More Greatness of The Wire

Haven't done this for a while

Black Death

Went to see this on a whim last week after a tweet from Andy Nyman. It's a good old hokumy tale about the Black Death plague of the 14th century. It features Sean Bean a bloke who reminds me of Jim Dale, an incredibly weak male lead and the wonderful, aforementioned, Andy Nyman.

I am giving it the benefit of the doubt and hoping that it was not meant to be entirely serious as I found it pretty funny. There was a serious point about the utter futility of fundamentalist beliefs and how they destroy any society they touch. But there was also lots of pensive shots of Sean Bean before he tells his comrades to 'prepare, because God has left the horizon' and other silly things.

I enjoyed it tremendously except for the last two minutes which were two of the crappest minutes in cinema I ever hope to sit through.

In praise of Luther...sort of

Just got around to finishing Luther on BBC. It was a fantastic series. Its only slight problem was that it had Idris Elba in. This is not a problem in itself as he is a very good actor. The problem was that anything with him in is inevitably going to remind me of The Wire.

The Wire is unique amongst television dramas in the way that it did not bother conforming to the regular way of TV shows where everything had to be packaged and wound up in a neat one hour package. By doing that The Wire was able to let stories build naturally and not make the kind of shortcuts that shows like Luther, however brilliant they are, have to make.

Still I loved the show and I'm hopeful there will be a second series. As long as his gruesome female sidekick is with him. She delivered the two best lines of dialogue in the series. In one of her occasionally wearisome philosiphical discussions about the nature of love, she says 'The universe is not cruel John, it's just indiffferent.' To a fan of natural selection and the apparent cruelty of nature that is beautiful to me.

Secondly she said that there are three common delusions people suffer from. Which are:

1. We overstate our good parts (I am English and Catholic so come with self loathing already installed so this one does not count).
2. We overestimate the ammount of control we have over our lives
3. We persist in the veiw that our lives will change radically for the better in spite of all available evidence to the contrary.

Which I personally found pretty fucking sobering.

World Cup Woe

England truly have set a new benchmark for averageness at this tournament thus far. It really is mystifying. Anybody who sees Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard play for their club sides knows that these are class players so why is it they cannot do it for England.

This is ordinarily the bit when I offer some kind of bon mot or pithy reason why. But the truth is I don't know the reason why. And judging by the varying bewildered looks on the faces of messrs Capello, Errikson and Maclaren to name but the most recent three it seems the England managers are in the dark as well.

4.3.2.1

Saw this the other night. A great feelgood movie. Closest we've come to true girl power since the heady days of The Spice Girls. And that's not mean ironically.

Nuclear Elephants and World Cup Fever

In the hopes of trying to restore this blog to some kind of regularly used blog I am going to try and write this in a regular weekly fashion.

Nuclear Elephant

There has been a great deal of talk over the last few months regarding the deficit. We all know it is big and that we need to tackle it. I work in the public sector and we are the public enemy number one it seems. It is our inflationary wages that our causing us all to be in hock. Now the right way to handle this I might suggest would be to say to everybody ‘look we’re in a bit of a hole here. We’re all going to have to sacrifice a bit for this. Which means public sector worker’s money will be frozen. But so will benefits. And taxes on the really well off will go up to so nobody feels picked on.’

Unfortunately this kind of plain speaking seems beyond British politicians at least. So what we have is a sustained attack on public sector workers. Who, if little else, do actually get up, go to work, pay taxes and spend money and do all the other things that make an economy work. The cause of this one track attack I think lies with our press who do like their easy hate figures. If you want proof look at the last two years as they have moved from Ross and brand to bankers to Social Workers to MPs to Gordon Brown…repeat.

And while this goes on we have the other story of Iran. Who may or may not be developing nuclear weapons. I have always thought that it is more than a little hypocritical of the rest of the world to lecture Iran while holding nuclear weapons themselves. I have heard various politicians and commentators try to justify this. But at heart it is simple hypocrisy. I have these arguments with my daughter who regularly points out what a hypocrite I am (although she is 6 and does not know the word hypocrite). I am left floundering and end up just feeling I have a right to be a hypocrite because I am an adult and that’s what 99% of us are. However I do realise how facile this argument. It is no less facile when it is elevated from an argument with a six year old to an argument between sovereign states.

