Violent Entertainment

Once upon a time my Saturday afternoons were often spent watching some of the finest acting on telly - Wrestling. The BBC4 Timeshift documentary When Wrestling was Golden shown last night didn't tell me much more than I already knew about the wrestling TV heyday (fixed not 'fake') and the company that controlled it all. But I didn't know about how it all came together in the post WW2 years and the clips and interviews were revealing and nostalgic. Simple entertainment and good fun that was dropped by Greg Dyke, probably because it was seen as too 'low-brow' and common. Which is a joke when you consider what passes for entertainment these days. US wrestling is not the same as the home-grown heroes and villains. Sigh.

Skyfall

Skyfall has all the usual Bond features; exotic locations, Istanbul, Shanghai, Macau; a mad villain,  Raoul Silva, played by Javier Bardem (2008 Oscar supporting actor winner for playing another looney tunes in No Country for Old Man); beautiful women, Naomie Harris as Eve & Bérénice Marlohe as Sévérine; plus cars, chases and lots of shooting and explosions. Everything to keep Bond fans happy then.

Apparently not. Some people I know that have seen Skyfall were disappointed. Not me. We really thought it was great, even better than Daniel Craig’s first outing in Casino Royale and far superior to the forgettable Quantum of Solace.

Without giving too much away the plot begins with a stolen list of agents and Bond going MIA after being shot by a baddie and Eve who, on the command of M (Judi Dench), is forced to ‘take the shot’ when Bond is fighting the baddie. While Bond remains missing presumed dead M16 comes under attack and this time it’s personal – M is target of the frankly bonkers villain, Silva. Bond chooses to return to London and to M, who is also under pressure to resign. Despite Bond’s lack of fitness M sends him out into the field to track down Silva – cue action, death and destruction.

I’m not a massive fan of Bond films. I understand they are a genre of their own and view them as such. Skyfall stands out for me because while it has all the Bond ingredients, for a change you really get a sense of the characters emotions and feelings of love, duty and loyalty.

 

What next for the Bond film franchise? There are rumours that Skyfall will be the last Daniel Craig Bond film and that the lovely Idris Elba may play the first black Bond. Interesting as that prospect is what I would like to see is a female agent as least as tough and resourceful as Bond, or at least for Bond to actually save the girl for a change!

Suffer little children

Child-related benefits may be 'capped' at two children

Personally in this over-crowded planet of ours I think families should be small. However why should children suffer for their parent's decision to keep breeding? What will the government do next? Remove 'excess' children from their families and sell them on eBay to plug the deficit?

This is so typical of government to blame a tiny minority of people claiming benefit for the country's financial woes while corporations and wealthy individuals find a myrid of ways to aviod paying tax and the government continues to do nothing about it. Starbucks 'paid just £8.6m UK tax in 14 years' And the sick joke is that many more people are entitled to benefits that they just don't claim Billions in benefits go unclaimed, DWP figures show

There's still a long way to go

Malala Yousafzai

I had not heard of this young woman until I saw the story on the news yesterday. There has apparently been much 'international' condemnation but none it seems from Islamic religious leaders; at least none reported. But this is not a post about religion. This is a call to women everywhere to stand up and fight for their rights. No one, NO MAN, is going to give you the right to education, to vote, to work, to choose how to live your life - you have to fight for it.

Conformity and Individuality

At the school where I work the new term has meant a new name, new uniform for Years 7 -11 and dress code for the 6th form students and staff. No, we haven't become an academy but the whole site is being rebuilt and the school re-branded. Hence the changes. 

I have nothing against school uniforms and I do think people should dress in an appropriately professional way. However in the debate leading up to these changes issues about other aspects of individuals appearance were also raised such as so-called extreme hair cuts and colours and excessive make up and jewellery. Opinions on these are far more subjective than say wearing old jeans and combats, yet they have become part of the dress code. How far should an individuals right to express themselves via their choice of clothes, hair, make-up, jewellery be curtailed in the name of looking 'professional'? 

Even for the students I am concerned that so much conformity will stifle their individuality. Admittedly many already conform in a different way; peer-pressure and media influences take their toll on youth. It's been a long time since I was a teenager but I remember how hard it is to work out who you are. Bloody hell I was in my 30s before I had any idea.

As well as this imposition of conformity in appearance there are other issues. Like the new IT system which doesn't allow you to make a shortcut on the desktop let alone have a background of your choice. Fonts, printer settings, everything has been dictated and while I understand the need for some corporate uniformity too much makes for a very boring work environment. A new door entry system will also mean movement of staff can be tracked. Plus we have been advised how to modify the way we talk in public so that no one over hears us saying anything bad about the school.

We all conform at sometime or another but if we are not allowed to be individual in even some small ways we may as well be Borg.

Class War #4

Government urges councils to sell off high-value houses

Here we go again - social cleansing. We have to pay for the twats with more money than sense who want to live in areas they think are trending or 'up-and-coming.

The Dark Knight Rises

Last week we braved the heat and a cinema without air conditioning to go see The Dark Knight Rises; the final instalment of Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman. I was looking forward to it very much after The Dark Knight even though I have a soft spot for Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman and 1992 Batman Returns with Michael Keaton in the lead. Burton’s noir vision of Gotham City and the dark side of being a ‘hero’, in my opinion, set the standard for all future comic book adaptations.

After Burton’s Batman films there were 2 further, less successful films before Nolan picked up the franchise with Batman Begins (2005). I thought this film was good but not as good as the Burton films though it did successfully introduce the characters, especially Christian Bale’s take on Batman. Nolan upped his game with The Dark Knight (2008). The arrival of the Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, who won a posthumous Oscar, made the film. Ledger’s Joker was equally as manic as Jack Nicholson’s and twice as scary. Which is interesting as Burton’s films were rated 15 while Nolan’s only 12A. Yet I’m heard film critics refer to Nolan’s Batman films as ‘grown-up’. Of course these days 12 is the rating everyone wants for maximum returns especially on mega-million dollar budget films.

