Saturday, May 03, 2008

[thought for the day] baby photo evening


There's a Russian term which is as well known here as the Spanish "mañana" is in Spain.

This word is
"бывает" [biva'yet] and it means, roughly, "it happens" but can be broadened into "it just is" or even "it's just logical". So when something doesn't go as planned, this expression keeps one's head clear and one's feet on the ground.

The baby photo parade will now be tomorrow morning for two reasons:

1. I have 5 entries but shall wait for 8;
2. The eyes are now closing and I'd like to do that post some justice.


So, with apologies, dear reader - бывает!

[troubles] question of relativity

I don't know if there's something in the air but every which way I turn this evening, bad luck and dire situations appear before my eyes.


1. The sudden quadriplegic

A promising career as a policeman, a vigorous life spent in karate classes and fishing the lakes of his beloved North Carolina, future plans conjured when things were perfect -- plans that seemed irrelevant and impossible now.

It had been eight months since John shattered his C-5 vertebra diving over a wave during a family vacation. Eight months spent in either a hospital bed or that detestable chair.Eight months, also, for Marci to hunt for the miracle that just might bring him and their family back from despair.

And now, staring at her laptop, she prayed she had found it.

2. The heartless medical jobsworths

"OK, well this is the situation. I have these recurrent eye problems that I have been told to report to the hospital every time they occur as it needs immediate attention."

"No you don't. No one can see one of the doctors here without a referral."

"You don't understand. The doctors themselves have told me to ring and book an appointment every time it happens, and I have been going in to the hospital a number of times now over the past eighteen months."

"No, you haven't. No one can see a doctor without a referral."

"Check the records."

"No one can see a doctor here without a referral."

"Look I...Oh for God's sake, forget it!" And I slammed the phone down.

3. The voice in the wilderness

I am very grateful for the support of fellow bloggers. I have spoken on many occasions to her GP and various consultants; I have written to her GP and consultants; our MSP wrote to NHS Lothian all without a glimmer of success.

I have spoken to experts outwith the NHS and one from within: all have said that Mrs Carr is the type of patient they should be seeing but yet access is denied.

Mrs Carr needs help NOW!

Others need help now!!

You can help.

Let's spread this story across the web until it so big that it cannot be ignored. If you can please post about Mrs Carr's plight; please link to my posts and ask your readers to do likewise. Even if you are not in the UK please help.

As I wrote at Ginro's:

I feel this situation of yours is far worse than mine. Mine is so laughably dire that it is going to mean a total life change. That can be handled. But to endure the sort of run around you were getting, particularly with your condition, this was beyond the pale.

Allow me to explain.

There are problems which are ongoing, soul-sapping, day after day when it seems no one cares, no one will help. These are the ones described above and they're ultimately debilitating.

Then there is mine where, through one stroke of a pen in another city, the whole bottom has dropped out and I'm now living on borrowed time but even more. I must leave country X but I technically can't because country Y will not accept entry without a return entry to country X. My problem, says country X. So I can't actually move and get incarcerated for it.

Strangely, this sort of thing is not as stressful as the other type. All representations which can be made will be - it's out of my hands and is pointless now dwelling on it until there is some result. All is in the pipeline. It will be resolved. Or else it will not - no halfway house.

My health is good, the brain is operating, the only sad part is to see friends starting to shy away - people always do if they know you have an ongoing problem. They fear you're actually going to rain on their parade and so they start to schedule a dutiful time when they feel strong enough to face you.

People are human and this is natural. Cityunslicker had something vaguely close to this in this post:

Equally quite a senior manager was effectively made redundant the other day too; true to form, everyone kept their own counsel and proceeded to ignore the poor chap and carry on as normal whilst he sat there contemplating what to do. No one must mention the unmentionable, even to someone they have worked with for years and years.

This reaction, assuming the chap was reasonably well liked, is worrying. Each of the other people in that office has his own family, mortgage, commitments and his household budget is already stretched. This reaction is not exactly dog eat dog but it is sitting back and watching colleagues picked off at random and praying it will not be him. Heads down and carry on, quite understandably, of course.

That chap has now moved, in the space of ten minutes, from trusted and respected senior colleague to an embarrassing blip on the radar whom we'd like to shift out of sight as soon as poss, thank you very much, if it's all the same to you.

JMB sounds a timely cautionary note, at this point, about this negative drift in thinking and I think she's right. Plus it's always well to sign off on an optimistic note:

Try not to judge your friends too harshly, they probably feel helpless and don't know what to say so it's easier to avoid than deal with it.

In the light of that comment, my penultimate sentence: "I'll amuse myself this third last Saturday evening by packing some boxes, bumbling around and ignoring the deafening and embarrassed silence," appears less than gracious.

For me, there are better prospects than for some of the other poor blighters I could mention.

