Every so often, the ‘science fiction’ idea of being able to eat a nutritionally-balanced meal just by taking a pill will raise its puritanical head. It was a staple of sci-fi writers back in the day when technological advance would free us from the drudgery of having to cook and then eat real food: after all, why bother if you can just take a pill? The idea still appears from time to time and is usually to be found on the front page of a less reputable tabloid (e.g. the Daily Express, the purveyor of so much charlatanism and bullshit pseudo-science). Why peel, chop, slice, dice, boil, steam, grill and fry when you can simply pop a pill out of its pre-sealed blister pack and have a three course meal with a simple swallow of a mouthful of water?
The idea of food having so little cultural significance, so little pleasure associated with the rutuals of shopping, preparing, cooking and eating is truly bizarre to my mind. A home-made meal, even if it turns out slightly less pretty that the photo accompanying the recipe you followed religiously is still a thing to take pride in, to enjoy. And it is even better if you are sharing you culinary triumph with someone else: food has an important social aspect too. It brings us together around a table to eat - yes, of course - but also to talk, to share, to laugh. In some situations, food may have to take on a lesser meaning, to be stripped back to it’s basic raison d’être - to provide fuel for the body. I have a friend who was instructed in the ways of ‘food is fuel’ on his first overnight manoeuvres in the army. They were served meat and potatoes followed by sponge pudding as a dessert. However, custard accompanied the meat course and gravy was ladled onto the sponge pud! In order to survive the rigours of the following day, the food had to be eaten, regardless of how it tasted. I can understand that, in the midst of battle or yomping across miles of territory, stopping to prepare a banquet where the men can engage in a bit of social interaction is not really practical. Meals, under such circumstances, are about supplying the body with fuel for the next day. However, the side effect of this utilitarian approach to food has stayed with him: food for him should be as simple and nutritious as possible without any fanfare, bells or whistles.
I enjoy cooking and matters culinary. Cooking programmes such as Masterchef are about the only ‘reality’ shows that interest me and I can almost stand James Martin on Saturday Morning Kitchen...almost. I am not about to over-sell my cooking skills, however. I can cook but there is no way that I would want to do it even vaguely as a way of earning money. The work is hard, the hours long and when you’ve finished, you get to start on the clearing up and clean-down. Definitely not for me! Neither am I going to indulge in the clchés that are trotted out each season in Masterchef: “Cooking is my passion!”; “I’ve put my heart onto that plate”; “I’ve always wanted to cook professionally” (so why didn’t you?) etc. I just like to cook. It is therapeutic (chopping, tenderising meat), relaxing (Radio 4 on in the background, glass of wine) and ultimately satisfying as is the case with any process that involves making something from scratch. We also have an extensive library of cooking porn: those glossy cookbooks full of fabulous recipes that you haven’t cooked yet (and probably never will) but just look so good in the photos!
Just as control of our weight cannot be gained through popping a pill in the cakehole, despite what headlines in the Express or adverts in many magazines or all over the internet may say, so eating cannot currently be reduced to a pharmaceutical transaction, thankfully! Only those who are ridiculously time-poor or are hardcore ‘food-is-fuel’ puritans could ever embrace the meal-in-a-pill concept: it is joyless, inhuman and boring. It would be the equivalent of living life entirely through books or TV: yes, we may learn much about life that way, but we could never claim to have truly lived that life in all its imperfect glory. Get cooking people!
Thursday, 4 June 2015
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
A Good Read
I have just finished reading Under the Dome, a novel by Stephen King. Now, I am by no means a Stephen King aficionado: I have read only one other book by him (Christine) although I have seen a few films based on his stories (Christine, Carrie, The Shawshank Redemption, Misery). This is probably because, although many might argue, King is often categorised as a ‘horror’ writer or, at a stretch, a fantasy writer, two genres of which I am not a massive fan. However, ever since UtD was published in 2009, I had been intrigued by the premise (a typical small US town suddenly finds itself cut off from the rest of the country by, in effect, being placed under a vast unbreakable bell-jar: nothing can get in and nothing can get out) and wondered where he would take the story from that starting point. Having now finished the book, I am sorry that it took me quite so long to get around to reading it.
The story seems to work on several levels. Imagine Kafka’s novels Metamorphosis and The Trial but, instead of poor Gregor alone waking up in an alien state or K’s bewilderment in trying to deal with a faceless tyranny, a whole community is turned upside down in a second with the small municipal powerbases, fairly meaningless in normal day-to-day life, suddenly taking on sinister and very significant meaning for some unfortunate members of that community. It creates a microcosm, a petri-dish, if you will, in which we can study: the potential global environmental disaster that we fossil fuel addicts face playing out to its terrifying conclusion; an America where resources are becoming scarce and and what the citizens in control of those dwindling stocks will do to retain that control; a neat riff on the Lord of the Flies story, ripped from its Pacific island setting and plonked down in Maine (where, unsurprisingly, the outcomes are broadly similar); a little fun with fundamentalist Christians and those who have lost their faith; and the idea of ‘worlds-within-worlds’ (if we tread on an ant, what if there is something 'out there' that sees us as mere ants....). It is a long book and it has a massive cast of characters (sometimes a little difficult to keep track of) but it never really sags. King says in the ‘Author’s Note’ that he wanted to write a “pedal-to-the-metal” novel and he has certainly achieved this aim. Becuase the timescale in which events happen is relatively short, it feels pressurised, claustrophobic, sweaty - all the feelings that his characters feel as the tensions and hardships ratchet up across the course of a week. It definitely keeps the pages turning without resorting to every chapter being two pages long (Dan Brown - I’m looking at you!) and I like the fact that a song (James McMurty’s ‘Small Town’) and a key line from it (“It’s a small town and we all support the team”) is referenced several times. This despite the fact that C&W music is not the main force in town: the Christian radio station WCIK (or "Jesus Radio”) and its 24-hour diet of hymns and gospels dominates the town’s airwaves. The fact that the entire operation is automated and on an endless loop is a comment in itself...
I wouldn’t call it a criticism but, for some, the descriptions of some of the deaths and injuries inflicted by various weapons are gleefully gory. That said, King is writing in the horror genre so - hey! - you know what to expect and what you do or do not like. Similarly, with such a big book having been written in a comparatively short time (480 days, apparently), it does mean that there are going to be a few clunky or pulpy lines in there but, overall, I’d still say that, in literary worth, it is head and shoulders above anything else that you might choose to pick up at an airport for holiday reading (although, given its length and that it starts with a plane crash, maybe it wouldn’t be an ideal airport purchase). In a plot that was intriguing, well-paced and thought through, there were plenty of good lines, some that made me laugh and some that brought a tear. That’s all I ask from a good story.
By way of an experiment, about half-way through the book, I watched the first episode of the TV series ‘based on’ UtD. Apart from the fact that the book and the show share a name, a few characters have the same names as characters in the book (although, bizarrely, are not the characters they share their names with) and there is a dome, it is a completely different kettle of fish. Apparently, it is just about to start its third season, so the ‘pressurised’ feel of the book is definitely not something the TV producers have aimed to reproduce.