 

So as I say I was really looking forward to seeing the last part of the trilogy. Was I disappointed? Well a little. This is not to say it’s not a good film (if a little too long). Visually impressive, great action sequences and with a fine cast Nolan would have had to done something seriously wrong to have made this a bad film. My main source of disappointment was the villain, Bane, played by Tom Hardy. I’m not saying this was the actor’s fault, rather every time he spoke through the mask I couldn’t take him seriously; he sounded pretentiously camp rather than menacing. And returning to the theme of Batman Begins I’m sure seemed a good way to end the trilogy but it felt to me a little lazy. As for Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, well let’s just say she was no way as cool as Michelle Pfeiffer and frankly her only purpose in the film seemed to be to add the theme of starting over with a clean slate.

The ending of the film left an opening for the franchise to be taken up once again though without Nolan or Bale. I’m sure it will be but do wonder if anyone can truly out-do Burton’s or indeed Nolan.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner

Being as I am completely indifferent to the Olympics the only good thing about it coming to my home town has been the programmes about London that BBC2 & BBC4 broadcast in recent weeks. In particular  The Secret History of Our Streets, a 6 part series using Charles Booth’s 19th century social maps (Charles Booth Online Archive) as a starting point to chart the ever-changing character of London streets and its residents.

Starting with Deptford High Street SE8, once described as ‘the Oxford Street of south London’; a sorry tale of decline, a community broken up and officious local authority figures deciding the fate of residents with little regard to what people wanted. This was typical of many experiences of ordinary people particularly in the post-World War II years of ‘scum clearance’.

Staying south of the river the up and down fate of Camberwell Grove SE5 was a tale of property development and well-meaning folk wanting to preserve fine old buildings. Here developers built fine houses for the well-to-do who wanted to escape the rapidly growing city in what was then a semi-rural area. However the city soon caught up with Camberwell Grove and as the well-off moved on landlords rented out the houses to families who occupied rooms rather than the whole houses and the properties began to fall into disrepair. In the 1960s things begun to change as young middle-class people bought up these run down houses. And now the street is up-market again.

For the Caledonian Road N1 there was never such grandeur. A road leading up from King’s Cross with its railway station, the area was and is still considered ‘rough’. But here too residents fought to preserve what there was when British Rail threatened to destroy the community. And since the programme was aired there has been much controversy regarding the local landlord featured who boasted about his disregard for planning and building regulations. ‘No milk left in the Cally’

Property speculation in west London’s Portland Road W11 told a very different tale. Built with the well-off in mind Portland Road however soon was notorious as a slum. Again it was not until the 1960s that the street saw a turnaround in fortune; and what a turnaround. Now a banker’s enclave, the street has some of the most expensive property in London – with a council estate at one end.

Returning south of the river Reverdy Road SE1 was perhaps the least changed of the street featured, although here as everywhere changes were happening. Home to the ‘respectable’ working class in the 19th century this was a story of Bermondsey’s local politicians and for want of a better description, their Christian / Socialist sense of duty to the local people. When the now defunct Bermondsey Council bought up Reverdy Road and the rest of the West Estate properties they modernised them and ensure local people had priority in renting the houses, keeping the community together. Now however with the changes to housing policy and the ‘right to buy’ local people are not so dominate as they once were.

Finally the first council estate opened in 1896 in east London. Built by the long gone London County Council, the Boundary Estate around Arnold Circus E2 was to replace the overcrowded slums in the area. By today’s standards the flats would seems substandard with only some having indoor toilets and none having hot water, but in comparison to the buildings they replaced the flats were palaces. Trouble was at 10 shillings a week the people who had lived in the slums demolished to make way for the estate could not afford the rent them. Those that could afford it soon built up a sense of community; a mixed community with a large number of residents being Jewish. However in the post war years people wanted more than these neglected flats could offer and the community began to dissolve as they moved away to more modern homes. In the 1970s a very different movement to those seeking to preserve changed the fortunes of the declining Boundary Estate – squatting. This area of the east end was now home to many Bangladeshi families who were living in squalid and overcrowded conditions. Encourage to squat in empty properties belonging to the LLC’s successor, the now also defunct Greater London Council, the GLC ended up rehousing the families in the area. Of course now while the estate remains a council property (Tower Hamlets) many flats are now privately owned and overpriced.

This series was on the whole very good; with no ‘experts’ just commentary and interviews with former and current residents it gave a fairly rounded view of the social history of these streets. My only criticism would be that the role of poor and / or exploitative landlords, whether they be private or local authority, in the creation of slums was not given enough attention (though Peter Rachman was briefly mentioned) and it was implied that rent control (something desperately needed) was to blame for the fact that landlords let their properties decay as was the often asserted assumption that all council estates are poorly designed slums full of the ‘undeserving poor’.

Olympic Apathy

What can you do when you don't care about the Olympics & there's nothing else all over the TV? And if you say you're not bothered about the Olympics people think you're unpatriotic. it's all very tiresome. Can't wait for it all to be over. But then there'll be years of talk about the 'legacy'....bloody hell another 7 years no doubt!

Ignore the smug

What can you do but ignore the smug? Everyone, including me, feels smug from time to time, but some people it seems just have to continually express their smugness by criticising others and making out that they are superior. Best not to engage in any conversation with such smug gits, lest you lose it and end up having a pointless row. 

Prometheus

Prometheus – there’s a lot of debate surrounding Ridley Scott’s prequel to Alien, mostly about the myriad of unanswered questions raised in film. Personally I found the film a bit of a disappointment. I didn’t read any reviews before going to see it and went purely on the strength of the trailers and memory of really enjoying Alien. I expected the film to be visually good – and it was. We went to see it in Imax and 3D at the BFI. It was stunning – a bit too stunning in our seats! My disappointment came in the storyline and lack of characterisation.

