Last night's vigil mass was beautiful. I'd never attended a vigil mass before, so this was quite new to me... gathering in a dark church and then being led out to where the Easter fire was burning to watch the Paschal candle being lit, then returning into the church to light our own candles from that... taking our places to listen to the Easter Proclamaton being sung by the light of our candles... then three Old Testament readings, each followed by hymns, during the last of which the church lights were put on and the statues were unveiled... then a New Testament reading, the first Alleluia since Lent began, a psalm, the Gospel, and the sermon... then a procession to the Baptismal font and a renewal of Baptismal promises, after which two people were confirmed in the Faith, amd then finally the Eucharist.

Extraordinarily beautiful.

Chris's sermon ended on an amusing note, incidentally; he'd said that himself and Father Paul had been to see The Passion of the Christ the previous day, and reminded us that the Passion was but the middle part of Our Lord's trilogy, and is not something to concentrate on to the exclusion of the other two. After all, we're heading now into the third part which he referred to as The Return of the King. Look, I found it funny, right.

Some timely articles I found interesting this morning include this one on whether or not religion causes wars, this one on the role of music within Catholic services, and an amusing piece by John Humphrys on what he'd ask Jesus were he on the Today show. Oh, and on his blogsite, Rob Joustra has posted an article on the first Easter by Michael Coren.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has an encouraging piece in today's Telegraph, which gives cause for some hope that Christianity may not be quite as dead in England as it had appeared.

Less encouraging Telegraph articles over the last day or so include a piece by the great Edward Luttwak arguing that there was no way Iraq could ever have been controlled with the number of troops placed there, one by Niall Ferguson which basically says that the Americans should have expected what's happening now, considering what happened last time Iraq was 'liberated', and a report on how British officers are appalled at the clumsiness and contempt for Iraqi life that their American allies appear to be showing. One senior officer is reported as saying:

'My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful.

On that grim note, Happy Easter.
posted by Greg at 9:50 AM

 
Before mass this evening I showed my face at a wedding reception in Manchester's marvellous town hall. It's even more ueber-Gothic on the inside than the outside, though when looking at a mosaic the other half's father and myself were thoroughly bamboozled by the bees shown there. Why bees? I've since found out that they were on the city's crest and symbolise industry. Hmmm.

On an entirely unrelated note, I had a rather odd thought later. A cousin of herself was burping her new baby, and I wondered at what point do we start telling children not to burp. After all, babies are encouraged to do so. I imagine that period in infancy when all of a sudden that which we've always been encouraged to do becomes taboo must be a traumatic stage.

I'm sure there's a tedious and pretentious academic paper there somewhere.
posted by Greg at 11:13 PM

 
Josh and I were talking about the Roosevelts the other day - he was reading an essay on Teddy by Gore Vidal - and I'd mentioned how the CIA guy who brought the Shah to power in Iran was one Kermit Roosevelt. I observed that that was a rather unfortunate name, and Josh remarked that if you were to graph the number of Kermits in the world pre-Muppets and post-Muppets, he'd bet there'd be a pretty steep drop-off in the post-Muppet era. Speaking of which...

You are Kermit the Frog.
You are reliable, responsible and caring. And you have a habit of waving your arms about maniacally.

FAVORITE EXPRESSIONS:
"Hi ho!", "Yaaay!" and "Sheesh!"
FAVORITE MOVIE:
"How Green Was My Mother"
LAST BOOK READ:
"Surfin' the Webfoot: A Frog's Guide to the Internet"
HOBBIES:
Sitting in the swamp playing banjo.
QUOTE:
"Hmm, my banjo is wet."

What Muppet are you? brought to you by Quizilla

Disaster...
I guess that result was predictable enough, what with my green blogsite and room, and of course having a bike. I don't normally do such quizzes, but its being a Muppet one was enough to instantly win me over. I got it from Steven's site; he's apparently one of that classic double non-act of Waldorf and Statler.

I deserve heckling by such merciless old pros after what happened yesterday. It's been a bad week on the tutoring front. I had thought I was on duty on Thursday and Friday, whereas I was really on on Wednesday and Friday, so managed to go to the theatre instead of staying in on Friday. Luckily nothing happened.

But then yesterday, for various technical reasons, I didn't realise that I was on duty all day instead of just from six in the evening onwards. Poor Jane had to hang on to the tutorphone until after six when I collected it. I'd been out for nearly the whole day; I'd been to see the Passion of the Christ in the morning, and then went to mass in the afternoon. Apparently reception was ringing me all day wondering where I was. Hmmm.

