8th Circle of Hell

Watch itvlocal.com, London’s local news, tonight(23 May) and you'll understand why the notion of hosting an Olympic games in this city is going to be a farce if not a death trap. Not exponential but excremental! I boarded a District line train around 6.30pm tonight only to be told that there was a signal failure at Victoria as WELL as the reported Bermondsey fire. Pretty hot down there, too. You know what Mr and Miss New Labour; shove your ASBO (anti-social behaviour order) right up your arse till it cripples you. And then experience how well your social transport system deals with the afflicted! Almost every single day there's a nightmare. [Today, Thursday 24 May absolutely crap Metropolitan line due to another signal failure]. And no judicial court in the land will side with your view of things. And to be fair with comment:
Tube and bus plans to help beat the heat this summer
New Victoria line train unveiled to the public
Not much use if we'll all trapped down there sweltering, though.
All the way from Japan: lessons in how to run a railway


I dredged myself out of my depressive slime to write this blog. I'm not looking for sympathy only understanding and intelligence. I really feel like the character out of The Bothersome Man released by the ICA this week. He commits suicide only to find himself in a New Labour Hell. Everything is green in the valley (but no Welsh dissenters please or you'll be phone tapped by central government). So boring is his new 'happy' existence that he throws himself under an underground train. But being New Labour heaven (albeit in Norway), he can't die. Dripping blood, he returns to his understanding New labour wife who, oblivious to his condition, asks if he wants to go 'go-carting' on the week-end. Sounds like my Housing Association once again. I'm very drunk whilst writing this, and who could blame me! Nobody remotely sane at any rate. So, with more blood dripping I'll try to review (honestly) some more DVD's for you.

For Father's Day, there's a really great set of Clint Eastwood movies (half of which he's directed!!!) released June 11, and they don’t duplicate anything from the 8-disc Legacy set from 2002. 8 discs for £39.99 (or even cheaper if you don't look hard enough!) and much better value than Universal’s other Clint Eastwood: Western Icon Collection (2 discs just released in the States). All titles except Breezy will also be released individually on 4 June(RRP: £9.99). I didn't get any review copies, but the boxed set seems like bloody good value to me (you can't even bootleg them for that price!). What can you say? An actor who comes through all that shit to be a world famous actor and director and mayor of the town he lives in. Have another drink, Clint.
NPR (National Public Radio interview from 2000)

Flags of Our Fathers & Letters from Iwo Jima DVD UK released July 9.


As you’ve probably gathered, I don’t watch that much TV but the other night the BBC proved a treat. First up was the first part of Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain. Now forget (or not) the fact that Mr.Marr looks like a Lord of the Rings groupie, and concentrate on his fantastic juxtaposing of historical facts. It’s well in the spirit of this blog actually. Good bit on the rise and fall of Ealing Studios. Passport to Pimlico (48), unmissable and very contemporary; Whiskey Galore (49), same time as the Saraband for Dead Lovers I reviewed, all culminating in the For Sale sign going up in 1955. Ask any Brit film exec and they’ll tell you times haven’t changed that much.

Which reminds me, The Last King of Scotland about the Scottish doctor befriended by Idi Amin is just out on DVD. I’ve seen the film but not a chance to view the DVD. It looks well packed with extras, though; with an audio commentary I’d love to hear because it was quite an Ealingesque feat to get produced. It’s probably what the industry calls a ‘break-out’ film, i.e. one that transcends its national boundaries making world-wide sales. An inevitability of ‘break-out’ is that it’s a bit Hollywood, but that’s not necessarily an evil thing! And inevitably a documentary take, General Idi Amin Dada (Autoportrait) directed by Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female) back in 1974, is even more compelling. Former Brit colony Uganda gained independence in 1962 and Amin’s popular coup d'état was in 1971. The soundtrack is his own accordion music and his English is utterly unique “I think this might be captain of crocodiles. [clapping his hands] He understand me now. He’s moving. And we are now going, actually, to the headquarters of crocodile where they produce more children. And it is a very attraction.” Like Dr. Doolittle, he talks to the animals trying to understand their eating habits. No wonder Schroeder tried to keep an intimate distance. Tangentalising even further, same DVD company Eureka have just issued Pabst’s 1929 silent film Diary of a Lost Girl(Tagebuch einer Verlorenen). Thymian (the iconic Louise Brooks) is unwittingly seduced and made pregnant by her father’s assistant. Packed off to a reformatory she eventually finds salvation in an upmarket brothel. When you think about the time it was made it’s really quite extraordinary. And Pabst’s use of editing and attention to detail make watching it a treat rather than a chore 80 years on. Interesting to contrast this with the ordinary Berlin lives of People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) from the same year (great new score from my colleague Elena Kats-Chernin), and part of Camden Arts Centre’s free film events. Moving on and back to Andrew Marr’s Britain.

The details are great and horrifyingly depressing. You forget, or never knew, that severe food rationing continued well into the 1950’s. Tins of the fish snoek (better than the human biscuits of Soylent Green I guess) “a vile, disgusting mush” were later sold off by the government as fish bait or cat food. Steam locomotives were proudly displayed at the Festival of Britain while France had just gone electric the year before. Socialism gave way to Churchill’s “government of national nostalgia...the new Elizabethan age” in 1951 with notions of “the Commonwealth, a golden future, and a British California”. But at least the country had a National Health Service (NHS) thanks to the socialists. Next up on the BBC was Stephen Fry’s QI. I don’t think BBC America screen this, and if they did, it’d probably be at 3am in the morning. This is a fun, highly educational two-aside panel game deflating conventional wisdom. Hardly quantum physics. Or is it? It’s a myth that Eskimos are all Inuits and that they have 32 words for ice and snow. Four words for snow suffice but they need 32 demonstrative pronouns. So there you go.

A number of celebs tried to debunk their flat-earthist colleagues at the TV BAFTA’s Sunday night. Joan Rivers was a naughty girl showing us the back of her BAFTA when she’d been ordered many times not to. It wasn’t really hers but after her performance art stint she managed to make off with it anyway. Graham Norton was in fine fettle as MC. Granada’s Andy Harries (the real mover, shaker behind The Queen) was justly honoured, and Richard (Four Weddings and a Funeral) Curtis, pooh-poohed Bob Dylan in favour of someone called Gilbert from the 70’s, and recommended that we all watch more TV to become better people. Shades of Soylent Green masquerading as socialism? Surely not. Must’ve been that curry I had at lunchtime.

Anyhow, back to my Tuesday night’s Beebing (English verb that is obvious to all including Eskimos by now): oh, we were already there. Was: an Omnibus on maverick composer Scott Walker. Most of the material is in the feature length 30th Century Man. “Great music to fuck to,” as one interviewee sagely mused. And if it wasn’t for “bleak 60’s England” as Walker put it, he wouldn’t have started writing. Walker has forever been one of my heroes. What can I say? He fell off the map for many years (or was he pushed) and most people outside the business still don’t know who he is. We’ve had Sting doing Dowland, now it’s time for an Elizabethan Age revival of Walker. Vivat hex!