What some have seen as unanswered questions, I saw as plot holes and as for the characters and their motives (or lack thereof), well I didn’t care much for any of them. Also the editing and continuity in places was very poor. I expected more from Ridley Scott, as the director of one of my all-time favourite films, Blade Runner.

So what’s it all about? In a nutshell 2 archaeologists, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) & her husband, Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), discover a series of depictions of what they have interpreted as a star map inviting us to meet an alien species they call the Engineers, who Shaw believes are our creators. The fact that they are archaeologists is enough to put me off of them to start and as the film went on I liked them even less. why archaeologists make me annoyed

With apparently no other evidence, only Shaw’s belief, mega-rich Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) funds an expedition. His motive is clear – he’s dying and is looking to extend his life. As for the rest of the team and crew, as they appear to have no idea why they are going or what they will find when they get there, I guess they are just being very well paid.


beware of androids

So they arrive and start to explore. And very soon things go wrong. In part due to the android, David (Michael Fassbender), who has been alone on the ship for over 2 years while everyone else has been in stasis, watching Lawrence of Arabia, spying on the human’s dreams and possibly going ever so slightly bonkers. David is responsible for Holloway’s demise (no loss there) and the introduction of an alien parasite to Shaw’s barren womb. The latter giving rise to a very unpleasant scene which made me wonder at the 15 certification.

Well things go from bad to worse and all but 2 characters are dead by the end. Although our annihilation by those that Shaw believed created us has been prevented by 3 characters sacrificing themselves for no apparent reason than they believe what Shaw tells them!

Shaw is the most annoying character; a bad scientist and worst of all, a female lead who’s no Ripley. I just couldn’t take her seriously and in no way could believe in her as a saviour. I wanted her to kick some alien ass. Shaw couldn’t kick her way out of a wet paper bag. Now Vickers (Charlize Theron), icy cold and at one point accused of being a robot by Janek (the under-used Idris Elba), you could imagine kicking ass. It would have been a better film to make the Vickers character step up.



that's the way to do it

And as for all the debates about who the Engineers were, why they did what they did, why they planned to go whatever it was that they were going to – well David supplied the best answer in conversation with Holloway about the engineer’s motive for creating us; have we considered they did it just because they can.

I think that’s why Ridley Scott made the film, just because he could.

Class War #3

Most London councils try to move people outside borough

And so it goes on. The story told by the resident of Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is only to be expected of a borough that thinks if you can't afford to buy your home there or pay for private education for your child, you shouldn't be living there and should send your child to another borough's schools. Nearly 170,000 people live there, a quarter in council or housing association housing yet there are only 5 state secondary schools in the borough, 3 of which are church schools. Not much choice and I guess once they cleanse the borough of so-called 'social housing' tenants they'll probably be even less.

The 70s

BBC2 has been running a 1970s season. This has meant the airing of some classic 70s cinema; One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest; Mean Streets and Cabaret, but also the documentary series by Dominic Sandbrook called 'The 70s'. 

 

As I grew up in the 70s I thought I'd give this 4 part series a go, if just for the nostalgia. There was that aplenty in the soundtrack but other than that it was a deeply unsatisfying in format and content. Made up entirely of archive clips and Sandbrook's voice over and to camera commentary, it gave a broad sweep of the decade under the premise that the 1970s shaped the world we live in today. Well duh! You could say that about any past decade. Society is not static and is forever changing; old traditions and ways of life fall away and new ones take their place. There was certainly some significant shifts in British society in the 70s. 

Consensus politics were on the way out, global economics began to bite, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Race Relations Act 1976 were to start to change the lives of millions (though sexism and racism are still with us). Yet there were no interviews with the people involved or affected. The whole series was just Sandbrook's personal view - a view which seemed to come from the middle-class right and say 'no wonder Thatcher came to power in the end'. And that was about the sum of it.

In contrast 'The Lost World of the Seventies' presented by Michael Cockerell, an hour long programme which focused on 4 'characters' of the 1970s, was far more satisfying. Using archive footage and interviews with people involved at the time, these snapshots gave a far more interesting perspective of the times and in a way was more convincing about the changes the 70s made. 

 

Starting with General Walter Walker, who sought to protect Britain from 'the enemy within', the archive interviews show a man with genuine fear of the 'Red Menace' and who was trying to gather around him like-minded individuals that would, if necessary, take over Britain to save us from Marxists. There were many who did fear such a thing. In the end though even the Telegraph undermined him and the old general with his paper army faded away. In Britain we don't go in for coups. 

Next up was Lord Longford aka Lord Porn and notorious visitor of Myra Hindley. Longford headed a campaign against pornography after the Obscene Publications Act had been amended to allow more salacious material to be published. An old school moral campaigner his investigation and report was ignored by government. 

Next was Jimmy Goldsmith, billionaire financier and tycoon, who's business dealings were subject to scrutiny and criticism by the BBC's Money Programme and by Private Eye. Goldsmith went on to try and use the criminal libel law against Private Eye, which though in the end only cost the magazine a full page add apologising and retracting its allegation that Goldsmith had helped old friend Lord Lucan flee after the murder of his children's nanny, all Goldsmith actually achieved was dislike and increasing the sales of Private Eye. 



Last up was Robert Mark, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1972 to 1977, who came to fight corruption in the CID. Corruption, was rife especially in the Flying Squad and Obscene Publications Squad and Mark was determined to root it out. Several high profile arrests followed. Mark in the end resigned though when government sought to make an independent police complaints authority. He had kept his investigations 'in-house'.