Some thoughts on the Passion
I've been curious about this film for quite a while, and now feel I can actually discuss it honestly, having seen it myself.

The most controversial aspect of the film has been its alleged anti-semitism, but while I can certainly understand such a charge, the treachery of the Sanhedrin is as nothing compared to the sadistic brutality of the Romans. Besides which, any discussion of the film's supposed anti-semitism needs to factor in not just the fact of Jesus' own Jewishness, or that of the ever faithful Mary, John, Mary Magdalene, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea, but also that of Veronica, Simon of Cyrene, and the good thief Dismas.

Others have charged that the film is boring, or overdone, 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing', in Shakespeare's words. Well, all I can say to that is that I didn't find it boring, and that while it may be bombastic at times, the symbolism of the film was actually rather powerful. It seems paradoxical that the blatant imagery of the film should convey some very subtle meanings, but it's true nevertheless.

Gibson has certainly taken advantage of dramatic license; the film certainly doesn't restrict itself to the information contained in the Gospels, though I don't see how it could have; film is a primarily visual medium, and the Gospels are written accounts. Most of his modifications - some of which are apparently based upon the spurious visions of one Anne Catherine Emmerich - are, if not factually accurate, at least theologically true.

When a serpent crawls to Jesus from the feet of the Devil, Jesus crushes its head beneath his heel, reminding us that he is the 'New Adam', who can save us from death and the redeem us from the sin of Adam. The sequence where Mary and the Devil face each other on either side of Jesus's road to Calvary is extremely powerful, alluding to Mary's old identification as the 'New Eve'; her obedience stood in stark contrast to the original Eve, who had given way to the Devil's temptation and disobeyed God; as the first Eve's disobedience had brought sin into the world, so the second Eve's obedience brought redemption.

Jesus speaks to Pontius Pilate in Latin, a language he could not have known, as if rectifying the divisions of Babel; this foreshadows the Spirit bestowing the gift of tongues upon the Apostles at Pentecost, enabling them to teach all nations. The future conversion of Rome and her dominions is beautifully implied in the astonishment and awe written upon the face of the Roman soldier who pierces Jesus' side; Christian tradition remembers that soldier as St Longinus. Further, Jesus is sacrificed within view of the place where Abraham agreed to sacrifice his son to God; as Abraham had been willing to sacrifice his son to God, so God's son is sacrificed for mankind.

Perhaps most impressively, the sheer bloodiness of the film demonstrates the significance of the crucifixion; it aludes impressively to Moses and to and the Passover. At the first passover each Israelite household would kill a lamb, daubing its blood on their doorway so that the Lord would pass over them, sparing their children from death; the lamb would then be eaten. St Paul identified Jesus as our Passover lamb; this is shockingly conveyed as his bloodied body daubs the crucifix with his own blood, and in a flashback sequence he commands us to eat of his flesh.

Surely there's more than this to Jesus, though...
Aside from allegations of anti-semitism and historical inaccuracy the most serious allegation mounted against the film is that by concentrating on Jesus' crucifixion it presents a narrow view of Christianity and of Jesus' life, emphasising nothing more than suffering. I don't think this holds up, however.

In the first place, unlike, say, the Greatest Story Ever Told or Jesus of Nazareth, the film doesn't purport to be a full-fledged cinematic 'Life of Christ'. Rather, it explicitly relates just just one crucial episode in Christ's life. There's nothing to stop anybody else making films based purely on the Nativity, or the Sermon on the Mount, or even the raising of Lazarus.

In this respect it reminded me of the greatest Greek tragedies, which usually focus on one brief but defining episode in their subject's lives; Agamemnon tells how the great king returned home to be murdered by his wife; King Oedipus related how Oedipus finds out the truth about who he is, and in horror blinds himself; Medea is a horrendous account of Medea's nightmarish revenge upon her husband. Aeschylus, author of the Agamemnon, described his work as 'slices cut from Homer's banquet', and in a sense Gibson's film should be seen as a slice cut from the Evangelistic banquet.

In fact, the Homeric analogy is particularly appropriate, since while the Iliad merely tells the story of fifty days towards the end of the ten-year Trojan War, it manages to elude to the entire war, and indeed events long before it. Likewise, The Passion of the Christ eludes to events from the Old Testament, foreshadows episodes in the future, and features numerous flashbacks to earlier episodes in Jesus' life: his childhood and adult life with his mother, the Sermon on the Mount, his arrival in Jerusalem, and his Last Supper with the apostles.