[national stereotypes] n1 - the brummie

David Harrison, tutor in political science at Warwick University, who illustrates that Brummies occupy the upper echelons of the intelligentsia


There are some appalling things said of the Brummie and this post is intended as a service to non-British readers to help dispel those stereotypes. Wiki begins with a typical fallacy:

A study was conducted in 2008 where people were asked to grade the intelligence of a person based on their accent and the Brummie accent was ranked as the least intelligent accent. It even scored lower than being silent ...
According to Birmingham English: A Sociolinguistic Study (Steve Thorne, 2003), among UK listeners "Birmingham English in previous academic studies and opinion polls consistently fares as the most disfavoured variety of British English, yet with no satisfying account of the dislike".

At the same time, by the way:

[P]sychologists found that the Yorkshire accent has overtaken the Queen's English, also known as received pronunciation, as the dialect most commonly associated with wisdom and intellect.

Indeed yes - reassuring to find oneself wise. The previous study also notes:

overseas visitors in contrast find [the Brummie accent] "lilting and melodious"

Hmmmm:

The BBC has alleged that intonation and rhythm is unvaried and that most sentences end with downward intonation. This can give a false impression of despondency and lack of imagination.

... but what would the BBC know? In an excellent commentary on Brummyism, Sackerson gets down to brass tacks:

First, I think the affected contempt for Brummies is a displaced scorn for industrial labour perhaps impermissible to express so baldly in relation to Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians.

Decades of regarding going into industry as the wooden spoon in life's competition, has brought Britain to our current sorry pass.

There may be a London-centric jealousy because Birmingham is not Britain's Second City, but, technically speaking, its first in geographical area and population.

On the accent, Sackers adds:

My personal preference is Sedgley, an exceptionally musical tone. Their pronunciation of the word "flowers" makes me think there must indeed have been a Golden Age in which men sang rather than spoke.

Some Brummie expressions include:

  • "Rock" ... a children's hard sweet (as in "give us a rock").
  • "Snap" ... food, a meal, allegedly derived from the act of eating itself (example usage "I'm off to get my snap" equates to "I'm leaving to get my dinner").
  • "Trap" ... to leave suddenly, or flee.
  • "Up the cut" ... Up the canal (not uniquely Birmingham).

For some homespun Brummie philosophy, try here. Well that's the accent but what about the behaviour of Brummies? This Alan Partridge analysis throws some light on this:





A fine initiative breaking down prejudice was National Talk like a Brummie Day in 2007 but I'm not sure if Britain is being prepared for a repeat dose in 2008.

[it's boris] now the hard work begins

Well that's a relief. Now comes the sober reflection. I'm sure many others are issuing words of warning so why should I be any different?

But historically, poor results for the ruling party in local British elections are not necessarily harbingers of poor results in subsequent general elections.

“We’ve been here before,” said Patrick Dunleavy, a professor of political science and public policy at the London School of Economics.

“It’s a bad time for the government, but not nearly so bad that the government couldn’t recover, even as early as spring 2009.”

And as for the Boris result being applicable to Brown:

In London, Mr. Livingstone was seen as an authoritarian figure who had become increasingly isolated and prickly. His efforts to write off Mr. Johnson as a lightweight buffoon failed to pay off, and by the time he began attacking his opponent on the substance of issues like the cost of the Tories’ transportation program, it was too late.

FIRST PREFERENCE VOTES

Boris Johnson (Tory): 1,043,761
Ken Livingstone (Lab): 893,877
Brian Paddick (Lib Dem): 236,685
Sian Berry, (Green): 77,374
Richard Barnbrook (BNP): 69,710
Alan Craig, (Christian Choice): 39,249
Lindsey German (Left List): 16,796
Matt O'Connor, (Eng Democrats): 10,695
Winston McKenzie (Ind): 5,389

I thought the acceptance and concession speeches were gracious.

Friday, May 02, 2008

[thought for the day] friday evening


[Image courtesy of Luc Viatour]


Never consume an entire packet of frozen strawberries at one sitting.

[Higham, 2008]

[food quiz] odd one out


1. Which of these is not a rich source of folate - spinach, lettuces, yoghurt, fortified cereal, sunflower seeds?

2. Vitamin B12 is not found in - meat, seaweed, milk, eggs, citrus juice?

3. Beta carotene is an inactive form of - Vitamin A, B12, C, D or E?

4. A poor source of calcium is - molasses, beef, hazelnuts, brown sugar, flour?

5. Which is pasta usually not formed from - dried orange pith, semolina flour, farina, buckwheat flour, eggs?


Answers [need to highlight below]

yoghurt, citrus juice, A, beef, dried orange pith

[boris] don't forget the name now folks

Still too early of course but would rather be in his position than Ken's.



[hammersmith] and 16th century benedictine music

You'd perhaps need to know something of Brian Sewell and his writing to more fully appreciate the clip which follows:

He writes for the Evening Standard and is noted for his artistic conservatism and acerbic reviews of the Turner Prize and conceptual art; these, and his upper class demeanour, have also made him into a figure of fun.

He has become a popular subject for impersonation and is sometimes described as having "the poshest voice in Britain", or, as Paul Merton once told him: "You make the Queen sound rough."

