Black Mischief
Reflections on the Rainbow Nation, South Africa ‘You know,’ he added reflectively, ‘we’ve got a much easier job now than we should have had fifty years ago. If we’d had to modernize a country then it would have meant constitutional monarchy, bi-cameral legislature, proportional representation, women’s suffrage, independent judicature, freedom of the Press, referendums . . .’ ‘What is all that?’ asked the Emperor. ‘Just a few ideas that have ceased to be modern.’ (Evelyn Waugh, Black Mischief, (1932), p. 128). South Africa’s once diamondiferous soil was always leavened with blood, running down the anthill to the lowest point of Kimberley’s…
Continue Reading →The Guns of August Revisited
(By Barbara W. Tuchman, 1962) Tuchman’s classic history of the stirrings of WWI deserves a fresh look, when one compares some of the events leading to and culminating in August 1914 with some of the events leading to and maybe culminating in August 2023: 1910: Edward VII dies / 2022: Elizabeth II dies. A comet appears in both years (“When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes” – “Julius Caesar”) “All the old buoys which have marked the channel of our lives seem to have been swept away.” (Lord Esher, 1910)….
Continue Reading →Bandt Musik
"Google it, mate"
Leader of the Australian Greens, Mr. Adam Bandt, is on record as wanting – a Treaty; A Republic (for which he called on the day QEII died); eliminating coal and gas as sources of energy; wiping student debt and funding free education for all; a cheap housing construction orgy; tenure for all; an end to all forms of discrimination (including the good ones), and defenestrating the Australian flag. So here’s our Song for Adam (with apologies to Stuart and Marco): [For Michelle] “Well I’m standing here looking at you What do I see? I’m looking straight through It’s so sad,…
Continue Reading →She Said
(2022) Yes, it’s all ‘She Said’ in this tedious, overblown 90 minute polemic from director Maria Schrader. Anything ‘he says’ is misogynistic and stupid, ipso facto, because the speaker is a man. The scene is set early on with gratuitous Trump-bashing. Then whispers about Harvey Weinstein’s predatory behaviour are heard and leapt upon voraciously by our female reporters (they are, apparently, the only ones doing a real job apart from, possibly, Anderson Cooper who is also on to it, (no surprises there)). Everyone’s aghast. The ‘casting couch’ is such an evil and new concept (but only to be expected). Weinstein…
Continue Reading →Happy Valley : BBC One
No-one does grief and resentment like Sarah Lancashire. (See Last Tango in Halifax, BBC One 2012, series 3, episodes 3 & 4). After Happy Valley this sterling actor can add loathing, despair and massive disappointment to her CV. Indeed, no-one in Happy Valley experiences much of anything else. The West Yorkshire grit, damp, poverty, addiction, disease, treachery and crime with which they all live is made palpable and visceral in this most excellent 3 series show. The only person to escape the poverty bit at least, is the one rich man in the village (see The Vicar of Dibley) –…
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