Peter, I can see your house from here...
One of those flashback sequences struck me as quite extraordinary; although the sequence was generally gratuitous and indeed silly, in portrayed Jesus and his mother at home together, Gibson showed Jesus laughing and joking. This is something I've never seen before, and in some ways challenges all those who see in this film a deeply morbid version of Christianity. Take a look at this passage from Chesterton's Orthodoxy (a book which the other half unaccountably can't stand) about how the character of Jesus is seen in the Gospels:

His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.

I imagine that Eco's Jorge of Burgos would have been very upset by that scene.
posted by Greg at 10:15 PM

 
While scurrying towards Piccadilly Station to meet Josh on Monday, I was nearly knocked over by a man storming out of a cafe, snarling 'They won't even let you have a fahkin' poo in there.'

I found that odd. Surely with that adjective a stronger noun was called for.

You do the mash, you do the monster mash...
Right, I was telling you about what Josh and I were up to the other day. After dinner we went to see Monster, which was brilliant. Not exactly light viewing, but a truly exceptional film. Charlize Theron was astonishingly good; her physical transformation from the blonde leggy goddess we all know and love into a blocky, weathered, world-wearied prostitute was amazing in itself, but was nothing compared to her actual performance.

Patty Jenkins, who wrote and directed the film, has managed a wonderful achievement, creating a thoughtful and thought-provoking film, evoking 'compassion for someone who truly did horrible things'. Aileen Wuornos comes across in the film as somebody who's probably mentally ill, and certainly has lived a truly horrible life, a victim of all sorts of circumstances whose attempt to take control of her life led her to deprive others of theirs.

Josh and I wondered after the film how Wuornos's lover felt about her portrayal in the film; Christina Ricci's character Shelby starts off as merely clingy and weak but by the end is in many ways far more repugnant than Theron's Aileen. It turns out that Jenkins, in the interest of a deeper truth, has manipulated the facts to some extent. In this respect the film reminded me of From Hell, Alan Moore's attempt at an autopsy of a historical event, using fiction as a scalpel. Jenkins's film is a murder mystery; it doesn't ask who murdered seven men in Florida back in the eighties; rather it accepts that Aileen Wuornos's guilt but asks who Aileen Wuornos really was; Jenkins's real interest is in the why of Wuornos's murder spree. The principle here seems to be akin to Chesterton's view that 'Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what they are feeling.'

The film's a deeply moral one, raising uncomfortable questions about our right to kill anybody; who deserves to die? How can we tell the difference between a person who deserves to die and one who doesn't? Jenkins observes that 'the reason Aileen was capable of killing seven people is that, for a period of time, she believed she could tell the difference. She thought, "I'm a feminist hero anyway, I'm getting rid of these guys." I wanted very purposefully to show that she can't tell. You can't tell. And the thing that ruined her is that she started to realize that she couldn't be so sure who deserved to die.'

Aileen herself was executed in 2002, only the second woman in Florida to have been put to death by the state since the death penalty was reintroduced for women in 1976. The film doesn't deal with her time on death row, but many of the questions we should be asking ourself about the death penalty are implicitly raised by Aileen's own murdering spree. I guess if you want a more explicit examination of the issues surrounding the death penalty you should watch Dead Man Walking, where Sean Penn's murderer deserves to die, if anybody ever did...

Is anybody perfect?
But then, who are we to judge? The Gospel read at mass the week before last is one of the most inspirational in the entire Bible. Sometimes familiarity can lead to a certain staleness, if not contempt, but take a look at it again:

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst, they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?"

This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."

Anybody who even considers themself to be the vaguest, feeblest, slackest of Christians ought to have those words carved into their heart. Jesus implied that only those who were themselves utterly pure had the right to condemn others, and even though he surely had that right to condemn a woman he knew was guilty, he chose not to exercise it.

Worth thinking about, I reckon.

On a further tangent
C.S. Lewis alludes to that story to good effect in a fine essay on Christ, where he observes from his very experienced standpoint that all suggestions that the Gospels are mere legends indicate nothing more than that those advancing such claims clearly haven't read enough myths. As the man says:

Another point is that on that view you would have to regard the accounts of the Man as being legends. Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don't work up to things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and no people building up a legend would allow that to be so. Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there is no conversation that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence. In the story of the woman taken in adultery we are told Christ bent down and scribbled in the dust with His finger. Nothing comes of this. No one has ever based any doctrine on it. And the art of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is a purely modern art. Surely the only explanation of this passage is that the thing really happened? The author put it in simply because he had seen it.'

