If you love innovative photography, particularly of landscapes and modern, soaring buildings at day and night, go and have a look at this. Wow. (Hat-tip, Andrew Sullivan).
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Even by the megalomaniac standards of modern Premiership soccer, this allegation, if true about former Chelsea player William Gallas, is astonishing:
This story has had the amazing effect of making me feel a tincture of sympathy for the charmless Chelsea football manager, Jose Mourinho. The market for footballers and other sports remains a strange one. Footballers have, in the space of under 50 years, gone from the position of being treated almost like serfs with capped wages to swaggering characters thinking they are able to command whatever salaries they want, on any terms. But I suspect that this process is hitting the buffers. There has been a great boom in professional soccer and the surrounding business over the past two decades but one suspects that that has now reached a sort of plateau Football has to compete with other forms of entertainment. The less-than-stellar performance of England in the World Cup, coupled with lingering sourness and the antics of certain players, may have sated the public appetite for shelling out vast sums for a season ticket to a game. And when a player becomes so deluded about his importance to a club that he actually threatens to damage it by scoring own goals and so on, then he has to be pushed out. Chelsea had no alternative. if this guy had been a bond dealer at a bank and had threatened to hurt the company if it failed to do what he wanted, that person would probably be sued to an inch of his life. September 4th, 2006 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
 At least 14 people were arrested on Friday night in south London as part of an anti-terror operation by police. Developing… September 2nd, 2006 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I must admit my heart sank when I heard that a remake of the classic, and creepy UK film, The Wicker Man, was coming out. We seem to have a lot of remakes at the moment, prompting thoughts that Hollywood has run dry on creative ideas. I sympathise up to a point with this. The remake of the old Michael Caine/Noel Coward caper, the Italian Job, was an amusing piece of film but not a patch on the original. Flight of the Phoenix was good, but not as good as the original, etc. And yet and yet….the Thomas Crown Affair, starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo and Denis Leary, was excellent, in fact an improvement in certain ways on the original, which starred the great Steve McQueen. I suspect the problem is that when we first see a film, or read a novel, we intend to invest a certain amount emotionally in the experience if is a good one. I can imagine the howls of outrage if someone tries to remake Casablanca, or the African Queen, say. One of the problems of course is that remakes can remove elements deemed politically incorrect. The original Italian Job, for example, took a poke at the older incarnation of the EU, known at the time as the Common Market; it also made fun of Italian crooks and security services, while it also celebrated a sort of camp Britishness and had the wonderful character, Professer Peach, as played by Benny Hill (his character had a penchant for very large women). Even so, I resist the urge if I can to get snooty about remakes. Peter Jackson, the maestro behind Lord of the Rings, is planning to bring out a new version of the classic war movie, The Dambusters, using modern computer technology to portray how 617 Squadron breached a number of German dams during the war. Jackson is no PC bore and seems determined to pay his respects to the heroisim of the RAF. I am definitely looking forward to the film when it comes out. In the original movie, the RAF leader Guy Gibson has a black labrador, called Nigger. I will be interested to know if that rather un-PC fact is airbrushed out. Also, it being the 1940s, most of the aircrew should smoke cigarettes like chimneys. Will they be forced to stub out the habit to preserve the sensibilities of 21st Century viewers? Well shall see. September 1st, 2006 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
This headline took me a bit by surprise:
I did not realise that international banks had many ties with one of the last remaining Stalinist totalitarian countries in the world to start with. Live and learn, I guess. August 29th, 2006 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
Sir Thomas More, played by Paul Scofield in a Man for All Seasons. Even if Tudor history means nothing to you, I definitely urge folk to rent out this movie. It is an object lesson in what integrity means. Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that I got Scofield’s first name wrong. It was Paul, not John. (Dolt!) August 28th, 2006 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Report here stating that Israel’s response to Hizbollah’s kidnapping of Israeli soldiers took Hizbollah by surprise, particularly the extent and ferocity of the IDF action, according to a Hiz deputy leader. Given the determination of Israel’s armed forces to defend the tiny Jewish state over the years against a host of enemies, why some terrorist organisation like Hizbollah should be surprised is, frankly, surprising. In any event, this interview may suggest that Israel’s campaign to hammer Hizobollah may not be quite the debacle that some commentators have supposed. The jury is still out on the future of the current Israel administration, however. August 26th, 2006 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
