http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Wed, 6 Jul 2005 04:32:40 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/06/043240.php theSliverMany that know me know that I've been a Liverpool FC supporter since I could distinguish between the colours of red and blue, and that growing up on Merseyside, choosing one or the other was historically more a matter of family and religion than personal choice. As our family was mixed (Catholic and Protestant), its no surprise that as I became a Red, my brother supported the Toffees (Everton).Which meant that the reflected grace on Liverpool winning the European Cup at the end of last season felt a little like having the Pope (the last one), present me with his benediction, which as a confirmed Atheist, even a Catholic one, is a very great deal indeed. Not only did we have the silverware, but it also seemed that we would keep Steven Gerrard for good at Anfield and that all the money that Chelsea and Abramovich could wave at him this summer would be ignored and that a new Jerusalem would begin as it had in the 70s and 80s.And then yesterday it was like being physically kicked inside. The rumours had increased that Gerrard was thinking of leaving, that Chelsea had put up some enormous sum, and that despite the club wanting to hold on to him he was intent on going. Before I went to bed it seemed certain that he had decided and that it would become an auction once he put his request for transfer in.Then this morning I check the BBC News website and there is this single unadorned paragraph. Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has had a dramatic change of heart and decided to stay at Anfield. Oh frabjous day, calloo callay! I don't know what was said to him in the meantime. Or maybe it was just the reality that he would have to ask to leave for it to happen and that convinced him his club wanted to keep him. Or maybe it was Benitez essentially offering to adopt him as his son and heir to all that would be to come in the Promised Land.I think perhaps in the end his being where he belonged and knowing he was literally loved overrode any immediate feelings of rejection he obviously felt during the last six weeks as his extension was negotiated. In an industry and a time when loyalties are counted in millions of pounds, and it's who pays the cheque who determines the loyalties, it isn't only because I'm a Liverpool fan that I'm glad that this one young man has decided that real loyalties are more important. John Peel would be very proud of him. Sports32090@blogcritics.org Wed, 6 Jul 2005 04:32:40 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/27/045950.php theSliverWe went to the Gala Night performance of Richard II at Ludlow Castle on Saturday night which is part of this year's Ludlow Festival. We have a tendency to forget that Ludlow is only thirty minutes away.The billing of the play was more about the director Steven Berkoff than it was about the actors in it and you could certainly tell it was a Berkoff production. There was much use of mime, extravagant hand gestures and cinematic movement rather than theatrical. The movement occasionally approached the farcical as the actors mimed riding horses in almost exactly the same way as children do.At times though the mime and dance was threateningly effective as they used their silver topped walking sticks to thump the tattoo of hooves together with the drum accompaniment.It was dressed (the only real scenery is costume the castle itself is the scenery), as fin de siecle England with Richard II as a kind of stupider Oscar Wilde. This does have some virtue, the foppish King, the sycophantic court but it is deeply flawed. Wilde would never be as casually venal as Richard II nor so led astray, he was willful and verbally cruel but not physically so. Richard II, as written by Shakespeare, is a vacillating ruler unable to keep all of his Plantagenet cousins in check. In this production he seems merely weak.Bolingbroke in Richard II is an odd character, seemingly the innocent, the traduced cousin exiled for speaking the truth and being forced to invade to secure his lands and property from being siezed by Richard and yet in that siezing almost too easily secures the throne by bloodless coup.For the characters to work in the play, both have to be unsure as to their own motives, both of them find themselves both guilty and traduced and both of them have deeds done in their name which they later repent.This was almost entirely missing in the Berkoff, in fact there are two omissions in the play which remove all sense of this. At the end of the play Bolingbroke is heard, in an echo of Henry and Thomas a Becket, to wish the deposed King were dead and an overhearing courtier goes and despatches Richard. Bolingbroke on learning this falls into a state of confessing piety and resolves to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In the production Richard is killed right enough but I either missed the scene where Bolingbroke wishes it or it wasn't there and the play ends with Richard being carried from the stage and if Bolingbroke declares his pilgramage its lost in the parade.There are not many laughs in this play even if they're looked for but they are there and for the most part this production managed to miss most of them. I know I'm making this out to be a failure and I think it was in lots of regards, but theatrically it did succeed it did tell a story, even if it wasn't entirely the one Shakespeare meant and it was enjoyable even if our bums froze off.I'd recommend it if you enjoy the History Plays but go to Ludlow anyway there's a great deal more than the castle and the Festival. Culture31638@blogcritics.org Mon, 27 Jun 2005 04:59:50 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/08/051207.php theSliverGlobal warming has struggled to the news after the General Election and it being broached in the joint News Conference yesterday with the Very Reverend and Shrub. This morning the Today programme (BBC Radio 4), had an interview with an American scientist still claiming that there's no consensus in the scientific community that warming is actually taking place and that its made worse by us humans, let alone that doing something about it just in case would be a good thing.And this was followed by the President of the Royal Society simply stating that all of the Societies for Science in all of the