The man has a point.

Feeling rather more cultured...
On the spur of the proverbial moment we strolled up Oldham Street to Matt and Phred's, where I was a bit amused to see that Matt is still limping. It's been a year and a half since he broke his leg; surely it should be okay now! After one we headed back to base and wound up talking till four in the morning, reminiscing, filling each other in on what's been going on these last three years, discussing politics, religion, and everything under the sun.

French toast started the day off nicely, after which we continued chatting and then played 9-Ball, a variation on pool that I was completely unfamiliar with; it suited me down to the ground, as it's the kind of game where dismal players such as moi can steal victories. I managed to fluke wins against Josh and Melodie before Josh and I nipped over the shop and waited for Clare, Josh's girlfriend, to arrive.

It was lovely to see Clare again; I'd only met her three times before, once in Belfast, and twice in Glasgow, the first time staying with her at a particularly dark time for me; her hospitality can't be paid back enough times.

Josh cooked, which was convenient, since everything I do tends to involve onions and he's allergic to the things, and then we headed into town to see Great Expectations in the Royal Exchange. The play has had some dodgy reviews but I rather liked it.

I felt the scene transitions were very clunky, but there wasn't much to be done about that with numerous scene changes nevessary to the story; more annoyingly, a couple of deliberately 'arty' sequences struck me as irrelevant and time-consuming in what was already a very long show.

Estella seemed of more a wooden dummy than an ice queen, but other than that the show had a lot to be said for it. It would be hard to fault how Pip was played, while Jaggers was a thunderstorm given flesh, melodrama personified, and Herbert and Wemmick were both hilarious; Wemmick's one of my favourite characters in the book, and it seems a shame that he is stripped down so much in the play, but something had to go to hack the tale to a manageable length, and the way he was played seemed straight out of a Cruikshank illustration.

The first half of the play worked very well in the main, with some fine comic performances, but in the much darker second half the story's convoluted plot proved too much for a dramatic adaptation; there was simply too much to fit in, and the gratuitous dream sequences hardly helped. Still, I enjoyed it; it was an awful shame that Clare wasn't feeling well and missed most of the second half.

Chesterton a long time ago observed that good books usually turn into bad plays, and though this was certainly based on a fine book - one of my favourites, in fact - it wasn't a bad play, despite all its faults. It was certainly far better than Trinity's Samuel Beckett Centre's ill-advised attempt to adapt Anna Karenina back in 1999. An 800-page realist novel being adapted as a two-hour minimalist performance. Hmmm. I think the term for that is 'unashamed folly'.

And finally...
After breakfast this morning we made our way into town to seek out the Bus Station; it's been moved, thank God, to a far safer and snazzier location than when I last had to take a bus to Glasgow, just over two years back. Goodbyes were said; I have no idea when I'll see either of them again, though there's a slim chance I'll see Josh in London next weekend, God willing. Failing that, God alone knows. Maybe summer next year? I can always hope.

I made my second ever trip to the Bridgewater Hall this evening; the Halle Orchestra was performing Bach's St John Passion. I bought my ticket after leaving the others at the bus, but unfortunately missed the first part of the performance as I'd fallen asleep and woke only a few minutes before it was due to begin. I made it to the Hall just as the interval was ending, so managed to see (and more importantly hear) the better part of the perforance. It was, as it should have been, divine.
posted by Greg at 11:12 PM

 
I was a bit troubled to read this bizarre story about how restaurant costumers in Britain have been ordering bigger and bigger dishes, some of which sound alarmingly unhealthy: 'One worker said a parent had ordered chips at breakfast for a three-year-old child, while another parent had asked for a double bacon and egg cheeseburger liquidised with gravy for their child.'

Mmmm... tasty.

That last one reminds me of an old idea of mine. Breakfast smoothies... Yup, revolting as it may seem, I reckon I'm on to a goldmine with that idea. You know how English people have a weakness for attempting death by cholesterol while suffering from hangovers? I guess it might be an Atkins thing. Well, when you're feeling a bit frail, chewing can be a bit much effort. Yeah, you know. Well, the solution is obviously the Breakfast Smoothie.

The Breakfast Smoothie, the new staple of my chain - Greg's Greasy Spoons - will be available in several varieties.

