Great War Memorial, Battersea Park
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Friday, December 31, 2004
You've seen the movies now visit the set!
Come to the US of A
And so Christmas has passed and the contents of the adverts on TV have changed with it.
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We are now into the realms of New Year's Sales and where to go for next summer's holiday.
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I think it's fair to say there won’t be many ads for vacation destinations around the Indian Ocean for the time being but the void on our screens is partly filled by a new ad plugging the USA as the place to visit in 2005.
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The gist of the ad is to play a series of scenic shots accompanied by an appropriate title from a famous movie and the relevant film score …
- Chicago
- Sweet Home Alabama
- Viva Las Vegas
Etc
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Nice idea.
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But, speaking as a veteran of many trips to the US, I think they've picked the wrong movies. My choice would be something like …
- Deliverance
- Mississippi Burning
- Goodfellas
- Scarface
- Taxi Driver
- any Chevy Chase movie, say, Fletch
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AI Artificial Intelligence was on TV last night. We hadn’t seen it before. If there ever is a Film Abortion movement in the future this piece would be Exhibit A in the case For. This film licks donkey nuts - in fact at least ten donkeys' worth.
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Aside from its sheer awfulness, AI Artificial Intelligence is notable for being a recent addition to the long and illustrious list of movies that had their titles changed because a large portion of the American domestic audience couldn’t deal with it. The original title was AI, but market research discovered that many Americans read that to be A1, a popular brand of steak sauce. Consequently the title was amended to the tautological AI Artificial Intelligence. Having now seen the film I think I actually would much rather it had been about the zany adventures of a bottle of condiment.
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Reasons for changing film names in the USA include:
- To make the content of the film more explicit. Consequently, the vaguely commie sounding Leon becomes The Professional
. - To cash in on a craze. Hence my much beloved Witchfinder General became The Conqueror Worm, named after an Edgar Allen Poe short story because Drive-In movie fans in the late 1960's wanted to see films based on EAP's works. Amusingly, Witchfinder General has nothing to do with The Conqueror Worm except for the sound of Vincent Price reading an extract from the story over the credits; tacked on as an afterthought as part of the renaming process.
. - A huge number of Americans cannot understand big words. And so Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone becomes Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and the James Bond film Licence Revoked becomes Licence to Kill. Yes, the American general public understand the word Kill but can't handle Philosopher. That says a lot doesn't it.
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Wars and politics are ripe for application of 'more appropriate' titles; Mercenaries become Independent Contractors, Freedom Fighters become Insurgents become Terrorists, Civilian Casualties become Collateral Damage, War Departments become Defence Departments and so on. Personally, I'm a purist in these matters and prefer sticking with the original titles and language, subtitling where necessary, but reading and watching pictures at the same time is so hard, isn't it.
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Thursday, December 30, 2004
The Global Catastrophe Lottery
The coverage of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean continues, relentlessly.
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It's almost as if there's a bidding war taking place between the news networks; 11,0000, 23,000, 45,000, 80,000. Eventually, one of the networks trumped the others by estimating a final figure of 100,000+ and all the others joined in immediately. As if a death-toll that works out as being some even multiple of the number of digits on our hands is somehow more meaningful than any other number.
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Whatever the final number is, the thought that thousands of people, thousands of individuals with their own personalities and dreams, were reduced to nothing more than a collective health hazard in an instant is truly horrible.
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And throughout it all, there's the ever present nationalistic chauvinism:
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'The final death toll may exceed 100,000, including at least 50 Britons ...'
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'The final death toll may exceed 100,000, including at least 50 Britons ...'
at least 50 Britons, must be serious then.
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Throughout the coverage of the first couple of days after the horror, I couldn't help noticing how much less crowded and nicer the hospitals the European victims were being treated in were. They contrasted very favourably with the hospitals treating the native casualties, which looked a lot more like railways stations in rush hour than treatment stations.
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Then there were all the human interest stories. I use the term 'human' in the narrowest sense of the word, as the UK news channels have focused exclusively on the fate of European nationals. I felt more than a little uncomfortable listening to them. Some had lost friends and family and that was harrowing enough, but the most disturbing accounts came from those who hadn't been touched by death. Without exception, all of them made reference to the fact that they had lost their 'stuff'. Very few made any mention of the horrors they were privileged enough to be able to leave behind; very many bellyached about the holiday clothes and video cameras they also left behind.