G8 countries, including the National Academy of Sciences in the USA, agreed that warming was taking place and agreed that measures had to be taken now.I don't know the credentials of the first scientist from the USA but it would be good to know if there are any independant scientists, that is any not funded by industry, in the USA and in the field that have the view that global warming is not taking place.Every story in the USA press up to now has been about finding more data, there is shedloads of data and in the end it doesn't matter an iota whether it was originally caused by industrialisation or whether its a normal change in the climate cycle. None of that matters.What is beginning to matter is that it is now evident (where before it was only suspected), that the current US administration takes active steps to edit published data on global warming. From the New York Times, re-reported in the Minnesota Star Tribune: In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, Philip Cooney removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors already had approved. In most cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.Philip Cooney is is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.If the USA persists in not taking its responsibilities seriously in terms of its own emissions (and I'd agree its not all black, there are reforestation programmes for example), then I can see the rest of the world taking sanctions against the USA until it does recognise and do something about its share of its emissions.The time to begin that pressure is this year at this G8 meeting. It is only by bringing pressure to bear on the economics of energy conservation and greenhouse gases reduction that the USA will ever begin to take it seriously. I don't expect this President to do anything at all but shots need to be fired that will wake up future Presidential hopefuls so that it does become taken seriously.If this does not happen then there is no earthly way that China will ever accept restrictions on its own emissions which at the present rate will exceed the USA's and probably the rest of the world's combined over the next ten years. Politics30715@blogcritics.org Wed, 8 Jun 2005 05:12:07 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/06/035705.php theSliverOther countries run a first past the post electoral system, most notably the US--though in their case it is not for a Parliamentary system, and so the distortions that get thrown up are rarely as wild as they can be in the British system.Labour, with a solidly projected 36% of the popular vote, are still going to end up with a 10% majority of the seats. The Tories, with 33%, get around 50 more seats, but that percentage of the vote is exactly the same as it was last time. The Liberal Democrats get a consistent 6-7% (going as high as 17%) swing against Labour and yet only come out with ten or so more seats.At the same time, the exit poll from MORI is pretty much on the button from the get go. Truly God does play dice (not that there is one).And the Very Reverend looks like he spent the night being pushed against the wall and slapped continuously all the time trying to get in edgeways: 'But its an historic third term for Labour.' And so it is, but one can't help thinking that it's going to be a very, very short term for Mr Blair.We are about to live in interesting times again.As for the Wyre Forest, the Good Doctor survived a massive drain on his vote and is still our MP. Good old Bert Priest (Monster Raving Loony) got 303 votes, including our two, which I think was the highest vote they polled last night. In the end it was a vote of considerable high value, as it cost me nothing and nothing was changed, though nobody noticed. Politics29099@blogcritics.org Fri, 6 May 2005 03:57:05 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/25/175748.php theSliverI understand the Lib-Dems attack on Blair (UK General Election), that he misled the House that the War was illegal and that the Attorney General's advice should be published in full, after all the public purse paid for it.But the argument runs a little thin about him misleading the House as the Lib-Dems and a not inconsiderable number of others all voted against the war anyway. Can you be misled and then ignore it and make the right decision?On the other hand Blair's bleating about his integrity being attacked and that he should be left alone now, because he was the one that had to make the decision and good or bad he made the decision, and in his judgement the right one, is the weakest I've heard him on the subject. That coming after the Paxman interview has him looking vulnerable.Yes he was the one who had to make the decision but he dissembles, the decision wasn't made with the backing of the House, it was made months before, before even September. There is the lie, all the others were necessary because of that Big Lie. Politics28615@blogcritics.org Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:57:48 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/20/034449.php theSliverThe Tories are giving their impression of the man with the noose round his neck, the trapdoor just having opened. This morning they plan on announcing cancelling the revaluation of housing for the purposes of Council Tax. Previously they said they'd close the National College for School Leadership, and when it was pointed out to them that this was the only institution that could grant the qualification that all headteachers need in order to work, they said they'd abolish the qualification as well.I had thought the Tories would survive this campaign without imploding--the last one was marked by the pointless campaign on saving the pound, which was never in danger. This one is going to be remembered for the complete lack of interest that the electorate has in the Tories, regardless of how they try and dog whistle support from any dark and squalid corner Politics28409@blogcritics.org Wed, 20 Apr 2005 03:44:49 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/19/044100.php theSliverNot Seltzer, but Andrew Marr the current Political Editor at the BBC (rumoured to be evacuating that post to become Frost's sucessor). This morning at the end of the Today Programme on Radio 4 there was a little roundup interview with him about the state of play for the Tories.The morning papers are concentrating on how the Tories are stuck on 31-33% and