The story seems to work on several levels. Imagine Kafka’s novels Metamorphosis and The Trial but, instead of poor Gregor alone waking up in an alien state or K’s bewilderment in trying to deal with a faceless tyranny, a whole community is turned upside down in a second with the small municipal powerbases, fairly meaningless in normal day-to-day life, suddenly taking on sinister and very significant meaning for some unfortunate members of that community. It creates a microcosm, a petri-dish, if you will, in which we can study: the potential global environmental disaster that we fossil fuel addicts face playing out to its terrifying conclusion; an America where resources are becoming scarce and and what the citizens in control of those dwindling stocks will do to retain that control; a neat riff on the Lord of the Flies story, ripped from its Pacific island setting and plonked down in Maine (where, unsurprisingly, the outcomes are broadly similar); a little fun with fundamentalist Christians and those who have lost their faith; and the idea of ‘worlds-within-worlds’ (if we tread on an ant, what if there is something 'out there' that sees us as mere ants....). It is a long book and it has a massive cast of characters (sometimes a little difficult to keep track of) but it never really sags. King says in the ‘Author’s Note’ that he wanted to write a “pedal-to-the-metal” novel and he has certainly achieved this aim. Becuase the timescale in which events happen is relatively short, it feels pressurised, claustrophobic, sweaty - all the feelings that his characters feel as the tensions and hardships ratchet up across the course of a week. It definitely keeps the pages turning without resorting to every chapter being two pages long (Dan Brown - I’m looking at you!) and I like the fact that a song (James McMurty’s ‘Small Town’) and a key line from it (“It’s a small town and we all support the team”) is referenced several times. This despite the fact that C&W music is not the main force in town: the Christian radio station WCIK (or "Jesus Radio”) and its 24-hour diet of hymns and gospels dominates the town’s airwaves. The fact that the entire operation is automated and on an endless loop is a comment in itself...
I wouldn’t call it a criticism but, for some, the descriptions of some of the deaths and injuries inflicted by various weapons are gleefully gory. That said, King is writing in the horror genre so - hey! - you know what to expect and what you do or do not like. Similarly, with such a big book having been written in a comparatively short time (480 days, apparently), it does mean that there are going to be a few clunky or pulpy lines in there but, overall, I’d still say that, in literary worth, it is head and shoulders above anything else that you might choose to pick up at an airport for holiday reading (although, given its length and that it starts with a plane crash, maybe it wouldn’t be an ideal airport purchase). In a plot that was intriguing, well-paced and thought through, there were plenty of good lines, some that made me laugh and some that brought a tear. That’s all I ask from a good story.
By way of an experiment, about half-way through the book, I watched the first episode of the TV series ‘based on’ UtD. Apart from the fact that the book and the show share a name, a few characters have the same names as characters in the book (although, bizarrely, are not the characters they share their names with) and there is a dome, it is a completely different kettle of fish. Apparently, it is just about to start its third season, so the ‘pressurised’ feel of the book is definitely not something the TV producers have aimed to reproduce.
Wednesday, 13 May 2015
The Streets of London
Elaine recently got an invite to a reunion lunch with Boots staff that she used to work with in Croydon twenty-odd years ago. The meal was to happen on a Sunday in central London and originally she had thought about commuting there and back on the same day, something she had done for the first of these reunions around a year ago. However, after a bit of research into hotel and train costs (need to be a little more parsimonious as a pensioner!), we decided to make a weekend of it and both travel down on Saturday morning, stay overnight and return on Sunday evening. We booked a hotel and a table at a restaurant for Saturday night with the intention that we could get around and see a few things on Saturday and Sunday morning, after which Elaine could go to her reunion meal and I could...well, do whatever for a few hours.
Travelling down was great: the 8:35 train from Piccadilly is a good option - not too early, yet early enough to leave most of Saturday available to sightsee/shop/watch the world go by. After dropping off the bags at the hotel, we set off to do touristy stuff. However, such touristy stuff normally happens in central London or the West End. This time, we were heading east and trying out Docklands and the area around the O2.
There is still much building and remodelling going on in Docklands. Certainly, the chill wind of austerity seems to be blowing rather warmer over this part of London. After traveling on the Docklands Light Railway (a first for us) to Canary Wharf and negotiating a building site, we managed to work our way down amongst the offices and shops that fill the area. There is definitely another world going on down in London! We came a cross a large subterranean shopping mall which was populated, in the main, by very upmarket brands. In fact, when I saw a branch of River Island I thought it seemed completely out of place, a retail pony amongst a paddock full of sleek, expensive thoroughbreds. As Elaine noted, the branch of Boots (hey, even bankers need cold remedies and prescriptions dispensed) carried franchises for Chanel and Clarins, something that a Boots of this size would never normally be granted. There was definitely money down here beneath the London streets.
Returning to the street level, we took a river taxi to North Greenwich, site of the O2. “River taxi” makes it sound quaint - a small boat that ambles politely along the Thames perhaps? No, this is a huge catamaran that seats more than 100 passengers and it provides a fabulously different way of looking at the capital. The ticket we had bought also included a ‘flight’ on the Emirates Airline, a cablecar across the Thames. After a nostalgic look round the O2 site (we were last there 15 years ago when it was still the Milennium Dome), we walked across to the the cablecar station. The ride across is fantastic and I would definitely recommend it to all visitors to London. At to top of the ‘flight’, you are 93 meters above the river and the view is wonderful (especially with the great weather that we had that day). Again, it gives a different view of a city that you think you know well. We rounded off the flight with a couple of beers on a converted lighter boat moored on one of the old docks where we watched water skiers practice using a pulley system rather than the traditional speedboat to drag them back and forth along the dock.
That evening, we explored Tower Bridge and environs (wow! I’d forgotten how many overseas visitors London gets - and quite how many are from Italy!) before heading to a pub for a preprandial libation in a very trendy pub. It is a strange fact of getting older. I recall being in a hotel in the Lake District on the day before Diana’s funeral in 1997 and looking around the dining room, realising that we were the youngest couple there by some way. Now, in that pub near to Tower Bridge, we were probably the oldest couple by 15-20 years! Sic transit gloria mundi - hey ho...
The meal that evening was a game of two halves: good cocktails (when they got them right), good food (when they got it right) and great customer service (which we fully tested!). The cocktails: Elaine’s arrived as ordered and was delish. I had ordered a London Gin Martini - basically a classic martini made with London dry gin. What I received was, in fact, just a glass of vermouth. And to make matters worse, not even a dry vermouth! I eventually managed to point this out to the waiter (“You have a martini - this is not what you ordered?” “No - a martini has gin in it, lots of gin”) and my martini, as ordered, duly arrived albeit as I was part-way through the starter. When the mains were brought, mine was fine but Elaine’s consisted of a medium steak (she’d ordered rare) and cold Lyonnaise potatoes. Again, to give them their due, the meal was taken away and replaced with a perfectly cooked version and the manager agreed to comp the wine. When the bill came, however, it featured not only the supposedly free wine but also a completely extraneous pint of lager! Things were not going well. The mistake was pointed out (we were starting to feel bad about calling the waiter over) and the bill revised accordingly. Just as we were getting ready to settle the bill, the second-in-command of the front of house came across with a rather nice bottle of wine, poured two very decent measures and gave them to us with his apologies for the problems we had experienced. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you pull some kind of victory from the jaws of a customer service defeat: quickly correct your mistakes and be genuine in your apologies - it goes a mighty long way. Anyhow, I’d like to think the two very large parties the restaurant was dealing with (it was packed) went some way to explaining the problems we encountered and I would still reccommend the Perkin Reveller to anyone staying in the Tower Bridge area.