Similarly John Humphrys, in his book Lost for Words, writes "They (people who deliberately speak 'poshly') try to speak like the Queen or even Brian Sewell, the only man I have ever met who makes the Queen sound common."

So presenting a talk on 16th century Benedictine music, with a camp lithp, to the worthy patrons of the Hammersmith Club was always going to be interesting:




"But there are a number of sadly forgotten great composers." :)

"... for which the archdeacon was ... you might like to view this as well. :)

Thursday, May 01, 2008

[thought for the day] thursday evening


You, as you, may not matter to anyone in the world but you as a person in a particular place and a particular context may matter unimaginably.

[Agatha Christie, The Tuesday Club Murders, 1932]

[banksy] fun but is it art

Alleged pic of Banksy, possibly not of him


It's fair to say, I think, that most Brits would be aware of Banksy's little stunts and the shroud of secrecy he surrounds himself with. The police would like to interview him and critics are divided on the artistic merit of his work.

Some critics scorn Banksy as a passing fad for lightweight art fashionistas. "This man is nothing but a clown .. he has absolutely nothing to do with art," British critic Brian Sewell has haughtily proclaimed.

Partly for quicker getaways with his graffiti, he's become known for his stencil work and is noted for forays into places like the British Museum, where he'd hung a work of his own, replete with plaque, informing visitors:

"This finely preserved example of primitive art dates from the Post-Catatonic era. The artist responsible is known to have created a substantial body of work across South East of England under the moniker Banksymus Maximus but little else is known about him. Most art of this type has unfortunately not survived. The majority is destroyed by zealous municipal officials who fail to recognise the artistic merit and historical value of daubing on walls."

Apart from art critics, the police and museum officials, he gets up other people's noses as well. In a visit to Jamaica, Peter Richards, a local photographer said of him:

To me he seems a phoney. He pretends to be a revolutionary artist yet does work for a major corporation like Puma and sells his canvasses for thousands. It's fake activism.

Richards allegedly took photos of him and sent them to the Evening Standard. Banksy's exhibitions have been closed down when as he admits in his site, painting live animals caused them distress.

So is he an artist or a sham? For me it's as much art as Warhol ever was and shows a not inconsiderable talent. One Mail reader decried him as a criminal vandal but another, Bob from Worcester put a view closer to my own:

Well actually, Ian, if I woke up and found he'd written this across the front of MY house, I should be delighted. I'd be able to deny all knowledge of how it got there when the blackshirts came to complain and I would "find it extremely difficult to clean off" for at least a couple of years.

You may differ.



[demographic stats] or maybe just some salsa

I think you can do the mathematics:

Hispanics, the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group, now account for about one in four children younger than 5 in the United States, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today.

"Hispanics have both a larger proportion of people in their child-bearing years and tend to have slightly more children," said Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center and co-author of a recent study predicting that the Latino population will double from 15 percent today to 30 percent by 2050.


OK - those are the stats. Cut to Northern Ireland:

White: 1,670,988 (99.15%)

Religious Affiliations in Northern Ireland 1961–2001
Religions 1961 1991 2001
Roman Catholic 34.9% 38.4% 40.3%
Presbyterian (Protestant) 29.0% 21.4% 20.7%
Church of Ireland (Protestant) 24.2% 17.7% 15.3%
Other Religions (including other Protestant) 9.3% 11.5% 9.9%
Not Stated 2.0% 7.3% 9.0%
None 0.0% 3.8% 5.0%

I'd like to nip in the bud any speculation that this post is trying to prove anything. Just throwing random stats about. The first thing which strikes me about NI is that though the plantations started in 1610, nevertheless the Catholics still haven't overtaken the others in population, possibly due to migration and the modern lack of religious affiliation.

That's one thing and the second is wondering what the difference is between the two peoples anyway. Both are white, both look similar and yet the Catholic seems to me more from "the wrong side of the tracks" but if you look at the Protestant, he doesn't seem greatly different. Oversimplification, yes and it ignores the Boyne and so on but what's the problem unless one side was forced to worship as the other does?

Coming back to the Hispanics - well that's another issue and 24% is substantial. The only question remaining is if it's bad or not. I'm in no position to say but I've read much of the feeling about ghettos and underclass and so on. Here are some random stats:

Deborah Duran established correlation between acculturation and depression (Duran, 1995) Women and Latinos are more likely to experience a major depressive episode. Prevalence of depression is higher in Latino women (46%) than Latino men (19.6%).

Among female high-school students in 1997, the rate of attempted suicide among Latino girls (14.9%) was one-and-a-half times that of African American (9.0%) and non-Hispanic white (10.3%) girls.

Still don't know what to conclude but in the meantime, here's some salsa:


[tribulation] optimism, wal-mart and other goodies

An Albert Durex pic, coming to your part of the world or not


There's a notion in many people's minds that there is a coming Tribulation and better not to debate that in this post. Rather, I'd like to look at the mental set of different people in reaction to it because it says a lot about character.

Basically, those who believe in the idea fall into three camps - that the Lord will come before the great persecution/torture, pluck the believers up our of harm's way and that this is the reward for faith.

