangerous not from what would emerge but from the scramble of the leading imperial powers to secure their own positions - through resources, defensible land and prestige - against the others.  The probability of such a mad dash to set off a major conflagration is all too obvious.  An enfeebled Ottoman entity kept each other in check as a form of buffer zone.  Witness the Russian fury in 1908 at the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina without any slice of the cake alotted for Moscow.  This humiliation led to World War One as revolution might well have come in 1914 had Tsar Nicholas II stood by and let the same thing happen to Serbia.
Also in 1908, a nationalistic backlash throughout the Ottoman provinces led to the 'Young Turks' coming to power.  Despite their opposition to any further surrender of territory, between 1908 and 1913, the empire lost 30 per cent of its remaining possessions.  Their nationalistic antagonism led to a further massacre of up to 30,000 Armenians at Adana in 1909 and then the 'administrative holocaust' (as Churchill put it) of 1.5m Armenians in 1915-16 helped by Kurdish militia whose peshmerga descendants are so struggling against ISIS today.  The Arabs were most displeased with the aggressive Turkishness too and were about to revolt before the Great War gave them the perfect opportunity to realise this.
So there we have it.  All these armchair analysts who say that the termination of the Ottoman Empire was a mistake know nothing of it, little about the 30 years that followed it, preferring to focus on the cataclysms that followed World War Two, following the retreat of, uh, empire - whose imperium was diminished?  Whisper it, that of the much maligned British and French.  You could not make it up.  The panjandrams who seek to lecture us lament the dismantling of a failed state whose remaining method of governing was through ferocious slaughter of ethnic minorities yet their academic indoctrination as to the evils of Western empires blinds them to the fact that strife followed the Western departure (bar terrorism from a few fanatical Jewish groups that were unrepresentative of Jewry, just as Hamas is unrepresentative of Palestinians).  If they lament imperium, they should do for the British and French empires.  A similar argument used to be offered up as to the proliferation of strongmen in the region - because Arabs were incapable of democracy and needed a firm hand to guide them.  If they really knew of what they spoke, it would be liberal racism.
So why this position?  Aha, Sykes-Picot, that perfidious arrangement to divvy up Ottoman possessions in Arabia after World War One.  This is 'bad' for three reasons: (i) T.E. Lawrence saw it as a betrayal of the Arab allies to have an overarching Arab state and excoriated the agreement as such (though he was later reconciled after the 'independence' of Iraq); (ii) the Arab street that talks to gullible Western correspondents seek victimhood as an excuse for their failure to build adequate institutions (not dissimilar to the Serbian national mythos emphasising a martyr mentality with the defeat at the 1389 Battle of Kosovo and everything after that); and (iii) the Anglo-Saxon establishment discourse that finds Western empire-building as a betrayal of its values (rather than a naturally occurring historical phenomenon) - certainly the French are more realistic and less squeamish.  The unrepresentative borders also come in for criticism but when much of it runs across desert it is far less destabilising than those in Africa (and the majority of African states seem somehow to cope).  Many European borders in 1919 were not representative either, but bar the interlude of fascist aggrandisement, there was no conflagration until 1991 and that was the state where the dead hand of Moscow did not stifle nationalistic animus - Yugoslavia did not have the institutions to keep megalomaniacs in check and so Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđjman made hay in emphasising sectarian differences.
To recap, the Ottoman Empire would have crumbled sooner or later anyway but in its death throes it employed barbarous measures to suppress 'suspect' ethnicities - its passing should not be mourned; the Sykes-Picot pact may have brought profit to their respective metropoles but it was no worse than contemporaneous map redrawing where for the large part elsewhere there has been not subsequent equivalent strife on a scale (if at all) comparable to that in the Middle East; and if we are to grieve about the disappearance of 'the solemn calm of empires', that attention should be reserved for Britain and France whose removal from the scene no longer kept passions in check - yes, there are contradictions here and there but I'm looking at the bigger picture and anyway, I have a respect for vibrant countries establishing their own identities.  Iraq may be an ahistorical polyglot construction but so is Pakistan (its very name an acronym) and in 1707 the United Kingdom of Great Britain.  Iraqis have had ninety years to feel Iraqi and they do identify as such.  Subsequent western interventions since the official departure of the British and the French have messed up the Middle East (to hammer home the point, the lack of an Ottoman Empire had no bearing on the American/British coup that overthrew the elected Mohammad Mosaddeq of Iran in 1953) but still we are resistant to the pottery barn analogy -you break it, you own it.