 

The world has changed since these characters were in  the news. You can't image some old general now talking about the need to fight any kind of menace if government fails nor some old lord campaigning on such controversial issues. No, too campaign now and be listened to means you have be a celebrate chef and/or have lots of followers on Twitter and Facebook. Goldsmith's story though perhaps does have more of a parallel today; no doubt now he'd have taken out a super-injunction. Big business men still don't like to be criticised - look at Murdoch. As for Mark's crusade against police corruption, it was long over due and still with us - Murdoch again - though not so rife as failure to make timely investigations (see this)

This post has kind of got away from me a bit but I guess the point of the comparison is that when it come to making programmes about recent history it's the documentary maker not the historian who wins hand down. 

Thanks John

Last night as I was adding my latest post I noticed there was a comment on my Chronicle film review post. This is what it says:

‘You're an idiot... The movie was horrible. Your article is a contrived tribute to your "I think I'm a good writer" wanna be persona. However, looking past the fact that you can't string together letters to form coherent sentences, I still find your article to be a hot heaping mess of, well, mess... Have fun blocking this so others can't see truth... ‘

It was left by someone calling himself John Titor. Obviously John did not enjoy Chronicle and apparently according to John anyone who likes something he doesn’t is an idiot. Well everyone’s entitled to their opinion and it would be a boring world if we all liked the same things. As for the criticism of my writing, well I don’t claim to be a professional writer or a good one. John doesn’t care for the way I write and again that’s his opinion. I’m not complaining. After all anyone who posts anything on the internet is open to criticism. I often add remarks to other people’s posts, although my comments tend to be either to agree or disagree with what has been written and rather less personal.

John got me thinking though about why I blog at all. I can’t even remember why I decided to blog. Must have had a reason at the time and as my earlier posts are generally moaning about the petty inconveniences of life and things that annoy me I guess I began just to have a vent for my own frustrations. Then for ages I didn’t blog at all until I did one post in 2010 about a couple of TV programmes I’d watched. An even longer gap followed and at the end of 2011 I did a film review post and decided to carry on blogging mainly about TV and film because I like TV and film.

This doesn’t really answer the question though of why I, or anyone else for that matter, blogs if you’re just a nobody. I mean I never assumed that anyone outside my friends and family would ever look at my blog. I think, in the end, I write my blog because I enjoy writing about things that interest me.

So thanks John for giving me another subject to write about.

BTW I have left John’s comment up and invited him to say what he didn’t like about Chronicle but I guess as he loathes my writing so much he won’t be viewing my blog again.

Avengers Assemble

Mate of mine went to see Avengers Assemble this weekend after reading good reviews, and my recommendation. She enjoyed it but said the film had been over-hyped. I said that's why I don't really take too much notice of reviews. Thing is as individuals we pretty much know what kind of films we'll enjoy and unless we hear something very bad about a film our own judgement is usually pretty sound.

So what made me go and see Avengers Assemble then? Well firstly I really enjoyed Iron Man and like Robert Downey Jr.and then when I read that Joss Whedon, creator of one of my all-time favourite TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was the director and wrote the script I was hopeful that the film would be great entertainment. And it is.

I saw it in 3D, a format I still think is over-rated, and in my opinion it didn't add the visual effects, which were very good. Like all good comic-book adaptations the visuals and stunts are excellent. But it's the characters and the brilliant dialogue that raises Avengers Assemble above the majority of such films. Of course it could be said that the film benefits from the familiarity of  the main characters. Iron Man (aka Tony Stark played by Robert Downey Jr), Captain America (aka Steve Rogers played by Chris Evans), Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) and The Incredible Hulk (aka Bruce Banner played for the first time by Mark Ruffalo) have all had previous screen time yet this is not necessarily a good thing. Ensemble pieces do not always work and if the viewer is not familiar with the characters it can be difficult to relate. This is overcome in Avengers Assemble; enough back story is given to make the story line make sense.

The story is basic - The Earth is in danger from Loki (Thor's adopted brother, excellently played by Tom Hiddleston, in the perfect villain blend of sinister and camp) who plans to open a vortex and lead an army to subjugate the human race. Desperate to save the world, especially as he is in part to blame for Loki's being able to pose this danger, Nick Fury of SHIELD (played by Samuel L. Jackson), gathers together a force to take on the threat.

As well as the characters already mentioned there are 2 additional members of the Avengers Initiative; Agent Natasha Romanoff aka The Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson), a former assassin with a dark past, and  Agent Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner and is not on screen nearly enough for my liking!). As you would expect from Joss Whedon, Agent Romanoff is more than just eye-candy for the boys - she is smart and kicks ass as good as the next man.

The Avengers big egos as well as alter-egos and this gives for tension in the ranks and snappy dialogue.  Get a taste of the dialogue here There are also questions of honesty to overcome. In the end though through the death of another character (no spoilers here) the Avengers come together to fight the good fight. And no doubt line up for a sequel.



My Hero

Class War #2

'Social cleansing' housing benefit cap row
And so it goes on.
Already in the school where I work a student has had to leave after her family's private landlord in Westminster told them as the new housing benefit cap wouldn't cover the rent they would have to leave - Westminster Council moved the family to Uxbridge, 17 miles away from the school.

Class War

http://www.islingtontribune.com/news/2012/mar/cost-living-islington-report-says-families-need-least-%C2%A372000-year-rent-two-bedroom-hom

London, like all major cities, is a mix of rich and poor living often side by side - but for how much longer? It would be easy to blame the current government policy on capping Housing Benefit on driving the working classes out of city centres but there is much more to this story than meets the eye.

Class War is a term that seems archaic in the post-Thatcher world of a so-called classless society. Truth is Britain is more divided than ever. These divisions are as class based as at any time in history. But the war is not from the working class against the middle and upper classes but the reverse.

