China - a history of corruption

Throughout the history of China, rampant corruption was a common factor in bringing down many a great dynasty. The fall in morality at court usually presaged the fall of the empire, with the Mantle of Heaven lost. As the first dynasty, the Chin, collapsed, it was later noted by a scholar of the succeeding Han family (maybe needing to degrade the previous incumbent for the satisfaction of his master) that, "The poor often wore the clothing of oxen and horses and ate the food of dog and swine. They were burdened by avaricious and oppressive officials..." The Later Han, needing to supplement waning tax revenues caused by the siphoning of corrupt officials, resorted to the open sale (rather than appointment) of posts and sales from the palace - as a result, twenty years later, the 'deer was running' and the role of Son of Heaven was up for grabs. Corruption proved terminal for the Yuan and Ming dynasties - in the dying days of the latter, even tax relief for areas suffering from natural disaster was pilfered by voracious eunuchs.
But some dynasties are brought to the point of ruin but revive through strong leadership. The megalomaniac Wu Zetian, the only female Chinese emperor, proved a successful ruler for a long time but in her later years, her judgement became clouded. Taking two young brothers as lovers and indulging their every caprice, she let them plunge the court into flagrant immorality. With 'money poured out like sand', bribery and corruption were rampant for eight years until disgruntled courtiers finally assassinated the two brothers. Having presented herself as a deity in her hour of strength, a dishevelled Wu abdicated the next day. After a brief interlude, her successor Xuanzong, reinvigorating the Tang dynasty, swept the court clean, executing or exiling all former ministers.
Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, would like to see himself in the Xuanzong role. As General Secretary of the Communist Party, he has massively expanded the anti-corruption drive of his predecessors. With 55 years on the clock, the Communist Party of China hardly counts as a distinguished dynasty and Xi's pursuit of 'tigers and flies' (high- and low-level corrupt officials) is widely seen as a genuine campaign to 'save the Party'; others are more cynical seeing it as a way for Xi to strengthen his power base by purging his rivals.
Tens of thousands of crooked officials have been netted but some of the biggest fish are becoming entangled too. When China's Ministry of Defence announced that ex-general Xu Caihou was to stand trial, the ministry declared that the bribes received by Xu and his family were tebie juda or 'extremely huge'. It is alleged that the former Vice Chairman of China's Central Military Commission had one ton of cash in the basement of his 21,500-square foot Beijing mansion as well as precious stones, calligraphy and paintings. The Financial Times said that the cash was neatly stacked in boxes, each inscribed with the name of the soldier who had solicited a promotion in exchange for it. It is believed that it took at least 10 military trucks to cart away all the ill-gotten gains, reminding me of Goldfinger, where James Bond (mistakenly) taunts the eponymous villain of the latter's plan to break in to Fort Knox by detailing how many trucks it would take to haul away the gold.
The Communist Party's refusal to make officials openly declare their assets, a level of transparency that many argue would signal a real commitment to graft-busting, seems counter-productive. While President Xi has declared war on corruption, he has also imprisoned activists who have campaigned for such asset disclosure.
On Sina Weibo, the Chinese social network, one writer commented, "Gu Junshan laid offerings in front of Xu Caihou for his promotion. So, if I may, who was it that promoted Xu Caihou?" Gu Junshan, a former general mentored by the disgraced Xu, was charged with corruption in March. The financial news magazine Caixin reported in January that it took four military trucks to haul away Gu's accumulated booty, including a gold boat and a gold statue of late Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.
Though the Chinese empire reached its apogee under the Manchu ruler Qianlong, as with Wu Zetian, age dulled his judgement. Having lost his favourite wife and son, he became enchanted by a good-looking palace guard by the name of Heshan. Charming and intelligent but completely unscrupulous, Heshan single-handedly set the Manchu Qing dynasty on the road to ruin. Rapidly promoted, he installed his family in high posts and, through a network of corrupt henchmen, levied a ‘squeeze’ on officialdom throughout the empire that permanently weakened the very foundations of imperial government. In suppressing a peasant revolt, Heshan’s minions ruthlessly extorted from the already starving peasantry and followed this up by embezzling army allocations, demoralising the troops. On his death, Heshan’s private wealth was estimated at two billion US dollars in modern terms.
Qianlong’s imperial successors struggled to refill the treasury and restore the empire’s integrity but all efforts were forlorn, like shifting sand in a desert. Decadence was too ingrained, reaching a point where the Chinese navy was sent in ill-equipped to face their enemy in the Sino-Japanese War because an admiral had pawned some of their ships’ heavy guns. It has not reached that stage in China yet but time is running out for President Xi to put the ship of state back on an even keel. If a Heshan-like figure gave Xu Caihou his commissions, then they need to be rooted out as quickly as possible.