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I should be careful about making generalisations at tragic times like this but, personally, I feel little connection or empathy with people who are rich enough or so disconnected from family and friends back at home to spend Christmas day on a tropical beach. Listening to people moan about losing holiday luggage, after they've survived a disaster that killed tens of thousands, numbs me even more. These are the people willing to pay £100 to spend a night in a beach hut in 'Paradise', waited on by people earning a dollar or two a day. It's strange how all these 'paradises' end up looking like either Disneyland or a shanty town after a few years of development. The problem is, of course, the people visiting these places to 'get away from it all' are bringing their infection with them.
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This is a personal thing. I've travelled a fair bit but have always, wherever possible, passed on opportunities to visit undeveloped countries. I don't like being waited on by people who live like sh*t. I don’t feel comfortable indirectly supporting exploitative development through my presence. I think it's daft and wasteful to travel 11 hours on a plane just to experience a mundane beach holiday that could be had much nearer to home. Clearly, there are thousands of Europeans with no such hang-ups but they are worried about what's happened to their 'things'.
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It's not their fault the TV coverage is as skewed as it is but what I have seen has made me feel uncomfortable, for all sorts of reasons. Not least of the factors that leave me feeling uncomfortable is the nature of the 'humanitarian' reaction from certain quarters.
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First off, there's the UK Government. Apparently it has pledged £15m in aid. In the scheme of things that's biff all. Compare £15m with the £25,000m we spend on 'defence' every year or the £3,000m+ we take in annual arms sales to countries like Indonesia.
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I've just finished watching a feature on BBC 24 reporting that Scottish Water was sending 18 tons of water to the Maldives with the assistance of First Choice Airways. The water was surplus to Scottish Water's requirements, First Choice were flying a plane out to pick up stranded tourists anyway and 17,000 bottles of water isn't enough to hydrate the spectators at a football match but, hey, both companies grabbed five minutes of favourable TV coverage didn't they? Those loveable, fluffy companies.
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And so it goes on. Tracy went to work today and an email had been sent to all offices in the global law firm she works for. To facilitate collection of donations for disaster relief, the company is nice enough to offer to consolidate of all its staff's contributions. Consolidated into one big cheque with the company's name at the top and, presumably, a photograph of a nice presentation ceremony to go into next year's annual report.
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Don't get me wrong. For all the cynicism I see in the World, I also know that there are genuinely good, compassionate people out there and that mechanisms for delivering aid are in place. Most crucial of all, is the role of the much-derided UN. I can quite happily picture a World without George Bush's administration. I wouldn’t want to think of a World without the United Nations. But the cynicism is out there nevertheless.
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ITV News has been flashing up a phone number for the:
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The Disasters Emergency Appeal Help Line
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which viewers can call to make their donation. ITV is not telling us who's collecting the money or how it will be disbursed and, as a nice touch, the number is a 0870 fee-charging number. For all I know the operation may be 100% legitimate. It's the nature of the transaction that disturbs me:
which viewers can call to make their donation. ITV is not telling us who's collecting the money or how it will be disbursed and, as a nice touch, the number is a 0870 fee-charging number. For all I know the operation may be 100% legitimate. It's the nature of the transaction that disturbs me:
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Horrible Catastrophe = Massive TV Coverage = Viewer Guilt = Instant easing of viewer guilt through contribution to poorly defined money collection service
Horrible Catastrophe = Massive TV Coverage = Viewer Guilt = Instant easing of viewer guilt through contribution to poorly defined money collection service
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There's an underlying hypocrisy and dissonance to all of this. From an individual victim's perspective, what is the difference between being struck down on your own or at the same time as 100,000 other people? Thousands of people die all over the World from lack of basic essentials every day and no-one's reporting that as a pressing humanitarian crisis on prime time TV.
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As a small example of what I trying to say, consider the firemen killed on 911. The families of firemen who died on that day received $4m+ in payments from funds gathered after the disaster. Families of firemen, no less brave than those who lost their lives on 911, who were killed on other days get nothing. Is their families' loss somehow less because their loved ones didn't die during the course of a big media event?
