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The Monty Python purists may be offended – I tend to find such people awkward company – but if you want to have a fun night out and laugh yourself hoarse, then the crazy musical/panto/ “Spamalot” is a must-see event. It has been running in London’s West End for a few weeks now and has already been a smash in Broadway. “We are the Knights who say neeeee!” January 14th, 2007 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Well, I have just spent a very agreeable and maybe even an informative hour, watching P. J. O’Rourke telling me about the history of California’s state governors, on BBC4 television. Hyram Johnson, Brown, Reagan, Brown Junior, Gray Davis, Schwarzenegger – they have been a quite interesting lot, whatever you think of them. I say maybe informative, because you never really know how much of the story is really sinking in when you watch television. But, it felt informative. I certainly never felt as if my intelligence was being insulted. O’Rourke neither concealed nor overdid his own conservative/libertarian leanings. He was the Republican Party Reptile of old, but now, he said, in connection with how Ronald Reagan ran political rings around the hippies (underestimating Reagan’s political savvy and seriousness was a habit that started early – that was made very clear), that he now entirely understands anti-youth policies. The story O’Rourke told was not so much of big versus small government, but of oscillations between somewhat simplistic outsider promises to clean things up, and a safe but grubby pair of hands to sort out the resulting confusions, followed by more promises to clean up the grubbiness, and so on indefinitely. Two things have somewhat distressed me about O’Rourke’s career in recent years. First, despite several attempts over the years, he has never made much of an impact on British TV, unless you count his recent British Airways adverts. → Continue reading: P. J. O’Rourke does British television – very well January 11th, 2007 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Finally, thirty or so years too late, the Communists have come up with a slogan with makes Communism sound attractive:  Well, not quite. Actually this poster is a send-up of the attitude of the music industry, which is now engaged in suing the Russian-based online music website AllofMP3.com for $165 trillion. This meme – downloading mp3 files for free is Communism! – is but the latest in a long line of similarly wrong-headed memes collusively created by stupid anti-Communists and not-so-stupid Communists, or not so stupid anti-anti-Communists (also scum in my opinion), which make Communism look and sound far better and far sexier than it ever really was or will be. Workers demanding the right to free association is Communism! Workers going on strike is Communism! Adolescents having sex is Communism! Rock and roll is Communism! Having fun is Communism! Please note that I am not saying that downloading mp3 files for free (or for that matter going on strike or having sex) is necessarily right or wise, merely that it is very attractive, and in a way that Communism never was. I mean, for starters, how many people, under actually existing Communism, had the kit to download, legally or illegally, and then listen to mp3 files? I tried copying the above poster from this website, but I couldn’t make that work. So, I googled it and found it from somewhere else. Does someone perhaps have something against people downloading picture files for free? (LATER: the downloading of that poster is not a problem, see comments, but just a problem for me and my photo-processing software. Apologies.) January 4th, 2007 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Rob Fisher has an interesting posting up about police harassment, as displayed in a reality TV show. Basically, the police took it upon themselves to mess with some apparently quite innocent citizens, fishing for crimes that they might have committed. And it turned out one of them had apparently done something evil. He had, apparently, committed the crime of failing to be on the police driver database. Said the policeman: “You don’t exist” …It turned out that the database did contain him, but spelt slightly differently. Rob Fisher is depressed about all this. But what I think this episode – by which I mean not just the police harassing people, but it being on television, and Rob Fisher copying out what they said and blogging about it – is that one of the benefits of total surveillance (see my immediately previous post) might be that the authorities might find themselves having to behave rather better. December 31st, 2006 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Well, that is the view of this guy, anyway. I must say I never got very hung up on elaborate theories as to why bits of sheep in tanks or rows of rubber tyres were not, in some profound sense, “art” or not. There are almost as many theories of what art is as supposed art objects themselves. For me, art has to enhance my imagination in some way and has to appeal to my emotions as well as my rational faculties. I like my art to be strongly stylistic but also grounded in some kind of reality (I am a sucker for 1950s comic art, for example). This writer, David Thompson, is obviously not impressed by the incoherence of those who defend or propound much that goes under the title of modernism:
Thanks to the website of Stephen Hicks for the link. Anyway, that is pretty much me done for 2007. Off to Malta with Mrs P at the weekend, assuming the fog does not interfere with the flights. Wishing everyone a great Christmas and prosperous New Year. I’d like to thank Perry and the other members of the Samizdata gang for taking this blog through to its fifth year. Now for the sixth! December 21st, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
I oppose arts subsidies not only because arts subsidies are thieving from people who do not want art thank you very much, although it is that of course. I also oppose arts subsidies because I really like art and I think arts subsidies damage art, by separating artists from audiences and by separating nob audiences from yob audiences, the aristocracy from the groundlings. With arts subsidies, you get High Art in one tent – precious, clever, obscure, self-regarding and pretentious, and expensive; and Low Art, brain-dead trash, in the other bigger tent. Without arts subsidies, they all go into the same tent and you get, well: Shakespeare basically. Shakespeare, nineteenth century classical music, the great nineteenth century novelists, twentieth century cinema (before that too got to subsidised into Posh and Trash), twentieth century pop music, all that is artistically vibrant, fun and profound. So, arts subsidies are really bad, both morally and artistically. And the good news is that, at any rate here in Britain, they are about to be “cut”, which is a cultural word meaning “not increased very much”. And who or what do we have to thank for this semi-excellent circumstance? Why, the Olympic Games:
This is especially good news when you bear in mind that “so long as the country is paying for the Olympics” and “well beyond 2012” actually mean “for ever”. December 15th, 2006 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
One of the reasons why I like the idea of a “flat tax” is that, by sweeping away all the existing loopholes, it removes a whole group of people who have a vested interest in pushing for special treatement from the Inland Revenue and instead creates a simpler system that is far easier to run, less distortive of economic activity. As a libertarian, of course, my main aim is to see the overall burden come down rather than be flatter; the flatness of the tax code is not, ultimately, as important as its weight. One of the groups that have managed to chisel a tax break out of finance minister Gordon Brown is the domestic film industry. Apparently, the End of Civilisation As We Know It may possibly be arriving soon if we no longer make movies in England. It is all tosh, of course. Many British actors, directors, producers, technicians and photographers work all over the world, very successfully too. While financed with U.S. money and so forth, many of the biggest hits in recent years have had strong British themes, such as the Harry Potter series, and even the latest James Bond movie. Boris Johnson has a nice article demonstrating the absurdity of trying to define what is a “British” film for the purposes of qualifying for tax treatment. Just get rid of these loopholes and focus on cutting taxes across the board, Boris. And please do inform your statist-minded Tory leader, David Cameron, about that aim. December 14th, 2006 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have just run across a copy of the South Park Episode [RealMedia file] (from ‘Operation Clambake’) which was blocked from airing in many places… and I thought our readers might enjoy it. December 11th, 2006 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
After many months of work, travel and no play, I went to a cinema to see Pan’s Labyrinth. A friend of mine thought it was my kind of film and he was right – it is dark, surreal and based on a fairy tale. It is set against the backdrop of the aftermath of the Spanish civil war. The story blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality but only to those who are not familiar with the stark realism of fairy tales. I know on which side of reality I stand. Visually, the film is reminiscent of Mirrormask, which by comparison is light-hearted and flippant. Almost everything about Pan’s Labyrinth is dreamlike – imagery, acting, music. Except the violence and pain. This is no Disney movie. It is a stark reminder of brutality of situations in which the warped and the sadistic have the upper hand. There are no heroes or winners. Just those who manage to preserve a shred of humanity by escaping to an alternative reality and by finding courage to act against the overwhelming evil. It is also a reminder of the deep-seated morality of fairy tales. Tasks, rules, forbidden ‘fruit’ with dire consequences that follow any mis-behaviour. Monsters can be released by seemingly trivial acts of misdemeanour and can only be bound again at enormous cost. So just like the real life. cross-posted from Media Influencer December 3rd, 2006 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
This looks like it would swallow up my entire living room wall:
Mind you, given my income levels, I am happy to stick to my modestly-sized flatscreen for the forseeable future. November 28th, 2006 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
As promised to various Samizdata people, here is my posting on the Kettering Gang Show. I have lived in Kettering almost all my life, but I had never been to the Gang Show before. For those who do not know a ‘Gang Show’ is not an event put on by street gangs, it is an entertainment event put on by Scouts (which include not only the young cubs, and the adult scout masters but, these days, girl Scouts). It is a matter of songs, dances and comedy – put on to aid Scout funds (supposedly on every night of the year there is a Gang Show going on someone in the world). Well on a cold and windy night I walked to event, passing only few groups of youths hanging about on street corners (surely, whatever one thinks of groups like the Scouts, these youngsters would be better off joining in rather than just hanging about, they looked rather depressed – even by my standards). The singing, dancing and comedy routines were not amazing – but they were not bad either. And I was rather moved by the effort the children put in (the speed of the costume changes alone was very impressive). Even us in the audience tried to do our bit – we stood up and sang “God Save the Queen” at the start, and did a bit of participation in one song and movement thing (yes we proved that we could not sing and were uncoordinated – but we had a go). My strongest impression was of the attitude of everyone (entertainers, people selling stuff, people checking the tickets, St John’s people on call against anyway getting hurt or falling ill) – all seemed to have a good time and to show benevolence for others. The Northamptonshire folk may not be wildly attractive (neither the large native Northamptonshire people, nor London overspill stock like me) and they may not be clever or knowledgeable (but intelligence and knowledge are not always an advantage in life – after all I have the ability to produce strong arguments showing how any situation is hopeless and it is pointless to try anything, and I can produce lots of facts and stats to back up my inactive despair), but their faces showed both courage and good will – and not just good will for the event. The people there were clearly honest and good (if not beautiful or profound). Rather like Tolkien’s hobbits, they are clearly folk who are both decent enough companions in the ordinary run of life – but better companions if something terrible were to happen. November 25th, 2006 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
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)
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