RosieBell

Stopping the leaks

I’m reading Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy which I’ll write about soon.  But I do have to note that if those diplomats who sent off long communiqués are now prevented from doing so for state security reasons, it is a great loss to good writing.  Here are the kind of well-informed, observant and waspish - even bitchy - letters that are a delight to receive, like those of Evelyn Waugh, say, or Kingsley Amis.  Who can these talents write to now?  Presumably they didn’t dare email these candid assessments to their intimates, and so officials in the state department were their only readers.  The ambassadors and their staff may have had stern reminders for more discretion, or, I hope, more encryption.  I’ve come across paragraphs that made me laugh out loud.

There is the famous description of the wedding in Dagestan.  It’s brilliant travel writing

Gadzhi's Kaspiysk summer house is an enormous structure on the shore of the Caspian, essentially a huge circular reception room -- much like a large restaurant -- attached to a 40-meter high green airport tower on columns, accessible only by elevator, with a couple of bedrooms, a reception room, and a grotto whose glass floor was the roof of a huge fish tank. The heavily guarded compound also boasts a second house, outbuildings, a tennis court, and two piers out into the Caspian, one rigged with block and tackle for launching jet skis. The house filled up with visitors from all over the Caucasus during the afternoon of August 21. The Chair of Ingushetia's parliament drove in with two colleagues; visitors from Moscow included politicians, businessmen and an Avar football coach. Many of the visitors grew up with Gadzhi in Khasavyurt, including an Ingush Olympic wrestler named Vakha who seemed to be perpetually tipsy. Another group of Gadzhi's boyhood friends from Khasavyurt was led by a man who looked like Shamil Basayev on his day off -- flip-flops, t-shirt, baseball cap, beard -- but turned out to be the chief rabbi of Stavropol Kray.

Describing a lack-lustre Labour conference with added cultural background for an American reader:-

The lack of energy that hung like a pall over the keynote speech was evident elsewhere, either because of low attendance or the party's financial woes. Labour members groused that conference organizers had chosen a bad weekend -- Welsh members stayed away to attend the March 1 St. David's Day festivities back home (St. David is the patron saint of Wales and his feast day is a Welsh nationalist obligation). And the March 2 observance of Mother's Day in Britain put many prospective attendees in the position of choosing between the Labour Party and their "mums." Judging by the turnout, Mum won in many cases.

(Is Mother’s Day so sacrosanct here?  I thought you could get away with a bunch of roses.   Dunno about the reliability of these leaky things. . .)

I know I've read these very late in the day.  However reading diplomatic cables was never really my thing.

Four Fluffy Lions

I had anticipated being disappointed by Four Lions, and I was, but not in the way I had expected.  I had guessed it might pussyfoot around the anti-woman, anti-kafir, anti-Jew part of jihadism, but it didn’t.  The jihadists mouthed off in that strain, but then these jihadists were bumbling buffoons and so they just sounded like dimwits rather than malevolent bigots.  It was like hearing Frank Spencer singing BNP songs. You wouldn’t believe he really meant it.  So I was disappointed about how unfunny it was, and also how soft. 

Four Lions was written by three of the sharpest satirists in the business, Chris Morris, and his co-writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, who wrote Peep Show, which as well as being hilarious is cold and cruel about human egocentricity and self-delusion.  I would have loved it if they had done something like a Peep Show of the would-be Al-Mujahideen.  But instead we were given this comic heist about a band of guys who try to blow things up, and make a different kind of mess from the one they intended.  Some of the audience laughed.  I didn’t.  It was slapstick aimed at twelve year olds.  (I never found Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em funny either.)

The film is a comic thriller with enough suspense to keep you watching for an hour and forty minutes but the tone is odd.   Like the bombers’ bodies at the end  it is all over the place. There were some amusing moments eg when they make martyrdom videos, but that is pretty standard stuff that any competent sketch writer could knock off in an afternoon.  The other amusing bits were the debates about whether someone is a martyr if they kill  themselves by accident, the inventive swearing in Urdu, sub-titled in English, and a scene of a discussion at an ISOC with a panel of Guardian types being interrupted by a rapping jihadist. However the film didn’t build. It was just one pratfall after another.  Only in the final scenes did it approach actual chilling satire when the devout and blameless brother of one of the jihadists is taken off in a container to Egypt for interrogation. 