As a small example of what I trying to say, consider the firemen killed on 911. The families of firemen who died on that day received $4m+ in payments from funds gathered after the disaster. Families of firemen, no less brave than those who lost their lives on 911, who were killed on other days get nothing. Is their families' loss somehow less because their loved ones didn't die during the course of a big media event?
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The same nonsense is going on right now. In the scheme of global suffering or the scale of total human population, 100,000 is a pin drop. There are roughly 6 billion people on this planet; a very large proportion of which lives very badly indeed. Something like 200,000 people die every day from all causes. Even if the death toll from the tsunami tops 100,000 that's still a mere 50% blip on a single day.
The same nonsense is going on right now. In the scheme of global suffering or the scale of total human population, 100,000 is a pin drop. There are roughly 6 billion people on this planet; a very large proportion of which lives very badly indeed. Something like 200,000 people die every day from all causes. Even if the death toll from the tsunami tops 100,000 that's still a mere 50% blip on a single day.
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Most of us who aren't world leaders or Corporate CEOs don't think about these kinds of numbers. Like contemplation of stars in the sky, the thought that there are 6 billion other individuals out there; all with their own hopes, ambitions and consciousness equal to our own, boggles the mind.
Most of us who aren't world leaders or Corporate CEOs don't think about these kinds of numbers. Like contemplation of stars in the sky, the thought that there are 6 billion other individuals out there; all with their own hopes, ambitions and consciousness equal to our own, boggles the mind.
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Many of the victims of this week's catastrophe will have been children. There are a lot of children in the 3rd World. There have been much worse tsunamis in the past but the impact of this one has been as large as it has because of the explosion in global population over the last 40 years. There are more people available to die. Many of these people are drawn to coastal areas because that's where the Westerners and their tourist dollars are waiting for room service.
Many of the victims of this week's catastrophe will have been children. There are a lot of children in the 3rd World. There have been much worse tsunamis in the past but the impact of this one has been as large as it has because of the explosion in global population over the last 40 years. There are more people available to die. Many of these people are drawn to coastal areas because that's where the Westerners and their tourist dollars are waiting for room service.
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On a much more mundane level, we've had increasing trouble in the UK with recently constructed houses being flooded during winter storms. Population pressure has meant that building is being undertaken on places where our ancestors would never have considered constructing housing. Our indigenous population isn't rising. The pressure on housing is due to fragmentation of families and us choosing to import poverty, in the form of immigrants, rather than exporting solutions to poverty to their home countries.
On a much more mundane level, we've had increasing trouble in the UK with recently constructed houses being flooded during winter storms. Population pressure has meant that building is being undertaken on places where our ancestors would never have considered constructing housing. Our indigenous population isn't rising. The pressure on housing is due to fragmentation of families and us choosing to import poverty, in the form of immigrants, rather than exporting solutions to poverty to their home countries.
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There's an underlying question behind the population and poverty issue that is never asked ...
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There's an underlying question behind the population and poverty issue that is never asked ...
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What are we all here for and how many of us should there be at any one time?
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I'm not going to pretend to know the correct answer. I'm not even sure that there is one. Unlike environmentalists, whose underlying message is that people are an infection whose numbers should be controlled, I believe that there potentially is no practical upper limit to the number of people who can be. We are a clever species and have always managed to increase output in line with population. There's no reason to believe that we won't have the means to support 9, 12, 15 billion people on this planet.
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... assuming we organise ourselves properly, share our production fairly and, equally importantly, figure out what we're all playing at.
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What's the game plan? What's the point? What is our collective purpose? Where's the vision?
What's the game plan? What's the point? What is our collective purpose? Where's the vision?
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Heard any answers to these questions lately? Have you heard anyone discussing the questions, let alone the answers, lately?
Heard any answers to these questions lately? Have you heard anyone discussing the questions, let alone the answers, lately?
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Or are we no more than a bunch of rabbits but with slightly better technology. Breeding for the sake of it with no greater sense of purpose than a reproductive urge.
