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The Hours

I know it's New Year's Eve, but I gotta post this.

"To look life in the face, always to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last, to know it, to love it, for what it is and then to put it away."  film quote

BBC2 has just shown the film, The Hours which I first saw back in 2003. I didn't have a blog then so I couldn't reflect on it ...

On the surface this is a film about the writer, Virginia Woolf and her fight against mental illness and depression; it's about sexuality and conformity explored in the lives of three women. But on another level it's about one character's realisation that her long years of blossoming happiness were merely a euphemism for one wonderful but finite moment in time; it exposes the superficial habits we construct to act out society's stereotypes; and it shows the intense, flawed and lonely people that we actually are.

Woolf faces the threat of her own extinction through madness. A mother abandons her children to leave an American Dream, one that is incapable of recognising her sexuality. A hostess struggles to confront her superficial life, as she sees the only meaning she's known, slipping away.

I can think of no other film that presents society's triviality in such bleak contrast to the intensity of our lives.

I love:

• that Nicole Kidman is virtually unrecognisable
• Philip Glass' mesmerising and hypnotic scoring of the soundtrack
• that everyone in this film acts
• the way these three separate, yet so directly connected lives intertwine
• that at least one reviewer really hates this film

Perhaps there can be no beauty in the absence of death? Perhaps this is a necessary fate, that those who are unable to conform must sacrifice themselves to our collective triviality?

"It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses."  Virginia Woolf

Exasperation at the Easy Internet Café

A visit to an Easy Internet Café with a £2 coin can prove a challenge.

The ticket machines in this particular café don't carry any helpful instructions telling you which coins they accept. Several attempts with a £2 coin proved fruitless, so after having climbed the two flights of stairs to the floor with the access points, I trudged back down to the Nero coffee shop on the ground floor and asked Mr coffee shop owner - the one with the oiled haircut - if he could exchange my £2 coin for two £1 coins. He sighed and somewhat mockingly told me there was a change machine upstairs at the very end of the room. "Oh", I said and went looking. After climbing the stairs and walking the length of the building I found a slim, grey change machine, read the notice on the front that said it didn't accept £2 coins and said, "Hrumph!". Again, I trudged down to report my frustration to Mr Coffee with the oiled haircut who responded with a pleasant stream of guttural Scottish:

"It's no ma business pal, see we only rent the space, we dinna know how it works. So it's no ma problem.
Here, I'll gie ye two pound coins but am dae'ing ye a real favour cos am no supposed tae open the till, see!

So I climbed back up the stairs and finally, pressed the green button then inserted my pound coins into the ticket machine ... and out they popped again in the reject slot! After the third time I began giggling - I mean what the f£$&!" are you supposed to do?

Then I thought, "Ah, let's visit that change machine again." It claimed to issue 50 pence pieces in exchange for £1 coins, and indeed it did just that. Back to the ticket machine now with four 50p coins. Eureka! A ticket for one hour on the net.

What a palaver!!

Unfortunately now, I can't remember what on earth I was going to post. "Hrumph!" It's just as well that EasyJet airline flights don't have to be paid using a coin machine.

Listening to: conversations in an Internet Café
Wondering: what look to give Mr Coffee on the way out.

Let's go by bus

Two bus articles today.

First, Diddums has already highlighted the following Scotsman news article:
Parents told they can't help own child unless they get criminal record check

I had written a whole post around this, drawing in several other articles. Perhaps it's better though just to let you read it and form your own conclusion.

It leaves me bewildered, confused and quite concerned that I pay money to councils who work like this.

Then, while doing some blog browsing yesterday, I stumbled on a post about travel on buses. It's a bit of a chilling tale I'm afraid.

I may have to post some silliness next otherwise I might go a little nuts.

Nov 6 - Pat

I haven't seen many opinions from within the military, out in the Middle East, that express how individual soldiers feel about their job. Probably because I don't read a lot of war or politically oriented blogs. I stumbled across this article though, by Kevin Tillman, and it's interesting for a couple of reasons.

- His brother died and this is one way he has of remembering.
- He has something to say and what he says can't come easy for him.
- He poses powerful questions and questions generate debate.

I'll pick up on one particular thing:

"Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat."

Now as you read this, maybe you will or maybe you won't, receive a slight slap. Whatever you feel, his point is a good one and should be highlighted. There is a gap between the feelings we might have - of support, of opposition, of sympathy, of anger, for soldiers in Iraq and other places - and the feelings they themselves have while in the field. His article helped me remember just what kind of gap that is.

an insane world

I was making tea, the radio was blurting out more killings in that reality TV program, what's it called, "Pop Genocide - Choose The Survivor"?

Some bloke called George Bush was saying: "Today I spoke to our Generals ... " but I'm afraid I lost the motivation to remember the rest, so can't enlighten you as to what the generals may have told him.

None of this is new of course. There was a 1987 pilot for the current show, a film called Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. That was just a taster, a few guilty individuals pitched against each other in a life and death struggle which served to entertain the public. What we have here has so much more. I mean, we get to hear of loads of guilty and evil people being killed every day, and not just killed, but beheaded, raped, private parts mutilated, etc. Whoever thought that a ridiculous science fiction film would ever become reality?

Of course it's a bit frustrating as we can't see the killing directly, the mutilated naked bodies, the dried blood, the frozen expressions of fear and terror. We only get to hear about it. It's a bit like comparing the Archers to Eastenders. We have to use our imagination. And I think it's a bit mean that we don't get to hear about all the killings. I mean how can the public be entertained if they only get the 40 evil ones killed there by a car bomb or the 30 killed here by summary execution. What about the individuals, the men and the women?