On Sunday, not wanting to pay £20 (!!!) for the hotel’s version of a full English, we headed to Dishoom in Covent Garden, an eaterie modelled on a Bombay cafe. There were so many intriguing things on the menu for breakfast and I wanted to try them all. What we had was excellent and, judging by the numbers eating there, it is popular because the food is good and reasonably-priced. We then found that the restaurant where Elaine was attend the reunion was three doors down from Dishoom! So, with time to kill, we wandered around. Went to Covent Garden to see the street performers (only two automatons), check if any of the shops that we used to know are still there (one or two are) and generally waste some time. We also had a look around Seven Dials and the streets that radiate from it (still love that area!). Eventually, I left Elaine at her reunion and I headed to sit in a small square in Neal’s Yard to read whilst soaking up the sun. It felt really relaxing - chilling amongst the crowds, a world rushing by as I remained motionless.
I had promised to take a selfie outside the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street so, off I set. I believe that, as part of the ongoing social cleansing of London which is removing all traces of the ‘true’ capital, Denmark Street is to be remodelled so it was probably a good time to see it before it goes the same way as the rest of Soho. Having walked up and down the street a couple of times (it’s not that long), I consulted t’internet as to where the 12 Bar is on Denmark Street only to find that, pre-empting the changes, it has moved to Harrow Road, so no selfie. However, I was able to drool all over the fabulous guitars in the windows all along that street! I didn’t dare enter any of the shops - I might not have been able to restrain my guitar-buying fetish (altough the prices were certainly a buzzkill - £22 grand for a ’67 Strat, anyone?)
17:37 train back from Euston - again, a good time as we were back home for half eight and we had had the whole of Sunday to do stuff. In all, a ‘proper’ two days, rather than the day-plus-a-bit that a weekend trip can sometimes yield. We know we can get the train tickets cheaper in future and we could also stay somewhere cheaper in town so we are thinking that, perhaps, trips to London might be a more regular thing and not just saved for when a Boots reunion is called!
Travelling down was great: the 8:35 train from Piccadilly is a good option - not too early, yet early enough to leave most of Saturday available to sightsee/shop/watch the world go by. After dropping off the bags at the hotel, we set off to do touristy stuff. However, such touristy stuff normally happens in central London or the West End. This time, we were heading east and trying out Docklands and the area around the O2.
There is still much building and remodelling going on in Docklands. Certainly, the chill wind of austerity seems to be blowing rather warmer over this part of London. After traveling on the Docklands Light Railway (a first for us) to Canary Wharf and negotiating a building site, we managed to work our way down amongst the offices and shops that fill the area. There is definitely another world going on down in London! We came a cross a large subterranean shopping mall which was populated, in the main, by very upmarket brands. In fact, when I saw a branch of River Island I thought it seemed completely out of place, a retail pony amongst a paddock full of sleek, expensive thoroughbreds. As Elaine noted, the branch of Boots (hey, even bankers need cold remedies and prescriptions dispensed) carried franchises for Chanel and Clarins, something that a Boots of this size would never normally be granted. There was definitely money down here beneath the London streets.
Returning to the street level, we took a river taxi to North Greenwich, site of the O2. “River taxi” makes it sound quaint - a small boat that ambles politely along the Thames perhaps? No, this is a huge catamaran that seats more than 100 passengers and it provides a fabulously different way of looking at the capital. The ticket we had bought also included a ‘flight’ on the Emirates Airline, a cablecar across the Thames. After a nostalgic look round the O2 site (we were last there 15 years ago when it was still the Milennium Dome), we walked across to the the cablecar station. The ride across is fantastic and I would definitely recommend it to all visitors to London. At to top of the ‘flight’, you are 93 meters above the river and the view is wonderful (especially with the great weather that we had that day). Again, it gives a different view of a city that you think you know well. We rounded off the flight with a couple of beers on a converted lighter boat moored on one of the old docks where we watched water skiers practice using a pulley system rather than the traditional speedboat to drag them back and forth along the dock.
That evening, we explored Tower Bridge and environs (wow! I’d forgotten how many overseas visitors London gets - and quite how many are from Italy!) before heading to a pub for a preprandial libation in a very trendy pub. It is a strange fact of getting older. I recall being in a hotel in the Lake District on the day before Diana’s funeral in 1997 and looking around the dining room, realising that we were the youngest couple there by some way. Now, in that pub near to Tower Bridge, we were probably the oldest couple by 15-20 years! Sic transit gloria mundi - hey ho...
The meal that evening was a game of two halves: good cocktails (when they got them right), good food (when they got it right) and great customer service (which we fully tested!). The cocktails: Elaine’s arrived as ordered and was delish. I had ordered a London Gin Martini - basically a classic martini made with London dry gin. What I received was, in fact, just a glass of vermouth. And to make matters worse, not even a dry vermouth! I eventually managed to point this out to the waiter (“You have a martini - this is not what you ordered?” “No - a martini has gin in it, lots of gin”) and my martini, as ordered, duly arrived albeit as I was part-way through the starter. When the mains were brought, mine was fine but Elaine’s consisted of a medium steak (she’d ordered rare) and cold Lyonnaise potatoes. Again, to give them their due, the meal was taken away and replaced with a perfectly cooked version and the manager agreed to comp the wine. When the bill came, however, it featured not only the supposedly free wine but also a completely extraneous pint of lager! Things were not going well. The mistake was pointed out (we were starting to feel bad about calling the waiter over) and the bill revised accordingly. Just as we were getting ready to settle the bill, the second-in-command of the front of house came across with a rather nice bottle of wine, poured two very decent measures and gave them to us with his apologies for the problems we had experienced. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you pull some kind of victory from the jaws of a customer service defeat: quickly correct your mistakes and be genuine in your apologies - it goes a mighty long way. Anyhow, I’d like to think the two very large parties the restaurant was dealing with (it was packed) went some way to explaining the problems we encountered and I would still reccommend the Perkin Reveller to anyone staying in the Tower Bridge area.
On Sunday, not wanting to pay £20 (!!!) for the hotel’s version of a full English, we headed to Dishoom in Covent Garden, an eaterie modelled on a Bombay cafe. There were so many intriguing things on the menu for breakfast and I wanted to try them all. What we had was excellent and, judging by the numbers eating there, it is popular because the food is good and reasonably-priced. We then found that the restaurant where Elaine was attend the reunion was three doors down from Dishoom! So, with time to kill, we wandered around. Went to Covent Garden to see the street performers (only two automatons), check if any of the shops that we used to know are still there (one or two are) and generally waste some time. We also had a look around Seven Dials and the streets that radiate from it (still love that area!). Eventually, I left Elaine at her reunion and I headed to sit in a small square in Neal’s Yard to read whilst soaking up the sun. It felt really relaxing - chilling amongst the crowds, a world rushing by as I remained motionless.
I had promised to take a selfie outside the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street so, off I set. I believe that, as part of the ongoing social cleansing of London which is removing all traces of the ‘true’ capital, Denmark Street is to be remodelled so it was probably a good time to see it before it goes the same way as the rest of Soho. Having walked up and down the street a couple of times (it’s not that long), I consulted t’internet as to where the 12 Bar is on Denmark Street only to find that, pre-empting the changes, it has moved to Harrow Road, so no selfie. However, I was able to drool all over the fabulous guitars in the windows all along that street! I didn’t dare enter any of the shops - I might not have been able to restrain my guitar-buying fetish (altough the prices were certainly a buzzkill - £22 grand for a ’67 Strat, anyone?)