Or are we no more than a bunch of rabbits but with slightly better technology. Breeding for the sake of it with no greater sense of purpose than a reproductive urge.
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As it happens, global population, if left unchecked, will possibly level out at something like 9bn. Population growth will slow down as countries like India and China develop, get rich and acquire a declining birth-rate in the process. Assuming the Earth doesn't choke before then.
As it happens, global population, if left unchecked, will possibly level out at something like 9bn. Population growth will slow down as countries like India and China develop, get rich and acquire a declining birth-rate in the process. Assuming the Earth doesn't choke before then.
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Whilst I was typing this a BBC journalist, covering the aftermath of the tsunami, surpassed herself and said:
Whilst I was typing this a BBC journalist, covering the aftermath of the tsunami, surpassed herself and said:
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'It may take a generation to recover from a disaster on this scale'
'It may take a generation to recover from a disaster on this scale'
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The news channels continue to vie with each other to reach new levels of empty hyperbole. Cobblers like that don't help or inform anyone. People are tough, resilient and resourceful creatures. The damage will be repaired within a year and, as is usually the case, they will probably take the opportunity to build something bigger and better out of the ruins.
The news channels continue to vie with each other to reach new levels of empty hyperbole. Cobblers like that don't help or inform anyone. People are tough, resilient and resourceful creatures. The damage will be repaired within a year and, as is usually the case, they will probably take the opportunity to build something bigger and better out of the ruins.
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Until the next time.
Until the next time.
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Monday, December 27, 2004
The Holy Blood and The Holy Mole Poop
An inspiring tale for our times
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To write a best-selling work of fiction many authors will spend years observing the human condition. In their minds they will weave intricate plots and sub plots to delight and entertain their readers. They will write 200,000 words or more of skilfully crafted prose. Fascinating and compelling characters will be conjured up and a tangible sense of place magically communicated through the simple medium of paper and ink.
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Alternatively, they could write an illustrated children's story about a mole with a dog turd on its head.
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Yes, The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business.
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Eat your long-dead hearts out, Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl.
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I have never heard of this book before yesterday, when someone gave a copy to my little niece. This was a 10th anniversary edition of the 'much loved children's story that has sold over a million copies world wide'.
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The book tells the heart warming story of a mole who wakes up with a pile of poo on his head. The mole goes on a quest to find out who did this to him by comparing the poo on his head with poo from a variety of new animal friends he meets on his travels. This classic tale reaches its thrilling climax when the little mole eventually discovers that he is wearing a hat made from dog turd.
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I hope I haven’t spoiled it for anyone by giving away the ending.
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Earlier on in my blogging career someone, from the Mid West of America I think, made a comment that I should try and use the word poop rather than shit in my blogs. I've compromised by using the word turd as often as I can instead. I appreciate that some people who run into my blog may still find my chosen word offensive and skip away from my blog as a consequence. Which would be a shame.
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It's only a word though. I do find it strange that someone can publish a book about animal shit and illustrate each page with different pictures of cute animals taking a dump and get away with it. The secret is to use euphemisms like 'business' or 'poop' and no-one seems to mind. Reviewers on Amazon love it …
To write a best-selling work of fiction many authors will spend years observing the human condition. In their minds they will weave intricate plots and sub plots to delight and entertain their readers. They will write 200,000 words or more of skilfully crafted prose. Fascinating and compelling characters will be conjured up and a tangible sense of place magically communicated through the simple medium of paper and ink.
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Alternatively, they could write an illustrated children's story about a mole with a dog turd on its head.
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Yes, The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business.
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Eat your long-dead hearts out, Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl.
.
I have never heard of this book before yesterday, when someone gave a copy to my little niece. This was a 10th anniversary edition of the 'much loved children's story that has sold over a million copies world wide'.
.
The book tells the heart warming story of a mole who wakes up with a pile of poo on his head. The mole goes on a quest to find out who did this to him by comparing the poo on his head with poo from a variety of new animal friends he meets on his travels. This classic tale reaches its thrilling climax when the little mole eventually discovers that he is wearing a hat made from dog turd.
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I hope I haven’t spoiled it for anyone by giving away the ending.