Eastern promise in Albania

For much of it 101-year existence, Albania has been a land much mocked by those who know of it but nothing in it – in 1997, the protagonists of the film Wag the Dog fabricated a fake war between the USA and Albania on the grounds the American public were ignorant of it and it was too small to cause an international incident. Recently, Hollywood returned in The Expendables 2 (2012), portraying the nation as a largely forested wilderness. All this despite its rich history (not to be confused with the ancient Albania of the Caucasus). Dyrrhachium (modern Durrës) was a key port on the Adriatic for the Roman Empire over the course of 1,500 years. The Albanian national hero Skanderbeg, who led a decades-long revolt against Ottoman occupation, is one of the towering figures of Europe’s High Middle Ages. And Muhammad Ali (no, not that one) was an Albanian military commander sent by the Ottoman Sultan to Egypt to fight Napoleon and founded the Alawiyya Dynasty that ruled Egypt for 150 years.

As an independent country, Albania was a byword for Ruritanian excess. King Zog I was a particularly vivid name if less impressive as a ruler. Liberated from external Fascist domination in 1944 mostly by the partisans of the Communist Party, the quixotic rule of Enver Hoxha was 1984 writ large. Importing the comedies of Norman Wisdom as propaganda (the ‘capitalist ogre’ Mr Grimsdale terrorised Wisdom’s man-of-the-people character) was practically Hoxha’s only harmless policy. He broke with the USSR for the latter’s ‘revisionism’ in 1968, entering into the most improbable (if informal) alliance in human history with Mao Tse-Tung in a Sino-Albanian compact. Intensely paranoid and fearful of invasion, Hoxha left his land a legacy of many concrete pillboxes dotted throughout and the reputation as the poorest country in Europe (superseded in 1991 by Moldova).

But now Albania has embarked on the proverbial road to recovery. One of the lesser-known members of NATO (it joined in 2009), in June of this year the European Union accepted Albania as an official candidate for accession. The incoming leader of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has said there would be no additional members of the EU for five years, but this gives Albania the time it needs to catch up, with GDP still only 30% of the EU average. 

Its agricultural sector is the single most important part of the economy, generating one-fifth of GDP. In addition to significant amounts of wheat, corn, tobacco and olives, Albania is the 13th largest producer of figs in the world (maybe a dubious honour). The nation’s ancient wine industry is making a comeback, having survived the communist fixation with volume at all costs – it produces wines that are clean and fresh and possessing a unique combination of Mediterranean climate and indigenous grapes has allowed further development, usually with the help of Italian expertise.

Still, democratic politics has not always helped economic growth. In 2009, EU member Greece and Albania signed an agreement for an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Ionian Sea but this was annulled by Albania’s Constitutional Court following complaints by the Socialist Party. Then in opposition, now in power, the Socialists asked the public prosecutor in late July 2014 to launch an investigation into the deal agreed by the Democratic Party, suggesting political motivations are at the root of the current tensions with Greece, the latter still disgruntled about the 1913 borders that divided Epirus.

Corruption also remains an issue. In 1996-97, the collapse of several Ponzi schemes impoverished a large swathe of the population, leading to mass emigration (a brain drain with which Albania still struggles to cope). Though stronger institutions have since been implemented to avoid a repeat, shocking individual cases still emerge. On 1st August 2014, seven employees of Albania's Central Bank were arrested on suspicion of stealing around 5 million euros from its reserves over the past four years. Though the Governor of the Bank, Adrian Fullani, said financial operations were not affected by the siphoning, Erjon Brace, chairman of the parliamentary financial committee, called for a “deep reform of the organisational system and control of the central bank.” It seems jurisprudence still has some way to go in Albania.

Overall, the elected governments in Tirana may interchange (a sign of democratic consolidation as theorised by the late Samuel Huntington, he of Clash of Civilizations fame) but the desire to integrate remains the same after a century on the periphery. This harks back to its status as a key entrepôt in the Roman world. Albania may never get the recognition it deserves but the drive to become part of the concert of nations – and the organisations that facilitate such progress – is encouraging for its future prospects.