There has been much comment about the demonization of the working class in recent years, especially the 'White British Working Class'. At best this group (of which I would be considered a member) is seen as a forgotten group my mainstream politics and politicians; at worst we are seen as work-shy, benefit living, racists, uneducated, violent and a blight on cities. We are mocked in the media, the butt of endless caricatures, the only group, it seems, that can be without fear of being brought to book by the PC brigade. Do we deserve this? No, we do not. But this is not the issue. Race and ethnicity have little to do with Class War. Delusion is everything.

My mum used to say there are only 2 classes of people - those that have to work for a living, and those who do not. Why do people do the lottery? To be in the position of the latter group that's why. If you have to work for a living you are Working Class. So why do some people define themselves as middle class? How does this group define itself? Seems to me it doesn't. Perhaps once it was defined by being in a profession or by level of education. Not anymore. I'd say the middle class define themselves as not being working class and that's it. And anyone who is not the same as them is working class. Like I say, delusional.
Of course this delusion wouldn't matter if it didn't mean that we have to suffer not only derision, being feared and despised, but now we are being pushed out of our homes and our cities.

Once upon a time successive governments pushed forward policies to build homes for the working class of Britain. Why was this housing needed? I'll tell you why, slums and slum-landlords. 1000s of people lived in overcrowded hovels, with insecure tenancies and the fear that at any time the landlord could kick them out. Slum clearance began between the First & Second World Wars but really took off out of necessity after WW2 because of bombing of British cities meant a housing crisis. Even so it took many years for people to be moved out of the slums and into what was seen as palaces by many, with electricity, heating and indoor plumbing, and families not having to share accommodation and facilities with other families. These council houses and flats offered good accommodation and secure tenancy - but at a price. The rents were often far higher that people were used to paying. I remember my parents telling me of the interview they had with the housing officer when offered their council flat; they were questioned about their ability to pay the rent and reminded that they would lose their tenancy if they got into arrears.

These council houses and flats were more than just good accommodation and secure tenancy though - they were (and are) people's homes. Home is where the heart, is so the saying goes; but it seems that if you don't own your home then you can't possibly have pride in your home or a stake in the area in which you live. Really? If some estates are in a state it's because the councils have let them run down and they have become filled with tenants who have social problems. Let me explain that last point. For many years now to stand any chance of getting tenancy of a council or housing association property you have to be a person in need, which often equals a person with any one of a number social problems such as mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, release from prison etc. Now I'm not saying that people with these problems should not be entitled to housing but what I am saying is that when these people are given no other support and are just dumped on an estate that estate will begin to decline to the point that only the truly desperate will live there. And many people are desperate for the security of a home.

There is, we are constantly told, a chronic shortage of housing in Britain, especially what is referred to as 'affordable housing'. But who defines what is affordable? How much should we pay for a home, whether it is our own or rented? Property prices are market driven, dependent on supply and demand, and let's not forget, the whims of those who decide that one area is more 'up-and-coming' than another. In cities this means that, just like in the country villages, local people are priced out of any opportunity to buy a property in their area. Private rents are likewise driven by the same, meaning that for example, to rent a property privately in my area will cost as much per week as a council or housing association tenant might pay in a month.

Whose fault is that? Not the council tenants, yet we are going to be the ones that have to pay.
http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ourwork/affordable-rent
Councils will be allowed to charge up to 80% of the cost of private rents to their tenants. Why do we have to pay for the fact that people with more money than sense are willing to pay stupid amounts in rent to live in a 'trendy' area?

The article at the start of this post describes what is happening in housing in my area as 'social cleansing' and that doesn't feel like an exaggeration.

It is war, sisters and brothers, Class War.

Monsters – or can a TV series go on too long?

Last week Being Human series 4 ended on BBC3 and Dexter series 6 started on FX and I asked myself can any long running TV series really keep fresh?

Of course there have been and are long running TV series but generally they tend to be soaps or soap like dramas like Coronation Street on ITV or Casualty on BBC1 and these are popular and successful programmes, although not my personal cup of tea anymore I watched them and others like them in the past. Likewise I watched the hugely successful US imports like CSI and House – for a while. But in my opinion they got stale several series back. I don’t bother with them anymore.

The trouble with any successful TV programme is that those that commission and broadcast them want to milk that success for all its worth and care not if the standard falls as long as people keep watching. And of course if a series keeps going long enough it becomes a habit to watch for some people, which is why soaps generally do so well.

I was surprised when a new series of Being Human was commissioned. At the end of series 3 arguably the main character, the vampire Mitchell, was killed off and although the future was uncertain for the remaining characters as well as an introduction to a new threat, the Old Ones, I couldn’t see where the story was going to go next. This however was quickly answered in the opening episodes of series 4, killing off the next major character, the werewolf, George, leaving only one of the original cast, the ghost, Annie, and this was swiftly followed by replacements for the characters, Hal, the vampire and Tom, the werewolf (who had featured in series 3) and the story line of George and Nina’s baby, Eve, who may or may not be the saviour of humankind in the face of the vampire hoards.

This story line, with its prophesy element, reminded me of the excellent Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a programme that ran for 7 series by the way). There was also a bit of Blade going on with the vamps trying to take over the world. But as ever at the heart of Being Human was the struggle of the characters to live in the human world while being outsiders, monsters even. Annie has to become mother to Eve; Tom still has to find his way without his werewolf father McNair and Hal, who is an Old One, who has fight the urge to drink blood and kill by being OCD. Practicalities have to be dealt with while hiding their true nature and fighting off threats from their own kind.

But how long can a series run of one underlying theme?

Dexter is a very different kind of monster and as series 6 begins everyone’s favourite serial killer is also still learning to live in the human world. His issues are similar to the characters in Being Human; he has to hide what he really is, live in a world he is not really a part of but he has to also sate his ‘dark passenger’, that part of him that has to kill.

Of course Dexter has an advantage over Being Human; it’s also a cop-show. There’s a race between Dexter and his colleagues in Miami homicide to catch a killer. And his colleagues give another dimension to the story line in each series outside of Dexter’s world. Even so can we keep going along with Dexter in his seemingly unending task to learn how to live in the world? There has to be an ending sometime before we tire of his world view.