17:37 train back from Euston - again, a good time as we were back home for half eight and we had had the whole of Sunday to do stuff. In all, a ‘proper’ two days, rather than the day-plus-a-bit that a weekend trip can sometimes yield. We know we can get the train tickets cheaper in future and we could also stay somewhere cheaper in town so we are thinking that, perhaps, trips to London might be a more regular thing and not just saved for when a Boots reunion is called!
Wednesday, 6 May 2015
Making Your Mind Up
After a seemingly-endless yet curiously anodyne period of campaigning, the moment to actually vote is almost upon us: tomorrow is the 7th May - Election Day!
You can call me dogmatic, a fool, old-school or whatever, but I see no sense in voting anything other than Labour when I cast my vote tomorrow at Ramsbottom Library. The reasons for this choice are (to my mind) simple enough: in their five years in power, the coalition (main partners, the Tories; sleeping - nay, comatose - partners, the Lib-Dems) have done little but break promise after promise - no top-down reorganisation of the NHS, bringing debt under control by the end of the Parliament, no rise in tuition fees, no rise in VAT and so on - in the course of punishing the poor, the vulnerable and the sick whilst lining the pockets of their mates in the banks and big business. We are constantly told about ‘the economic recovery’, yet the average person in the street has seen no rise in wages over the last five years: any such ‘recovery’ seems to have benefitted the owners of the companies but not the workers who staff those companies. The Tories (let’s call a spade a spade: a shotgun marriage between a vicious, snaling lion released from captivity after 13 years and an amiable, bumbling hamster would never be described as ‘a coalition’!) and their allies in the Street of Shame have spent that five years trying to drive a wedge between those of us who do not share their priviledged existence: blame the immigrants, scapegoat the ‘undeserving’ poor (as opposed to those ‘hardworking families’ - i.e. employed) and, most of all, blame the previous Labour government.
David Cameron has spent a copious amount of time reminding people of the deficit that the coalition inherited when they came to power. He even (supposedly) had a copy to hand on the campaign trail this week of the note left by the outgoing Labour administration to say that there was ‘no money left’. Leaving aside that that the note was the kind of jokey note that is always left for the incoming government and the unlikelihood of Cameron carrying it around with him, I can agree with him that the coalition inherited a deficit. Where we disagree is the reason for that deficit. Cameron and his cronies have, from Day 1, banged on about it being Labour’s fault and , as such, an illustration of ‘typical’ Labour mismanagement of budgeting in office. Leaving aside the fact that, upto 2008, Labour were doing very well, thank you, and fiscal ‘mismanagement’ would have been impossible to claim, a little incident came along in that year that screwed everything up for everyone and, boy, do I mean everyone! The global financial crisis that hit in that year toppled some banks, almost toppled many others, brought the Eurozone to the point of collapse and cost an arm and a leg in this country to avoid us becoming an economic basket case. Sub-prime lending and completely reckless investments, begun by US banks but then replicated in this country were behind the crash. It is true that newly-relaxed banking regulations under Labour did not help at all. However, at the time, the Tories actually urged Gordon Brown to go further in relaxing the rules. I think it would be fair to say, therefore, the banking crisis was facilitated by the naivety of politiciancs of all stripes when it came to trusting the banks. However, only Labour is blamed by the Tories: the spendthrift bankers are never mentioned. And that gravy train just keeps rolling...
My personal ‘red line’ is the coalition’s deceitful treatment of the NHS. “No top-down reorganisation of the NHS” trumpeted Cameron pre-election in 2010. Equally, there was no mention of any NHS reorganisation in the party’s manifesto. However, almost immediately after coming to power, the coalition embarked on the biggest top-down reorganisation of the NHS since its inception in 1948. At a cost of some £3 billion (a conservative estimate), the NHS was transformed from a fairly bureaucratic but understandable structure into an even more bureaucratic structure. Tiers of management were stripped out and replaced by addtional layers of managers! Overnight, people who had worked in the NHS for years suddenly found they had no idea who was responsible for certain services. If it was bad for NHS employees, just think how patients and members of the public felt! And, to cap it all, on the eve of the election, the re-organisations have been largely abandoned as an unworkable and unwanted change. £3 billion wasted in a time of so-called austerity.
There are many other awful decisions by the coalition I could cite (the Bedroom Tax, employing IDS in the cabinet etc.) but I don’t want to waste more time on such obvious targets. So, the Tories and their corpse bride, the Lib-Dems, are out as voting options. UKIP are the neanderthal wing of the Tory party who, seemingly, have noting to offer beyond stopping immigration and getting out of the EU. If these two things don’t happen, then they have absolutely no funds for anything else in their manifesto. One-trick ponies and it’s a poor trick at that. That leaves the Greens (in terms of ‘real’ parties anyway - I realise there will be other chancers on the ballot paper who are looking for the quickest way to dispose of their deposit fee). There are things about the Greens that I like: locally, their candidate, John, is a nice guy and I think he would do a good job for Bury North. Nationally, I have some concerns - manifesto too much of a wish-list? track record in Brighton patchy? - but it would be good to see them get some more seats in Westminster. However, when it comes down to it, Bury North will be a straight contest between Labour and the Conservatives: voting for anyone else will not alter that fact. The incumbent, David Nuttall, has, frankly, done zip for this constituency. He is on the list of top ten Tory MPs most likely to defect to UKIP, opposes same-sex marriage and pay equality between the sexes. I am surprised that in the last few weeks he has managed to find his way back to Bury, suddenly realising that being quite so low-profile is probably doing nothing for his re-election chances. In a desperate last fling of the dice, he brought the Tory battle bus to Ramsbottom last week...and virtually no-one saw it. They visited one section of the newest estate where they had obviously found a concentration of confirmed Tory supporters before departing like thieves in the night. Campaigning only with your core supporters seems to have been a staple of this election and has been the same for all parties. As noted above, ‘anodyne’...
I know Labour at a national level are not perfect but, when we all vote tomorrow, we do need to remember that we are, first and foremost, voting for our local MP, the person who will best represent our interests on the national stage. James, the Labour candidate, is the only representative of the main parties who has consistently campaigned for a 'Fair Deal for Bury’ and seems to have the ‘tools to do the job’. For those reasons, I shall be voting for him tomorrow. If, as a side effect we will then see the back of David Nuttall forever and, hopefully, the Con-LibDem coalition that has proved so ineffective in ensuring “we are all in this together” over the past five years, then, all the better.
Basta! Vote Labour GE2015!
You can call me dogmatic, a fool, old-school or whatever, but I see no sense in voting anything other than Labour when I cast my vote tomorrow at Ramsbottom Library. The reasons for this choice are (to my mind) simple enough: in their five years in power, the coalition (main partners, the Tories; sleeping - nay, comatose - partners, the Lib-Dems) have done little but break promise after promise - no top-down reorganisation of the NHS, bringing debt under control by the end of the Parliament, no rise in tuition fees, no rise in VAT and so on - in the course of punishing the poor, the vulnerable and the sick whilst lining the pockets of their mates in the banks and big business. We are constantly told about ‘the economic recovery’, yet the average person in the street has seen no rise in wages over the last five years: any such ‘recovery’ seems to have benefitted the owners of the companies but not the workers who staff those companies. The Tories (let’s call a spade a spade: a shotgun marriage between a vicious, snaling lion released from captivity after 13 years and an amiable, bumbling hamster would never be described as ‘a coalition’!) and their allies in the Street of Shame have spent that five years trying to drive a wedge between those of us who do not share their priviledged existence: blame the immigrants, scapegoat the ‘undeserving’ poor (as opposed to those ‘hardworking families’ - i.e. employed) and, most of all, blame the previous Labour government.