Wraparound fantasy

It was announced recently that Marvel Comics were ‘retconning’ their Thor character to make him female, the surgery being less physical than metaphysical in that ‘she was always a woman’. One could hardly accuse Marvel of tokenism given that Thor is one of their pre-eminent creations, having a comic history stretching back 50 years. Yet some ‘canonical’ fans may be disgruntled at such a radical change, even women, who are said to make up half of Marvel’s readership (partially explaining the success of big-screen transfers). It’s not as if they haven’t got enough strong female superheroes (Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Spiderwoman, Black Widow, the Scarlet Witch, Pepper Potts, Sif and Jean Grey to name a very few). Nor may it impress those who would embrace such a change normally – one feminist was reserving judgement, saying: “We’ll see how many clothes she’s wearing.” And what will become of the character Thor Girl? But the one thing you can say about sci-fi mythology is that the possibilities are limitless as the imagination when it comes to changing circumstances if they don’t pan out as planned – when all else fails, one can always fall back on the flexibility of the comic multiverse.

So now might be a good time to offer my reminiscences on Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I was hesitant at first to see Cap, despite solid reviews from the critics, planning to wait for this instalment to debut on the small screen but hearing positive assessments from those closer to me, I decided ‘why not’, catching it on the last day of its screening in these here parts.

I was glad I did. Not only very good in itself but it tied in with a key storyline developing in TV’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., that is, the terrorist organisation H.Y.D.R.A. coming into the open. Suddenly, all the pieces from the Avengers’ Hollywood juggernaut and its spurs into various superhero narratives fell into place – something that would not happen were one to wait for Joss Whedon’s Avengers: The Age of Ultron, in the way that one could ignore the first of the franchises for Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk before Whedon’s Avengers Assemble. One learns why Gary Shandling’s oleaginous Senator Stern held such antipathy for Tony Stark/Ironman, for example, but also why he may be making no more appearances. The defenestration of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) is more crucial.

Captain America: TWS develops as a conspiracy thriller in which Cap (Chris Evans), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson), S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Deputy Director Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) all have to go on the run. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would figure out quickly who was the covert main villain. Continuing the liberal theme identified in Star Trek: Into Darkness, there is a distinct anti-drone strike agenda, critiquing this aspect of US foreign policy as illegal. As to other double agents, I already learnt from TV’s MAOSHIELD that Agent Jaspar Sitwell was treacherous, making him being zapped electrically into unconsciousness in the first series so retrospectively pleasing. He was slightly wasted in CA:TWS though – having served his purpose, Sitwell was summarily dispatched by the script writers as much as the Winter Soldier, when I would like to have seen here his character would have gone now that his treachery was exposed.

The plot that S.H.I.E.L.D. was hopelessly compromised from inception by infiltration from H.Y.D.R.A. mirrors the comics. It also has an analogue in real life because for many years after World War Two, Interpol dragged its feet over pursuing Nazi war criminals as its highest echelons were populated by former Nazis. H.Y.D.R.A. (in the Marvel world) was itself initiated by Nazis and the American capture of German scientists in the dying days of WWII is stated here by the loathsome Dr Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) – reconstituted as a massive computer memorybank (as he is a robot following organic death in the comics) – as how these Nazis could return their murderous ideology to positions of influence.

In addition to the high-paced action, there are moments of humour sprinkled throughout: Fury’s souped-up SUV has seven shades of something else knocked out of it and finding most relevant systems are failing, Fury asks in exasperation of his onboard computer what does work; the reply: “The air conditioning is fully operational,” as air already courses through several holes. Another instance is the Cap and Romanoff, as disguised figures, interacting strangely with an Apple store attendant. The best bit though is for those in the know: Fury’s gravestone is inscribed with his famous thundering line from Pulp Fiction.