Things that are UKIP

Sometimes, it is easy to mock UKIP, not because of invention on anyone's part but because they shoot themselves in the foot.  Today, a hashtag went viral - #thingsthatarenotamosque.  It all started with a BBC puff piece in central London asking passers-by to place a ball either in one box representing the opinion that 'Nigel Farage would make a great prime minister' or another box that he wouldn't.  Unsurprisingly, the 'no' box won.
Nigel Farage's prospective constituency in South Thanet wasn't going to take this slight to the Great Leader lying down.  The line of attack could have been that London was not a fertile ground for the party so the 'poll' was flawed.  No, that would be common sense.  In the background of the BBC reporting was Westminster Cathedral and it was tweeted that holding the poll 'outside a mosque example of BBC not random but selective'.
This is a 'fail' on so many levels.  Firstly, it's the wrong religion.  Secondly, the building is not any Christian institution but the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.  Thirdly, what's wrong with holding a poll outside a mosque anyway?  Why would the poll be invalid? Fourthly and by extension, are Muslims not supposed to be UKIP members and vice versa?
The contortions UKIP pulls to explain its gaffes are wonders to behold and I wondered how they would react.  According to the head of the UKIP branch in South Thanet, it was an 'innocent mistake' and the person involved no longer had access to the Twitter account.  So, in UKIP's eyes, casual Islamophobia is just an 'innocent mistake'.  UKIP itself is not such an innocent mistake.
I'm unsure whether this surpasses for sheer idiocy the excuse for UKIP's poor performance in London at the 2014 European Parliament elections by UKIP's communications chief - that the party suffered because people in London are 'more educated and media-savvy'.  All the same, it's another one to add to the list.  President George W Bush is very much old hat.
If these are the quality of people seeking to elect Farage to Westminster, then all this should be reassuring.  The trouble is, those who believe falsehoods in earnest can be very persuasive to the uninitiated indeed.

The burdens of the rich

The right-wing newspapers have presented it as some sort of hoo-ha that Angelina Jolie might be put off buying a house in England if Labour won the General Election and imposed a Mansion Tax.  Allegedly, she was looking at some property out of the reach of 99% of us, so she can afford to splash £25m on a house but is spooked by having to pay some tax on it.  Oh well, just have to let Russians, Chinese and Arab tycoons expand their property portfolios.
Jolie, a big friend of William Hague (did the Leader of the House have a word?)  follows in the footsteps of Griff Rhys Jones (who will leave the country in the event of a mansion tax), Bill Oddie (who will vote for the Green Party in protest) and Mylene Klass (who compares taxing property worth more than £2m to taxing water).  Klass bemoans the impoverishment of little grannies - rapidly becoming a mythic demographic so I'd like to see Klass' empirical evidence.  The loaded luvvies don't realise the more they protest, the more popular such a tax becomes among the other 99%.

Dramatic distractions

I know I said I would scrape all the barnacles off but certain distractions are inevitable and some are by choice, like watching The Imitation Game at the cinema.  Having not seen Enigma, it was a fresher experience than it would be for well-versed film critics, though some parts of it were signposted, outside of the parameters of flashing back and forth in time, such as the fate of his schoolboy friend, Christopher.  To make Alan Turing, imitating 1930s/40s/50s society as much as creating a computer to imitate German war signals, the main focus, the only mention of an Enigma machine was an early version smuggled out by Polish intelligence, rather than the crucial breakthrough of a British crew finding an intact later version aboard a captured U-boat.  There was a ridiculous subtext that Turing's homosexuality and his intellectual brilliance were inseparable - another case of the mainstream hijacking gay rights for their own PC purposes but not really understanding it and end up being gauche - the best way to promote gay rights is for homosexuals to be seen as normal. 
Of course, it was the discovery of his homosexuality that laid the foundations for Turing's destruction - at the start of the film, our first introduction to Benedict Cumberbatch's Turing is to see him sweeping up some spilled cyanide, which he would later lace the apple that killed him (the film states he committed suicide but it's still an open verdict whether he actually intended to take his own life).  The acting is good from Cumbersome (as my wife inadvertently called him), Keira Knightley, Charles Dance and Mark Strong, greatly aiding the flow of what could have been a dry story of code-breaking.  The achievement of creating the world's first true computer is illustrated in neat shorthand - instructions need to be entered to get the thing to work its processes, laying the foundations for all computers we use today; something simple hiding in plain sight.
Other divertissements included BBC's Remember Me, a drama yesterday night.  Starring Michael Palin (plus Mark Addy and a small role for Julia Swahala as an alcoholic, depressed widow), I was expecting a serious story about an old man struggling with dementia when a woman mysteriously dies.  Instead, it was a horror tale about a murderous, materialistic wraith.  How disappointing.  Not only that but Remember Me ransacked every horror cliché going - the empty, moving rocking chair from Psycho, water pouring down the stairs in imitation of the blood from The Shining, a red cowled figure attracted to water from Don't Look Now, a corpse crying as we have seen near versions of in Star Trek: the Net Generation  and Doctor Who, flickering corridor lights as seen in innumerable scary sci-fi and candles being blown out from an unheralded breeze as seen in countless gothic fiction.  Hardly fits the boast of the BBC of 'Original [my italics] British drama'.  Admittedly, the bumps were administered effectively but being so well worn as to have no excuse for not being done so.  Another cavil I had was it not being concluded within the hour (the dreaded, dreary 'next time...').  Had I known all this beforehand I probably would have skipped it and waited for Palin to star in a properly serious role.

Ship-shape

It was accredited to Lynton Crosby to 'scrape the barnacles off the ship' as advice for David Cameron in the run-up to the General Election next year to achieve a smooth-sailing course that would truly engage with voters, rather than muddle them as the 'Big Society' message did in 2010.  So out with 'green crap' initiatives, plain cigarette packaging and minimum pricing for units of alcohol.  Whitehall can be quite limpet-like though and most of these proposals remain in the pipeline.
I too intend to scrape the barnacles off the ship and forgo fripperies to complete a project of some import.  Thus I shall be going dark for the next few days until this project is resolved. Au revoir but not adieu.