I believe the reason that Being Human and Dexter are successful is because the characters speak to us about our own isolation, our own difficulties sometimes in connecting with those around us, of living in the world where other people can seem unfathomable, different from us. I just hope these programmes end on a high and not dragged out till no one cares about the monsters anymore.

Why archaeologists make me annoyed

Anglo-Saxon Christian grave find near Cambridge 'extremely rare'
This item on BBC news website is really annoying. Now I know that when the media reports academic work it often simplifies the findings / theories etc. But if any of the quotes given are in the least bit accurate it is just another example of the way archaeologists make huge assumptions about their finds.
Here they have found a grave of a teenage girl buried with a gold and garnet cross. The cross they assume is a sign of Christianity and therefore presumably the faith of the girl. This maybe not be the case at all. 
How can anyone possibly now what this unknown girl believed? Unless the girl is identified and some other proof of her faith is discovered all we really know is she was buried with a cross.
Now as a deceased person has no control over how they are buried and what with, it could be argued that those that buried her were Christian. But again we cannot know that for certain. The cross may have been looted or even found and just a favourite piece of the girl. 
Archaeologists need to be more honest and say 'we just don't know what the significance of this find' because they really can only hypothesize.

The past is another country - is Bradford?

Last week, for want of anything else to watch on TV, I ended up viewing 2 programmes I hadn't planned too. One was the first episode of new BBC2 drama 'White Heat'. In this one of 7 former flat mates has died and as the survivors begin to gather at the London flat they once shared their stories are told in flashback. So far so unoriginal. But that's not the reason I wasn't going to watch. The flashbacks start from 1965 and as the last 20th century historical piece on BBC2 'The Hour' was did not work either as a thriller or a docudrama I was wary. And going by this first episode I was right to be so. The character's are cliched and were introduced against a backdrop of social and political events of the period. This was to be expected; we all must be constantly reminded that the 1960s was a period of GREAT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGE and don't you forget it! As if no decade has ever been as important. Obliviously nothing of significance ever happened in the 1950s, 70s, 80s etc. One thing this consistent referencing of events in 1965 did do however was reinforce the cliched characters.
There's Jack, whose daddy owns the flat. He thinks he's a revolutionary and can afford to be because daddy is a MP and can and does pay off his debts. 
Charlotte, a naive, virginal nice middle-class girl from the suburbs who has to leave home to realise her dad is having an affair and her mummy drinks so much gin because her miserable life as a hausfrau and absent husband. Charlotte reads DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', gets the Pill and has sex with Jack, only to find out he's got no emotional feelings for her at all.
Alan is from t'up North. He thinks he's better than those he's left behind but is still deferential to the old order.
Victor is a law student from Jamaica. Home sick and subject to racial prejudice, he fancies Charlotte. 
Lily is an art student, already seduced by her tutor and under pressure from her parents to give up art and return to the 'real world'. Alan fancies her
Jay is a medical student and closet gay. But his secret is out to the final flat sharer, Orla, who sees him with another boy at a party. 
Orla is the only surprise in this mix. A frumpy catholic girl from Belfast, not attractive and very different from the rest - she's the only reason I'd keep watching as I'd like to see where her story is going.


After seeing 'White Heat' I decided to watch Channel 4s 'Make Bradford British'. What's the connection? Well in 'White Heat'  Alan says that Jack choose them all to share the flat as a kind of social experiment. And what else could you call sticking 8 people from different backgrounds into each others lives to see what happens? I didn't see the first of this 2 part docu-reality programme but I had read that it caused some outrage by groups in Bradford who saw it as provocative and made the town sound so divisive. The 8 were chosen from a group of Bradford residents who failed the citizenship test and I gather in the first episode the 8 were all living together. In this second one they were paired off to spend 2 days living in each others homes to see what makes us British. 
What followed in it's abbreviated and edited way was a short insight into prejudice and preconceptions that reflect on us all I guess to some extent or another. 
Jens, retired policeman and pillar of this almost exclusively white community, was like a throw back to another era. Paired with Desmond, Black British, born here of Caribbean parents, Jens at first cannot see past Desmond's colour and makes continue remarks about it until Desmond takes him to a pub where as a young man he was attacked just for being black. For his part Desmond is impressed by the charitable and community work that Jens does. Both do seem to learn from each other.
Pub landlady Audrey, whose dad was black and mum white, has Sabbiyah as her partner. We don't see much of her at Sabbiyah's but at her pub Sabbiyah is exposed to a truly unpleasant tirade from a white customer that reduces her to tears. Maura is not as understanding as one might have expected her to be but reflects on her own past experiences of racism and comes to realise that she, as she puts it, is racist and uses her colour to argue that she can't be.
Damon, young, white and recently split from his girlfriend and mother of his child is with Rashid, who is welcoming and takes him to his local mosque, where Damon discovers Islam is not about terrorism. Damon is impressed by the way the local community and Rashid's family take care of each other and when Rashid reveals that he has a broken marriage and children the two men realise that they have more in common than they thought.
The last pairing went very wrong. Taxi driver Mohammed and former magistrate Maura are just too different. Maura is appalled at the way Mohammed treats his wife and daughter and he sees her as bossy. Briefly when Maura goes out with him to work she sees how he could view white British society in a less than favourable way. But at Maura's house Mohammed snaps at being asked a question about his daughter bringing home a white boyfriend and walks out not to return. 
I wasn't surprised at this. Of all the participants Mohammed looked the most uncomfortable and probably regretted ever getting involved. Sadly though he also confirmed a stereotypical view of an Asian man, marrying off his daughter as a teenager to someone back home and having a house bound wife who doesn't speak English.
So did this social experiment achieve anything? Well it showed to some of the participants their own prejudices and perhaps makes us all reflect on what makes us the same and not different - family and belonging. But the title of the programme was meaningless and I can't help feeling it was just there to provoke. The only thing that can make people feel British is the feeling that they belong.