The producers scored a coup in recruiting Robert Redford to this enterprise, though he does look as raggedy as Nick Nolte these days. Evans does decent enough as Cap, though it seems a long time ago the actor was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four movies and he doesn’t appear to have aged much. Scarlett Johannson breaks out the red hair dye (in the same way Kirsten Dunst did for Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy) and adds lustre for the male eye, especially through her power-dressing, yet on the run, even with an unreferred bolthole, Romanoff’s clothing and boots are remarkably immaculate and uncreased. The introduction of Agent 13 i.e. Sharon Carter (Emily vanCamp) is welcome as I do like to see the fuller fictional universe of the comics realised, with the same applying to Anthony Mackie as Falcon/Sam Wilson. Stan Lee never disappoints in his cameos as again he proves here as unnerved security guard. And Samuel L. Jackson is watchable as ever. In lesser roles, Gary Sinise puts in stint as the(voice-only) Smithsonian narrator, Thomas Kretschmann portrays in a mid-credits sequence Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff (AKA the Scarlet Witch) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Pietro Maximoff (AKA Quicksilver) – the last three all uncredited, with the Maximoff siblings set up to be initial villains through recruitment not by Magneto but by H.Y.D.R.A. 

There are a few slip-ups which is not altogether unsurprising. With the aforementioned Black Widow’s wardrobe, there are a few other niggles such as Fury temporarily upgrading the Cap’s clearance from Level 8 to Level 10 in order for our Avenger to see the helicarriers, yet there to seem to be hundreds of engineers, technicians and security guards all over the hangar – are they all also on Level 10 clearance thus hitherto outranking the Cap? Yet for a film in which the pace rarely lets up one can forgive such oversights. All in all, I’d give it four out of five.

Despite the gluttonous nature of the overarching franchise, each film is a standalone (as it should be), understandable even in the ignorance of others, though it gets more complicated if you see some but skip others. The same goes for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Joss Whedon largely delegated this to his family and associates and they played a very high stakes game, where essentially the whole first season was a pilot for the second. A lot of people were turned off (and did turn off and not return) by how formulaic and boring it was, as we gradually got to know each of the characters as they went chasing the ‘monster/device of the week’. I had a higher tolerance threshold and attracted to the periphery as I am – to know about the places and people that don’t get the spotlight – I found Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) endlessly watchable.

The second season though was where it took off after the long background tease of the first. This became quite noticeable when the narrative, for reasons of plotting, briefly jerked back into a low-rent Scooby-Doo escapade, such was the quality that was now surrounding it. I think Whedon, seeing the direction of travel, righted the vehicle before stepping back again. That it was getting up to full speed was shown by Stan Lee giving it his imprimatur, acting out as a Hugh Hefner-alike on an Italian train. One chase episode was also of high quality, introducing Lorelei (with Asgardian heritage recalling the Enchantress) and Sif straight from the comics. The link with Captain America: The Winter Soldier is quite explicit (unlike the in-passing note of Thor: the Dark World), the film making sense of otherwise nonsense phrases such as “Captain America has defeated the helicarriers at the Triskellion.”

Agent Coulson no longer becomes the one-note character he was lambasted for being (by certain critics), as we learn more of the life he left behind after he was ‘killed’ in Avengers Assemble – his widowed mother now grieving for her son, the girlfriend who still pines for him – plus his utter desolation when S.H.I.E.L.D. is wound up and he is apparently left without a purpose – this organisation to which he has given so much of his life. We also informed of how he was brought back from the dead, the pain he endured and the false memories sown. The spying of Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) on Coulson for Fury and the destructive impact it has on her relationship with Coulson sends spikes of tension coursing through the narrative’s veins. We learn that Skye (Chloe Bennett) is alien in origin and that her parents are ruthless and terrifying. The relationship between Fitz (Iain de Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) blossoms even though Simmons is torn in her affections. And cyborg Deathlok the Demolisher also makes the crossover from the comics, the unfortunate Mike Peterson (J. August Richards) made into a Frankenstein’s Monster. All this is interweaved to the backdrop of H.Y.D.R.A.’s emergence into daylight.

Bill Paxton as Agent John Garrett gave the second season a shot in the arm, a heavyweight presence that upped the game of the whole narrative. Most famously, he was the US president in Independence Day and like Evans, he seems not to have grown much older in the intervening decades. As Agent Garrett, he exuded a freewheeling charisma. This likeability and coolness was shaken when it was revealed that he was, in fact, a top H.Y.D.R.A. commander. This shock is compounded before the episode is out by the dependable Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) – who was the first S.H.I.E.L.D. agent we encountered on television and whose action man attributes falsely suggested that he would be the main character of the series – exposed as Garrett’s aide, killing in cold blood to rescue his briefly captured mentor. Veronica Hand, played by Saffron Burrows, is one of those murdered. Making an appearance in the first season, her role is expanded in the second to make her death scarcely believable and thus to knock us further sideways – initially, we were led to believe that she was top H.Y.D.R.A. foe; readers of the comics would doubly have drawn this conclusion as she was there the Deputy Director of H.A.M.M.E.R., the villainous Norman Osborn’s (Green Goblin) replacement for the discredited S.H.I.E.L.D., in addition to being a triple agent. So when it turned out she was the loyal one and Garrett the turncoat, it really spiced up the narrative when she was bumped off. For the next two episodes, before the team realised Ward’s double agent credentials, there was a palpable tension – primary characters defecting, important secondary ones being eliminated – it was impossible to tell what would happen and who would live or die.