Minnows imitating sharks

With news that the miniscule (and despotic archetype) Equatorial Guinea will host the African Cup of Nations after Morocco was expelled from the competition after reneging on staging it, Saturday was one for the minnows in European qualifying.  San Marino drew 0-0 with Estonia, ending a run of 61 consecutive defeats and a first European qualifying point (though they did triumph over Sweden 3-0 in a World Cup qualifier - Sweden won the match 6-0 but fielded an ineligible player in the last ten minutes and so, because the rules were contravened, San Marino were awarded a 3-0 victory by FIFA).  It will be quite odd looking at the qualifying table to see San Marino have a point after their name.  Liechtenstein recorded their first competitive away win in ten years, beating Moldova 1-0, the Alpine principality sitting pretty on an incredible 4 points.  Moldova, unsurprisingly, are bottom of their qualifying group.  Greece are also in the basement.  Having lost at home previously to Northern Ireland, soon-to-be-ex-coach Claudio Ranieri's side plumbed new depths, with the Faroe Islands not just winning but deservedly so.  From time to time, it is raised that the micro football federations should play each other in a pre-qualifying group, to decide who would be worthy of facing off against bigger sides.  But, when results like this come in, their inclusion in the main qualifiers is rendered glorious.

Getting mad to get even (and then win)

Despite an atrocious Wembley pitch, England eventually saw off Slovenia comfortably.  Though an own-goal, Slovenia made a key tactical mistake by scoring against England and breaking a run of clean sheets.  It just made England mad, as evidenced by Rooney's bulldozer-like charge into Slovenia's box before being fouled to win a penalty.  It reminded of Marseille scoring against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu in 2003.  Leading at Real's illustrious home, just made the Zinedine Zidane-captained side similarly mad and they annihilated Madrid to lead 4-1, before complacently letting in another goal to win 4-2.
Scoring was not really an issue for Real but their defensive carelessness would eventually cost them against another French side, Monaco, going down in the Champions League quarter-finals 5-5 on the away goals rule.  England may boss the smaller sides and putting the ball in the back of the net is not a problem but as was seen at the World Cup, defensive laxity against the big boys make for an early exit.

Strictly just dancing

So Andy Murray, after his Herculean efforts to get to the end-of-season cash bonanza that this the ATP World Tour finals has crashed out after straight sets defeats to his first two opponents, Roger Federer permitting him one game after it was clear Murray was already eliminated (he had to beat Feerer in stright sets).  I said to my colleague that going to every ATP event going would leave him with burnout and so it proved.  But being in the top eight of the world to make this tournament still carries with it a hefty cheque, even if your rivals make you look risible, so not to many tears should be shed.
So that just leaves Mama Murray, hoofing (in all senses of the verb) away on Strictly Come Dancing, kept in by the virulent wishes of Scottish Nationalists gratified by Andy's last-minute tweet in favour of 'independence' (from his Surrey address).  It's not all bad news; the further Judy Murray goes in the competition without markedly improving, the more the judge will weary of her and the sharper the comments.  Though expected of Craig Revel-Horwood, it's always delightful when generous judges like Bruno Tonioli reach for their '4' panel, after withering wisecracks.  I just hope she doesn't jump ship like John Sergeant, who can forever claim 'I could have won it but I resigned for the show's integrity'. Bollocks, he would have been voted off eventually and wanted his moment in the sun.

The Ministry of Truth

Robert Mugabe once said that only God would remove him from his presidency.  It seems like Sepp Blatter might feel the same.  But until he steps aside in favour of say, Michele Platini (however naive the UEFA boss is in 'pushing the frontiers' of world football), the Augean Stables, if not cleaned, will no longer be overflowing.  Juan Antonio Samaranch, former tyrant - in the classical Athenian sense - of the International Olympics Committee, went into the background with protégé Jacques Roge succeeding him in the wake of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal.  But FIFA is different.
England were the only bid to be up front and honest about its efforts (with the exception of the long gone Lord Triesmann), including some not-so-subtle wooing of the venal Jack Warner.  All the other bids that had something to hide, just clammed up and refused to co-operate with the enquiry.  As it was an internal investigation rather than a legal one, they didn't have to say anything that they didn't want to.  Thus, it is England who are claimed to have damaged FIFA's image while Russia and Qatar are exonerated because they kept quiet.  FIFA should rename itself the Ministry of Truth but only in an Orwellian sense.

Fate averted

In football, it is always interesting when fate does no pan out as planned.  Back in January 2008, in the wake of the sacking of Sam Allardyce as Newcastle United manager, Mark Hughes, in charge of Blackburn Rovers, waiting for the call to raise to him a higher calling.  St James' Park was to be his next staging post on the road to emulating his old boss Sir Alex Ferguson.  It seemed a certainty that he would take over and the fans were not unappreciative of a rising star in management taking over.
But the call never came.  Kevin Keegan was installed as head coach, marking his return to the management of the black-and-whites.  Mark Hughes was duly forgotten.  It all ended in tears later that August when Keegan felt compelled to resign after being treated like trash by the 'sporting director' Dennis Wise, with Keegan winning a case of constructive dismissal.  One feels that a hard man like Hughes would have taken no crap from a fellow tough nut like Wise - if I'd bet on it, I'd say Hughes would have broken Wise.
Now, David Moyes has taken over at Real Sociedad, attempting to rebuild his reputation in the Basque country.  He becomes the fourth British man to manage the San Sebastián club after Harry Lowe, John Toshack (over three stints) and Chris Coleman.  Yet since his sacking by Manchester United in April, he seemed destined to take over at Newcastle United, a club of similar stature to Everton where he had so much comparative success.  When the Magpies occupied the basement of the Premier League for the first seven games of the season, Alan Pardew seemed destined to depart soon and Moyes ushered in to 'save the club', having engineering Everton's escape from relegation when he first arrived on Merseyside from Preston North End.  But then Pardew got a break and has now won five games in a row, including Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City away and Liverpool at home. With no other chairman (or Karren Brady) having itchy-trigger fingers and only Crystal Palace having switched their manager since August (maybe Moyes considered the Selhurst Park outfit beneath him), the Scotsman was left kicking his heels.  Real Sociedad aren't large and currently occupy 15th place in La Liga, but they qualified for the Champions League two years ago, the Europa League last season (but were knocked out in qualifying in the summer) and have already beaten Madrids, Real and Atlético, this season (their only two wins mind).  They went into the last day of the 2002-03 season with a serious chance of winning La Liga but blew it and were relegated a few seasons later.  With Pardew's uncanny knack for survival, like Hughes, Moyes - arguably a perfect fit for Newcastle United - will never occupy the home dressing room at St James' Park as master of all he surveys.