The writers wanted to make these jihadists “human”, and therefore they didn’t base their characters on the repellent 9/11 bomber Mohammad Atta, or give them the self-righteousness of Mohammad Sidique Khan (that pompous dick lecturing and literally finger wagging at us in his video) or the pontificating Osama Bin Laden.  So we got scenes of Omar, (Riz Ahmed) the ringleader at home, a happy family man with his pretty wife telling stories of martyrdom to his cute son.  Riz Ahmed has that cocky mischievous look Robert Carlyle had in The Full Monty and came across as a likable wide-boy. Barry, the white convert (Nigel Lindsay) was a kind of Ross Kemp, and the others were The Thick One and The Showy Off one out on a lads‘ spree.

According to The Independent:-

Four Lions puts a human face on people who are usually simply demonised – a way, ultimately, of not having to deal with them. It makes us care about Omar and his crew of wannabe martyrs, but does not condone their actions or ideology.

You don’t have to “care” about characters in a film to follow their actions with interest.  You don’t “care” for the characters in The Thick of It, for instance.  Is anyone more “human” than the characters in Spinal Tap, who make arses of themselves and haven‘t a lovable bone in their bodies?  They aren’t “demons” but they aren’t rather sweet nitwits either. 

The writers did not want to take the piss out of Muslims in general or Islam, which is fair enough, but they did miss a satirical trick of, say, having the martyrs combing through the Qu’ran and the rest of the Islamic scriptures to find justification for blowing up random civilians.

I can see why families of the 7/7 victims don’t like this.  I wouldn’t if I was them, with murderous bombers presented as hapless clowns in a  caper, Laurel and Hardy further confused by ideology.   I suppose you could make a bitter comedy about suicide bombers, but this isn’t it.

Chris Morris’s next project:-  a jolly jape about delightful ditzy pranksters in the Ku Klux Klan, who keep tripping over their robes and setting their mates’ hoods on fire with their flaming crosses, while they mouth off about Barack Obama being a mud person, Jewish and a Muslim as well. Starring Ben Stiller as the Grand Wizard and Reese Witherspoon as his feisty girlfriend.  The well-loved English comic actor Nick Frost has a cameo appearance as Nick Griffin.

ASBO Goldilocks

Usual serendipity – I was looking for something else on the internet but found this:-

Goldilocks and the Three Bears
By Roald Dahl

This famous wicked little tale
Should never have been put on sale.
It is a mystery to me
Why loving parents cannot see
That this is actually a book
About a brazen little crook.
Had I the chance I wouldn't fail
To clap young Goldilocks in jail.
Now just imagine how you'd feel
If you had cooked a lovely meal,
Delicious porridge, steaming hot,
Fresh coffee in the coffee-pot,
With maybe toast and marmalade,
The table beautifully laid,
One place for you and one for dad,
Another for your little lad.
Then dad cries, 'Golly-gosh! Gee-whizz!
'Oh cripes! How hot this porridge is!
'Let's take a walk along the street
'Until it's cool enough to eat.'
He adds, 'An early morning stroll
'Is good for people on the whole.
'It makes your appetite improve
'It also helps your bowels to move.'
No proper wife would dare to question
Such a sensible suggestion,
Above all not at breakfast-time
When men are seldom at their prime