British government scientists claim that Britain faces a growing crisis of obesity. And of course such predictions, which carry all the usual credibility of such things, are accompanied by calls on the powers-that-be to “do something” about it, including the likes of bans on advertising for sinful foods, funding for sports and so on. First point: even our waistlines are expanding, is it any of the state’s business? At present, one might argue that because we have socialised medicine in the form of the National Health Service, taxpayers, both slim, chubby and positively enormous, have to pay for the consequences of bad health habits. So the neo-puritans will argue for controls on how we all live to reduce the tax cost of bad habits, which is an example of what economists might call a ‘negative externality’. Surely though, the approach that would encourage good habits and treat citizens like adults is one based on private medical insurance. If people want to cut their insurance premiums, then they will have a strong market-driven incentive to do so. In a private sector model, there may be much more encouragement from health providers to get in shape and give up the triple cheeseburgers. Of course, there will always be feckless people who do not give a damn and end up demanding some kind of handout when things go wrong, but I do not see why the liberties of the majority of us should be tossed away to deal with people who are too weak willed or plain stupid to act differently. In any event, I imagine that as in the days before the NHS came along, there will be health care available for those who cannot afford it – as James Bartholomew pointed out in his book – provided through charitable means. I actually think that a charity which supports doctors might, for example, insist that if a poor person wants to get medical care for his or her obesity-related problems, then as part of any treatment, that person has to do something about their problem. Such an approach may, at first sight, appear to be ‘unaring’ or harsh, but I think there is no greater respect that one can give to one’s fellows than to accord them the ability to act like adults. Goodness, all this venting has made me hungry. Anyway, as I head towards the kitchen, may I recommend this collection of articles by Reason magazine on the obesity issue. Bon appetit! August 25th, 2006 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
Right, I am taking a break from scribbling about the iniquities of inheritance tax, dumb airline security and so forth to link to this terrific article by Ed Brayton about golfing phenomenon and American icon, Tiger Woods. Even if you do not give a two-foot putt about the game, this article is a fine study of the sheer force of will that has propelled a man to become the master of his sporting world:
Brayton’s blog, Despatches from the Culture Wars, is definitely worth a regular visit, too. August 24th, 2006 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
Economist Joseph Stiglitz writes in the Financial Times (sorry, subscription required to get to the link) that normal competitive pressures to improve service are not working in the British airports industry. The privatised British Airports Authority, now owned by Spanish based group Ferrovial, has nothing much to gain, he argues, from improving security because it gets no real benefit in terms of consumer response, but it does have an incentive to boost profits through cost cuts, which must, he says, come into conflict with security. Does he have a point? The way in which BAA operates seems to me to be, at first glance, greatly influenced by government and its regulatory agencies, so I think it would be hard to come down too much on BAA’s neck in this case. The regulatory environment surrounding the current security furore is largely driven by government and looks likely to remain so. So it is probably academic to speculate how security would operate in a ‘pure’ free market environment. If it were possible for people to shop around for different levels of security, it would be interesting to see how businesses would responsd. If airlines could directly negotiate their own security policies with the customer without having to mediate via an airport business or government, then you might get an interesting spectrum. Some airlines would market themselves as high-security, enforcing tough checks on passengers, banning certain types of luggage. If you want to fly on such an airline, fine. Other airlines might go for a more relaxed approach, and passengers would fly in the knowledge that they were taking more of a chance in exchange for not having to put up with intrusive security. Come to that, I am in favour of busineses such as child-free airlines, for reasons spelled out by Jeff Randall recently). And even if BAA were to remain dominant as an airports landowner, if passenger numbers dropped off alarmingly due to heavy-handed security and massive delays, then sooner or later shareholders of BAA would revolt, or sell the business, and new entrants to the airports business would offer something better. The problem with this subject of course is that we have become so used to the idea of a whole network of big airports being run by one former state-established company that it is sometimes hard to imagine something different. But it could change and there is plenty of thinking that can and should be done on how to use the incentives of the market to improve passenger service and give people the security they want. Some related thoughts about airports and privatisation issues here. August 22nd, 2006 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
The spoof post below about how the wretched Tory leader ‘Dave’ Cameron might react to the case for abolishing inheritance tax – a thoroughly good idea – prompted some commentators to wonder about the UK media. It reminded me of an old quote attributed to the late British broadcaster, Brian Redhead, who is supposed to have said (I paraphrase):
August 21st, 2006 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
The ‘end-times’ must be upon us. Former Labour cabinet minister, Stephen Byers, has just said something with which I agree: abolish inheritance tax. August 20th, 2006 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
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