David Cameron has spent a copious amount of time reminding people of the deficit that the coalition inherited when they came to power. He even (supposedly) had a copy to hand on the campaign trail this week of the note left by the outgoing Labour administration to say that there was ‘no money left’. Leaving aside that that the note was the kind of jokey note that is always left for the incoming government and the unlikelihood of Cameron carrying it around with him, I can agree with him that the coalition inherited a deficit. Where we disagree is the reason for that deficit. Cameron and his cronies have, from Day 1, banged on about it being Labour’s fault and , as such, an illustration of ‘typical’ Labour mismanagement of budgeting in office. Leaving aside the fact that, upto 2008, Labour were doing very well, thank you, and fiscal ‘mismanagement’ would have been impossible to claim, a little incident came along in that year that screwed everything up for everyone and, boy, do I mean everyone! The global financial crisis that hit in that year toppled some banks, almost toppled many others, brought the Eurozone to the point of collapse and cost an arm and a leg in this country to avoid us becoming an economic basket case. Sub-prime lending and completely reckless investments, begun by US banks but then replicated in this country were behind the crash. It is true that newly-relaxed banking regulations under Labour did not help at all. However, at the time, the Tories actually urged Gordon Brown to go further in relaxing the rules. I think it would be fair to say, therefore, the banking crisis was facilitated by the naivety of politiciancs of all stripes when it came to trusting the banks. However, only Labour is blamed by the Tories: the spendthrift bankers are never mentioned. And that gravy train just keeps rolling...
My personal ‘red line’ is the coalition’s deceitful treatment of the NHS. “No top-down reorganisation of the NHS” trumpeted Cameron pre-election in 2010. Equally, there was no mention of any NHS reorganisation in the party’s manifesto. However, almost immediately after coming to power, the coalition embarked on the biggest top-down reorganisation of the NHS since its inception in 1948. At a cost of some £3 billion (a conservative estimate), the NHS was transformed from a fairly bureaucratic but understandable structure into an even more bureaucratic structure. Tiers of management were stripped out and replaced by addtional layers of managers! Overnight, people who had worked in the NHS for years suddenly found they had no idea who was responsible for certain services. If it was bad for NHS employees, just think how patients and members of the public felt! And, to cap it all, on the eve of the election, the re-organisations have been largely abandoned as an unworkable and unwanted change. £3 billion wasted in a time of so-called austerity.
There are many other awful decisions by the coalition I could cite (the Bedroom Tax, employing IDS in the cabinet etc.) but I don’t want to waste more time on such obvious targets. So, the Tories and their corpse bride, the Lib-Dems, are out as voting options. UKIP are the neanderthal wing of the Tory party who, seemingly, have noting to offer beyond stopping immigration and getting out of the EU. If these two things don’t happen, then they have absolutely no funds for anything else in their manifesto. One-trick ponies and it’s a poor trick at that. That leaves the Greens (in terms of ‘real’ parties anyway - I realise there will be other chancers on the ballot paper who are looking for the quickest way to dispose of their deposit fee). There are things about the Greens that I like: locally, their candidate, John, is a nice guy and I think he would do a good job for Bury North. Nationally, I have some concerns - manifesto too much of a wish-list? track record in Brighton patchy? - but it would be good to see them get some more seats in Westminster. However, when it comes down to it, Bury North will be a straight contest between Labour and the Conservatives: voting for anyone else will not alter that fact. The incumbent, David Nuttall, has, frankly, done zip for this constituency. He is on the list of top ten Tory MPs most likely to defect to UKIP, opposes same-sex marriage and pay equality between the sexes. I am surprised that in the last few weeks he has managed to find his way back to Bury, suddenly realising that being quite so low-profile is probably doing nothing for his re-election chances. In a desperate last fling of the dice, he brought the Tory battle bus to Ramsbottom last week...and virtually no-one saw it. They visited one section of the newest estate where they had obviously found a concentration of confirmed Tory supporters before departing like thieves in the night. Campaigning only with your core supporters seems to have been a staple of this election and has been the same for all parties. As noted above, ‘anodyne’...
I know Labour at a national level are not perfect but, when we all vote tomorrow, we do need to remember that we are, first and foremost, voting for our local MP, the person who will best represent our interests on the national stage. James, the Labour candidate, is the only representative of the main parties who has consistently campaigned for a 'Fair Deal for Bury’ and seems to have the ‘tools to do the job’. For those reasons, I shall be voting for him tomorrow. If, as a side effect we will then see the back of David Nuttall forever and, hopefully, the Con-LibDem coalition that has proved so ineffective in ensuring “we are all in this together” over the past five years, then, all the better.
Basta! Vote Labour GE2015!
Thursday, 23 April 2015
St George's Day
It's that time of year again when we celebrate the patron saint of England, St George, famous for rescuing a damsel in distress by killing a dragon. The fact that St George was far from 'English' (in terms of the modern map of Europe, he would probably be Turkish) and that dragons only exist in the confines of children's story books (and Game of Thrones for the big kids out there), seems to do nothing to dampen peoples 24-hour patriotism-fest each 23rd April. I will admit, even I used to dig out my 'Cross of St George' cuff-links for St George's Day, so I am not immune. Some, however, go a lot further and use it to drape everything in the red and white. There are growing calls each year for the day to be made a Bank Holiday, a day to celebrate national pride, if you will. Is it important that we have such a day in the calendar?
Other countries do seem to have a day that centres on a date with national significance, the day that they see as a defining moment. For the US this is Independence Day (4th July) and for France, it is Bastille Day (14th July). Russia Day (12th June), only introduced in 1994, celebrates the re-emergence of Russia after the end of the Soviet Union, a holiday that is not universally popular as there are many who still yearn for thos good old Soviet days (not least, Vladimir Putin, seemingly). For the diehards in Russia, there is still Defender of the Fatherland Day or Victory Day that date back to the Soviet era. The Italians have Republic Day that celebrates the date when the monarchy was retired, the Spanish have...well, shedloads of public holidays, most of which are regional (including, in Catalonia, St George's Day celebrated on the same date as ours). You get the idea: national days exist in so many other countries, but not here in the UK.
In the UK, apart from Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day, we can't even be arsed to give the others proper names! Instead, we just call them "Early May", "Spring" and "Summer". No, no, no - we don't want to be seen celebrating anything like the Signing of Magna Carta, the establishment of habeas corpus, the discovery of the structure of DNA or the even the first four minute mile. I realise it's not eveyone's cup of tea, but even military victories (Trafalgar, Waterloo, Battle of Britain, VE-Day for God's sake) are not commemorated by a national holiday. When considered in the context of the rest of the world, we come across as a little bit wierd in that respect.
I am not advocating here for a blind patriotism that borders on the jingoistic: a love of country that makes us blind to its imperfections and shortfalls. The US brand of partiotism can seem a little 'strong' for us Brits as it seems to be an over-demonstrative love of one's country that leaves us thinking "Get a room!". The chants of "USA! USA! USA!" at sporting events can feel intimidating for the non-Amenricans rather than being (for the most part) an innocent and total belief in the Land of the Free. Their very upbringing delivers a relationship to nationality and the national flag so different to ours. In contrast, we either shy away from such overt demonstrations of patriotism or else we head to head to the dark side of 'loving' our country, that of jingoism and xenophobia.