The ice queen

Thailand is more associated with sultry beaches, lush jungle and choked cities than the raw geographical material that immeasurably assists in producing athletic specimens capable of competing in the Winter Olympics.  So it was the kind of fairytale outcome that internationally renowned violinist Vanessa Mae qualified for the Sochi Olympics to represent Thailand in the downhill ski slalom.  And as with all fairytales, a kernel of truth was embellished to breaking point.  This was no Cool Runnings (or Cool Runnings II) where Jamaica entered a bobsleigh team.
An accomplished amateur skier, since a young girl Mae had always dreamt of representing her country (on one side of her family) at an Olympics, but the trouble was there were 3,000 more expert skiers above her in the global rankings.  Until a curious set of circumstances in Slovenia where being a multimillionaress and world famous proved to have advantages (who da thunk?).  Over the course of four events, Mae gained enough ranking points to make the 2014 Sochi Olympics, where she finished bottom of the leaderboard (of those who completed the slalom course).
Now, investigations have shown the Slovenian events to have been highly corrupt with two people appearing in points table who were not even there.  Thus Mae has been banned for four years from competitive skiing and various officials from the ex-Yugoslav republic serving suspensions of between one to two years, the clear indication that Mae bears prime culpability for the commission of this deception.  Ironically, while it was the influence her fame wielded that got her the gig in the southern neighbour of Austria, it was also her fame that shone the spotlight onto the extraordinary circumstances of her qualification.  Not that Mae will be bothered about the four-year ban.  She is 35 now and it would be highly unlikely for her to make another attempt at the age of 39 for the 2018 Winter Olympics; she has fulfilled the dream of her childhood, there is no need to make a repeat effort and no-one can take that away from her, not even international disgrace.

Manufactured grievance

The Catalan 'independence vote' came around quite soon.  After the Scottish referendum in September, you think 'ah, November is a long way off' and suddenly it's happened.  Of course, coverage of this was more fulsome in Iberia than here in the UK but it is still important.  All the same, it could ultimately have as much effect as the Rochester and Strood by-election (billed by BBC Newsroom Southeast as the most important by-election in a generation; is a generation only two months now, after the Clacton result in September?).
I say this because, as in all by-elections the turnout will be substantially smaller than in the actual General Election - it will be impressive if it is more than 50%.  Mark Reckless might win in November but lose in May.  Dan Hodges called  him a UKIP kamikaze, ramming his explosive-packed plane into the aircraft carrier of the Conservative Party in a suicide run to deny the latter a national win in 2015 (though the Tories retake Rochester and make Reckless unemployed).
Likewise, out of a population of 7.5m and eligible electorate of 5.4m, a turnout around the 2m is in all actuality a humiliation for the Catalan nationalists, a far cry from the 85%-plus turnout in the Scottish referendum.  Pro-union candidates had advocated a boycott of the 'symbolic' ballot to deny it legitimacy and, unlike in Crimea, where anti-democratic forces don't give a fig about boycotts so long as a 'plebiscite' is signed, sealed and delivered, it was effective.  It wouldn't be as seismic as Scotland breaking away (with Scotland's strategic position in the North Atlantic), but Catalan independence would be welcomed in Moscow, both to weaken NATO and as validation of the dismemberment of the Ukraine, with Russian-backed militants holding votes whose results are only recognised by Russia.  80.7% voting to break up with the rest of Spain is an approval rating suspiciously close to that achieved in the Crimea and the Donbass.
Of course, that doesn't stop the crap spewing from those romance induces hatred of the 'other' and a disconnect with reality; artificial grievance manufactured to appear real, like a carnivore persuading himself or herself that tofu is really meat (or in other words that independence in an interdependent world isn't independence as they envisage it).  Just as 'Yes' supporters in Scotland bewailed remaining under the 'tyranny' of England - hasn't stopped the USA indulging in such easily rubbished myths - one pro-independence supporter in Catalonia, Felipe Alcalde Rodríguez, said after voting, “This is our attempt to be democratic in a state that doesn’t respect democracy.”  Stuff and nonsense of the kind once propounded by ETA to justify their bombing campaign.  Spain can be classified a 'new democracy', yes, but has been consistently so for nearly 40 years.  The last coup attempt (which failed) was in 1981 and though diktats from Germany - still scarred from the hyperinflation of the 1920s and '30s - have hampered growth, that is hardly the fault of the electoral system which puts in place the political establishment. 
And if we are talking about 'respect for democracy', let's look at the ballot paper.  Two questions were asked: (1) Should Catalonia be a state?; (2) Should Catalonia be an independent state?  Referendums that posit yes/no answers are always dubious (Scotland was transformed into one through David Cameron's cack-handedness in negotiating with Alex Salmond) as people, in general, want to be positive, not negative, to say yes and not no; such little nudges can be enough to swing a result.  There should have been two questions on the ballot paper, interlinked but situated without order of precedence side by side (rather than one on top of the other) - "Do you want Catalonia to separate from Spain? OR Do you want Catalonia to remain part of Spain?"  That would be truly democratic in an ancient Athenian sense, not the skewed questions that appeared on yesterday's voting papers.
Emilio Sáenz-Francés, a professor of history and international relations at Madrid’s Comillas Pontifical University, said it was also a wakeup call for Spain’s central government. Despite having no legal validity, the mere fact that the vote was held, he said, “weakened the image of the central government, after it repeatedly told Spaniards this vote would never happen”.  He went onto say that Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, had an interest in keeping Artur Mas, Catalonia's regional president, at the helm because Mas is "more moderate" than others.  It's like saying Alex Salmond is more moderate than Tommy Sheridan.  Extremists defeat themselves in the eyes of mature voters because they are extremist.  If the central government had to face off against the Catalan Republican Left party, Madrid might win.
This is not so say that the ruling Partido Popular are out of the woods.  Though Catalonia (as Aragon) was like Scotland a proud medieval state, the union with Castile was between two crowns rather than from representatives, like if England and Scotland never progressed beyond 1603, with the Scottish parliament not voting itself out of existence in 1707.  Also, with Spain's imperial glory, it was the centralised Habsburgs and Bourbons that drove it, unlike in Great Britain, where Scots were integral in raising the country to pre-eminence.  In seminal conflicts of the twentieth century, Spain tore itself apart, with nationalist Castilians imposing themselves on Catalonia; by contrast, democratic Britain fought against a totalitarian outside enemy to forge a spirit of unity - many older Scottish voters were therefore moved to vote in favour of the Union last September in memory of how the English and the Scottish fought alongside each other.  The ties that bind Scotland and England are stronger than those between Catalonia and the rest of Spain.