There are those who believe that a certain amount of discomfort will take place first and then there are the others who feel that they will go through a living hell first, persecuted and tortured for their faith and only then will they be plucked out of the final conflagration.

This latter idea is difficult for anyone to wrap his mind round who is also of the opinion that one can take a tablet and fat will miraculously leave the body or that when you go to the forest for a picnic, you take your comfort zone along with you in the form of a mobile home on wheels.

I'm afraid I don't believe in the comfort zone and just as with Jesus the Carpenter's Son, there is no timely airlift from unpleasantness. I believe the unpleasantness indeed comes and what your faith has bought you is the means to cope. It seems more in line with history and the story of the Cross to accept this latter idea.

It seems more like a Walmart employment contract to me. We'll take you on as long as you offer up your soul and believe in the company ethos and its ability to prevail. In return we guarantee you protection, benefits, childcare and so on. We'll get you out of tight fixes and provide a social network for you to enjoy, linked with fellow Walmarters worldwide.

Sometimes, as part of your training, the protective umbrella is pulled back because Walmart would like to see how you perform under stress, how strong your belief in the brand truly is. So as long as you follow the Walmart way, they'll do their bit and look after you - you could almost call that the comfort zone, where things seem to fall into place, except that sooner or later another training session has to come along, in order for your to advance to the next level.

So what if you don't believe any of the above and feel we're on our little own-some and that no one's coming to the rescue? That there is no fairy godmother? Well, for you, the issue now becomes where you place yourself along the optimism/realism continuum. I'll only get your backs up if I try to intimate that it's an illusion that humans can cope as islands - so I shan't say that.

Rather, I'll say that mental set becomes a huge factor. As a Brit who basically believes in forming an orderly queue of one at a bus stop and paying his taxes, my current woes can be daunting and it's easy to resign oneself to one's fate, trusting in the process to see one through and abiding by the law.

There is an entirely other point of view which thrives on chaos, sees everything as negotiable and seeks lateral solutions, which either gets you nicely out of trouble for the nonce or else lands you in heaps more. I call this the Alan Bond or Nick Leeson mentality. This latter requires nerve, a certain ability to see the overview and it takes a certain arrogance in one's ability to pull it off.

Society admires such people but does that make them right?

Plus there is one other factor which I call the Thomas Wilson syndrome. What seems a lively course of action in one's early 30s does not take into account what happens in later years and which Somerset Maugham alluded to - the lack of resolve which the years bring, the lessening ability to cope with both change and its consequences, the lessening ability to live on one's wits.

There must come a point where one can no longer show steely resolve and attempt outrageous solutions and yet such is what might be the only way to survive. It's a nice dilemma for the ageing cavalier.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

[thought for the day] walpurgis night


Just been out on our Walpurgis revels but instead of sacrificing an innocent and concerning ourselves with fertility rituals, we ate pizza. They always speak of the nun Walpurga "dying" on Feb 25th and being sainted for being a martyr on May 1st.

Usual motif on this day is "passing through the fire" and I'd like to know how exactly Walpurga died. They don't tell you. Also, on the Hotel Safari was a giant picture of a naked woman and an exchortation to join their Walpurgis Revels - surprised how open they were about it.

It's also Mayday tomorrow, actually today and "nash prazdnik" or our holiday when all sorts of marches and festivities take place in Russia but for me it's a working day.

Thought for the day?

"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire.

Anyone care to explain that one? And finally, some delightful people enjoying their festival.


I Feel So Sorry for Her But It´s So Funny!

Ok, La Sexta is one of six TVE (Televisión Española) owned channels, owned by the gov´t. There´s quite a bit of controversy surrounding this specific channel. I´ll leave that for another time. I´m here to focus on a specific progam: El Intermedio. It´s kind of like The Daily Show with John Stewart or The Colbert Report but much more cheeky. The host´s name is "El Gran Wyoming" (Big Wyoming). He´s left of center but doesn´t hesistate to make fun of the gov´t. Find below a video (which was originally sent to me by a friend, whom will remain nameless) where he "conducts" an interview with President Zapatero. This was a real interview that was done on Ana Rosa´s program. He basically asks about Zapatero´s sex life. When I have more time, I´ll post a translation.










He has a whole cast of other people, like Stewart and Colbert do. One of them is Usun Yoon. She´s from Utrera, a city in Andalucía (southern Spain) but was adopted. Her Spanish isn´t the best. They often send her to do interviews with people, who have trouble understanding her...too funny! She´s my favorite part of the whole program.

The Power of Powerthirst

I originally found this via Brando. My friend and I will be making a parody video of this shortly. Once it´s up, I´ll link to it! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





See more funny videos at CollegeHumor



I didn´t know it but a real commercial took the idea!




See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

I checked out the web site, it looks genuine. Does anyone have any more info on it?

¡Puente!