Then we come to the elephant of the title. With all this talk of the deficit wouldn’t it make sense to scrap Trident. Even some of the generals, hardly wet lefties, have questioned their usefulness. So why keep it ? The money would ease the deficit, even if half of it was spent on the equipment our soldiers are lacking and would actually give us some moral authority when negotiating with Iran. Trident is the elephant in the room which could help solve so many problems.

World Cup Fever

Well we’re all going a bit silly over here again about England. With half the country declaring we will win and the other half saying we can’t win. The truth is both of those points of view are wrong. England are at best a quarter final team. However once we are there…who knows.

The Case For Honesty

Nicky Campbell has directed us football fans to here to apparently fume about Simon Heffer's egregious insult.

I actually like the guy's style. I like the fact that he is open about his snobbery. I'll have that over the jumped up faux affrontary of hacks generally. Who are trying to convince us they are morally offended while rubbing their hands with glee at the spectacle.

Incidentally this is what I like most about Twitter. The links that I get from it. I also like the fact that I get to dump celebs who don't cut the mustard. I will keep Nicky though. I like the fact he replies to my occasional angry e-mails to Breakfast.

A sense of perspective

This diagram blows my mind not sure about you. To imagine how massive our sun is comapred to us is mind boggling. But to then compare how miniscule the sun is in comparison to it's bigger cousins.

Loving Hugh is Easy Cos Your Beautiful

I really like Hugh Grant. Really like him. I think he is an effortlessly charming man and a wonderful if extremely lazy comedic actor.

This love was pushed to the limit this week when I saw 'Did You Hear About the Morgans ?' Which is a comedy so light if it were put into a balloon it would float away. And even though it is awful it is enlivened by his presence.

I'm really pissed off that having checked Youtube there are basically no decent videos to post. Oh well. Headline is I like Hugh Grant.

Oh yeah

Its a new year, I'm going to post more yadda, yadda, yadda...

Spinning plates

This week The UK, US and French Governments have closed their Embassies in Yemen. This is as a result or possibly response is the better word (knee jerk maybe), to the attempted bombing of an American plane by an extremist it is alleged was recruited and trained there.

Following that the governments are also making noise about something being done to combat extremism and Al-Quaida's influence there.

It just seems to me that we are increasingly being shown that this is a battle we simply cannot win with conventional Western bullying of small nations. It is no surprise that Employment and a hardline, allegedly corrupt government exist in this country. It is easy to see why Al-Quaida choose it is a place to ferment disaffection.

So what can be done ? We are barely holding a peace in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pakistan is becoming more unstable by the week. That's before we get to how fragile the grip on Iraq still is.

I don't know where to start with this. I would have thought it was obvious to anyone that we cannot keep all these plates spinning forever and eventually will have to admit that we cannot run the whole of the Middle East and Central Asia and eventually re-negotiate a way of dealing with that part of the world.

What the fuck that involves I don't know. I don't have answers. I can just see this ain't working.

Gordon is a moron

One after another fuck up from this man who has accidentally become our prime minister. Honestly I am by instinct a Labour supporter but I find it difficult to fathom how a man so inept when it comes to political instincts can have become prime minister.

The fates are against him I agree but he will compound his bad luck of timing with the most extraordinary naivete.

Eureka

This is the reason I love writing. Last week I finished something I had been working on for some time. But for the last few weeks I have been a bit lost knowing that once this script was finished I was bereft of things to write. It wasn't exactly writer's block but frustrating all the same. So I was delighted last night when lying in bed inspiration came. I started writing an outline this morning and all of a sudden things are brighter. I feel happy having the machinations and plots of the characters I am writing about in the back of my head.

That is why I love writing. Having something to look forward to. We all need it.

The Ashes

I have to say I thought we had no hope with The Ashes this year but apparently it is not as straightforward as that. Australia are not the team they were wthout McGrath, Warne and Gilchrist and crucially Stuart Clark appears absent to. Despite that they are still quite a team.

It was heartening yesterday that England did not fold as they tend to do on the first day of most Ashes series. The talk amongst those who know more than I is that they may well give The Australians a series. H.ere's hoping

ermm...

