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]
|
I am definitely not a real football fan. If the team I want to win is winning, well jolly ho. If it is losing, then it is only a game and nothing to get fussed about it.
So when I came home from a walk along the river in the evening sunshine, to find that Liverpool were already 3-0 down in the European Cup Final against AC Milan, it was no great source of sadness to me. Only a game. I switched to CSI Miami.
But every so often I flipped back to see how Liverpool were doing, and quite by chance, I caught the first Liverpool goal, scored by captain Steven Gerrard. Hullo, said the commentator. Expectantly. And prophetically.
When I next flipped back from the gruesomenesses of CSI, Liverpool were already celebrating goal number two, scored by substitute Smicer (pronounced Smeetzer), and on my next visit I saw Liverpool get awarded a penalty.
At this point, I did not want to watch it, not because it did not matter, but because it did. It had gone from Only A Game to: God On A Bike!!! in the space of about five minutes. If I allowed myself to get all excited, Liverpool would then lose, and I would suffer idiotic agonies. So, back to CSI, where the news was that more people were being murdered gruesomely, by really nasty people. Lucky thing the forensic scientists all look like actors. Back to find that Liverpool have converted the penalty. (I spare myself the agony of actually witnessing what they show me later: the Milan goalie saving it and then the Liverpool guy knocking it in at the second try. This is rare.)
From then on it was a visit back every five minutes or so. 3-3. 3-3. 3-3. 3-3. Extra time looms. 3-3. 3-3. Extra time. 3-3. 3-3. 3-3. Penalty shoot out looms. 3-3. 3-3. Penalty shoot out.
Can not bear that. If I watched that I would get even more wound up, and additionally wound up by the sense of shame at getting so additionally wound up. It is only a game!!! (God on a bike!!!!)
Ten more minutes of something, else. Ooh, I wonder how the shoot out is going. Milan have missed their first two! Amazing. Liverpool are actually likely winners. So I watch their next one, and of course the Milan goalie saves it. Liverpool are still one ahead, and still probably winners, but again, over to Celebrity Home Makeover Love Island on Ice Meets Eastenders Uncovered Confidential. (Actually I think that by then it was Blackadder.) And when I go back again, Liverpool are celebrating. Bloke in specs: “Jamie, tell me honestly, did you think at half time that you had any chance?” Jamie: “No.” Bloke in specs: “Rafael, that was fantastic, fantastic.” Rafael: “Yes, bloke in specs, that was fantastic fantastic”, etc.
As Alex Ferguson said after his Manchester United won the 1999 final of the same tournament against Bayern Munich in equally improbable style, with two extra time goals from Sheringham and Solskjaer: “Football. Bloody hell.”
At half past one a.m. tomorrow morning they will be showing it again. And that I will video, and then watch it properly later, and then again in the months and years to come. That is how to enjoy sport, if you are a not-proper sports fan like me. Watch and rewatch the games your guys win in style, and forget the rest. Do not waste your one life obsessing over games that got away, or which were won by your team but unmemorably, without any amazing magic moments to savour. Take all that spiritual energy, and apply it to doing real life better, I say. My method wastes far less time on all this nonsense.
But when games go right, enjoy.
I reckon it was a plot to make us all buy two copies of the Evening Standard.
First it was:
The French are making an audacious bid to take the London Eye to Paris.
And then later in the day it was:
The London Eye was saved today after an intervention by Ken Livingstone.
In my posting about this ruckus last week, I said that this attempt to gouge a hugely increased rent out of the Wheel might be linked to the plans now in hand to redevelop the South Bank in general, and in particular to rescue the acoustics of the Royal Festival Hall. Since posting that speculation, I have actually visited the South Bank, and can confirm that building work has already begun.
What I omitted to mention was the Olympic effect. The Wheel is obviously a key part of the attempt to get the 2012 Olympics for London.
Evidently the (for now) South Bank Centre (a government funded quango) boss Lord Hollick reckoned that the Olympic effect would work in his favour, and he still might be proved right. But this is politics he is playing, not business, and it seems more likely that he will come out of this very badly. And the South Bank Centre, instead of getting a substantial fraction of the original absurd rent demand, may end up actually losing money. Hollick, by precipitating this row, has already hurt London’s Olympic bid, and Ken Livingstone surely spoke for many, high and low, when he called him a prat. And being called a prat is the least of Hollick’s problems. The trouble with playing the game of Olympic blackmail is that you are liable then to be savaged by extremely savage people, in the form of our particular feral (when angry) current batch of rulers. Hollick is going to need all the friends he can muster in the days to come.
