A BBC journalist this morning informs us that the death in highly suspicious circumstances of a former Russian KGB official could lead to a “potential diplomatic incident” between Britain and Russia.
You think?
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Last night, I went along to see the latest 007 movie along with my wife, as well as Perry de Havilland of this parish, regular Samizdata commentator and friend Julian Taylor, David Shaw and others. There had been so much media noise and excitement leading up to the film, starring Daniel Craig as Bond, that I just had to go and see it. I am very glad that I did so. I am one of those folk who actually prefers the original Ian Fleming books to the films, and I have a consequent dislike of the nonsense of the Roger Moore films, and the excesses of gadgetry and sheer silliness that the film-makers imposed on the stories after the first two or three of the Sean Connery movies, which are my favourites. So the fact that the new film deliberately sought to be more hard-edged, less dependent on gimmickry and cheesiness, was a good development. Daniel Craig has been a controversial choice for Bond. The Bond of the novels is a slim, dark-haired old Etonian, of Swiss-French and Scottish ancestry – with a hard streak, a weakness for beautiful women in distress and a belief in living life to the full. Craig does well to convey the hard side of Bond, but he tries a bit too hard, sometimes. He comes across as a sort of over-muscled army squaddie, who struts about the set rather than adopt the sort of feline grace of Fleming’s character. But there is no doubting that Craig – who says he loves the Fleming novels – has taken up the challenge of portraying Bond as not just some suave dude who can kill and seduce the girls, but who can also take risks and get hurt in the service of his cause – his country. And that is the unspoken message of this film, and very un-PC it is. Bond is a patriot (not much sign that he wants to work for the UN). He kills without the need to consult a post-traumatic stress disorder clinic, and is more likely to drink a large glass of bourbon instead. He gets cut, he gets beaten up, and he falls in love and learns the dangers of emotional involvement with ravishing brunettes (not that there is anything wrong with ravishing brunettes, ahem). I thought the scene in the casino was the highlight, and even though the game was poker rather than baccarat – as in the story – the tension is built up nicely. The setting is nice, the actors who support Bond are pretty good, and the actress who plays Vesper is lovely – I can see why any red-blooded man can fall for her. The torture scene, taken from the original book, is pretty nasty, although the scene in the book is far nastier (it gave Raymond Chandler nightmares, apparently). Some of the stunt/action scenes do not seem to add a great deal to the plot – such as the amazing scene at Miami airport – but they are incredibly well-done. For sheer excitement, the opening half-hour of the film cannot be beaten. What is clear is that the film-makers, seeing how the Bond movies were mocked by the Austin Powers series of Mike Myers, have decided that our Jim is not going to put up with being a joke any more. Daniel Craig deserves a large, well-made vodka martini – made the right way, obviously – for playing 007 so well, and with such obvious conviction and relish. Good review of the movie here. The original Fleming novel is definitely worth a read. Meanwhile, Jim Henley has thoughts. One final gripe: will the moviemakers ever get the casting right of Felix Leiter, Bonds’ CIA buddy? In the books, he is a fair-headed Texan, ex-Marine Corps with a wonderfully sardonic sense of humour. (Update: here is my review of Simon Winder’s recent diverting if also irritating book about the James Bond phenomenon and post-war British history.) November 24th, 2006 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The UK Olympic Games of 2012 are shaping up nicely to be the expensive, possibly corrupt affair that many of us crusty cynics claimed it would be over a year ago. There is only the grimmest of satisfaction to be gained from having been proved so emphatically correct. Given the history of publicly-financed construction projects in recent years, or even projects in which public finance is only a part, the predictions should not have been difficult (think of the Scottish Parliament, or Wembley Stadium, or the Channel Tunnel, to take just three). The likely bill – to the taxpayer – of these Games is likely to be far higher than originally projected. It is almost certain that this fact was known to British politicians and sports-establishment types who lobbied to hold the Games in Britain over a year ago. If a company had bid for a contract with the same degree of financial acumen, probity and sense as the idiots in the UK public sector, rather long gaol terms, fines or hefty compensation packages might now be the order of the day. We are remembering the late, very great Milton Friedman a lot at the moment, digesting his contributions to the fields of technical economics, monetary theory, politics, education and much else. But I think that his often disarmingly simple statements about the role of the state and the dangers of government will endure the longest, if only because they carry truths from the start of human history:
(Via David Farrar’s blog) I think the Olympic Games falls into the final category. I do agree with Stephen Pollard on the possibly sensible idea of cancelling the Games, even at this stage. The lead article in the Times (UK), by contrast, is remarkable for its breezy indifference to the cost of the Games and the fact that the money for it will be screwed out of the pockets of people who regard the whole spectacle as an expensive joke. Oh, and before any commenters of a pro-state sympathy start to wonder, no, I am not a sport-hater. I enjoy watching football, cricket and other sports, and play one or two sports myself (not very well, I will admit). However, I do not expect my fellows to support my enthusiasms. Is it too much to ask the same of others? November 22nd, 2006 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
A few weeks back yours truly and Mrs P. decided to find out what all the hype was about and went to see the film Borat. I guess unless you have been living on the South Pole or some other remote part of planet Earth, you will not have heard of this film. Borat is a spoof “journalist” character created by Sasha Baron Cohen, the Jewish comedian who also created characters such as Ali G. The basic idea is that Borat goes to different places and countries and tricks folk into either revealing more about themselves and their views than they would otherwise do, or to simply make assholes of themselves. A few of his victims do misbehave although most seem to emerge with most, if not all, of their dignity intact. I have mixed opinions about the film. Some parts of it were so funny that I laughed along with the rest of the cinema audience. He does want to send up the insanity of anti-Semitism, which seems to be the serious core of this film, if it has one at all. There is always the risk, I suppose, that some of the thicker viewers will not get the joke and think that anti-semitism has been legitimised by this movie, but you would have to be pretty dense to do so. Beyond that, though, I did not think the movie was all that funny, and not much beyond scatalogical humour of a basic sort. Part of the idea is to play on the natural desire of the victims – in this case, ordinary Americans – to be polite to strangers, even a crazy-looking chap with a big moustache claiming to come from central Asia. Some of the victims on the New York subway tell Borat to go away, but pretty much most of the victims put up with it up until the point when the behaviour gets too bad to ignore. I guess if you want to see a film that makes you want to experience a deep fuzzy glow of superiority to supposedly simple redneck Americans, this is the movie for you. On the other hand, for comedy of genius that does not target the ordinary Joe but tries for genuine wit, I’ll be relying on my beloved Monty Pythons and Blackadder collection. And for the silly stuff, there is always Peter Sellers, Terry Thomas and those supremos, Laurel and Hardy. Their brilliance will never fade. Richard North shares my opinion, although he is a bit harsher. November 21st, 2006 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
I sometimes watch nature programmes and often as not, the narrator(s) of such programmes will wax lyrical about the complexities, the marvels of the natural world. (Programmes such as The Blue Planet by David Attenborough). In moving over into the Man-made world, we often get similar sentiments of praise and wonderment at things like great buildings, bridges or even whole cities, but seldom is such language employed in looking at the area of human commerce. All the more reason to savour expressions such as this, written over at the admirable Cafe Hayek blog a while back:
The time you hear or read someone complaining about the supposed evils of global trade, remember sentiments such as that. November 21st, 2006 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
We have been unkind to Conservative Party leader David Cameron at Samizdata, but I think he can count himself as having gotten off lightly compared with what they are doing to him at the EU Referendum blog. All I can say is that I agree with them completely. November 20th, 2006 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