There are things in our recent and more distant past that are huge blots on the national copybook - our involvement in the slave trade, our treatment of nationals in countries fighting for independence against the Empire, our involvement in the war in Iraq based on non-existent 'evidence' to name a few - but overall, I still think this is a pretty decent country and I am still proud to call myself 'British/English' (there is another debate!), despite our current 'leaders' who seem intent on destroying the systems that are the source of much of that pride for me. Perhaps we should have a national holiday to have a bit of a crow about how good this country can be. However, rather than 23rd April and celebrating a Turkish dragon-slayer, I would suggest another date - how about the 5th July, the date in 1948 when Trafford General was 'opened' as the first NHS hospital in Britain. Now that is something to be proud of!
Other countries do seem to have a day that centres on a date with national significance, the day that they see as a defining moment. For the US this is Independence Day (4th July) and for France, it is Bastille Day (14th July). Russia Day (12th June), only introduced in 1994, celebrates the re-emergence of Russia after the end of the Soviet Union, a holiday that is not universally popular as there are many who still yearn for thos good old Soviet days (not least, Vladimir Putin, seemingly). For the diehards in Russia, there is still Defender of the Fatherland Day or Victory Day that date back to the Soviet era. The Italians have Republic Day that celebrates the date when the monarchy was retired, the Spanish have...well, shedloads of public holidays, most of which are regional (including, in Catalonia, St George's Day celebrated on the same date as ours). You get the idea: national days exist in so many other countries, but not here in the UK.
In the UK, apart from Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day, we can't even be arsed to give the others proper names! Instead, we just call them "Early May", "Spring" and "Summer". No, no, no - we don't want to be seen celebrating anything like the Signing of Magna Carta, the establishment of habeas corpus, the discovery of the structure of DNA or the even the first four minute mile. I realise it's not eveyone's cup of tea, but even military victories (Trafalgar, Waterloo, Battle of Britain, VE-Day for God's sake) are not commemorated by a national holiday. When considered in the context of the rest of the world, we come across as a little bit wierd in that respect.
I am not advocating here for a blind patriotism that borders on the jingoistic: a love of country that makes us blind to its imperfections and shortfalls. The US brand of partiotism can seem a little 'strong' for us Brits as it seems to be an over-demonstrative love of one's country that leaves us thinking "Get a room!". The chants of "USA! USA! USA!" at sporting events can feel intimidating for the non-Amenricans rather than being (for the most part) an innocent and total belief in the Land of the Free. Their very upbringing delivers a relationship to nationality and the national flag so different to ours. In contrast, we either shy away from such overt demonstrations of patriotism or else we head to head to the dark side of 'loving' our country, that of jingoism and xenophobia.
There are things in our recent and more distant past that are huge blots on the national copybook - our involvement in the slave trade, our treatment of nationals in countries fighting for independence against the Empire, our involvement in the war in Iraq based on non-existent 'evidence' to name a few - but overall, I still think this is a pretty decent country and I am still proud to call myself 'British/English' (there is another debate!), despite our current 'leaders' who seem intent on destroying the systems that are the source of much of that pride for me. Perhaps we should have a national holiday to have a bit of a crow about how good this country can be. However, rather than 23rd April and celebrating a Turkish dragon-slayer, I would suggest another date - how about the 5th July, the date in 1948 when Trafford General was 'opened' as the first NHS hospital in Britain. Now that is something to be proud of!
Wednesday, 15 April 2015
Favourite Films 1
Along the way, in no particular order and, of course, liable to added to or amended depending on new releases, day of the week, the side of bed I got out of etc. are my all-time film favourites with a little bit about why I like them. Because I could go on and on (and on) about them, rather than produce a 'Top Five' in one go, I'll just add more from time-to-time. Let's begin...
1. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
This film, released in 1943, is a producion of The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) who wrote, produced and directed it. It stars Roger Livesey as Clive Wynn-Candy VC, Deborah Kerr in a triple role as the object of Wynn-Candy's affection (to varying degrees) over the course of his life and Anton Walbrook as Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, a German who Wynn-Candy meets as a adversary in a duel but goes on to be his life-long friend. The story is told, for the most part, in flashback with the start and the end of the film set in the present (1943) and the bulk of the film telling us how Wynn-Candy became the man he is.
It is ostensibly a film about one man's life: from a young, decorated officer of the Boer War who goes on, via the First and Second Wars to be seen as something of a crusty old stick-in-the mud, a man whose sense of honour and decency is no longer valid to be fighting a war against the Nazis, a foe that does not recognise the honour code he still clings to. So, it is a film about the rights and wrongs of holding fast to 'absolute' moral values in a world that has changed dramatically. In effect, the tactics of the Nazis has meant that for some characters in the film, the gloves have come off and there is a need to fight back just as dirtily. But is the this 'the British way'? Should we 'lower' ourselves to their level? It is a question that is still relevant in the face of terror attacks today.
Equally, it is a brave film that, in 1943, chose to portray a sympathetic German character whilst, at the same time, having to keep up morale. Theo starts as Clive's enemy, becomes his friend, shuns him in the wake of Germany's defeat in the First War but is reconciled with Clive when the Nazis come to power in Germany. Theo's rejection of Clive's friendship after the First War seems to echo the resentment felt by Germany as the victors handed down punative reparations that added insult to wounded national pride. However, Theo rejects the 'restore pride at any cost' route taken by the Nazis just as Clive cannot contemplate waging war without 'rules'. In fact, it is Theo who tries to convince Clive that the only way the Nazis will be stopped is by ditching any notion of an 'honourable war'.
As Stephen Fry and others have said, it is a film that looks at "what it means to be English". Clive Wynn-Candy, far from being a dusty relic of a bygone age, is shown to be the man he is because of his experiences and his genuine decency has arisen from his training, his life and his sense of duty. Clive is the history of Britain embodied in one man's life. Add to this gorgeous colour photography and great acting by the leads and I think it results in a film to delight on several levels.
2. A Matter of Life and Death
Another Powell-Pressburger gem (I thought I'd get them out of the way first!). David Niven plays Peter Carter, the pilot of a crippled bomber returning to base after a bombing run in Germany. All his crew are dead and he has no parachute. In the last few minutes before he takes his chances by bailing into the sea (and almost certain death), he talks to June, a US radio-operator based in Britain. Jokingly, he promises to meet up with her when he 'lands'. Against all the odds, he wakes up on a beach having been washed ashore. Somehow, he is alive! Peter meets up with June and they fall in love. However, Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) arrives from the afterlife to tell Peter that he should have died and he (the Conductor), is here to 'collect' him. Peter argues that he cannot go as he has fallen in love and it is not his fault that he was missed for 'collection'. Conductor 71 agrees that Peter should be allowed to argue his case in the afterlife to determine if he lives or dies. Upon revealing these 'visions' to June, she, in turn, tells them to a friend, Dr Reeves (Roger Livesey again) who interprets them as symptoms of a brain injury sustained when he bailed from the stricken bomber. A battle for Peter's continued existence ensues both on Earth (on the operating table as he undergoes brain surgery) and in the afterlife as he argues his case for contiuing to live. Which is 'real'?