That´s what we will have starting tomorrow on Mayday. For those who are not up to speed on general Spanish slang (as I´ve heard this word employed by Colombians as well, I assume it is universal and not just unique to Spain and Colombia), it is an extended weekend. For instance, if you have a holiday on Thursday (like tomorrow), you also take Friday off (even if it´s not a holiday). Therefore, Friday bridges between Thursday and the weekend. Well, we have a holiday on Friday as well. It´s the 200th anniversary of Madrid´s uprising against Napoleon´s army in 1808. As Ron Burgandy would say, "I don´t know how to tell you, I´m kind of a big deal." That´s what May 2nd would say to the rest of the holidays this year. I plan on staying here in Madrid, instead of bombing around like I´ve done for the last few weekends. This weekend plans to be exciting enough. Maybe I finally get to Ventas on Sunday and see the first bullfight since I tried going in March and it was cancelled due to rain. Yeah, people aren´t happy when they´ve paid 40€ or more for a show that doesn´t happen, ain´t that right guys?When they are upset, they throw their seat covers into the bullring.  I saw one guy get drilled in the face, at row 3.  Strangely, it costs more to sit closer to the ring, which includes getting burned by the sun!

[housekeeping] this blog almost certain to end

I intimated some days back that this blog may well cease operations near the end of May. We're talking odds here and that's what a lot of people over here have been involved in at an official level since last Thursday - estimating the odds, which change daily. The fact is - if I come a cropper then the blog does too.

I'd dearly love to tell the tale - it's a good tale which is so illogical and my official status so invidious and yet I'm not able to tell all. Unless there is a miracle, this blog will most certainly end during the last week of May, with a fortnight hiatus being the best case scenario, rated around 20%, all things factored in. 70% says it's all over.

It's a story of one man in another city setting a new law in motion which has effectively ended everything. We are, of course, fighting a rearguard action each day now but the chances are not good. Other complicating factors make it well nigh impossible.

These are the days one finds out who one's real friends are but I have no expectations on that score, only hope.

Think I'll stop here now.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

[thought for the day] tuesday evening



"Goodness what beautiful diamonds!"

"Goodness had nothing to do with it."

[touch and go] the ghost returneth


Intriguing group this Touch and Go whom I posted on last December. The line-up looks like this [I can tell you now some of these links don't work]:
Most know the music but you'd be hard pressed to see any but Vanessa and James in concert and then only at times and mainly in Eastern Europe, which is interesting for a British group singing about Harlem.

The thing is, it was basically a David Lowe project which got out of hand and when Eastern Europe wanted them to appear as a ... well ... as a band ... they realized they'd have to actually create one.

Their best known hit was where Ms Lancaster sang:

I find you very attractive ... would you go to bed with me? The song's accompanying video feature[s her] asking the same question to various inanimate objects including an iron and a shopping trolley.

... all to Monsieur Lynch's manic trumpet work. Something quite tongue in cheek about the whole thing but the music still stands up over a decade later.

Here's a video using Life's a Beach:





In a careless moment, not so long ago, I wrote to them as to the possibility of a performance in my "home" town here, not actually expecting a reply.

Oh my goodness, I've just received a nice letter from Jim Lynch wondering what the heck I'm doing in this place and once these current "troubles" are over, I'm going to see what can be done.

Touch and Go.

[world predictions] and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things

It struck me, reading Sackerson on Marc Faber's take:

...In a real downturn, the United States (and other developed nations) would stop importing so much oil...and so much merchandise from China, which would have the consequence of reducing energy consumption by China too.

... that it really depends whom you're reading, meaning from which sector of the workplace. To listen to an economist you're lost in commodity prices, hyperinflation and the like. But come from a different angle - trade, for example, and the slant is different:

The idea that, by freeing trade, immigration and investment wealth could be optimized at low cost is a fantasy beloved only by academic economists. In reality, globalization of immigration, investment and trade each involves tradeoffs, and the tradeoffs are different, since each has different characteristics.

I ran this article past our Trade Min today and he largely accepted the take, especially:

Freedom of investment is another principle that in practice causes difficulties. The problem is that economics does not exist in a vacuum from foreign policy. In natural resources, for example, the normal ambition of most Third World governments is to seize control of any minerals discovered on their territory. Given that tendency and the existence of companies controlled or effectively controlled by governments hostile to Western interests, free foreign investment is a chimera.

In other words - autarky. Cityunslicker has an interesting comment on the downgrading of supermarket stock which also has to be considered.

The purpose of this post is not to discuss either trade or finance. It is that coming from different angles, the conclusions might well be different. There needs to be a more holistic approach when pundits punditize, methinks.

[culture gap] falling for the three card trick


Forgive me - I couldn't resist answering the comments on the last post as a separate post in itself. Certain ladies took issue with the part about girls having multiple partners and suggested males were just as bad, if not worse.

I'd say they are - far worse. There is no "no" in almost any guy's vocab.

So therefore the morality is set by the female, the nature of what relations are to be. Recently I went out with a girl and it was clearly a cultural difference. Over here, the moment the girl goes with him alone - that's a clear signal it will end up in the cot because the thought the guy would not want to does not compute in her mind or anyone else's.