I must admit that the stuff about the Russian poisoning story is reminding me of when the Cold War was pretty chilly. It is also, its perverse sort of way, a reminder of what the world was like when a former naval officer, journalist and stockbroker began to churn out thrillers at his Jamaican holiday home back in 1953. Casino Royale, the first and one of the best James Bond adventures has been turned into a film that yours truly will be seeing on Thursday night. I admit that when Daniel Craig was first cast in the role, I had my doubts, but the reviews so far have been mostly favourable. Craig, even though he looks like a well-groomed football hooligan, seems to have conveyed the darker side of Fleming’s creation, showing that Bond is a bit more than a dude in a suit, as well as keep most of the bits that cinema viewers have come to expect, such as amazing stunts, special effects and the odd witty one-liner. November 20th, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Golf. There’s a sport to stir up hot passions or deep waves of apathy among certain people. British blogger Clive Davis is clearly not a fan of the sport once described, I believe by Oscar Wilde, as a good way of spoiling a good walk (okay, it may have been said by one of those other smartypants writers who are quoted for their supposed wit and wisdom, but whatever). Clive does not care much for the sort of people who often play golf and for the way it is often used by political types – mostly rightwing ones – in the United States. He has a point. Golf bores are tedious, just as football bores, rugby bores, athletics bores, horse racing bores (now that is really boring) or F1 motor racing bores, are, er, boring. However, Clive’s post hits a duff note in having a poke at Michael Douglas, in my view. Douglas, as well as being outrageous enough to have married Catherine Zeta-Jones, is a golf nut! Aaaaggghhh. I do not know why Douglas seems to bring out a certain hostile reaction in some folk. His Gordon Gekko remains, for me, one of the highlights of 20th Century cinema (yes, really). And I distinctly recall that Douglas, shortly after 9/11, decided to fly over to the UK for an Anglo-US amateur golf tournament, shrugging off worries about security to slug it around the links. He won my respect for that move. Golf is both a team game and an intensely individualistic one and the latter point may explain its enormous popularity in certain parts of the world and also explain its appeal to a certain demographic. Although the number of people has expanded a lot in recent years as people get richer and due to the influence of the mighty Tiger Woods, it is still overwhelmingly viewed as a sport for the gin-and-tonic slice of the population (although I see nothing actually wrong with that). It is also a social game in that it is often the sort of game that allows people to discuss business and so on as they go around the course. My brother, a lawyer, seems to get briefed most of the time when he is on the fairways. (He once beat his boss and made a mental point not to do so again). And I suspect this taps into the continued links between sport and class in the English-speaking world, especially in Britain. Golf, rugby union and arguably, cricket, is middle class, while polo or yacht-racing is seen as posh, and football (soccer) and rugby league is working class. I often find that people often reveal themselves quite a lot when “their sport” gets “invaded” by non-typical supporters. In the last soccer World Cup tournament in Germany, for example, I remembered reading comments by football regulars denouncing all those Home Counties types for showing a sudden interest in the English team selection, although perhaps England would have fared better had Ericsson paid some attention to their views. And the same goes, I recall once, when I went along to a sailing regatta and overheard some old salt muttering about “Chavs” becoming interested in sailing (an unlikely prospect, as far as I can tell. I cannot quite envisage this part of the English population wanting to navigate a yacht or change a spinnaker at speed in a heavy sea). Anyway, as I write, it is around 3pm. Time for the football to begin. November 11th, 2006 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Well, I am off to bed and despite my interest in politics, have not really the desire to wait up to see what happens in the U.S. Congressional races. My hunch is that by the time I wake up here in London, the Democrats will have taken the House and the Republicans might just hang on to the Senate, but it will be a very close call. I sympathise with the argument, put by various libertarians and small-government Republican supporters, that Bush needs what we Brits call a mighty kick in the bollocks for a number of bad moves, such as the explosive growth of spending on non-defense items, tariffs, the Patriot Act, growing interference in people’s private lives, etc, etc. I can see why many voters, even hawkish ones, have become bitterly angry over the mess in Iraq and wondered whether the Coalition should have heeded the voices of caution and pursued a containment/deterrence line rather than pre-emption. (I backed the ouster of Saddam pretty much from the start but have had my doubts about how the power vacuum might get filled without a sufficiently strong effort to help rebuild the country). The Republicans might, just might learn a valuable lesson: they have had power in Congress since 1994 and more recently, the White House. People do not tend to vote for centre-right parties in order to see a big rise in the size and power of the state. Maybe someone should send Bush a copy of Barry Goldwater’s old classic, The Conscience of a Conservative. My main worry, drawn from the experience of Britain’s Conservative Party, is that a defeat for the Republicans may not lead to the sort of questioning of the Big Government philosophy known as “Compassionate Conservatism” as championed by Bush in recent years. We have seen how David Cameron has sought to meld the Tories into a pale imitation of NuLabour, in some ways trying to outdo Blair in the spending and taxation stakes. For all the talk that American politics is deeply polarised, perhaps the real truth is that the choices in front of the electorate are not distinct enough. In case you want to scare off a mugger, why not buy some of these and put them on your coat? Tastes may vary. November 7th, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