Some thoughts on religion

‘Most people think, 
Great god will come from the skies, 
Take away everything 
And make everybody feel high. 
But if you know what life is worth, 
You will look for yours on earth’    Peter Tosh & Bob Marley 
Intro
I always liked this verse from ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ - it makes me think of something said by my cynical old English teacher, Mr Jones; Humans, he said, made up beliefs in life-after-death because they just couldn’t face the fact that when they die, that’s it. And is it seems to me that all religions are based on the hope of something better after death some people forget to live in the here and now. Live and let live that is.
My Personal Experience of Religion 
I was not raised to be religious. I wasn’t baptised, didn’t go to church and my mum told me the only reason my parents wed in a church was because my gran insisted and back in the 1950s only divorced people got married in register offices. This is not to say that I had no exposure to religion or that when I was young I didn’t believe in God. At primary school we had religious assemblies along Church of England Christian lines. That is we sang hymns such as ‘We plough the fields and scatter’, ‘All things bright and beautiful’, ‘To be a pilgrim’, ‘For those in peril on the sea’ etc. and we said the Lord’s Prayer. We were told child-friendly versions of Biblical stories – Moses, Noah, Joseph and Daniel from the Old Testament and of course Jesus’ birth from the New. I pretty much just assumed there was a God – A Protestant Christian God.
Cynical Years
I’m not sure at what age I stopped believing there was a god but by the time I moved to secondary school I had decided I could not believe in something no one could prove existed.  I was given a King James’ Bible at this time and started reading bits of it in that typically cynical teenage way, looking for inconsistencies and contradictions, of which there are very many. Religion, organised religion, to me was all about control and I was scornful of it and those who professed to be religious, with their hypocrisies and unquestioning belief. In particular I would quote bits of the Bible back at people. My favourite being Genesis 11:1-9 (Babel )– where God, seemingly fearful of what humans could achieve, confused our language and scattered us across the Earth. What did that say about this God and his attitude towards his creation?
Why do people believe?
As I have gotten older my attitude towards belief has changed even if my feelings about organised religion have not. I can understand why some people would believe in god(s). Just look around – from the simple beauty of a flower to the vastness of the universe as seen through telescopes to our own abilities to create and invent, to be brave and compassionate, the wonder of our existence could make anyone believe that some divine power is behind it all. But then nature can be cruel; floods, droughts, earthquakes can destroy and kill; humans are capable of unspeakable cruelty, inflicting suffering and violence upon each other. Even so I imagine people with faith in their god(s) must take comfort in the belief that all these things are in the ‘plan’ and will be explained in the next life. I understand then why some people believe. It’s what they do in the name of these beliefs that cause all the problems.
Killing in the name of
I know that for some people killing, cruelty and the oppression of their fellow human beings is not driven by religion. I know that when it is observed how many people have been killed and oppressed in the name of one religion or another, others will counter with the examples of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China as atheistic states that killed, imprisoned, tortured and used terror on the people not in the name of god but ideology. This misses the point. These tyrants developed the cult of personality to the point that they replaced god(s) but more than that their regimes prove the dangerous and destructive power of belief, of faith even, to make some people blind to what is being done in the name of such beliefs. Throughout history leaders, religious and political, have used belief to control, to keep control and to blame the ‘unbelievers’ for everything that is wrong. Sometimes this control is subtle, sometimes it is blatant and oppressive but it is always divisive.
Conclusion
The divisions created by fanatical belief keep us apart and prevent us from achieving our potential, which should be limitless.

Chronicle

What would you do if you suddenly had superpowers? Would you become a hero or a villain? Or would you play tricks on people just for the hell of it? Anyone who's ever read a comic book or watched a film or TV spin off from one has wondered this - don't lie, you know you have!

In recent years the latter two genres have focused almost exclusively on the dark side of having such power. Chronicle is no exception. Directed by Josh Trank Chronicle is in many ways unoriginal from it's loser lead, Andrew, played by Dane DeHaan, to it's shooting by Andrew's video camera. Does that make it a bad film? No it's doesn't. The friend I went to see this with said it reminded her of Carrie, and that's a recommendation in itself.

In Chronicle Andrew is a loser. Bullied at high school, bullied & undermined by an alcoholic and abusive father at home, he starts to film the world around him, which is pretty bleak what with the bullying and his dying mother. So far so cliched. He has no friends just a cousin, Matt, played by Alex Russell, who takes him to a party, where along with popular kid & class president candidate, Steve, played by Michael B Jordan, they make a discovery underground. We don't see exactly what this is but soon after the three boys begin to develop telekinesis. And nosebleeds. A sure sign that this will not end well.

The pranks the boys play with their new power are amusing until Andrew (of course) goes to far and almost kills someone. Matt then lays down rules which they should follow. The other two agree but we can see that Andrew has no remorse. What he has done means nothing to him. Oh dear.

The boys then discover they have another ability; they can fly. Cue quite amazing shots of them zooming through the clouds - I say amazing because this is a low budget film, just $12m as opposed to the last Mission Impossible film which had a budget of $150m. The sheer joy of being able to fly is well expressed and brings them closer together.

Things even look up for Andrew when Steve talks him into entering the school talent show. Using he powers he wins over his normally hostile or indifferent fellow students. But of course it all goes wrong with a girl (who looked old enough to be his mother by the way) and Andrew heads into a downward spiral ending in confrontation and death. And blowing up lots of buildings, cars etc.

The moral of this story is - don't give superpowers to the damaged teen. But go see the film anyways.

Sherlock vs Sherlock

On New Year’s Day I went to see the film Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows and Monday night I watched the opening episode of the new Sherlock BBC series on catch up TV. Two different spins on Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective and two follow ups.