There is so much to love about this film. On the one hand it is a brilliantly romantic love story and probably just the sort of escapism that audiences wanted to see in the all-too-real aftermath of the Second World War. David Niven is suitably dashing and terribly British while Kim Hunter as June is a beautiful all-Americal gal and, together, they make a lovely couple. However, there was a little more to the film than just a love story (wouldn't you know!). It was originally suggested that the film might be a vehicle to help smooth Anglo-American relations which had been strained somewhat through the thousands of US service personnel that had been stationed in the UK in the months leading up to D-Day and beyond. There were many stories of US servicemen marrying British women (GI Brides), so Powell and Pressburger reverse this and have the American girl fall for the British boy. In order that Peter's case for continued life is given the harshest possible examination in the court in the afterlife, the 'prosecuting' counsel is an Americal revolutionary killed at that hand of the Brits who tries to argue that no daughter of the Revolution could ever love a Brit. The evidence to prove otherwise is...I won't say - you'll have to watch the film!
It is also remarkable for a couple more things. Firstly, having the newish area of medicine/surgery - neurosurgery - as a central theme. This either 'explains' the visions Peter has or, if we go with the more magical 'reality' (remember, no explanation is ever given for how Peter survived falling from the aircraft), allows an Earthly resolution to the fact of Peter's brain injury. Certainly, there are references to particular things in the film that point to a brain injury (Peter imagines smells which can be a symptom of the injury he has) and care was taken that the medical 'facts' used in the film were correct. Secondly, and my favourite, the afterlife in AMOLAD is in black & white! This is in direct contrast to The Wizard of Oz, where reality is in black & white, while fantasy (Oz) is in eye-popping colour. To me, this kind of makes sense: we live in a world of colour, so 'unreality' should be different and the most straightforward change is to remove the colour. It makes the trial scenes all the better for it, too!
So, there we are: two films by the same auteurs (Powell & Pressburger), both featuring 'Life and Death' in the title and both more than worthy of your immediate attention.
1. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
This film, released in 1943, is a producion of The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) who wrote, produced and directed it. It stars Roger Livesey as Clive Wynn-Candy VC, Deborah Kerr in a triple role as the object of Wynn-Candy's affection (to varying degrees) over the course of his life and Anton Walbrook as Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, a German who Wynn-Candy meets as a adversary in a duel but goes on to be his life-long friend. The story is told, for the most part, in flashback with the start and the end of the film set in the present (1943) and the bulk of the film telling us how Wynn-Candy became the man he is.
It is ostensibly a film about one man's life: from a young, decorated officer of the Boer War who goes on, via the First and Second Wars to be seen as something of a crusty old stick-in-the mud, a man whose sense of honour and decency is no longer valid to be fighting a war against the Nazis, a foe that does not recognise the honour code he still clings to. So, it is a film about the rights and wrongs of holding fast to 'absolute' moral values in a world that has changed dramatically. In effect, the tactics of the Nazis has meant that for some characters in the film, the gloves have come off and there is a need to fight back just as dirtily. But is the this 'the British way'? Should we 'lower' ourselves to their level? It is a question that is still relevant in the face of terror attacks today.
Equally, it is a brave film that, in 1943, chose to portray a sympathetic German character whilst, at the same time, having to keep up morale. Theo starts as Clive's enemy, becomes his friend, shuns him in the wake of Germany's defeat in the First War but is reconciled with Clive when the Nazis come to power in Germany. Theo's rejection of Clive's friendship after the First War seems to echo the resentment felt by Germany as the victors handed down punative reparations that added insult to wounded national pride. However, Theo rejects the 'restore pride at any cost' route taken by the Nazis just as Clive cannot contemplate waging war without 'rules'. In fact, it is Theo who tries to convince Clive that the only way the Nazis will be stopped is by ditching any notion of an 'honourable war'.
As Stephen Fry and others have said, it is a film that looks at "what it means to be English". Clive Wynn-Candy, far from being a dusty relic of a bygone age, is shown to be the man he is because of his experiences and his genuine decency has arisen from his training, his life and his sense of duty. Clive is the history of Britain embodied in one man's life. Add to this gorgeous colour photography and great acting by the leads and I think it results in a film to delight on several levels.
2. A Matter of Life and Death
Another Powell-Pressburger gem (I thought I'd get them out of the way first!). David Niven plays Peter Carter, the pilot of a crippled bomber returning to base after a bombing run in Germany. All his crew are dead and he has no parachute. In the last few minutes before he takes his chances by bailing into the sea (and almost certain death), he talks to June, a US radio-operator based in Britain. Jokingly, he promises to meet up with her when he 'lands'. Against all the odds, he wakes up on a beach having been washed ashore. Somehow, he is alive! Peter meets up with June and they fall in love. However, Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) arrives from the afterlife to tell Peter that he should have died and he (the Conductor), is here to 'collect' him. Peter argues that he cannot go as he has fallen in love and it is not his fault that he was missed for 'collection'. Conductor 71 agrees that Peter should be allowed to argue his case in the afterlife to determine if he lives or dies. Upon revealing these 'visions' to June, she, in turn, tells them to a friend, Dr Reeves (Roger Livesey again) who interprets them as symptoms of a brain injury sustained when he bailed from the stricken bomber. A battle for Peter's continued existence ensues both on Earth (on the operating table as he undergoes brain surgery) and in the afterlife as he argues his case for contiuing to live. Which is 'real'?
There is so much to love about this film. On the one hand it is a brilliantly romantic love story and probably just the sort of escapism that audiences wanted to see in the all-too-real aftermath of the Second World War. David Niven is suitably dashing and terribly British while Kim Hunter as June is a beautiful all-Americal gal and, together, they make a lovely couple. However, there was a little more to the film than just a love story (wouldn't you know!). It was originally suggested that the film might be a vehicle to help smooth Anglo-American relations which had been strained somewhat through the thousands of US service personnel that had been stationed in the UK in the months leading up to D-Day and beyond. There were many stories of US servicemen marrying British women (GI Brides), so Powell and Pressburger reverse this and have the American girl fall for the British boy. In order that Peter's case for continued life is given the harshest possible examination in the court in the afterlife, the 'prosecuting' counsel is an Americal revolutionary killed at that hand of the Brits who tries to argue that no daughter of the Revolution could ever love a Brit. The evidence to prove otherwise is...I won't say - you'll have to watch the film!
It is also remarkable for a couple more things. Firstly, having the newish area of medicine/surgery - neurosurgery - as a central theme. This either 'explains' the visions Peter has or, if we go with the more magical 'reality' (remember, no explanation is ever given for how Peter survived falling from the aircraft), allows an Earthly resolution to the fact of Peter's brain injury. Certainly, there are references to particular things in the film that point to a brain injury (Peter imagines smells which can be a symptom of the injury he has) and care was taken that the medical 'facts' used in the film were correct. Secondly, and my favourite, the afterlife in AMOLAD is in black & white! This is in direct contrast to The Wizard of Oz, where reality is in black & white, while fantasy (Oz) is in eye-popping colour. To me, this kind of makes sense: we live in a world of colour, so 'unreality' should be different and the most straightforward change is to remove the colour. It makes the trial scenes all the better for it, too!
So, there we are: two films by the same auteurs (Powell & Pressburger), both featuring 'Life and Death' in the title and both more than worthy of your immediate attention.