No sooner are you down the road
Than Goldilocks, that little toad
That nosy thieving little louse,
Comes sneaking in your empty house.
She looks around. She quickly notes
Three bowls brimful of porridge oats.
And while still standing on her feet,
She grabs a spoon and starts to eat.
I say again, how would you feel
If you had made this lovely meal
And some delinquent little tot
Broke in and gobbled up the lot?
But wait! That's not the worst of it!
Now comes the most distressing bit.
You are of course a house proud wife,
And all your happy married life
You have collected lovely things
Like gilded cherubs wearing wings,
And furniture by Chippendale
Bought at some famous auction sale.
But your most special valued treasure,
The piece that gives you endless pleasure
Is one small children's dining-chair,
Elizabethan, very rare.
It is in fact your joy and pride,
Passed down to you on grandma's side.
But Goldilocks, like many freaks,
Does not appreciate antiques.
She doesn't care, she doesn't mind,
And now she plonks her fat behind
Upon this dainty precious chair,
And crunch! It busts beyond repair.
A nice girl would at once exclaim,
'Oh dear! Oh heavens! What a shame!'
Not Goldie. She begins to swear.
She bellows, 'What a lousy chair!'
And uses one disgusting word
That luckily you've never heard.
(I dare not write it, even hint it.
Nobody would ever print it.)
You'd think by now this little skunk
Would have the sense to do a bunk.
But no. I very much regret
She hasn't nearly finished yet.
Deciding she would like a rest,
She says, 'Let's see which bed is best.'
Upstairs she goes and tries all three.
(Here comes the next catastrophe.)
Most educated people choose
To rid themselves of socks and shoes
Before they clamber into bed.
But Goldie didn't give a shred.
Her filthy shoes were thick with grime,
And mud and mush and slush and slime.
Worse still, upon the heel of one
Was something that a dog had done.
I say once more, what would you think
If all this horrid dirt and stink
Was smeared upon your eiderdown
By this revolting little clown?
(The famous story has no clues
To show the girl removed her shoes.)
Oh, what a tale of crime on crime!
Let's check it for a second time

Crime One, the prosecution's case:
She breaks and enters someone's place

Crime Two, the prosecutor notes:
She steals a bowl of porridge oats

Crime Three: She breaks a precious chair
Belonging to the Baby Bear.

Crime Four: She smears each spotless sheet
With filthy messes from her feet.

A judge would say without a blink,
'Ten years hard labour in the clink!'
But in the book, as you will see,
The little beast gets off scot-free,
While tiny children near and far
Shout, 'Goody-good! Hooray! Hurrah!'
'Poor darling Goldilocks!' they say,
'Thank goodness that she got away!'
Myself, I think I'd rather send
Young Goldie to a sticky end.
'Oh daddy!' cried the Baby Bear,
'My porridge gone! It isn't fair!'
'Then go upstairs,' the Big Bear said,
'Your porridge is upon the bed.
'But as it's inside mademoiselle,
'You'll have to eat her up as well.'

Well, it made me laugh

For Radio 4 listeners. 

The Secret World.  Hear Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and Rev. Roy Jenkins form a conspiracy against the usurpers who are taking over their Thought for the Day. 

Sgt Kosher's Jewish Hearts Club Band

This is a postcard that I bought from the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.  Click on it if you want to see it in more detail.

Two reasons for being sorry that Sarah Palin was not voted in

1. She has been a great unifier.  Commenters and bloggers from right to left, who normally spit and snarl at each other, have been as one in saying how awful she is, how scarey that a bible literalist and ignoramus with the geographical knowledge of a dormouse should have a chance of becoming President.  Only the contrarians like Spiked, the zany Camille Paglia and raving right wingers like Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter have been leaping to her defence, or rather, kicking those who dissed her as a load of snobs.  It seems that it takes a snotty elitist to be outraged that a high up politico in the USA does not know what the First Amendment refers to.  (Even we unAmericans know what it’s about, and it’s one thing we regard as much to the credit of the Yanks, that First Amendment).

There's a story by Saki where the women at a house party, who normally quarrel with each other, unite in hating a rude woman guest.  At the end it's revealed that the woman guest was hired to be a focus of the other women's hatred and consequent fellow feeling. Sarah Palin filled the role of the rude woman guest.

 2. Everyone admires Tina Fey for her imitations of Sarah Palin. I’m sorry to have missed out on what that clever impressionist Ronni Ancona would have made of her.

After the fall of Margaret Thatcher woman impressionists were crying in the dole queue.

The Man of Humour

Musab Bora, the opposite of the terrible lyricist, given that he is clear-headed, amusing and can write, has this to say that about radical Islamism:-

Now, most members of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir are perfectly ordinary people unless you start talking about religion or politics, after which, you will want a refund for the time spent in their company. Their arguments remind one of the old Gary Larson cartoon where, in the vet's manual under "Horse Medicine", the remedy for every single minor ailment is "Shoot the horse". The Hizb have the same philosophy, but each topic can be reduced to "Reinstate the Caliphate". However, when Ed Husain speaking about his experiences within Hizb ut-Tahrir, and his solution to the world's ills ("buy my book"), I realised I did not agree with him either.