Two generations ago it would be automatically assumed he'd taken only the first step and that it could either stay as a friendship or if he wanted to go the rest of the way, then it was tied in with going steady, at the very least and more usually getting engaged. There'd be no assumption she'd just "do it" there and then because there was a premium put on girls' final bargaining chip.

Even a girl having successive boyfriends is a separate issue to just automatically assuming that if you party, you automatically screw.

Take that girl [who is in the vast majority today, not knowing any other way 'cause no one's ever taught her otherwise] and put her back into the late 50s and she'd be looked at very strangely by the other girls.

Which is better - today's "free for all" or the "guy has to work for it" of that generation? I'd say that today's girl feels "empowered" that she can mete it out to whomever she likes but the 50s female had more power in that it was not automatically expected and she was held in higher esteem. It's like anything which you have to fight for to get - it's worth far more than something readily available.

The guy of that day was in her power, under her spell and if he wanted the final frontier, then he had to play her game. These days he need play no game - he gets it when he wants it with no strings. Females have effectively swallowed the feminist illusion and disempowered themselves.

And what is "it"? For a guy it's mainly the cot. For her it's increasingly just the cot too but way back then it was the whole package she got. All that this oh-so-modern idea of "who wants to marry anyway" has done is give the guys the right to dip the wick without responsibility. Hell I'm not complaining - it favours the male but if she thinks it empowers her somehow or gains her more respect in society as her own person, she's kidding herself.

How many times have I heard a single mum [my own goddaughter is a case in point] say she wouldn't want him anyway. Why not? Because he is useless. Why is he useless? Because he has no responsibility. Why not? 'Cause he's grown up without respect for girls as there has been no premium on that.

It's a vicious circle. At least in the 50s she'd run a reasonable chance he'd not be like that in the first place although, to be fair, if she did cut the cord to him, she'd be an unmarried mother in the 50s - not a good place to be. Better for her today of course.

All this dislocation would be minimized if women had had better Feminista to follow back then. Instead of the appalling bra-burners, if they'd listened to people like Dale O'Leary, Melissa Scowcroft, Christina Hoff-Sommers, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Camille Paglia, Judith Levine, Lillian Csernica, Diane Ravitch, Katha Pollitt or Nadine Strossen - true feminists in that they would have equally got women out from behind the Hoover but at the same time had them retain their "womanness".

Instead many women chose to follow Steinem, Jagger, Callaghan, de Beauvoir, Greer, Stanton, Hanisch or Friedan who actually did enormous damage [and by the way - they were into bra-burning in the next wave]. They achieved no more as lauded Feministi than the saner feminists but instead got most men's backs up and half of the women today as well.

Pollitt and Strossen are right in saying that women are simply people in the end, just as we males are people. These women want to work with the male rather than issuing ridiculous ultimata and harbouring deep hatreds.

That's why it needs to get back to a position of sanity. That's why girls should probably follow the debate between more intelligent women, say, Katha Pollitt and Carol Gilligan instead of the Misandrists who are lost before they begin.

[reformation] just around the corner

First let's get the bad news out of the way:

Property repossessions are expected to jump almost a quarter this year. The prediction, from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), comes as borrowers increasingly feel the pinch from higher mortgage costs and a tightening of lending criteria. At the same time, Britons have record personal unsecured debts and the cost of living is rising, stoked by soaring fuel and food prices.

... and some of its predictable fallout is stress. But stress does not completely explain this:

Two teenagers who kicked a woman to death in a park because she was dressed as a "Goth" were jailed for life on Monday, police said. They set upon the 20-year-old gap year student when she tried to stop a group of youths from attacking her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, 21. The pair were left unconscious.

This stems from something far deeper. Britain and the U.S. have always been fairly violent societies at one level - Doug & Dinsdale and Snatch illustrate that on the one hand and al Capone and multiple shootings on the other so how worse it is today is speculation.

While parents of the post-war generation espoused Christian charity, love thy neighbour and so on, as part of a new post-war package of idealistic hope to increasingly irritable sets of young Boomer ears, nevertheless the social blueprint existed and people could still quote from it.

The later Boomers and Gen X crossed the threshold which reacted against "the old values" and the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, e.g. in "open plan" education. What was seen then as new and fresh and self-empowering was actually a con trick but they weren't to know that at the time.

So while the old values were supplanted by the new materialistic hedonism and no one could foresee the catastrophe in an initially prosperous, technologically adept western society of the mid-80s, in fact the seeds of doom had been planted.

And here it is now - a whole third generation growing up unprotected by the societal values which once acted as a mild deterrent to the average person and subscribing to a bankrupt materialism increasingly out of place in a global scenario entirely at odds with the new social code. In other words, no one is equipped to cope because they have either renounced the mechanism for coping or have never learnt of it at all, except in the disparaging and scathing remarks of older people.

Two boys in the park don't like a goth - what's to stop them when their music subscribes to the "if it's female, f--k it, if you don't like it, beat it up" mentality, when they're alienated from an older society and when the only rule is the satanist "do as thy will".