This reports states that Britain’s armed forces are considered to be below strength for the tasks they have been ordered to perform. Nothing very surprising about that, given that although Blair has been almost indecently keen to deploy troops, sailors and airmen to various theatres of operations, he has not backed this up with a corresponding deployment of resources. As a minimal statist rather than an anarcho-capitalist libertarian, I accept that providing for the defence of this country is a basic task of the state, but that of course leaves wide open how exactly that task is carried out, by whom, and at what cost. Does it mean things like standing armies, or navies, or large airforces, or anti-missile batteries dotting the coasts? Does it mean an armed citizenry called upon to defend the nation at short notice? Does it mean getting into alliances with other powers to share this role, or focusing entirely on one’s own resources? It is Friday and we like a good debate ahead of the weekend. Let the comments fly! Try not to get hurt. November 3rd, 2006 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
In today’s news, media channels bring Samizdata readers this stunning, shocking announcement:
One of the many justifications for creating this all-seeing, all-knowing state is that it will help reduce crime. Well, it does not appear to be having much impact on Britain’s lovely teenagers, at least according to a new report. Of course, one wonders how much of the worries about crime are partly a moral panic and partly based on hard, ugly reality (a bit of both, probably). Even so, Britain’s approach to crime, which involves massive use of surveillance technology to catch offenders, appears not to be all that much of a deterrent to certain forms of crime, although arguably it does mean that there is a slightly greater chance of catching people once a crime has been carried out (not much consolation for the victims of said, obviously). I recently got this book on the whole issue of crime, state powers, surveillance and terrorism, by Bruce Schneier, who confronts the whole idea that we face an inescapable trade-off, a zero sum game, between liberty and security. Recommended. November 2nd, 2006 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is a quotation attributed to the Duke of Wellington, referring to the red-coated soldiers he led in the Peninsular campaign in the early 19th Century and later, in the Battle of Waterloo, in what is now Belgium. He would often remark in scathing terms about his own men while also praising their steadiness under fire and general courage. I kind of feel the same way about a bunch of men – it seems to be male thing – called the New Atheists in this interesting article over at Wired magazine. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and others are no doubt fearless in fighting against what they see is wilful superstition. You want to admire and like what they are doing and in general, I do. I recall reading Dawkins’ book, the Selfish Gene many years ago and was greatly impressed. I felt the same way about Dennett’s books. And yet and yet… Dawkins is so dismissive of there being any value to religion whatsoever that you almost end up feeling rather sorry for religious people – at least the ones that are not fundamentalists. For all that I have problems with religion and un-reason, I cannot overlook the benign side of religion or the contributions that the Judeo-Christian tradition has played in the West, for instance. It is arguable, for example, that notions of individualism, free will and dignity of the person have been greatly driven by that tradition, as well as other schools of thought. But Dawkins will have none of it. He is just as harsh on moderates as he is on the fundamentalists. He thinks the state should ban parents from trying to pass their views to their children (quite how this would be enforced is not made clear in the Wired article). I am not sure if he is going to persuade any existing religious people out of their views although he might, by his sheer boldness, encourage a lot of secret atheists to “come out of the closet”. Anyway, it is an interesting article and the associated comments, or at least most of them, are pretty good as these things go. November 1st, 2006 | 108 comments - (Comments are closed)
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