Characterisation at last, developing sub-plots at last, and genuine horror – who would have thought that this could have been written by series creator Russell T Davies? RTD has his serious hat on, to this opening episode of the daily mini-series’ considerable advantage, giving unexpected depth to Jack & Ianto’s relationship, stable characterisation to Gwen and twists and turns he hasn’t shown himself capable on Doctor Who for many a year. Torchwood has suffered from insufficient attention to character and sub-plot since the series’ inception – despite the risks of making series 3 a mini series, keeping it one story long looks like a brilliant idea after all.
The children of earth are stopping, stopping and saying ‘we are coming’ in unison across the planet. But who is coming? Who took the children in 1965? What is/was the 456 and why does the Home Office Permanant Secretary John Frobisher (Peter Capaldi) want to kill Captain Jack for Torchwood’s stumbling onto a connection to it? Are the 456 the aliens on the way? If so, why put a bomb in Jack’s stomach and blow Torchwood HQ to kingdom come? Clem MacDonald (Paul Copley) might give them some answers, if they can keep him and themselves alive long enough! It’s an episode of creepiness, inexplicable double dealing and not just strong character interaction, but standout moments too. Eve Myles seems finally comfortable as Gwen, and although Barrowman is clearly not playing the Captain Jack he started out as in Who, he’s still hamming it to the limit and has charisma to spare. And to RTD’s credit he finally gives shape to his and Ianto’s relationship, showing the serious love Ianto has for his immortal boss. Will they embrace what they’ve got? Will Gwen’s baby survive? What will the future be for Torchwood at the end of this story (in 4 days’ time)? I’m looking forward to finding out!
A lot is starting to come into focus, most of which is in the audioboo. In print though I wanted to look at my final point – feeling negative about good things, be it my husband, my meditation teacher, my boss – having thoughts that they in some way don’t like me or don’t appreciate what I bring, when nothing could be further from the truth. In going round the group for feedback from last week, Alistair took his time to get to me. A thought came up that I wasn’t appreciated, I started feeling negative, despite when he did get to me rather thoroughly validating what I had to say. This happened at work last week, it also happens around Tom. It’s part of my mental landscape, and it’s interesting becoming aware of it, it’s a response to my self-image again.
Of course the very last point really was a doozy. My deeply rooted need to rebel, which has caused so many problems, finally came into sharp focus as a response to my own, self-imposed processes of control, be it of my breath, my walking or anything else. It’s very simple, and one of the most important realisations I’ve had about my self in my entire life. Approaching Alistair’s mindfulness meditation course when things are good really is paying off dramatically.
We’re apathetic, and it’s both costing and shaming us. Remember Michael Causer’s brutal murder? The nigh-dismissive court case in its wake? Remember how Jacqui Smith tried every trick in the book to send Mehdi Kazemi back to Iran and a probable death? Seen the stats on homophobic bullying in schools? Noticed the ultra homophobes the Tories are palling with in Strasbourg? That the BNP have two EU Parliament seats? Well after a history of political campaigning, this year’s London LGBT Pride was about partying.It hasn’t gone down well in some quarters:
Peter Tatchell, of the lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) human rights group, OutRage, and a patron of Pride London, condemned this year’s slogan “Come and Play” as “totally anodyne” and accused the LGBT community of “huge apathy and complacency”.
He said: “I’m shocked that Pride London has hardly mentioned the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots on its website or in its magazine. Most of the content is about entertainment and partying. To ignore and downplay this important anniversary is an insult to the veterans who began our momentous fight for freedom.”
Things may be better, equality laws are all over the statute books and gay people are in government. But kids are still being bullied and killed for who they are. It’s disrespectful to them, as to those who got us here to be concentrating on ‘playing’. As Tatchell himself has pointed out recently, because of our unique process of ‘coming out’ we are able to offer an unmatched social/political analysis of the world around us – why dumb that down? The Proposition 8 calamity in California has shown an entire generation in the States that our current rights and acceptance could disappear in a stroke -we in the UK should take it as the warning that it is, and move on from our complacency.
Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester called on gay people to “repent and be changed” saying the Church of England must not be “rolled over by culture.” Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell called on the Bishop to “repent his homophobia.”
Dr Nazir-Ali told the Sunday Telegraph: “We want to uphold the traditional teaching of the Bible. We believe that God has revealed his purpose about how we are made.
“People who depart from this don’t share the same faith. They are acting in a way that is not normative according to what God has revealed in the Bible.
“The Bible’s teaching shows that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the way to express our sexual nature.
“We welcome homosexuals, we don’t want to exclude people, but we want them to repent and be changed.”
He added: “We want to hold on to the traditional teaching of the Church. We don’t want to be rolled over by culture and trends in the Church. We want a movement for renewal. We need a reformation of the Church and the life of the Communion.”
