We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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I guess this is an issue that will not register much outside of this little damp island of the UK, but there has been a small media flurry of interest over the amazing quiz-answering skills of a young woman, Gail Trimble, on the BBC show University Challenge. She has had the outrageous nerve of being very good at answering the questions, and worse, she smiles a bit on camera when she gets the answer correct – which is most of the time. For this, she has been variously attacked for being “smug” etc. It makes me wonder why those who are offended by signs of intelligence bother to watch the programme in the first place. Surely fare such as Celebrity Big Brother might be more their style. They are welcome to it.
As humans, we surely have evolved as creatures to feel pride and happiness in accomplishment. The first human probably grinned when he figured out how to shape the perfect flint arrowhead. Pride, and showing happiness at cracking a problem, overcoming an obstacle or winning a prize is not just right, it is natural to any person of healthy self respect. Pride is the reward one gets for achieving something of value. Smugness or arrogance are unfair charges to make in this sense. Of course, there is a lot more to life than being able to store lots of facts and figures in one’s head and answer correctly to a bumptious quizmaster such as Jeremy Paxman, but I find the attacks on this pleasant young lady to suggest a lack of comfort with intellectual accomplishment that is rampant in parts of our culture. In fact, those who wished that the lady could look stony-faced or even miserable are showing a level of aggression, even hatred, for accomplishment. And that I think speaks to a neurotic condition that the abusers of this woman might like to reflect on.
And then again, I will openly confess to having a weakness for brunettes with brains and a cultivated voice. I see the young lady has a few male admirers on the web. Good for her.
The movie “Pride and Predator” has just gone into production. And yes, the plot is exactly what you think it is.
This is on my Amazon wish-list. I love the mad, over-the-top style of the late Terry Thomas and from a young age, was delighted by his crazy turns of phrase, his hilarious demeanor and wonderful portrayal of the upper class cad. I must say that every time I am unfortunate enough to see Gordon Brown, The Community Organiser or Sarkozy on the television, it is hard not to shout out in true TT style: “What an absolute shower!”
Where did the expression “absolute shower” come from, by the way?
Taking a break from the financial tsunami and idiotic politicians, here are some wonderful infra-red photos. (Via David Thompson).
The UK’s National Gallery – a state-backed institution – and galleries in Scotland have secured £50 million to pay to keep a Titian painting “for the nation”, using state – taxpayer’s money – for this purpose. A Scottish Labour MP has criticised the use of taxpayers’ funds on this painting, arguing that such money would be better spent on supporting arts eduction for school children instead. The story is here. Naturally, the idea that a work of art that has been loaned by its owner is private property and should not be thought of as a something that belongs to “the nation” is not addressed in the article I link to, since that is outside the intellectual frame of reference either of the arts bureaucrats who spend this public money, or indeed the Labour MP who criticises them.
Leave aside the hopefully temporary problems posed by the credit crunch. For the past decade or so, there has been a huge amount of money swirling around among the rich and even not-so-rich to be spent on the arts. There is no need, in my view, for a penny of taxpayer’s money to be spent on the arts. Leave aside whether you love or loathe the things that public funds are used to support: the point is that these things should not be receiving tax-raised funds at all. Let the rich of today patronise what budding Titians, Raphaels or Turners that might be out there.
I occasionally will read a big novel, such as a “classic”, because I think that it is a mark of a reasonably intelligent person to be on nodding terms with some of the high points of our literature, although I often wimp out and pick up an old R. A. Heinlein or the latest John Varley science fiction novel instead. But I certainly do accept that there is nothing more tedious than plodding through acres of text as if it were somehow proof of moral virtue or literary stamina. Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a bit like climbing the North face of the Eiger – more of an effort than I think it worthwhile making right now. And James Delingpole thinks the same. His article on the late John Updike is caustic, if not disrespectful.