Do you think the financial cost of this show means the annual TV license charge will go up? Now I don't know about you but I simply don't agree with that. Surely it would be better if they cut costs on the set, maybe by murdering a few less people. Mind you, it is about time they changed the scenery, don't you think?. It's been quite samey for a while now. You'd think they could move on to a different country or at least choose people with a different skin colour.

And I think the ratings would improve if they could score. You know, put up a proper daily scoreboard and tell us the body count for married women, plumbers, the under 5's and the like.

Now if lived in a sane world, I wouldn't expect to see George Bush, Tony Blair or their entourages continue their roles in government until an independent investigation had taken place, to assess their ongoing conduct and whether they had been guilty of inciting hatred on the basis of fear. But of course what independent body exists that could perform such an investigation? Luckily there's no need to worry about these complex problems because we live in cloud cuckoo land. Much easier for us that we get to vote for them again and again, using the red button on the remote. Democracy, this thing that enables us, gives us our freedom, allows us to effect change. To change the world and vote for issues instead of people. Oh, hang on, sorry, slip-up. I mean people instead of issues. For the people who brought us the greatest reality TV show of all.

child and a Madonna

The BBC's Have you Say forum is evidence that Madonna's visit to Malawi certainly kicked up a range of public opinion. If news reports are accurate, she has now adopted David, a one year old boy, whose mother died following childbirth and who was being cared for at an Orphan Care Centre.

The boy's father has been quoted as saying, "I am very very happy because as you can see there is poverty in this village and I know he will be very well looked after in America."

So what gives? Good thing or bad? Should she remove a child from the culture that gave him his identify? I know nothing about the specific conditions of poverty his father lived under but average life expectancy for a Malawi male is 40 years, compare this to 74 in the U.S. That he'll get opportunity and education in the west, there can be no doubt but there isn't enough information to form an opinion on how his quality of life might compare to that in the village of his birth. He'll certainly have a momentous struggle to achieve an independent and normal life under the umbrella of such celebrity parenthood. And what when he returns to visit his father and his birth culture?

Of the person behind Madonna I have no thought at all. No liking, no animosity, how can I have any of these things for someone I don't know? What "Madonna" is, is a product, a trademark for an industry, a very carefully polished screenplay and performance, intended to achieve a very specific end. Quite what was her end here, I wonder?

But she has satisfied the boy's father and the Malawi legal system. Perhaps there's sufficient benefit from the media exposure Malawi has had in the past few days, another reminder of Africa's poverty. Yes, I know that tomorrow everyone will forget about the place, about Mchinji and it's Hope Orphan Care Centre, about Yohane Banda, the father, about his dead wife, Marita. But even a couple of days of media exposure can help generate charity funding that would otherwise have been less.

How do you measure that against the upheaval of one life?

Was Jack Straw acting responsibly?

I'm going in a completely different direction with this post, raising a question about something I'm not particularly qualified to talk about. A risk maybe, but a view that I must express nevertheless.

A second UK minister has joined the debate about Muslim women who veil their faces.

Before going any further, I should point out that I'm not particularly knowledgeable about Muslim culture or religion, and in this post, I'm not talking of enforced wearing of the veil, only those cases where women choose of their own free will to wear it.

If anyone missed the news this week, Jack Straw wrote an entry for the Lancashire Evening Telegraph where he said: "Above all, it was because I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone 'face-to-face' who I could not see." he was referring to a lady wearing a full veil, whom he met almost a year ago at his constituency office.

I don't know much about the veil, and the Muslim community in the UK appears divided on the issue of whether the Koran requires it or whether the Hijab (headscarf) is sufficient (as discussed here). I have read articles where women have said this should be a choice for the individual. For my part, I respect that entirely. Although it has no religious connotation and I am not comparing like for like, I don't accept that I should be forced to remove my jacket hood or my dark sunglasses in order to have a conversation. It's a choice I make. I don't expect to be told that I shouldn't wear a hoodie, a dress or a wedding veil because it might damage community relations. But that's by and by.

What I'm curious about is whether Jack Straw had opened a debate with Muslim groups before bringing this to the public eye. I'm not seeing anything to suggest he did, which leads me to:

my point - I question whether he was being responsible in the way he raised the issue.

I'm making no comment on whether there should be a debate. I think all sides accept that a debate now would be helpful. It's simply whether Jack Straw should have raised this in such a confrontational way without first having brought at least some Muslim groups on board.

I think anyone in the UK today would have to be living in a cabbage patch, not to realise that members of the Muslim culture feel very strongly about their identity and their religion. To publish this in the national press without having consulted Muslim councils seems somewhat naive to me. Since he'd been mulling things over for a whole year before publishing his remarks, he can hardly argue that a consultation process would have taken too long.

The way he's raised the issue does increase the risk that before any debate has taken place, any women who continue to choose to wear a veil, are much more likely to be singled out as causing unnecessary social division by an already divided public. Although in the long term, this debate may result in less cultural tension and violence, in the short term it seems likely that some people may suffer unnecessary discrimination.

It didn't have to be this way.

In western society, we're not only about barging down the door with a battering ram. If Jack Straw wants a more integrated society, I feel he should begin by sensitively involving those he feels are being separatist.