Probably not, as Ed Husain is a solemn, devout fellow.  In fact, he's an excellent fellow, and I love to hear his elegant drawl with which he fillets the Muslim Council of Britain.  But Musab Bora is a piss-taker.  He has a spoof Islamist site over here.

His account of the easy solution to the world's ills reminds me of encounters with the vanguard in the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Revolutionary Communist Group and the rest of them.  All problems would disappear once the workers owned the means of production.  I suppose this mind set is for ever with us.  You know you're in a bad way when it gains power and the piss-takers are put into jail or worse.

Guys like Musab Bora and Ed Husain cheer me up.  Emerging from the troubles between British Muslims and the rest of us there are fresh voices that have a good deal of value, light-hearted or serious-minded, to add to the national conversation.

The Fabulous Conchords

The Conchords are clever and funny.  They are also charming and lovable.  Scoring four out of four of those attributes is not that common.

Smeatomania

A bit of Glaswegian vainglory after the attempted bombing of the airport last week.  This email is making the rounds:-

If this had happened in a US airport, compared to Glasgow :-

Eyewitness accounts:

America: "Oh my God! There was a man on fire; he was running about, I  just ran for my life. I thought I was gonna die, he got so close to me"

Glasgow: "C*nt wis running aboot on fire, so a ran up n gave him a  good boot in the baws, then decked him"

America: "I just wanna get home, away from here, I just wanna get home, and  I thought I was gonna die"

Glasgow: "Here shug, am no leaving here till am oan a f*ckin' plane!"

America: "There was pandemonium, people were running in all directions, we didn't know what was happening, I thought I was gonna die"

Glasgow: "F*ck this fir a kerry oan, moan we'll get a pint in"

America: "We thought he was gonna blow us all up he had a gas canister, and was trying to get into his trunk, I thought we were gonna die, I just ran for my life"

Glasgow: "A swaggered by the motor that wis on fire, and the dafty couldnae  even open his boot, he wis in fire annaw so a ran up n gave him a good boot to the baws"

America: "There was this huge explosion, it sounded like war, thought I was gonna die.

Glasgow: "There wis a bang, yi know when yi throw BO basher intae a fire it  wis like that"

America: I'm too traumatised even to speak, I thought I was gonna die"

Glasgow: "Here mate, gies 2 minutes till a phone ma auld dear, if am gonna be oan the telly a want her tae tape it"

And finally, two quotes from an eye-witness. John Smeaton  (these are real):
 
The interviewer asked "What message do you have for the bombers" - he replied:
 
"This is Glasgow we'll just set about ya"
 
John done an interview on CNN and they asked how he restrained the guy and  he said "Me and other folk were just tryin to get the boot in and  some other guy banjoed him!

A few reflections on this:-

1. The Glaswegian speech seems to be based on listening to real people, the American on episodes of Friends.
2. Unfair on Americans who fought back on the Flight 93 aircraft on 9/11. 
3. Smeaton is a folk hero. Will he end up as tabloid fodder?

Headlines:-

Smitten by Smeaton: my night of passion
Three in a bed romp with Smeaton
He's no hero:- Smeaton love rat shock
Smeaton's love child speaks
Smeaton's unbeaten drug habit
Smeaton in rehab

Ah well, let's enjoy the botched attempt at mass murder while we can.  The next time they might not give us such a hearty laugh.

More Fanatic Fun!

For more fanatic fun listen to the Now show (catch the opening few minutes for a few chuckles and about 25 minutes in for a song from the great Mitch Benn):-

"The one thing that we have learned fanatics is the one thing that fanatics really don't like is not being fought, they live for that, it's not being killed, that's what they were looking forward to, it's being giggled at so while we're here frankly, let's

Oh dear
That didn't go so well
So what you are going to do now?
Everybody heard your blood-curdling yell
What was that you said, death to the - ow
Dear me
You thought you might be
With 72 virgins taking turns
But here you are in hospital
With 72 armed guards
And with 72% burns
Oh no that was not how it was meant to go
And such future as you've got looks grim
Look on the bright side, you gave us all a laugh
Oh Al Qaeda have you any more like him?