This weekend

Though it is a quite common trope that more people watch X-Factor than watch the BBC Remembrance commemoration on this weekend of the year, but what has really struck me is how few poppies are worn by the general population at large.  It is not just the 'apathetic' young but those of all ages as I see them walk down the street - I find that quite shocking.
Although I find wearing a poppy a full seven days before the end of October by the political and media establishment a bit excessive (from the first of November I think is fine enough), for so many of the population around where I live to eschew poppy-wearing has the corollary that they almost certainly haven't given money to the Royal British Legion this year.  And this is despite more than coverage than usual with the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One.  I can understand the 14% of the population formed by immigrants (minus Commonwealth members) eschewing it - it always looks odd when British politicians and correspondents go abroad and they are the only people wearing a poppy; it is just not in the culture of non-Commonwealth Great War combatants to commemorate with a poppy.  But what has happened with most of the 86% British-born populace?  One of the sweetest things of my daughter Kimberley in the last week is how, along with 'fireworks', 'poppy' is her favourite word.  Pointing to the one on my jumper, she even said, "nice poppy."  With little idea of its significance, still she has embraced it.
In Germany, the mood is far from sombre but not because of any callousness regarding war.  Rather they are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Upbeat tunes such as one regarding trumpets bringing down the walls of Jericho are all the rage.  The BBC's Europe correspondent, Mark Mardell, was in front of the Reichstag, claimed to be one of his favourite buildings.  Funny given that he doesn't really know its history.  He said it was burned by the Nazis to clamp down on all opponents, but the Reichstag was actually burnt down by a disturbed Dutch pyromaniac - to borrow a lyric from The Prodigy, he was a firestarter, troubled firestarter.  Mardell compounded this by telling the German ambassador to the UK that a new country came into being with the fall of the Wall.  The ambassador was too polite to point out Mardell's errors - that East Germany survived into 1990 and when it disappeared it wasn't a unification with the western half, it was an annexation by West Germany.  The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) continued in existence, just expanding its territory by a third, exemplified by a cartoon at the time with the head of Chancellor Helmut Kohl made into the outline of West Germany and swallowing East Germany starting with the bit jutting out (the Fulda Gap).  What is Mardell being paid for?