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Earlier on in my blogging career someone, from the Mid West of America I think, made a comment that I should try and use the word poop rather than shit in my blogs. I've compromised by using the word turd as often as I can instead. I appreciate that some people who run into my blog may still find my chosen word offensive and skip away from my blog as a consequence. Which would be a shame.
.
It's only a word though. I do find it strange that someone can publish a book about animal shit and illustrate each page with different pictures of cute animals taking a dump and get away with it. The secret is to use euphemisms like 'business' or 'poop' and no-one seems to mind. Reviewers on Amazon love it …
The last time I came across an author becoming a millionaire through writing about turd was, of course, Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code.
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A gang stole £22m from a bank in Ireland last week and I remember thinking 'Dan Brown has escaped with four times that much money and he isn’t even being hunted by the police'.
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The good news is that he is being sued by the authors of the books he most shamelessly plagiarised in coming up with his Masterpoop.
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By my reckoning, Brown lifted material wholesale from three books in particular. He arguably stole plot elements from Lewis Perdue's not very good novels The Da Vinci Legacy and The Daughter of God and DEFINITELY ripped off all of his 'meticulous background research' from Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh's The Holy Blood and Holy Grail.
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Leigh and Baigent's solicitors are currently sharpening their knives. There is much wrong with The Holy Blood and Holy Grail and amusingly Dan Brown has copied material from the earlier book without realising that much has been discredited by subsequent research. If Brown had done a simple Google search before copying wholesale chunks out of THBTHG it might not now be so blatantly obvious who he was ripping off. He is onto such a loser.
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It will also be interesting to find out how Brown explains away the fact that the key baddie in his novel is called Leigh Teabing. The name Leigh Teabing is an anagram of Leigh and Baigent while his physical description, he walks with the aid of crutches, is presumably based on the third author, Henry Lincoln, who walks with a limp.
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Once that case is over I hope someone else takes out a follow-up class action on behalf of the English language for severe and unjustifiable adjective and adverb abuse. It’s not just children and animals, words have feelings too.
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A gang stole £22m from a bank in Ireland last week and I remember thinking 'Dan Brown has escaped with four times that much money and he isn’t even being hunted by the police'.
.
The good news is that he is being sued by the authors of the books he most shamelessly plagiarised in coming up with his Masterpoop.
.
By my reckoning, Brown lifted material wholesale from three books in particular. He arguably stole plot elements from Lewis Perdue's not very good novels The Da Vinci Legacy and The Daughter of God and DEFINITELY ripped off all of his 'meticulous background research' from Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh's The Holy Blood and Holy Grail.
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Leigh and Baigent's solicitors are currently sharpening their knives. There is much wrong with The Holy Blood and Holy Grail and amusingly Dan Brown has copied material from the earlier book without realising that much has been discredited by subsequent research. If Brown had done a simple Google search before copying wholesale chunks out of THBTHG it might not now be so blatantly obvious who he was ripping off. He is onto such a loser.
.
It will also be interesting to find out how Brown explains away the fact that the key baddie in his novel is called Leigh Teabing. The name Leigh Teabing is an anagram of Leigh and Baigent while his physical description, he walks with the aid of crutches, is presumably based on the third author, Henry Lincoln, who walks with a limp.
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Once that case is over I hope someone else takes out a follow-up class action on behalf of the English language for severe and unjustifiable adjective and adverb abuse. It’s not just children and animals, words have feelings too.
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Finding Nemo 2 available in North London
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I've just gotta get myself some children …
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I had a pretty good haul of presents this year, probably my best for some time and almost entirely due to Tracy. My swag bag included …
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My mother was also in cracking form and was blatantly regifting left and right without the slightest sign of remorse. At one point she handed me a wrapped copy of Apocalypse Now Redux. I opened it and she asked me if I liked my present. I said yes, it was one of my favourite films. She smiled approvingly and said she thought as much. Smelling a rat, I asked her to name any one of my other favourite films, at which point she clammed up. Looking her in the eye, I asked her if she had really bought that DVD with me in mind. She looked back at me squarely and said yes, yes she did.
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She was, of course, lying through her teeth.
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Myself, Tracy, my brother and my sister in law puzzled the night away trying to figure out how a conservative 62 year old woman, who hadn’t been to a cinema since 1963 and never visited a record shop in her life, had come into possession of a still-wrapped, collector's edition DVD of a psychedelic war film. We are still unsure.