I do not know how seriously to take the alleged French plan to ship the Wheel over to Paris and make it the cherry in the cake of the Paris bid. I love the Wheel, and never for a minute did I fear that this French plan, even assuming it was serious and not just cooked up by some friend of Ken Livingstone, or of the Evening Standard, would be allowed to come to fruition. So I laughed out loud when I first saw the headline.
I also had another laugh this evening when I looked at this website plugging the South Bank Centre, and saw this:
Situated on the South Bank of the River Thames next to the popular London Eye, the South Bank Centre is at the heart of an arts quarter stretching from the National Film Theatre to Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe.
If London loses the Olympic bid, as most of us here at Samizdata.net pray that it does, then everything will turn out splendidly. Lots of entertainment, and no actual Olympics to spoil the fun.
On the other hand, if London does get landed with the Olympics, stand by for blackmail like you’ve never seen before, from whoever decides to give it a go.
And since we are on the subject of ‘Star Wars’ this evening, it appears that Our Glorious Leader has finally been seduced by the ‘Dork Side’:
They are the must-have fashion accessory for the socially aware – and now Tony Blair has got in on the craze.
Whether worn to highlight racism, cancer research or poverty, coloured bands are a familiar sight on the wrists of footballers and pop stars.
Now the prime minister has been photographed wearing a white Make Poverty History wristband during a trip to a hospital in Edgware, north London.
Perhaps he wants to be in a filmy-wilmy with Gwynnie and Braddie?
[Furthermore, for a polished and forensic debunking of this cloth-headed, celebrity-driven codswallop, I recommend Stephen Pollard]
Last summer, I went on very public record with my opinon that the überhyped and screechingly hysterical ‘obesity epidemic’ was nothing but a crock of shit, cooked up (in this country at least) by grasping public sector vested interests and amplified by their MSM handmaidens.
While I will continue to do whatever is in my power to undermine this whole wicked, mendacious plot over here, I am pleased to note that there is also some serious fightback going on over on the gun-toting side of the Atlantic:
One would be forgiven for thinking CDC stands for Center for Damage Control. Just a year after its widely-publicized and exceedingly controversial announcement that excess weight kills 400,000 Americans annually, the agency is rumbling, bumbling, stumbling toward an explanation for a new study that says the real figure is just 26,000.
Unfortunately, trial lawyers who see dollar signs where the rest of us see dinner have seized on the CDC’s 400,000 deaths number to justify their frivolous crusades.
Now word comes from experts within the CDC that excess weight is about one-fifteenth as dangerous as previously thought, and has a lower death toll than diseases like septicemia and nephritis. Each death is of course tragic. But has anyone heard of the septicemia “epidemic” or the nephritis “tsunami”?
It’s said that a lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Well, the truth about obesity is finally lacing up. And that’s bad news for trial lawyers pursuing obesity lawsuits against food and beverage companies as well as the self-appointed diet dictators seeking extra taxes on foods they don’t like.
Not that that will stop them, mind. Truth has little currency when compared to the value of a well-forged career-path or the tantalising lure of brimming public coffers. (By the way, the link above is to the website of an American organisation called the ‘Center for Consumer Freedom’. Not only do they appear to be on the side of the Angels but their website looks like an excellent activist resource that is well worth a bookmark).
Still, the backlash has to begin somewhere, somehow and debunking the fraudulently inflated statistics is an important part of that process. However, it is equally important to maintain the principle that, even if all the har’em-scar’em statistics were true (which they clearly are not) then the responsibility for and solution to the problem of obesity lies with the obese themselves and not with judicial system or the apparatus of tax-collection.
[My thanks to Dr.Chris Tame who posted this link to the Libertarian Alliance Forum].
I just saw Revenge of the Sith with a group of chums and I must say it was interesting to see how varied the reactions were. For me, anyone looking for profound meaning in a George Lucas movie is well and truly in the wrong place. With that in mind I went expecting breathless fights, awe inspiring battles between vast starships and Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) wearing interesting outfits. And that is exactly what was delivered.