Who knows

So, it was the season finale of Peter Capaldi's maiden season as Dr Who.  Checking IMDb, on the basis of 51 users, A Death in Heaven (riffing on various 'deaths in paradise') was given 9.3 out of 10.  I'm a little more sober in my judgement.
After the terrific menace of the previous episode, Dark Water, I was a little underwhelmed by how little the Cybermen did off their own back (they are my favourite Who villains), merely serving as tools for the Master/Missy (Michelle Gomez) to claim moral equivalence with the Doctor and to defeat the latter on a psychological battlefield.  The victory of the Master would be to corrupt the Doctor and in a way the Doctor did that by disintegrating Missy (though no doubt it was actually a dematerialisation).
Yes, their were some storylines tied up by Steven Moffat, the master of long-form exposition; and yes, the emotional arcs were believable if a little overextended in the case of Clara and Danny, the boyfriend following the pattern of the Doctor's compatriots, if rarely companions, in self-sacrifice.  So we've seen it before - variation on a well-worn theme.  The brutality of the episode was welcome - the death of Osgood was almost as big a shock as her death (when the Master says they will kill you, demise is usually forthcoming) - for the 50th anniversary, she wore a Tom Baker scarf, here a Matt Smith bowtie complete with catchphrase.  Seemingly taking out Kate Stewart, daughter of Brigadier (ultimately General in the Sarah-Jane Adventures) Lethbridge-Stewart, was another refreshing slap in the face, although I doubt the Brigadier would have approved of being made into a zombie Cyberman, as I did as the apparent desecration of a beloved Who character.
The problems for this conclusion began in Dark Water.  A science fiction enterprise only has credibility if there is some grounding in basic facts.  If those facts are wrong, then disbelief is hard to suspend.  Missy's contention that the human race is "at a strategic disadvantage.  The dead outnumber the living." is a case of no-one telling Moffat that he creating cobblers as creaky as the sets in the original Dr Who serials.  And like those sets there is a domino effect.  The dead do not outnumber the living.  I can't recall how many times I've heard that more people are alive today than have ever lived, the repetition being because it's true.  Hence the dead do not outnumber the living.  Further compounding this flaw is Missy's masterplan of pollinating corpses, yet the vast number of people today are cremated (something mentioned in Dark Water) so the Cyberman army is further reduced.  So even if the Master/Missy harvested consciousness from across time (an offensive concept further pushing Who into the bounds of controversy), inhumation has never been universal and still isn't to this d.ay across much of the world (I think of the funeral pyre barges on the River Ganges alone).  If the central concept has such a gaping hole, the rest must be taken on tolerance.  There were a few other logic gaps - why were only Danny and the Brigadier able to retain consciousness?  Why were we told Danny would never hurt Clara but he zapped her so she collapsed in a heap on the floor.  Why did Kate Stewart threaten essentially Earth cybermen with a relic of a Mondas cyberman - they were almost completely different models.
I still am not a fan of Capaldi as the Doctor and he has only got better as the scripts improved, rather than any acceptance on my part.  All the same, he produced a masterclass in acting for the finale as Moffat's genius allowed him to flex his dramatic muscles.  There have been some nice touches as things have developed - telling the 2D monsters 'this plane [i.e. planet] is protected' or referencing classic Dr Who versus Cyberman serial The Invasion, with the cyborgs walking outside to a backdrop of St Paul's Cathedral (the cupola opening up like a Terry's Chocolate Orange was not to my liking).  Missy parachuting into the graveyard like Mary Poppins was very amusing.  I did like Jenna Coleman as Clara, the consummate timelord companion but it seems the parting of the ways is final and a new companion will join the series after the Christmas special, with Nick Frost as Father Christmas appearing mid-credits and recognising the downbeat nature of the curtain-closer - very meta.
Maybe I'm still in mourning for the Russell T Davies era but for me, Dr Who has never really captivated me since and this is no reflection the abilities of Smith, Capaldi or indeed Moffat and his team.  It's good that Moffat has stamped his signature on the series but it is out of sync with my own direction.  I will still watch the Doctor's derring-do but there is always a background feeling of disharmony between myself and what I'm watching.  Who knows if synchronisation will be achieved in 2015?

Time to do some shopping

This morning, I said to Kimberley, "I'm going to make you breakfast, okay." She replied, "Okay." And I went down to the kitchen to prepare her some milk and mixed cereal (some branflakes, some cornflakes).  While downstairs, I heard her voice call out, "Can I apple?"
I look at the steel-ribboned fruitbowl.  "No, there are no apples left."
"Can I pear?"
"No, all the pears are gone."
"Can I nana?"
"Sorry, we don't have any bananas."
In truth, the fruitbowl was empty.  There was a persimmon lying in its packaging but that would just spoil her appetite.  I just loved it though how she went through a list of fruit that in her mind she would like to have, in order of preference.  Moreover, she didn't give up after the first rejection.  It's wonderful how not just her vocabulary but her phrasing and reasoning are developing.  She got her cereal and milk.  It's Saturday - time to do shopping for the week.

Formatting my life

Face-to-face interviews are always nerve-wracking businesses and having to sit exams beforehand does not make it easier.  I claimed familiarity with Excel and though I believed it, having composing an Excel report once (at 3am in the morning) ahead of a job interview.  At this different one though, I was completely exposed, pathetically guessing and though I feel I gave a good account of myself against three interviewers, I was blown out of the water by an inability to source large organisations within a pre-designed spreadsheet.
It was this humiliation that made me determined to take Excel courses paid for by my current organisation.  I can justify it from a work perspective but it is also important for personal development with a view to the future.  Getting down to brass tacks, a month ago I attended an Excel introductory course and found out how lacking my knowledge was since I essentially gave up on Excel in 1998.  I definitely could not have done the intermediate session, that I did today, from a standing start.
Usually, when I attend courses at Victoria, I have to wait weeks for human resources to email me the notes from a session (one bad occasion took four months on Notebook training) and by that moment, much of what I learned disappears into the ether.  Like a language for a non-specialist linguist, such technical demands need constant practice, not shoved into a half-remembered recess in the mind.  When HR sent me the notes for the introductory training, I got the notes from the intermediate course and only partially covering the subject at that.  Clever me, noticing that in the London folders, there were Word documents covering both basic and intermediate with exercises to practise upon.  I thereupon attached them to an email and sent it to myself.  When I pitch up at Excel Advanced in December, finally I may be up to speed.