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My mother is a good person but the ruthlessness she displays at Christmas would have embarrassed Genghis Khan. In addition to the merciless regifting, she was frantically gathering fragments of discarded Christmas crackers and present wrapping. Somewhere in London she's operating a Christmas present chop-shop, staffed by a team of wetback Mexican mechanics. Right now they're stripping down and modifying this year's presents to such an extent that she'll be able to return them to the people who gave them to her originally without them ever suspecting a thing.
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Anyway, I've got to get myself some kids. They get such interesting presents.
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My brother is 34 and, like me, managed to hack his way into his thirties without assuming any real responsibility whatsoever. Then it all came crashing down. First he got married. The came the baby. As a consequence, he's going the way of all fathers and rapidly losing touch with popular culture. This time next year he'll be wearing a cardigan, dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld and listening to Perry Como LPs.
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How do I know David's losing touch with popular culture? Well, him coming home with a DVD copy of 'Finding Nemo 2' for starters.
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The Chinese have pretty much cornered the pirate DVD market in the UK. When they're not selling them directly, they're supplying them wholesale to other people who do. Product quality is good and surprisingly consistent, as is the price; £5 per DVD.
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However, even though the DVDs are of a pretty high standard, you do not always get quite what you bargained for. So, even though there actually is no sequel to Finding Nemo, my brother found himself buying one as a family treat from a Chinese person for £5. Technically he hasn't really been ripped off though. It's not as if he can say it isn’t a DVD of the real Finding Nemo 2 is it?
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So there I was with my 15 month year old niece on Christmas day watching a Japanese made cartoon about the adventures of a group of fish friends dubbed into Mandarin. My niece loved it.
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But that wasn't the only jealously-inducing present my little niece received this year. She also got a copy of The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business …
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I've just gotta get myself some children …
.
I had a pretty good haul of presents this year, probably my best for some time and almost entirely due to Tracy. My swag bag included …
- The Producers Special Edition
- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Special Edition - including several lost scenes redubbed by Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and a Lee Van Cleef impersonator in the 1990s. The deleted scenes are all rubbish but we fans always want more, even if it detracts from the overall quality of the film
- A 600 page book of the best pictures from Life magazine; including some awesome work from the days of Martin Luther King, The Great Depression and The Second World War. Lots of expressive faces of people undergoing real tribulation or doing real things with their lives, all in artistic black and white. Marvellous.
- A tea diffuser
- A bottle of Campari to help me with creative dreams
- An ashtray
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My mother was also in cracking form and was blatantly regifting left and right without the slightest sign of remorse. At one point she handed me a wrapped copy of Apocalypse Now Redux. I opened it and she asked me if I liked my present. I said yes, it was one of my favourite films. She smiled approvingly and said she thought as much. Smelling a rat, I asked her to name any one of my other favourite films, at which point she clammed up. Looking her in the eye, I asked her if she had really bought that DVD with me in mind. She looked back at me squarely and said yes, yes she did.
.
She was, of course, lying through her teeth.
.
Myself, Tracy, my brother and my sister in law puzzled the night away trying to figure out how a conservative 62 year old woman, who hadn’t been to a cinema since 1963 and never visited a record shop in her life, had come into possession of a still-wrapped, collector's edition DVD of a psychedelic war film. We are still unsure.
.
My mother is a good person but the ruthlessness she displays at Christmas would have embarrassed Genghis Khan. In addition to the merciless regifting, she was frantically gathering fragments of discarded Christmas crackers and present wrapping. Somewhere in London she's operating a Christmas present chop-shop, staffed by a team of wetback Mexican mechanics. Right now they're stripping down and modifying this year's presents to such an extent that she'll be able to return them to the people who gave them to her originally without them ever suspecting a thing.
.
Anyway, I've got to get myself some kids. They get such interesting presents.
.
My brother is 34 and, like me, managed to hack his way into his thirties without assuming any real responsibility whatsoever. Then it all came crashing down. First he got married. The came the baby. As a consequence, he's going the way of all fathers and rapidly losing touch with popular culture. This time next year he'll be wearing a cardigan, dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld and listening to Perry Como LPs.