I saw Guy Ritchie’s first Sherlock Holmes film with Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson when it was released and have to say I largely forgot it. As soon as I started watching the second film I began to remember exactly what I’d felt about the first one – nowhere near as clever or as funny as it thinks it is.

 

A Game of Shadows does have some mildly amusing moments but the humour is poor and verging on slapstick. As for action, well there are fights & stunts that are pretty good but on the whole while Robert Downey Jr. is always watchable and is obviously enjoying himself there is nothing captivating about his Sherlock. Nor does Jude Law bring anything to the character of Watson. In fact he was hardly necessary at all. And don’t get me started on Stephen Fry’s Mycroft Holmes, who played Sherlock’s older brother like an idiot.

The film also features other Conan Doyle characters – Prof Moriarty (played by Jared Harris) and Irene Adler (played by Rachel McAdams). The latter made so little impression that I didn’t even remember she played the same role in the previous film. The former was okay as villains go but neither creepy nor evil enough for my liking.

What about the plot? Basically it’s Holmes versus Moriarty. The Prof has an evil plan (don’t we all?) and Holmes has to stop him. On the way Watson’s wedding is nearly ruined and his honeymoon bride thrown off a train by Holmes. The real couple then pick up some gypsies - there is, well not exactly a sub-plot, more of a side line, about a gypsy woman’s brother being drawn into Moriarty’s scheme – and set off to foil the Prof. There is a confrontation between Holmes & Moriarty at Reichenbach, which is where Conan Doyle killed off Holmes. I won’t spoil the ending….

So how does the film compare to Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss’ 21st Century Sherlock on the BBC?

Both use things to show Sherlock’s methods. In the film we get Sherlock’s internal dialogue as he works out how to oppose his foes. Works quite well. The TV series uses on screen text both to visualise Sherlock’s deductions and to display text messages. This works much better. Also the humour is much cleverer and wittier than in the film. And there is a much greater sense of the relationship between Sherlock and John. For a start they use their first names not surnames (ok that’s a historical thing 19th century blokes probably didn’t use each other’s first names) and they laugh together. It seems a more genuine relationship because of this.

Relationships or lack thereof, is the theme of the episode A Scandal in Belgravia. It kicks off right where the last episode of the previous series ended but quickly moves into a new story. Based on Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia the story revolves around The Woman aka Irene Adler (played by Lara Pulver); a dominatrix who provides ‘services’ and collects items for future insurance and protection on her camera phone. Sherlock is called in by his brother Mycroft (here played by Mark Gatiss far more convincingly as the elder brother, who is just as smart, if more conventional and definitely establishment, as Sherlock himself) when Miss Adler reveals she has compromising photos of a royal princess. Sherlock and John set off to retrieve said photos but Miss Adler is waiting for them – naked.

Sherlock cannot make her out at first. When he looks at her we see only ????? rather than text on screen. She is smart and fascinating and a flirt. We see Sherlock become more interested in her and yet can only wonder if the interest in love or lust or just curiosity in a woman that seems to have an intellect close to his own. His very peculiarities prevent us and John from truly knowing his feelings. When it is believed that Miss Adler is dead John asks Mrs Hudson if Sherlock has ever had a relationship with anyone. The answer would appear to be ‘no’. He forgets his own relationship with Sherlock.

As for Sherlock when he goes to identify Miss Adler’s body with Mycroft, he asks him, observing other peoples grief: ‘Do you ever wonder if there is something wrong with us?’ – Mycroft replies: ‘All lives end; all hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage’.

Miss Adler is however far from dead and there is more on her camera phone than compromising photos. She returns to Sherlock and ‘tricks’ him into decoding a vital email, sending the information to Moriarty (played very camp by Andrew Scott, but he does get some outrageously good lines e.g. ‘if you’re lying to me I’ll make you into shoes’). Mycroft then reveals the significance of the email to Sherlock and describes him as ‘a lonely naive man showing off to a woman clever enough to make him feel special’.

In end though Sherlock saves face by working out the code to Miss Adler’s phone. He tells her: ‘I always assumed that love was a disadvantage; thank you for the final proof’.

I won’t reveal the ending but suffice to say Miss Adler lives to fight another day.

I really like Moffat & Gatiss spin on Sherlock Holmes. I enjoyed the previous series and was looking forward to this one especially after running into the filming of a stunt at Bart’s hospital some while back. This episode didn’t disappoint. Clever and funny but with that underlying theme of relationship’s it worked really well.

And it made me think about why John Watson would be friends with Sherlock. The scene at 221B Baker Street when they are gathered with Mrs Hudson, DI Lestrade, John’s girlfriend and Molly Hooper (from Bart’s mortuary) at Christmas shows Sherlock at his insensitive worst. He insults John’s girlfriend by running through a list of John’s previous girlfriends to work out which one she is and makes cringe worthy comments to Molly who carries a torch for him: ‘You always say such terrible things. Every time, always, always’ she says to him and while he apologises we have no idea if he is really sorry that he has hurt her or just that he can’t help his own clever observations. This is a man who carries on talking to John when he’s not even there, not noticing that he has left, and talks down to everyone including John. Why would anyone stay around such a person?

Miss Adler describes them as a ‘couple’ and John’s girlfriend asks him not to make her compete with Sherlock Holmes. John repeats again as he did in the first episode of series 1 – A Study in Pink - that he is not gay. But it is clearly more than friendship that holds him to Sherlock. He admires and is impressed by Sherlock’s abilities to be sure yet is equally appalled by insensitivity and apparent lack of feelings for others.

I think John stays not just for the thrills, adventure and danger but because he is protective of a man that is vulnerable to his own cleverness. As Miss Adler proved and as John himself had to in A Study in Pink where he saved Sherlock’s life by preventing him from going too far.
Now that is love.