First of the Gang to Die

Though ostensibly one of the better tracks on Morrissey's comeback album You are the Quarry, the above title is pertinent to the two leaders of the main political parties.  Today, Labour had its 'wobble' where though no letter did the rounds, let alone a stalking horse emerging, a collective counsel of despair developed regarding Ed Miliband's stewardship.  The Tories have been fractious ever since David Cameron failed to win a parliamentary majority and if Rochester and Strood follows the Clacton route of a turncoat Tory winning their constituency seat for UKIP, Cameron may tack even further to the xenophobic right to preserve, as he sees it, a tenuous grip on the premiership.
One of my Labour friends wept into his pint that 'we' had elected the wrong Miliband brother.  I don't see it that way.  David was as inept a Foreign Secretary as Ed, it might be argued, is as Leader of the Opposition.  Quite wooden, an attempt to lighten up with a banana backfired as disastrously as Ed tackling a bacon buttie.  David was accused of 'megaphone diplomacy' (not a compliment) and casually abandoned Britain's historic - if unexercised - duty of care towards Tibet.  Like Anthony Eden, Gordon Brown became prime minister too late after a hogging predecessor, but had David run against him in 2007 and prevailed, Labour would still have gone down to defeat in 2010.  Labour have a habit of sticking with leaders in the most dire of circumstances.
By contrast, the Conservatives are renowned for their ruthless regicide but the bloodletting has long become self-harm.  Like a dog that has bitten a human and savoured the warm flowing liquid, Tory backbenchers really should be put down or, at least, put in their place.  Cameron has never had the force of personality of Blair, let alone Thatcher - he is the archetypal 'wet' - and so seeks to appease those who will just take more and more - the 1930s parallels are as accurate as they are unedifying.  Instead of leading by example and isolating the dissenters, he has followed their siren calls and is being lured onto the electoral rocks.  It has been claimed that in Coalition, the Liberal Democrats have claimed the space (and cabinet seats) of liberalism, leaving the Tories forced to retreat to the boondocks of angry right-wing rabble-rousing so as to politically distinguish themselves from their Coalition partners but Cameron's weakness has allowed this drift to occur
Cameron is in very real anger of losing the plot.  In Europe, he is lonely, with even natural allies deserting him.  If Norway, often cited by EU-sceptics as the ideal to which to aspire, says freedom of movement cannot be tampered with at the core level, then how will Cameron win support within the EU for his nebulous reforms.  Not that he is entirely without influence.  He boasted of how he watered down an EU directive on fuel efficiency as it was 'in Britain's national interest' (a hollow and meaningless phrase rapidly replacing 'patriotism' as the last refuge of the scoundrel).  This despite AgeUK stating that cold homes are killers for the elderly and plunge others into fuel poverty - "One of the main causes of cold homes in the UK is poor insulation and the UK has some of the worst levels of home energy efficiency in Europe."  Yet Cameron cites this as an achievement - some hell it would be for the UK to be outside of the EU and run by the Conservative Party.  Allied to this, his plans with George Osborne, to cut taxes for the upper middle-class while soaking the poor in another round or four of 'welfare' (a broad term that encompasses pensions) cuts post-2015 and whether it be on 21st November when the Rochester by-election result is known or next May, Cameron (whatever the failings of Ed) has to go.