Basic Juice will be a mixture of sausage, bacon, egg, beans, and hash brown, all blended together. You can order it by the bowl, or by the mug. Straws will be optional.

Gaelic Juice will be as above, but with tomatoes instead of beans, and with black and white pudding.

The Continental Juice will be a Basic Juice, without beans but with added Orange juice and perhaps a croissant.

All the above can also be customised; perhaps tea or toast could be added, as could jam or honey, if you prefer a sweeter start to your day.

Hell, it could be served in a pasty. Money, here I come...

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so faraway...
So, yeah, yesterday I took Josh for a tour round Manchester - the usual stuff, walking through Rusholme, visiting the Museum, having a pint in the Temple, round the Library building, across Albert Square and by the town hall, along Cross Street and over St Anne's Square, popping into the Exchange, over by Exchange Square and the Printworks, around the Cathedral, down Deansgate, around Castlefields, bumping into Susan from our department, and then having dinner in Sinclair's marvellous Oyster Bar.

The trip to the museum was remarkable; I haven't been in over a year, so it was great going back, looking at sundry mummies, Greek vases, Roman coins, Ethiopian bows, and even hanging out in the vivarium. The vivarium was a delight, with basilisks and pythons, funny fish, a chameleon, and an infinite number of frogs... dozens of tiny ones, like turquoise beetles, crouched in clusters on enormous leaves, while small poisonous blue and yellow ones skulked among the ferns. Most impressive of all was how I finally managed to lay eyes on the tomato frog.

I first heard about the Tomato Frog at a talk within a week of coming to Manchester - Marlisa and I were at an induction session, and a lady from Banff in Canada - though originally from Dublin, spoke to us about the many charms of the Manchester museum. Among the museum's highlights were oodles of bows, a multiplicity of mummies which can occasionally be seen being wheeled across the road to MRI for x-rays, a stuffed tiger in an impossibly ludicrous position, and a round bright red frog.

M and I went to the museum a few nights later for a wine reception and sought out the frog; alas he was not to be seen. Time and time again we returned to the museum over that year, only to be frustrated in our quest. I began to feel that we we swallowed a brick and come back for more, believing in this near-apocryphal amphibian.

Finally, however my dream was realised yesterday. I saw the frog. Yay.
__________________________________________________________________________________
*Maybe I could serve this a dessert.
posted by Greg at 11:53 PM

 
Wonderful news from my brother about a Chilean hero. I'll quote, for comedy value: 'A ceremony has been held in Chile to honour the 19th Century military hero Arturo Prat after bizarre insults were published in 250,000 school books. The offending English language textbook called him a dirty old man that never shaved and said Chilean sailors were Pinochet supporters and cowards. It goes on...

This reminds me of when I was in school, studying Ireland's Land War in history class. One of our great national heroes was Michael Davitt; our history book gleefully related how Devitt was arrested for smuggling a case of arms in 1870 and was later welcomed to America with open arms by John Devoy. The historian's obsession with arms seemed in bad taste, considering that Davitt had lost his in a cotton mill as a child.

Oh well.

Meanwhile today I got rained on a lot, took Josh on a tour of Manchester, and visited the Manchester museum, where I managed to finally succeed in a quest that has frustrated me since coming to this godforsaken city.

I'll tell you tomorrow. If you're good.
posted by Greg at 11:53 PM

 
Um, I've had an amusing yet busy day, which has taught me, if I had any doubts, that banks suck, and trains are almost as bad. On an entirely unrelated note, if you live in the Vancouver area, this might distress you.

In other news, I was upset today to discover that Albert is in fact Alberta. Yes, Josh tells me, having examined my skull, that it belonged to a small woman quite a while ago; small mastoids, undeveloped brow, an obtuse gonial angle, and a tapered chin.

Alberta, huh?
posted by Greg at 11:32 PM

 
NIL MORTIFI SINE LUCRE
C'mere to me. You know that Ahmed Yassin geezer, the bloke who the Israelis clumsily 'assassinated' a couple of weeks back? ( I use inverted commas there as I doubt the Assassins' Guild* would approve of killing seven people as well as the target. I suspect they'd see that as sloppy.)

There's a bit of a mudslinging match going on on Peter David's site, sparked off by this. As usual, the argument is pretty much off-topic, but you know, that's what happens when you have conversations.