Regarding that last post I think I got caught up in the moment and forgot how transitory the public and media's attention to such things are. I do think she was iconic. But she has been quickly forgotten.

Jade - The Icon

It is difficult to imagine there would ever be a time when Jade Goody could be referred to as iconic without a heavy slice of irony. I can’t help but think that will change over the next few years.

As a big brother fan I can recall the point at which fate changed Jade’s life. She was up against Lynn (an irritating Scottish lady) to be evicted in the first week. The vote rested on PJ (a cunt of the highest order) deciding Lynn should go because she walked in on him while he was taking a dump.

Thus Jade was destined to live out her life, all of it, in front of us. She went from complete ridicule to a fairly stable position on the c list of celebrities. Slightly behind Jordan but way ahead of Jodie Marsh. Then came the next great epoch of her life when she returned to Big Brother.
There have been some silly scandals in recent years. The supreme dumbness of the Ross/Brand scandal has possibly dimmed the supreme hysteria of the CBB race row. Especially as it had little to do with Race and far more to do with class. But ‘class row’ does not have the same ring as ‘race row’.

So Jade was back at rock bottom and she knew it. Before she did her tearful confession to the News of the World, I remember watching her in the house where she said ‘I’ve worked hard to turn things around in the last few years and now I’ve lost it all.’

She wore the sack cloth for the next two years and slowly built up her reputation again. Now comes a genuine tragedy. She is dying. She is unlikely to see her 28th birthday and has two small children. Surely nothing elevates a person to that iconic status as much as dying young.
What is more we are going to see every day of it played out in papers. She is going to marry her scallywag boyfriend for millions in OK magazine and we will see every doctor’s appointment. That is if we don’t have the decency to turn away.

It is so easy to state but none the less true that it makes perfect sense that Jade should die on TV as she has lived almost all her adult life. I like Jade. I am not sure she is somebody that I would like to spend a great deal of time with but she is, I feel a good person.

I think that her importance to this country, culturally, cannot be under estimated. Think of the last twenty years of our country’s life and imagine who is more culturally important than Jade. Once you get past Princess Di and David Beckham I am not sure who else ranks higher.

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

Heard something interesting on the radio the other day and as I cannot think of anything else to put on here at the moment I will repeat it here. It was a lady talking abut young boys and girls. She said if a boy brings a bat to school and none of his close friends want to play with it he will find someone who will be the game is what is important to him. If a girl brings a doll to school with her and her friends do not want to play with it then she will play a different game because to a girl the relationship with her friend is more important.

Noting terribly profound but I doubt I will hear a more insightful comment this year.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

This is not the classic old film but the shiny new one starring Keanu. It is actually a decent update. I did not like the idea of it being remade that much. But they had a good twist on it by making it about the fact that we are killing the planet for all the other species tha.t live here and that cannot be allowed to continue.

Unfortunately wha it cannot have is the context of the first flm that was released at the time of the Cold War hence far more paranoid time.

What works well about it though is Keanu. In thiskind of role where he is asked to play uber cool he can do it better than anyone. I liked it but not that much

The greatness of The Wire Part II

I think I Love My Wife

Not a personal comment but just a mention of a film I saw. Starring Chris Rock and written and directed by him. I really like Chris Rock. I love Everybody Hates Chris and his stand up.

The film is basically a story about a bored married man who gets tempted to have an affair with an old friend. It's good and has a lot of resonance about the humdrum nature of life.

It also has cameos from two members of The Wire in cameo roles.

Real Moment in History

Two days ago in America a black man became president. I got up at 4 am to watch his opponent graciously concede defeat and then cried as I watched Barrack give his speech. What moved me to tears was not so much him although the speech was incredible. But the fact that a beautiful black family are America's first family. I long for the day when maybe the Martin Luther King quote will become a reality and people will be judged not on the colour of their skin but on the content of their character.

There is not a great deal more to say. Not much I can put down here can ad to how moving it was. I liked what Maya Angelou said 'I can hardly talk for weeping. I feel like we have grown up.' I don't know if she means black people in America or America itself. I kinda hope its the latter and that this man can take Americans who did not vote for him along with him.