Europe's disordered new democracies

'New democracies' is an essentially contested concept but most definitions seem to take the late Samuel Huntington's idea of forming part of the 'Third Wave' of democratisation ('waves' and backswash/backsliding as countries become democratic before a certain proportion slither back to the home 'comforts' of authoritarianism; the first wave was all democratisation until 1920, before a reversion, the second wave from 1945 to 1960 before another reversion).  Thus Greece, Portugal and Spain were the heralds of the Third Wave in the mid-1970s, followed by the Latin American military dictatorships in the 1980s.  Some scholars argue a fourth wave was inaugurated by the the fall of the Soviet bloc and a fifth by the Arab Spring, but if we are to use this terminology, the tide is very much going out again.
Four elections (and one largely unrecognised by the international community) have taken place over the last month in Europe - Latvia, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Ukraine (with an ad-hoc one in the part of Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed militants - Moscow recognises the result but when these organisers are the same people who flout the Geneva Convention, their impartiality and incorruptability is in question when it comes to electioneering).  At first, the pattern of elections seemed counter-intuitive - the further the country was from Soviet rule the more dismal the outcome.  That was until Ukraine's ballot, where the occupied Crimea and Donbass regions did not participate in the nationwide poll.  Still, even here the most extreme nationalists failed to make the threshold for parliamentary representation and a pro-Western government was elected under the most trying of circumstances.
In Latvia under Soviet rule, Russification took place under the rubric of rubbing out nationalistic/separatist impulses to mean that a third of the country is ethnic Russian (approaching 50% in the capital Riga).  The Harmony party, backed by those favouring closer ties with its eastern giant, won the largest share of the vote with 23% but was shut out of government by the incumbent coalition composed of three parties.  Harmony is led by Riga's mayor, Nil Ushakov, but his attempts to reach beyond the traditional ethnic Russian base and appeal to a broader electorate have failed. Ojars Kalnins, an MP with the Unity party (one of the coalition ruling parties), represented by the prime minister, Laimdota Straujuma who continued in post after the election said, "It was a victory for the coalition." (Hard to imagine similar sentiments being expressed in Westminster following a General Election).  Analysing Ushakov's Pyrrhic victory, Kalnins expressed his opinion that, "Before the Ukraine crisis and the Russian change in behaviour, he was making inroads at least with more leftwing Latvians. But by taking a passive position on the Russian aggression in Ukraine, he strengthened support among his core voting group but lost a lot of people who expected something stronger from him."  In that sense, Vladimir Putin has gained territory from the Ukraine but lost ground in Latvia, where about 280,000 are 'non-citizens' of the country, holding special passports that bar them from voting. In order to become citizens, they have to take an exam on Latvian culture and history, a process which Russian rights groups say amounts to discrimination, but Latvian authorities say is necessary given the history of the Soviet occupation.  This election result is unlikely to change that stance.
In Bulgaria, a snap national election produced a coalition but in less fortunate circumstances than Latvia.  The right-wing Gerb party won a plurality but was significantly short of a majority, taking 84 seats out of 240.  Its leader, Boyko Borisov, a karate expert to complement Putin's judo skills (the former for defence, the latter for attack), was sombre afterwards, yet strident in stating that he would do everything possible to form a coalition.  The vote was further splintered by a record eight parties entering the fray as public disillusionment led some to be attracted to fringe parties.  With five governments in two years (outperforming the Italian pre-2000 habit of having more elections than Easters), instability is the dominant theme, with economic growth sluggish and an unresolved banking crisis lingering in the background.  Foreign direct investment has dropped by more than 20% in 2014 and underscoring the high level of disillusionment with the political class, voter turnout was the lowest in the 25 years since Bulgaria emerged from communism.  Brazil too was recently affected by the apathy of the electorate but Bulgarian weariness also stems from the likelihood of soon being recalled to vote again to shake the parliamentary kaleidoscope into something longer lasting.  At the moment, a caretaker government persists as negotiations for a coalition continue.
While Latvia is relatively untroubled and with a clear sense of direction, qualities absent in Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina is the worst of the three, threatened with dissolution.  With a canton-based political settlement that also encompasses national and entity levels, Bosnia is far from a bastion of Swiss tranquility.  100,000 died in the war and though the 1995 Dayton peace agreement stopped the bloodshed, it entrenched the results of ethnic cleansing, cementing the divide between the two halves of the country.  This has resulted even in telephone directories and train timetables being issued in triplicate between Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Serbs and Croats, fostering much waste and corruption.  In October's election, nationalists from rival ethnic groups were triumphant within their own zones of control.
Milorad Dodik, a secessionist with strong ties with Moscow, won the race for the presidency of the Serb half of the country, the Republika Srpska (RS), which he has long vowed to lead to independence. He said his policy would be for the RS to function “less and less [as] an entity and more a state”.  His ambitions were aided by the success of his ally, Zeljka Cvijanovic, in the vote for the Serb seat on the Bosnian state presidency, in which Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks share power. Deadlock between nationalist leaders has weakened the collective presidency and other tripartite state institutions, which suits Bosnian Serbs, as will the victory for Dragan Covic, a Croat nationalist, in the race for the Croat presidency.  Covic will add strain not just to Bosnian territorial unity but the Croat-Bosniak federation that makes up more than half the country.  Reformists hoped that the vote for the various state legislatures (as opposed to executives) indicated that the country wanted change (on a turnout of 54%) but with unemployment at 44% adding to the economic malaise, there is little sign that this election will extricate Bosnia from the cycle of poverty and discontent that has fuelled the nationalist parties and prompted protests in February.
The state of Latvia, Bulgaria and Bosnia mimic their relationship with the EU.   In 2004, Latvia was part of the 'Big Bang' expansion.  Bulgaria subsequently joined in 2007.  Bosnia's progress towards accession hit the buffers in 2009 when it ignored EU demands for equality in posts reserved from Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats.  Far from democracy being to blame, it is the underlying conditions in each country that either bolsters or undermines it.

Stranger than fiction

It is the cliché that as the conventional film industry falls victim to ever more repetition and/or sequels, that the computer gaming industry has taken over as the visual medium providing the most stimulating narratives.  It used to be the case that the more plausible the scenario, the more rubbish the game would be as the developers had over-thought the concept and under-thought how it would actually play.  Now though we are allegedly in a golden age where graphics and memory have allowed a one-stage removed version of virtual reality in which to immerse people and big-shot Hollywood vie for speaking roles.  As Dennis Hopper's embittered bomber said in Speed, "Interactive TV, Jack - it's the way to the future."
Now the Atlantic Council thinktank have taken the concept one stage further as they embrace consultation with the makers of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise for wargaming the years ahead.  That this series deals with first a Russian invasion of the American Eastern Seaboard then Moscow occupying Europe is by the by but to cover themselves, the statement read roughly "Who would have thought Russia would occupy parts of Ukraine."  Hmm, Europe, parts of Ukraine - big difference.  So the series creator consulted with military strategists - shouldn't the latter be the ones who should be approached?  It's like asking the team behind Grand Theft Auto their ideas on how to minimise gang crime.
In a fissiparous world of multiple unknown sources of threat, it harks back to the latter months of 2001.  Desperate to know the next major atrocity in the wake of 9/11, the Defense Department enlisted the services of a constellation of Hollywood action screenwriters.  Of course, it was a fool's errand because when the hacks did do their research, it was from analysts already liaising with the Pentagon.  Unsurprisingly, no major terrorist plots were foiled by the cohorts of Hollywood.  Maybe the Atlantic Council is desperate for a bit of publicity (and bereaved that there are no new Tom Clancy books since the author passed away) - look at us, we're coming down from our ivory tower and embracing the mainstream, give us grants - because the end result will be the same diddly squat.