Garrett’s unwitting sidekick, Agent Antoine Triplett (B.J. Britt) is recruited as a like-for-like replacement for Ward, though Melinda May, who had a sexual relationship with Ward, has the final say: “Just like old times,” quips Ward as he straddles May, whilst pushing her head towards a buzzsaw. “You were never on top,” Mary shoots back as she turns the tables – innocent yet dirty dialogue. The grandfather of Triplett was in the Howling Commandos – a reference to Nick Fury’s comic book incarnation’s first team. Maria Hill makes another crossover from the big screen to help out Coulson. The audience is constantly teased about the immediate appearance Samuel L Jackson as Fury in the second season (after a brief cameo in episode two of season one) – an opportunity to hear him, but no; a chance to see him, but no. There is a still shot of him in Coulson’s flashback but this could just be stock footage. Then, in the final episode, there he is and what a contribution he makes; even Coulson is surprised to see him at long last: “Sir?” to which Fury replies, “Don’t Sir me. I dress like I live under a bridge [so as t be undercover].”

Garrett’s and Ward’s backstory gets ample if tight treatment and Garrett is revealed to be the first Deathlok, even if the timeline is a bit squiffy – in 1990, Yugoslavia had not descended into civil war and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) were not part of that conflict. At first, Garrett claims he joined H.Y.D.R.A. because he ‘saw which way the wind was blowing’ – “This is about me being realistic, Phil.” “No, it’s about you being a psychopath John, Coulson snaps back. We learn though that S.H.I.E.L.D. abandoned Garrett, when he suffered his life-threatening injury, allowing H.Y.D.R.A. to play on his bitterness to lure him into their structure. Ward is shown how he can betray his former team so dispassionately. His unswerving devotion to Garrett derives from the latter rescuing him from prison, teaching him life skills but also the need to detach one’s emotions for the line of work he has in mind for Ward.

Eventually Fury entrusts Coulson with rebuilding S.H.I.E.L.D. In the comics, there have been various directors of this elite espionage organisation – Fury, Hill, Tony Stark – and now Agent Coulson joins that roster as Director Coulson. The commissioning of a third series has been delayed (albeit it is ‘green-lit) possibly because of the drop-off in viewing figures as a result of the first season. Were it to stay in development, Coulson would still at  least have a re-entry into the main film franchise and becoming Director was a fitting touch if it was the final act of Marvel's Agents of S.H..I.E.L.D.  The second season definitely qualifies as brilliant drama.

Slimed

It is rare that I am in accordance with a journal as learned as The Daily Star but their reporting of foreign cannibal slugs (inadvertently imported on salad leaves from Spain) strikes a chord with me.  I find slugs repulsive at the best of times, whereas snails have a certain charm with their houses on their backs, as well as being easier to pick up and throw into the alleyway at the back of the garden (where they will survive the drop as gravity kicks in or otherwise).  It reminds me of the scare of the New Zealand flatworm dissolving our humble earthworm for its consumption - I don't know how that has panned out but domestic biodiversity is very important.
There was a colony of these super-slugs (who can resist 20 slug pellets before expiring) at the end of my back yard where there was no vegetation yet somehow they survived amongst the bagged detritus (now disposed of).  I concluded that they must have quickly evolved into carnivores, feasting on unfortunate bugs in the area, especially woodlice.  They have a special hood to protect their heads, so when it retracts and their tentacles poke out it is even more disgusting!  Stepping on them is instantaneous but gross so they all got a good dosing of salt which takes down the most powerful of slugs if in sufficient quantity.  I'm not sorry - they had to go.  Get out of my yard!