that their immigration pitch is frightening more away than its sucking in. No complicated analysis that, the point of the immigration policy is to remove UKIP as a threat to their vote (no mention of the EU at all in this election from anyone, notice) and their taxation, or reduction of it, is a bribe to wavering Labour voters.It isn't so much that the immigration policy is frightening them away (labour voters can be bigots too), as that Howard just isn't believed on taxes, the Tories have no Gordon Brown.Anyway, I was talking about Andrew Marr. At the end of his summation he said that senior Tories were in a bit of a state as they hadn't made any inroads at all and that there were some difficult tactics they had to decide on as to breaking the deadlock. If they pursued the immigration policy further and emphasised social unrest and disorder then the liberal media would be nailing them day after day and if they brought out the argument that another Labour landslide or large majority would be bad for the country (which it undoubtedly would), then it would appear that they were capitulating.Immediately after this I watched the Tory morning Press Conference on the Parliament channel and, after a few questions zonking them in the gut about their lack of performance and how the immigration policy isn't working with Murdoch from the other journalists, Andrew Marr asked 'What can you say about, as appears to be the case with the state of the polls, another large Labour majority?'.Which Howard dealt with reasonably well without stepping into the trap of seeming to capitulate but basically repeated the Tory message of the day which is 'Do you want more just talk from Tony Blair'.And that prompted me to think, was Andrew Marr actually laying an early trap, heightening the idea that there will be a large majority, or offering an easy ball to Howard to give him the opportunity to show that there really is some fight in the election?I can't tell and in truth it might be a lot simpler than that and that it was just what occurred to him during the summation he made on the radio just two minutes before. Politics28333@blogcritics.org Tue, 19 Apr 2005 04:41:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/13/112638.php theSliverI'd read originally this morning that the Labour Party Manifesto (the Red Book), wasn't available as a pdf, but just a moment looking on the web site and there it was. Or rather, here it is.You will need to be patient in getting it though, it took a few minutes for me, no doubt just the hundreds of thousands of people eager to read it. Or perhaps its just all the bloggers.I can say one thing for certain and that's that it wasn't published for those with an eyesight the far side of 40 years old. I needed to crank up the magnification in Acrobat to 150% to read it comfortably, something a little harder to do with a physical book, but then many with eyesight problems aren't going to be reading it online either.Blair's blurb at the beginning sounds as if it might come out of any major corporations Annual Report, all bright eyed and bushy tailed.Moving on into the detail and we get some of the aspirations. On Employment."Our goal is employment opportunity for all - the modern definition of full employment." Yes, not an actual job just the opportunity for a job. On a day when the unemployment figures went up by 20,000 (let alone Rover and the Longbridge area), which means the overal total topped a million and a half this doesn't seem such a wonderful aspiration.And Education (Our Number 1 Priority, can't help thinking about United Airlines every time I see that), the aspiration is to "We want every secondary school to become a specialist school and existing specialist schools will be able to take on a second specialism. Over time all specialist schools will become extended schools, with full programmes of after-school activities."Now, perhaps I'm just being a little dim but if every school is a specialist and every school should have more than one specialism doesn't that mean they're generalist? I have to be honest the whole idea of school specialisms leaves me cold and with the feeling that if there's a speciality over there then there is a lack of opportunity and provision over here.All in all Labour seem to have dropped actual promises in favour of aspirations. This might be more honest, but it also means they can say, "But that's what we tried to accomplish we didn't say we would". Politics28114@blogcritics.org Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:26:38 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/12/093046.php theSliverThere's a mumble in the media jungle about the first election advert by Labour, featuring the Very Reverend and The Munudger as to when they're going to set up home and get married and what their first child would look like.It didn't quite look like that to me, not quite the 'we have been through so much, we have differences but at heart we love one another', so much as a parody of Alias Smith & Jones. There was an iconic sketch setup in the program where the two faces were very close together and one would say something fairly reasonable, that the other would say something outlandish to and then the return would be even further out on the edge; Smith sweating heavily and Jones beadily sardonic.Politics as satire on 80's comedy, how post modernist and deconstructivist of the Labour Party. Or how cruel of the director Anthony Minghella, not to indicate The English Patient but perhaps The Talented Mr Ripley. Politics28057@blogcritics.org Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:30:46 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/12/090939.php theSliverLast week I sent an email to the Wyre Forest Lib-Dem party asking them why there was no Lib-Dem candidate again this time around and whether there was a pact agreed with the incumbent Dr, or possibly recumbent, or the local Liberal Party. And I was promised a reply from the Chairman.I haven't had one directly, but there is one on the Lib-Dem Wyre Forest site where Simon Hughes says he was asked to make the decision and that after talking with the good Dr. Taylor was content that he would vote in broad agreement with the Lib-Dems and so for this election only would suggest that Lib-Dem voters support Dr. Taylor. Politics28055@blogcritics.org Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:09:39 EDT