Where once only a girl of a certain type would have screwed around, now two thirds have had more than one partner before marriage. Where once the exhortation not to seek one's own revenge was preached from the pulpit to sleepy congregations across the west, now the young unwashed know of no constraints - this has never been instilled in them. Nobody cares about it.

And the ones in the middle, the washed, are starting to come round to the notion that the shopping god is not all it's cracked up to be and there is no brave new world of peace, love and prosperity ahead. It was all a con.

How to come back from here?

A return to the old values will follow a global conflagration and the next generation will do it for themselves. Irrelevant whether you and I believe this or not - it's out of our hands now. Most of those reading this post will not be part of that process of picking up the pieces and forging a new society of old values.

That's for the next betrayed generation.

Monday, April 28, 2008

[thought for the day] monday evening


To play billiards well is the sign of an ill-spent youth.


[Charles Roupell - 1908]

[caption time] don't get caught short

[ceramics quiz] queen charlotte might approve



1. A composite material of ceramic and metal is known as _____.


2. Ceramics are inorganic and are formed by the action of _____.

3. Can ceramics be made from metallic materials?

4. The third major innovation for which Wedgwood is remembered was _____ Ware.

5. _____ (23 March 1733 – 1797) was an English potter born in a village that is now part of Stoke-on-Trent.

More on Wedgwood here.

Answers - highlight to see:

cermet, heat, no, Jasper, Josiah Spode

[hillary] and the firm grasp of reality


So every speech she gave in Indiana on Friday and Saturday had the same topic sentence. “My campaign is about jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs,” she said, always to thunderous applause.

In Bloomington, she promised to bring nothing less than economic revolution to the decaying Rust Belt. “You’ve heard of white-collar jobs and blue-collar jobs,” she told her Fort Wayne audience, setting up a line about how efforts to address global warming and other environmental problems could spawn new industries. “We’re going to create green-collar jobs.”


Virginia: Mummy, are the people in 2008 actually taken in by cynical, desperate promises like these?

Mummy: Well, Virginia - many are and she's good at playing on the short term memory.

Virginia: Can she win?

Mummy: Anything's possible in Cloud Cuckoo Land, dear. Absolutely anything.

Virginia: But if she's an apparent criminal opportunist, surely no one will vote for her?

Mummy: Anything's possible in Cloud Cuckoo Land, dear. Absolutely anything.

Virginia: I see. The world's a strange place, Mummy.

[harriet] and the firm grasp of reality


Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman
said Lord Levy was wrong. "It's been Labour's great fortune that we have had not one but two world class leaders in one generation. These are serious times and it's time for a very serious leader and that is exactly what Gordon Brown is."

Yeah right.

[consumer debt] people falling apart

The Telegraph is running an article on debt causing people to stress out and quotes a psychologist, Linda Blair, who:

... sees an increasing number of people emotionally incapacitated by financial worries. "When you have a problem with debt, you feel out of control of your life - what we call 'learned helplessness'," she says ...

Well yes, Linda, you call it 'learned helplessness' eh? To put it in layman's terms - you were OK before, you let yourself fall into debt, you now learn to be helpless and want the fairy godmother to bail you out.

This debt crisis is a wicked cocktail of people's aspirations, the dislocation of the income-cost nexus in the last four decades and the deliberate policies of the banks, from glamourizing credit and concealing its woes through to the unjustifiable sub-prime lending.

Are people acting like children to suddenly cry 'helpless' when they see their debts? Yes they are. But one sympathizes with the plight of any child. Are we angry that the lending institutions have been playing this game on unsuspecting punters? We should be because universal suffering in any nation is an indicator that there is something fundamentally wrong with the paradigm.

What's the solution?

* Firstly, to get the head together and understand that descent into stress-related illness is only going to hinder your chances of getting out of trouble. It's the hardest thing many will face - that the fairy godmother ain't coming and no one's interested in your descent into illness.

Do I sound like a callous bstd here?

I'm only saying to you what I am currently having to say to myself. I'm in this position too, just as you are and no one's coming to the rescue. Friends and contacts can do so much but only that much and no more. The rest is up to us. We must, must, face up to reality.

* Second thing is to put together a strategic plan - not by rushing here and there, handwringing but realizing we've been less than wise, mapping out a strategy and then putting in the legwork - looking up directories of agencies, seeking advice, going there, making agreements. After all, they can't get blood from a stone but any sign of your fiscal maturity will be welcome to them.

There's guilt and shame and general unpleasantness in all of this - it's time to put them to one side and concentrate only on the plan and stick to it without despairing.

I am not in the least interested in someone saying: "Well you should have done this ... you should have done that ..." Don't you think we already know that? How does it help to dwell on what has happened except as a mental note for the future?

Don't let anyone lay a guilt-trip on you or expect you to wallow in it. Just acknowledge your fault then move on. If someone won't let you do that, then cut that connection. You have bigger issues than guilt trips right now.