‘We welcome homosexuals – we want to stop them being homosexuals.’ Anyone else see what’s wrong with this picture? I think it’s shocking that such a senior Churchman should actually admit he rejects social change. He doesn’t want to be rolled over by culture? Sounds to me like he picks and chooses which culture he accepts and which he doesn’t – not very Godly if you ask me. He has no choice – the clock can’t be turned back to a repressive time when gay people couldn’t be out, nor are we living in a society as Iris Robinson would wish, where we could fix people’s natures as they suit us. Is either option what Christianity is supposed to be about? An Asian man who must understand discrimination should be ashamed of himself to preach homophobia, particularly when his religion does nothing of the sort.
I can still remember my first Pride in 1994. Stonewall’s Michael Cashman said ‘we are everywhere’ – I’d never been so inspired in my life. Nowadays Pride is only faintly political, although there were political interests on display in the parade – largely basing themselves on Stonewall’s campaign against homophobic bullying in schools – but we really did show we were everywhere. Gay Christians, Muslims, Hindus, soldiers, nurses, teachers, you name it – being gay was very clearly mainstream in ways it wasn’t in 1994.
I have my own reservations about the event being apolitical, much of which I’ll explore in my next post, but Tom suggested a very good point about it yesterday: that isn’t the way forward anymore. The haters really aren’t going to be swayed by Pride marches or gay visibility – not the true ones anyway. That’s down to better policing and better community organising, and of course the more the police for example are integrated into gay community events like Pride the better. So the awful standard of stewarding ultimately didn’t matter that much – it was not just a party but a great event, further mainstreaming gay visibility in areas of public life previously unthinkable. The usual Christianist haters were there, but barely noticeable this time, and clearly ever more out of step with the public mood. Being out is a good thing.
Finally. Finally Roger Federer steps into a league of his own. His defeat of Andy Roddick in the Wimbledon final 16-14 in the final set won him his fifteenth Grand Slam title, restored him as world no.1 and gave him the world record for the greatest number of Grand Slam wins, finally stepping out from Pete Sampras’ very long shadow. I for one couldn’t be more thrilled. He’s finally won the French Open, is still operating at this level after six consecutive years, and is now by any statistical measure the greatest tennis player ever. Here’s how he got there:
Where to now? Will Sampras be proven right? Eighteen Slams? Nineteen Slams? How wonderful that the man with such a delightful game, can now play for the fun of it. History’s been defeated.
Khamenei and Ahmadinejad may begin to unclench their fist, as isolation and sullen defiance grow, in a bid to deliver what they would not allow the reformists to initiate: détente with America.
Obama must leave them dangling for the foreseeable future. He should refrain indefinitely from talk of engagement.
To do otherwise would be to betray millions of Iranians who have been defrauded and have risked their lives to have their votes count. To do otherwise would be to allow Khamenei to gloat that, in the end, what the United States respects is force. To do otherwise would be to embrace the usurpers.
The slow arc of moral justice is fine but Iran is gripped by the fierce urgency of now. Obama, the realist on whom idealism is projected, is obliged to make a course correction.
It’s an interesting analysis. The internal battle within the regime is actually a race to deliver engagement with Obama – just look at how Ahmadinejad is sniping at him, yet outright threatening Britain; it’s a diversion. A government delivering relations with Obama, legitimised by people’s votes, rather than ‘by God’, would (Khamenei & Ahmadinejad believe) bring down the theocratic revolution. Yet the irony of the stolen election continues – Mousavi never campaigned on a secular platform – the ‘green revolution’’s semi-secular platform has arisen in defiance of the regime’s brutality and fraud. Obama must indeed continue not dealing with the fraudsters, and let moderate Iranians at all levels of that regime and society correct what has become an historic mistake, by removing Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. A true Islamic republic, were it to happen, would change everything. It’s not out of reach.
Britain’s new Home Secretary may have a cockney cheeky chappy ‘thing’ going on, but don’t be fooled – he’s just as authoritarian as his mad predecessor:
The introduction of identity cards is a simple means of helping you, and I, protect our unique identity from fraudsters. Identity fraud costs the UK economy £1.2bn on average each year and causes misery for tens of thousands who fall victim. At a cost of just £30, the identity card is a cheap way of helping fight back. So, despite the headlines that would have readers think otherwise, I’m not scrapping identity cards – I’m committed to delivering them more quickly to the people who will benefit most.
I know that some of you have real concerns about the government’s motives for introducing the card. When I announced this week that I would make identity cards wholly voluntary it was because I believe that there are real benefits that will make the card an attractive proposition for many people. I think the case for identity cards has been made, but understand that getting a card will be a big decision for some people. Easy or hard, I think it should be a voluntary decision, one that people choose to take, because they agree and welcome the benefits an identity card will provide.