.
How do I know David's losing touch with popular culture? Well, him coming home with a DVD copy of 'Finding Nemo 2' for starters.
.
The Chinese have pretty much cornered the pirate DVD market in the UK. When they're not selling them directly, they're supplying them wholesale to other people who do. Product quality is good and surprisingly consistent, as is the price; £5 per DVD.
.
However, even though the DVDs are of a pretty high standard, you do not always get quite what you bargained for. So, even though there actually is no sequel to Finding Nemo, my brother found himself buying one as a family treat from a Chinese person for £5. Technically he hasn't really been ripped off though. It's not as if he can say it isn’t a DVD of the real Finding Nemo 2 is it?
.
So there I was with my 15 month year old niece on Christmas day watching a Japanese made cartoon about the adventures of a group of fish friends dubbed into Mandarin. My niece loved it.
.
But that wasn't the only jealously-inducing present my little niece received this year. She also got a copy of The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business …
.
There's free speach and there's free speach
Christ taking a wrong turning and ending up on the Farrindgon Road
I made an entry a few days ago about a violent Sikh demonstration that closed down a play in Birmingham last week. The Sikhs weren't too happy that the play featured a rape taking place in one of their temples.
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This was reported as being an example of an intolerant religious mob suppressing the right of free speech in this country.
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OK. That's clear enough.
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Later on in the week there was another story that reported that at least a quarter of British schools had scrapped their traditional nativity plays because the local authorities did not want to offend people of non Christian faiths.
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No prizes for guessing where I'm going with this one.
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As mentioned in the original post, there's free speech and there's free speech. In my country in the 21st century a story of a child born out of the Love of our Creator should not be played out, but a story about someone being raped by a priest in a temple should be staged as a matter of principle, regardless of who it might offend; even if it is one of the most well integrated ethnic communities in the country.
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As it happens I have never heard anyone of another faith speak out against nativity plays or Christmas in general; not personally, not in the media. I don't actually ever expect to. Why should I? Traditionally in the UK, Christians do their thing. Non Christians do their thing. People may even sit politely through plays featuring other people doing their thing. It's all about tolerance and respecting the truth that all of the main religions seek to answer the same questions and usually come up with pretty similar advice and answers.
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Nativity plays aren’t being cancelled by people of faith. They're being cancelled by people of no faith. This year Christmas, next year Ramadan? The year after that Diwali?
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Cancel nativity plays? Wouldn't it be better to encourage children of other faiths to celebrate their stories instead?
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I listened to the Christmas messages from the Pope, The Archbishop of Canterbury and The Cardinal of Westminster yesterday. All three of them seem pretty much agreed that violence won’t solve the World's problems, particularly in Iraq, and that the money would be better spent on bringing comfort to unfortunate people around the World.
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Which pretty much means that those devout 'Christians' Blair and Bush score nil points as far as the leaders of the Christian World are concerned. Maybe they'll go to Hell. I do not profess to be a devout Christian and I didn't order a murderous, futile war of aggression under the cover of lies. However, I would be bold enough guess that if I did possess these qualities I'd be more than a little concerned that the leaders of the Catholic and Anglican Churches both thought I was a prick.
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As an aside, one story that touched me over Christmas was the news that families of US soldiers killed in the assault on Fallujah had raised $600,000 to buy humanitarian aid for people in Fallujah. Some of the family members were planning to hand material over to the Iraqis today. It's difficult to be cynical about acts like that but I couldn't help thinking that $600,000 wouldn't buy half a cruise missile and the US Government had pumped those babies into Iraq as fast as it could procure them. Those families are peeing in the wind.
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Back home, I've noticed the development of a new argument concerning our attitude to Christmas this year. Every year many people decry the commercialisation of Christmas and say that we should go back to celebrating a more spiritual festival, but this Christmas I've noticed a lot of other people laying down the following argument:
- Christmas was originally a pagan festival hijacked by Christianity
- The reduction of the influence of Christianity over Christmas in recent years means that we're moving back towards a more Pagan festival; basically a huge piss-up at the darkest time of the year
- This is a good thing
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Mmmmm, I think someone cool made this case at some point in the recent past as I've come across quite a few muppets in the media, real life and the web who've parroted this argument, almost word perfectly, as if it is some brilliant flash of inspiration they came up with themselves.