* Thirdly - change your whole mental set about what you buy. We're not going to alter spiralling prices so we'd best get used to the fact that we simply cannot afford this lifestyle anymore. It's pretend-life, it's a dream we thought the bit of plastic could realize for us. It can't realize it. Change your life and for a start - stop spending on all but regular bills for some time.

Today is just such a day for me and the pressure is intense. It's not connected with debt, thank the Lord but it is still difficult and there's guilt in it. I'm not going to dwell on it, I'll take it one step at a time and see what can be done, expecting one step backwards for every two forwards.

Prayer is no joke - that's why I ran that "thought of the day" yesterday. If we can allow this of ourselves, I believe it does help, if only to face what is coming up during the day.

But inertia, putting off, depression - the pull is very strong to descend into this. We might be chronically depressive anyway - I think I might be - but it's not going to get me out of trouble and fewer and fewer people are going to come to my rescue as I go along.

In the end, I have to do it by myself and the time to start is today - now.

[james bond] history in the lens


In London, the Imperial War Museum is mounting: For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond. At the Fleming Collection gallery is Bond Bound: Ian Fleming and the Art of Cover Design, a look at the literary trajectory of James Bond, paperback hero.

An AP article says:

Honor Blackman glam and Bond innuendo - Pussy Galore

The covers are a great survey of taste, and of what was permissible. The US is much happier with guns, while the Europeans are much more relaxed about nudity.


The earliest cover, from the 1955 paperback edition of Bond's debut, Casino Royale, shows a strangely bland Bond, bow-tied and with a carnation in his buttonhole, seated at a poker table.

Later covers are slicker and racier - near-naked women, gleaming guns and glimmering diamonds are popular motifs.


Once you get into the late 60s, the covers get more and more glamorous. Then with the rise of feminism, the glamorous ladies disappear.

But only for a time. The newest covers in the show - Michael Gillette's designs for an upcoming Penguin reissue of the series - feature naked female forms, stylised and given a deliberately retro feel.

One could look at the clothing fashions of the time as well. I could never get over the 1969 George Lazenby, in his tan coloured cardigan and straight cut trousers or the 2007 Daniel Craig slickness.

The change in the women seems even more pronounced. From the the Honor Blackman glam, through the Maryam d'Abo helpless damsel in distress to the kick-butt Eva Green, the Bond franchise is a microcosm of modern western history.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

[thought for the day] sunday evening


And lips say, "God be pitiful," who ne'er said "God be praised."

[Elizabeth Barrett Browning - 1844]

[stóra planid] almost a gangster film

This blog has long been a fan of Iceland Review not just for classic stories such as Salmon Fishing is Better compared to an Average Year but for the uniquely quaint style of English in their reports.

This film review by the soon to be acclaimed Egill M. Arnarsson is no exception to this fine tradition, being arguably one of the finest film reviews this blogger has read in years - it will almost certainly reward your close attention [and good English].

Catch the Icelandic subtitled trailer here, courtesy of Poppoli.



Stóra Planid [almost a gangster film]

Award-winning director Ólafur Jóhannesson moved back to Iceland to make an Icelandic feature that is almost a kung-fu film and almost a gangster film. The film features debt-collectors, a well-known and mocked profession in Iceland, as weak thugs on the quest for a higher status in a questionable gang.

Considering that the Icelandic film scene is blossoming at the same time that organized crime in Iceland is on the rise, Stóra Planid’s timing is perfect. Pétur Jóhann Sigfússon, whose star is shining brightly these days, plays the lead as Davíd in Stóra Planid. He won the stand-up competition “Iceland’s Funniest Person” and got a spot in a silly TV show on a small network.

However, his roles have always been similar, and in fact, some might say that he plays the same character over and over again. His role as Davíd is no different. But even though Sigfússon did a great job, the Icelandic nation yearns to know if awkward and repressed characters are the only thing he is capable of acting.



Other roles and aspects


Thorleifsson delivers his role with great professionalism while Imperioli’s well-known face and accent-free English did not cast a shadow on the others’ performances. Benedikt Erlingsson (Fóstbraedur) and Stefan C. Schaefer’s characters were surprisingly well-written and added hilarious details (i.e. Erlingsson’s horse whip and boat-modeling interest) to a number of scenes.

The screenplay by director Jóhannesson and Ómar Örn Hauksson was mostly well-written, but a bit vague on key plots in the storyline. Also, it was missing a climax and highlights causing it to be a bit flat. An example of that is an awkward, unexpected sex scene without the traditional raw nudity and passionate moans, never before seen in an Icelandic film.

Rune Kippervik’s cinematography overdosed on heavy depth-of-field usage, which was a huge discomfort to the eye. A few shots seemed experimental and some lower-lit scenes were a bit grainy. The editing, however, often had good timing which compensated a little for some of the most annoying shots.



And in conclusion

The film breaks a huge chunk of the barrier between international and Icelandic filmmaking and pushes the limit of domestic film standards and creativity.

Catch the Icelandic subtitled trailer here, courtesy of Poppoli.

Perfect [almost]