He thinks the case for ID cards has been made, showing a now typical New Labour disdain for an electorate which thoroughly rejects them. He’s rebranded them a means of protecting oneself from ID fraud, yet doesn’t explain why a governmental National Identity Register is needed to do so, nor how prosecuting those on the register for not updating their details could ever be a helpful move. But of course Alan Johnson is lying when he says they’re wholly voluntary. If you’re a teenager just try to get a student loan (which they’re already poised to devalue) without one. When you renew your passport just watch the administrator’s face crease if you refuse them permission to add you to the ID register – card, or no card (and the card itself was never the issue per se). Henry Porter gets it right when he says:
The ID card is primarily a scheme that enables government to identify you, and that is made clear in a dubious little paper called Safeguarding Identity, produced by the Home Office last week, which describes how the ID card and the transformational government scheme mesh together in one glorious structure where data about the individual passes between departments. That is the prize and why they will use any argument and spend any amount to achieve it. Every case mounted in favour of ID cards has been convincingly knocked down. It will not protect us from terrorism, as Johnson concedes, and it won’t do anything to stop crime. Its effect on benefit fraud is limited.
There is something terribly Foucaultian about this. A government which desperately wants people to think it’s learned its lessons is creating a system of punishment, merely to permit you to be who you are. It’s one of the most authoritarian proposals I’ve ever heard of in the history of the United Kingdom. So because people are stupid and leave their credit card statements in the bin instead of shredding them, I should have my very identity controlled and determined by a state eager to use my data without my specific consent, throughout its framework? That should terrify and appall everyone. A government’s promise of more efficient data protection, but whose track record of data handling and database development is so incompetent, should also ring alarm bells everywhere. Johnson’s little document cited above is an insidious, bureaucracy-driven attempt to redefine the very meaning of identity in the twenty-first century (page 28), and he’s clearly bought into it. If so there is no way he’ll let ID cards remain ‘voluntary’, and we must all resist ‘Safeguarding Identity’ at all costs. Observe why:
3.32. The vision for the NIS [National Identity Service] is that it will become an essential part of everyday life; underpinning interactions and transactions between individuals, public services and businesses and supporting people to protect their identity. The NIS will do this primarily through further ‘identity services’: the processes and tools with which people can prove or check identity.
New Labour’s proscription for the future: all normal human interaction is to be moderated by the government. I don’t know about you, but that’s not what I understand a government is supposed to be for. This strategy is a target-driven nightmare, the consequences of which appear not to have been considered by a Home Office completely out of step with the real world.
A definite case of preference today. Very difficult indeed to rest in the breath – sounds I didn’t like were bringing up strong feelings, generating a thought factory, and I noticed a very strong impulse to give in to the thoughts and feelings. But I did keep returning to the breath and was aware of how peaceful it felt, whilst not trusting it somehow.
It’s not surprising I suppose – it’s how I’ve coped with things I don’t like (or otherwise respond to strongly) my whole life. This period of meditation feels more real than others – I’m actually looking right at what I’m really like, trusting far more than before and idealising less. I allowed these thoughts and feelings not to be changed – this morning at least I wasn’t as hateful of myself as I know I can be!
I loved this film. Not just because it was so well written, nor because it was so well acted. ‘Rudo y Cursi’ draws on Mexican culture, which is as much a player in this film as stars Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna. I must confess I didn’t know what to think before arriving at the cinema – was it a comedy? A spoof even? Would the humour translate? The answer was far more complicated – it is indeed a comedy, but also very much a tragedy and a morality play, all wrapped up in one. And writer/director Carlos Cuarón skilfully has you never quite knowing how it is going to end, despite its light touch.
Tato (Bernal, above) and Beto (Luna) are two half brothers eager to make it big. Tato is a genius football striker, Beto a flawless goalkeeper and they indeed get discovered by a sleazy talent scout with a heart of gold. Eager to make his own fortunes he throws the boys into the big time in Mexico City, where all their dreams come true. Tato, quickly nicknamed Cursi, hooks up with a supermodel and plays for his country. Beto, nicknamed (you guessed it) Rudo rapidly becomes the country’s greatest goalkeeper, and it gets him into all the best parties where he can indulge his love of gambling. Tato in turn much prefers singing, and influences his way to a hit record. But fame is transitory, the distractions are many and both boys end up on self-destructive paths. Will Tato get his mojo back? Will Beto escape the gangsters? By bouncing gently between morality play and comedy you never really know.
The acting I must say is sublime – Bernal is beautiful and charismatic, and plays Tato with an innocence, and flawed sense of integrity. He as Luna risks becoming a stereotype at multiple points through the movie, yet both walk a more intelligent path with their performances. The ending could have been soppy, yet Luna takes that moment to show Beto’s true strength of character, which comes all-too-late. You get the sense that these characters are very real, and in only 100 minutes director Cuarón brings you into their very richly detailed world, from their relationships to their families, to their extended families. It’s rare to have such an eye to detail in modern filmmaking and it lifts ‘Rudo y Cursi’ above most other fare. So the voiceover is questionable, but it does add a positive tone to the film’s darker undercurrent. It’s an intelligent piece of work and I couldn’t recommend it more highly. 9/10