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The one flaw with this argument is that it is complete cobblers.
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Yes, Christmas is a pagan festival. This is not news. Actually, the original festival was largely unchanged except for the names. The Christian version features a sacred Earth Mother and a Divine Son of God undergoing a cycle of birth/ rebirth for the sake of humanity, both familiar concepts to your suave, sophisticated pagan about town.
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Yes, most religions share common myths and themes. There may be some differences in administration and the occasional pope may take out the opposition every now and again, after all they're only human, but the underlying message of almost all religions is the same.
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That's why I can be pretty sure that pagans wouldn’t have approved of the way Christmas is going either. The prospect of multinational corporations chopping down all those scared Oak Groves and pissing dioxin in the Waters of Mother Earth, so that they can mass produce shit for a spiritually numb global population manipulated by greed, insecurity and fear probably wasn't top of the Druid Yule time shopping list.
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And, yes, the nativity story is almost certainly a myth but so is Santa Claus, Wallace and Grommit and Mary Poppins but I don’t hear anyone saying they should be cancelled because they're offensive.
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Next time you hear anyone commenting that it's great that Christmas is becoming more like a pagan feast, please do the whole World a favour and yawn. Loudly
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Sunday, December 26, 2004
Awful, just awful
Still taking in all that footage from the Indian Ocean. It's awful.
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And without fail, as usual, the UK media has displayed its astonishing chauvinism by coming out with lines like 'hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by the tragedy including many British tourists'.
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This may be a personal thing, but at times like this I for one don't rate a British tourist's life higher than any other human being. It shouldn’t matter where the victims come from and it shouldn’t cross a reporter's mind, not for a second, to distinguish between them when covering such a story.
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The other thought that strikes me is that, in the scheme of things, this particular wave wasn't very large. The last 100 years or so have been relatively benign when it comes to natural catastrophes and MUCH larger tsunami's have hit the Indian Ocean during the span of human history. People have the most peculiar habit of settling in large numbers slap bang on top of potential disaster zones; on the margins of the Indian Ocean, along the San Andreas fault, across the Ganges Delta and on the slopes of Vesuvius. Sooner or later, all of these places will be creamed and creamed badly; Los Angeles, Naples, Bangladesh, Japan, very possibly in our lifetime. There are some places that people just aren’t meant to live. For some reason, Nicaragua comes to mind; earthquakes, hurricanes AND malaria. People just don’t seem to get the hint.
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Of course nobody expects it to happen to them. I'm a smoker. I understand.
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Friday, December 24, 2004
It's time for some mawkish sentimentality
Sentiment Porn for Stefs
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It's Christmas, well almost.
I took the picture at the top of this post a few years ago in a mall in New Orleans, with a then 'State of the Art' 1mp digital camera. Sometimes I wish it had come out better.
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But, for my purposes, it is good enough.
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I have taken tens of thousands of pictures. Some of them are quite good. Most of them are technically better than this particular frame.
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The thing is, for some bizarre reason, this picture hits my sentimentality button in a way that will certainly be inexplicable to anyone else but me. That's not going to stop me trying ...
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The key components of this picture are that the central character are:
- Black
- overweight (the suit wasn't as padded as it might first appear)
- dressed as Santa Claus
- smiling in a good natured way
- in New Orleans
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But he's still smiling. The bugger is smiling. And it wasn't a fake smile.
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Nope, I haven't explained it right. It's come out all trite and ickily patronising.
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Anyway, I come across this picture on my hard drive every now and then and it reminds me of the importance of humanity, and doing the right thing, and that most of us want a World where we can just get by. Gay shit like that.
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For a short time, that picture of the fireman heading UP the stairs in the WTC on 9/11, with a haunted look on his face, had a similiar effect on me. Then he spoiled it all by not being dead. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely pleased that he's not dead but the power of the photograph was lost.
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Yup, some people get off on classical music, others read poetry. I look at a picture of a tubby Black Father Christmas ...
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