One of my favourite actors, star of the great series, The Prisoner, has died. Here’s a great appreciation of that cult 60s television series by the late Chris R. Tame. It goes without saying that the message of that series – the dangers of an all-encompassing state – are more relevant now than ever.
Patrick McGoohan, rest in peace.
This guy clearly is not impressed by the recent Hollywood film about ‘Che’ Guevara, which I will not be watching:
I wish that Mr. Soderbergh and Mr. Del Toro could live in Cuba, not as the pampered VIPs that they are when they visit today, but as Cubans do, with no United States Constitutional rights, with ration cards entitling them to tiny portions of provisions that the stores don’t even stock anyway, with chivatos surveilling them constantly. How long would it be before Mr. Soderbergh started sizing up inner tubes, speculating on the durability and buoyancy of them, asking himself, could I make the crossing on that? How long before Mr. Del Toro started gazing soulfully at divorced or widowed tourist women, hoping to seduce and marry one of them and get out? Only then could they see why this insipid, frivolous and pretentious movie they have made is nothing less than an insult to millions of people, who really do live like that, and who’ve lived like that their entire lives.
The quote was seen at the blog of David Thompson.
I have said it before and I will repeat: for all its possible charms, I am not setting foot in Cuba until it becomes a haven of capitalist decadence. Not a minute before. Even if that means paying more for cigars and the booze.
Here is a film about Cuba, starring Andy Garcia, which is much more worthwhile.
City Hall Christmas bazaar.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
I love the Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle book, Lucifer’s Hammer, which is in my view the best “disaster book” every written.
What is your favourite disaster movie/book?
Check out this site for some superb photographs.
I was going to think of something profound to say about the news headlines, but every time I read the words “Gordon Brown” these days, a small part of me dies.
Last night I watched Have I Got a Bit More News for You?, which is the extended Saturday night version of the BBC’s popular current affairs and comedy quizz show. Something interesting was said, and even more interestingly, not contradicted. HIGN4Y regular Ian Hislop was commenting on the Mini- Pre- Budget that isn’t really a Budget, but really is. He said that the country had got into terrible trouble because of everyone borrowing too much money. And the government’s answer is that the government is going to borrow lots more money. General derision, and no contradictions from anybody. I don’t know what Germaine Greer’s economic policy prejudices are, but going by her other opinions, I thought maybe she might make some attempt to defend the government’s economic policy, if only by quickly changing the subject. No. Nothing like that.
Come to think of it, I have all this on my telly hard disc. Bear with me. Yes, here we go:
Hislop: “It’s a whole package of measures to save us all! We’ve got into terrible trouble for years by excess borrowing, so we’re going to … borrow!!!!!” Derisive hand gesture. Derisive laughter from studio audience. “That’s it, that’s the whole report.”
Young Comedian sitting next to Hislop: “Isn’t it that we’re going to be a trillion pounds in debt, after this?”
Hislop: “Yes.”
Young Comedian: “That is an awful lot … If you bring up your bank balance and it says that, you’ll feel pretty crushed, I think.”
Hislop: “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
Young Comedian: “I don’t know how I’m going to make that back, Ian.”
Hislop: “Well, you’re young enough that you will have to make it back. We’ll all be dead.”
Young Comedian: “I suppose so. I thought no one else looked as worried about it as I was. What was Damien Hirst doing in the middle of that?”
Damien Hirst has been laying off art workers. When the silly price of silly art slumps, you know the economy is tanking. Later, they had a reference to the fact that the bail-out is costing us twice what World War 1 cost us. Paul Merton said that this won’t be over by Christmas either, to general laughter. And, as I say, not a peep out of Germaine G about this catastrophe.
The central point is this. We borrowed far too much – Now the government says we must borrow far too much more thereby making our children and grandchildren into tax serfs – How idiotic is that? This is fast becoming the Grand Narrative here. If so, and given that the Conservatives are saying this too, that Labour melt-down is becoming a real possibility.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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