Lucas is at his best when the battlecruiser starships are blowing the crap out of each other whilst the heroes weave their nimble fighters in and out with guns blazing in cheerful disregard of the laws of physics. He also knows a thing or two about choreographing some pretty nifty lightsabre duels. The Yoda vs. Palpatine showdown is a particular eye-popper… who would have thought a 2 foot high gremlin could actually look plausible in a swordfight!
But, and you knew there was going to be a ‘but’, when it really comes down to it, George Lucas is just not that skilled a director. He does fine until it requires people to actually interact other than when they are trying to slice each other in two. At which point he proves that he can produce weak performances even from a splendid actress like Natalie Portman (who was from good to great in everything else I have ever seen her in) and Ewan McGregor (who is debatably my favourite actor). The ‘doomed romance’ between Natalie Portman (Padmé) and Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) is central to the whole story of the creation of Darth Vader and yet I could not escape the impression that neither of them really cared for each other, for which I mostly blame Lucas’ leaden hand more than the actor and actress in question. Ewan McGregor is a splendid Obi Wan Kenobi when it comes to laying waste to the bad guys with his lightsabre but again, when it comes to his relationship with Anakin, it all seemed a bit unengaged. Only Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine) really managed to transcend the stilted feeling of much of the dialogue and sound like he really meant when he said.
And although I said one does not go to a George Lucas movie to seek profundities, there was one rather splendid line uttered by Padmé whilst in the senate chamber listening to the delegate enthusing whilst Palpatine seizes power to ensure ‘justice and security’:
“This is how freedom dies. To thunderous applause.”
Pity the rest of the movie did not have more such memorable lines. 7.5 out of 10, mostly for the sheer spectacle.
Let us return to the lost age of blogging for a moment.
I thought I would share with readers this gem of the interwebby thing: The ChildCare Action Project (CAP): Movie Ministry
I have been going there for years, and it is less well-known than it deserves. (For former connoisseurs, the tinsel aesthetic is unaltered but the disruptive popups are gone.) It is full of wonders for liberal secular types like me.
If you do not know where to start, just plunge into the movie reviews here and discover the ungodly propaganda of the Hollywood elite in your favourites. You see, they are not just coddled world-insulated champagne socialists but servants of the evil one.
As a British atheist the Christians I actually meet seem to me mostly harmless, perfectly normal people. But this stuff is by turns hilarious, mind-boggling, and spine-shivering. Which is all you can ask of entertainment. And it has a salutary moral effect, too. If not quite the one intended by its dedicated creators.
P.J. O’Rourke got something similar from visiting the Praise the Lord theme-park in the 80s:
“We came to scoff. We left converted – to Satanism.”
One of the most popular subjects of counterfactual fiction or alternate histories is the outcome of the Second World War, with authors analysing the possibilities of a Nazi victory. This particular type of fiction formed the subject of an article by Gavriel Rosenfeld, an associate professor of history at Fairfield University in Connecticut, in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Such alternate histories engage with the national identities of the United States and Great Britain where the Second World War is represented as the most recent representation of national virtue, a good war, if conflicts can be described as such. Rosenfeld argues that these fictions downplay the impact of the Holocaust and tell of National Socialist regimes that modernise, liberalise or decay, putting their nightmares behind them.
Various factors explain these rosy representations of history as it might have been under Nazi rule.
In some cases, American conservatives’ intensifying fears of Soviet communism and anxieties about American national decline in the post-Vietnam years of the late 1970s and early 1980s helped to challenge the view that an American victory in World War II had actually worked out for the best.
In other cases, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet dictatorship after 1989 provided an optimistic model for how the Nazi dictatorship might eventually have fared had it triumphed in World War II.
The motives and plausibility of these narratives aside, however, the tendency to view a Nazi wartime victory as a fantasy rather than a nightmare suggests the slow emergence in the United States of a less demonized picture of the Third Reich in American memory.
The downplaying of the Holocaust in many of these accounts, in particular, provides the most telling evidence of this trend and suggests a growing willingness to view Nazism as something less than absolute evil.
The equivalent school within British fiction dwells upon the possibilities of collaboration within an occupied nation, or the lower costs of an isolationist foreign policy.