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
The Transporter
Which sense is the most powerful generator of memories? Although we might think that sight or hearing would be the most obvious contenders given that we rely so heavily on them on a daily basis, it is in fact smell. Studies have proved that smells are more likely to be evocative of a time and/or a place than either a sound or a picture associated with that place or time. I'm going to stretch this a little to include taste which, obviously, is very closely associated with the olfactory sense. In that way, I can demostrate the power of smell/taste as a transporter back to a point in the past by reference to Proust's 'À la Recherche du Temps Perdu', a spawling work which starts with the narrator's 'involuntary memory' as he calls it being triggered by the taste of a madeline cake: on tasting the cake, he is taken back to his childhood and the madelines served by his aunt. Proust, presumably without the benefit of evidence from research studies, understood the power of the olfactory and taste senses to recreate a time and a place so strongly, in such a real way.
When it happens to you, it is quite spine-tinglingly...'shocking' would be the word I would use: I am so taken aback at the completeness of the memory recreated by a smell or, more likely, a combination of smells. I have three examples - two from the past and one from only a couple of days ago.
Gardening
Just after Elaine and I left University, we found a council flat in Brixton. It was a one bedroom flat in a concrete sprawl called (ironically!) the Angell Town Estate. This place would go on to generate a very mixed bag of memories itself: it was our first 'proper' home and I was playing in a band throughout our time there (good memories) but we were broken into three times and mugged twice, once on the doorstep of the flat (definitely not so good). One day in the summer, I was pulling weeds out of the concrete trough that formed a window box on the edge of our first floor balcony. Elaine was inside putting together some lunch. The windows of the flat were open as it was a warm, sunny day. The weeds mainly consisted of clumps of grass that had taken up residence in the window box and, sometimes, in attempting to pull out a clump of grass, the grass would break off in my hand leaving the roots in place but releasing that unmistakable 'freshly-cut grass' smell in the air. At that moment, the aroma of ham salad sandwiches combined with that of the cut grass and I was taken back to a summer's day when I would have been seven or eight, my dad mowing the lawn of the house in Ealing, me collecting grass clippings and mum making ham salad sandwiches. Everything was there - I could visualise the back of the house, feel the warmth of the sun and hear my mum ask if she should bring the sandwiches out to us.
Hardware
Fairly soon after we moved to Ramsbottom, I was heading into Bury to go the B&Q for something. I can't recall what it was and I also can't recall whether or not I had already tried the hardware shop in Rammy. At Holcombe Brook, as I started to head for Longsight Road, I notice a 'proper' hardware store, the kind that has all sorts of goods displayed outside the shop from galvanised bins and wooden stepladders through to brooms and rakes. I thought I'd drop in and see if they had what I needed. As I approached the door, I noticed a sign on the glass declaring that the shop stocked paraffin. As I stepped across the threshold - boom! - the smells of the wood, of the metal of screws, locks, hasps and so forth, of the dust in the air and, most importantly, of the paraffin, all combined to take me back to Ealing once more. We used to have a paraffin heater at that time and I was often sent to the hardware shop on the high street to collect a gallon of paraffin (no worries about a child buying and handling flammable liquids back in the day!). That shop of my childhood smelled exactly like the shop I was now standing in. Again, the memories - plural - evoked were more than those associated with buying paraffin: it was the wider childhood memories related to that trip to the hardware shop - the coldness of the room that necessitated the use of the heater, trimming the wick on the heater so that it didn't smoke, even the tool used to trim it!
Wholefoods
We went into a whole food store in Brighouse last week. It sold orgainc veg, bread, pulses and grains bagged on the premises (I would guess) as well as non-food items such as 'natural' cosmetics and cleaning products. As we stepped through the door, I was immediately transported back to The Balham Food & Book Co-Operative in 1985, the first place I worked when it became clear that music superstardom wasn't going to happen quickly enough to provide actual money in our lives! That mix of the smells of the veg and the bags of pulses, herbs and muesli combining with the floral notes of the soaps and all mixed with the faint aroma of earnestness dragged me back 30 years in an instant. That sudden arcing of a spark between the 26 year old me in Balham and the 56 year old me in Yorkshire suddenly brought a smile to my face.
When it happens to you, it is quite spine-tinglingly...'shocking' would be the word I would use: I am so taken aback at the completeness of the memory recreated by a smell or, more likely, a combination of smells. I have three examples - two from the past and one from only a couple of days ago.
Gardening
Just after Elaine and I left University, we found a council flat in Brixton. It was a one bedroom flat in a concrete sprawl called (ironically!) the Angell Town Estate. This place would go on to generate a very mixed bag of memories itself: it was our first 'proper' home and I was playing in a band throughout our time there (good memories) but we were broken into three times and mugged twice, once on the doorstep of the flat (definitely not so good). One day in the summer, I was pulling weeds out of the concrete trough that formed a window box on the edge of our first floor balcony. Elaine was inside putting together some lunch. The windows of the flat were open as it was a warm, sunny day. The weeds mainly consisted of clumps of grass that had taken up residence in the window box and, sometimes, in attempting to pull out a clump of grass, the grass would break off in my hand leaving the roots in place but releasing that unmistakable 'freshly-cut grass' smell in the air. At that moment, the aroma of ham salad sandwiches combined with that of the cut grass and I was taken back to a summer's day when I would have been seven or eight, my dad mowing the lawn of the house in Ealing, me collecting grass clippings and mum making ham salad sandwiches. Everything was there - I could visualise the back of the house, feel the warmth of the sun and hear my mum ask if she should bring the sandwiches out to us.
Hardware
Fairly soon after we moved to Ramsbottom, I was heading into Bury to go the B&Q for something. I can't recall what it was and I also can't recall whether or not I had already tried the hardware shop in Rammy. At Holcombe Brook, as I started to head for Longsight Road, I notice a 'proper' hardware store, the kind that has all sorts of goods displayed outside the shop from galvanised bins and wooden stepladders through to brooms and rakes. I thought I'd drop in and see if they had what I needed. As I approached the door, I noticed a sign on the glass declaring that the shop stocked paraffin. As I stepped across the threshold - boom! - the smells of the wood, of the metal of screws, locks, hasps and so forth, of the dust in the air and, most importantly, of the paraffin, all combined to take me back to Ealing once more. We used to have a paraffin heater at that time and I was often sent to the hardware shop on the high street to collect a gallon of paraffin (no worries about a child buying and handling flammable liquids back in the day!). That shop of my childhood smelled exactly like the shop I was now standing in. Again, the memories - plural - evoked were more than those associated with buying paraffin: it was the wider childhood memories related to that trip to the hardware shop - the coldness of the room that necessitated the use of the heater, trimming the wick on the heater so that it didn't smoke, even the tool used to trim it!
Wholefoods
We went into a whole food store in Brighouse last week. It sold orgainc veg, bread, pulses and grains bagged on the premises (I would guess) as well as non-food items such as 'natural' cosmetics and cleaning products. As we stepped through the door, I was immediately transported back to The Balham Food & Book Co-Operative in 1985, the first place I worked when it became clear that music superstardom wasn't going to happen quickly enough to provide actual money in our lives! That mix of the smells of the veg and the bags of pulses, herbs and muesli combining with the floral notes of the soaps and all mixed with the faint aroma of earnestness dragged me back 30 years in an instant. That sudden arcing of a spark between the 26 year old me in Balham and the 56 year old me in Yorkshire suddenly brought a smile to my face.
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