Rosenfeld criticises these stories for being tendentious and relativist. However, one role of fiction is to explore uncomfortable alternatives and anticipate the movement of National Socialism from memory into history. Perhaps the Holocaust is ignored because these authors do not have the tools or the imagination to grapple with the enormity of the genocide and duck the challenge in their work. Most act as alternate visions of the Cold War, not as a darker age of barbarism.
One novella that conveys the evil is David Brin’s “Thor Meets Captain America”, a useful antidote to the swastika equivalents of glasnost and perestroika.
Last week, my friend Jonathan Pearce made some observations on the impending takeover of the Manchester United football club by Malcolm Glazer. This led to a lengthy comments thread that I was going to add to, but the comment in question got a little long, so I thought I would turn it into a post. In particular, I wanted to address the key question, which is simply is there any way Mr Glazer can get enough revenue from the club to pay of the large debt that has been accrued, and if so, how.
As I see it there are two sources of value in the club that the present management is not presently allowed to exploit, and to make a success of his bid Glazer needs to gain control of at least one of them. One is that television rights are sold collectively, and as a consequence the share of television money that is going to Manchester United as not comensurate with their popularity and fan base. The other is that Asian and particularly Chinese television markets are not presently competitive and as a consequence Asian television companies are paying far less for the right to show football than the matches are actually worth. I will address these two issues in turn. → Continue reading: Some more thoughts on the Manchester United business
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s social democratic (SPD) party has been hit hard in regional elections over the weekend, with voter anger at his party over the crummy state of the economy overwhelming an attempt by some of his own party members to whip up a storm of anti-capitalist sentiment in order to cling to power. Good. I honestly don’t know whether we are seeing a transition phase in Germany towards sanity and liberal economics. What is clear is that a country that has suffered double-digit unemployment for more than half a decade cannot go on like this without dreadful strains on its social fabric. Maybe some of the more intelligent parts of the German political class might get this point. We need the once-mighty German economic machine, brought to such a pitch by the late great Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Ehrhard (friend of Hayek) brought to a purring level of growth again. It is in no-body’s interests, least of all ours in Britain, to see that nation permanently in the doldrums.
There is a related article here about what has gone wrong in Germany here in the latest edition of the Spectator. As Glenn Reynolds likes to say, read the whole thing.
Story here that says that far from being a bad thing, sitting outside in the sun for at least 15 minutes a day is good for you, latest medical findings suggest. It certainly is a bit of a change from the period, I well recall, in the 1990s, when it appeared to be the case that any exposure to sun was fraught with danger as a result of the supposed hole in the ozone layer. I recall the constant worries, fuelled in the press and elsewhere, about skin cancer and the dangers of overdoing the sunshine.
Sometimes you have to just laugh. Of course being exposed to the sun is good for you in moderation! Mankind was not meant to sit indoors or conceal every aspect of the body all the time. Anyone I know who spends the vast majority of his or her time indoors looks, well, unwell, in my opinion. I always make the effort to break out of my office at lunchtime to get what passes for sunshine in this damp country of ours. It is not rocket science.
Coming next: medical experts reveal that regular exercise, eating vegetables and playing sports can do you some good.
I am a news-junkie, so facing this morning without the Today programme on the BBC is a gruelling prospect. For BBC staff are on strike, so most live news programmes are not running today.
I was highly amused, however, that the first replacement programme on Radio 4 at six o’clock (when Today is due to start) was an In Business documentary on podcasting. Can this be entirely coincidental?
“There’s plenty of competition out there, boys. And it’s free.” Is the pretty clear message.
As strange as it may sound, I still maintain a smidgeon of sympathy with all those wretched, deluded souls who sincerely believed that technology was going to liberate us all from the leviathan. I am but fearful. They, on the other hand, must be both fearful and crushed:
The British government acknowledged Monday that it would consider using implanted ID chips to track sex offenders, raising the specter of forced chipping.
While not yet a reality, implants that can remotely check bodily functions and location are just around the corner: Microchips are being developed for a variety of health functions, and a Florida company is planning to develop a prototype of an implanted GPS device by the end of the year.
When the Food and Drug Administration green-lighted the use of ID chips in humans last month, civil liberties advocates worried that people could be forced to get chipped as a condition of employment or parole. News that the British government may implant sex offenders in the future fanned those fears.
Of course, it will start with convicted (or maybe even suspected) child molesters. Who could possibly object to that?
|
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.
|
Recent Comments