After all, you should take a look at this posting, which was initially about how South Park might deal with Mel Gibson's Passion film, and wound up developing into a rather heated argument about whether or not Jesus existed in any sense. Seems to me that it's madness to acknowledge that within twenty to thirty years of his death there were Christian communities throughout the Mediterranean, and that the early Christians were willing to be persecuted rather than deny the divinity, never mind the existence of some bloke that they'd made up, but that's obviously what some want to people believe...

Well, I don't want to get bogged down in this, but take a look at that picture of him again. Does he strike you as, well, maybe a bit familiar? Doesn't he look more than a little the one and only Saruman the White, also known as Curunir, first of the Istari, leader of the White Council, and eventual traitor to Middle Earth? Separated at birth, eh...

Is this a coincidence? I think not. After all, in Peter Jackson's film of The Two Towers he made it pretty clear that Saruman's orcs wouldn't eschew suicide bombing if it was the only tactic that would work. No, really. Remember how the Uruk Hai were able to breach the walls of Helm's Deep by sending one orc charging into a drainway, clutching a bomb? The bomb exploded killing the orc, but his comrades were able to charge through the gap.

Yes, Uruk Hai suicide bombers...

I'm very impressed by Peter Jackson. I used to think his Lord of the Rings trilogy was just about the Atkins Diet, but now I realise that it was also intended as a commentary on the situation in Palestine. The trilogy is clearly a multi-layered work of genius.

I wonder what King Kong will be about? Offhand I can't think of any natural subtexts for it. After all, it's about a brutish giant ape travelling across the world to terrorise people who are just getting on with their lives, only to be picked at constantly by a small number of weak but brave warriors, until it falls exhausted to the ground. I'm sure Pete Jackson will be able to come up with something, though...
___________________________________________________________________________________
*No, not this Assassins' Guild. The real one. In Ankh Morpork.
posted by Greg at 10:22 PM

 
There've been a spate of films based on comics over the last fifteen years or so; some of those that spring to mind are Ghostworld, American Splendor, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Mask, Men in Black, Mars Attacks!, The Crow, the Batman films, Judge Dredd, Blade, the Spiderman and X-Men films, Hulk, and Daredevil.

Some have been good, some mediocre, some abysmal. Few came close to the standard of the books upon which they were based. As a rule, this fact was glossed over by reviewers who slated the films and damned the comics by association, or praised the films and ignored the comics.

Few adaptations have been quite as disappointing as last year's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The film was badly written, badly directed, badly acted, and cursed with ropey special effects. Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's comic was sophisticated, dark, clever, and funny, bitingly satirical in its observations about the British Empire, Victorian fiction, and their legacies; the film, on the other hand, was bland popcorn, shallow and crude.

There was a silver lining to that debacle; Neil Gaiman pointed out in his speech at the Eisner awards that people seemed to be starting to realise that the films weren't identical to the comics, and that comics were not intrinsically without merit. He had 'read reviews of a recent movie [LXG] in which the complaint in most of the media seemed to be that the film makers had dumbed down a witty and intelligent comic. Now, this has happened scores of times over the years, and it is not unique. What was unique is that people had noticed - that the journalists writing the reviews knew.'

Having seen such travesties as From Hell, LXG, Batman Forever, and Judge Dredd, I've been a bit concerned about Hellboy which has just opened in America. Take a look at the trailer; it doesn't exactly give grounds for much hope, does it? And what a shame it would be if this fell flat; Mike Mignola's comic is an unlikely gem, a beautifully illustrated and at times surprisingly tender romp through a Lovecraftian world of demons and Nazis. It shouldn't work. But it does.

Thank God, then, that it looks as if my doubts are ill-founded. Glancing at Rotten Tomatoes, it looks like the film is getting, in the main, a good response. I still suspect it might have been better animated, but it looks as though Ron Perlman and John Hurt have been perfectly cast, David Hyde Pierce seems to have done a fine job voicing Abe Sapien, and I've got no problems whatsoever Selma Blair playing Liz Sherman. Guillermo del Toro appears to have invested an enormous amount in the film, so it's good to see that his efforts appear to have paid off; maybe the film works simply because del Toro loves Mignola's comic so much. It certainly sounds promising:

'What distinguishes "Hellboy" from the pack and gives it squirmy, ferocious life is the environment that Mr. del Toro creates on screen. The movie is lubricated with a fluid, slimy menace, and the director's love of rotted, desiccated flesh and exposed, traumatized organs adds an engrossing grossness. But a contrasting vulnerability has also been slipped in, a critical addition... It's an elegant haunted house of a picture with dread and yearning part of the eeriness.'

So, yeah, it'll be a B movie, but it sounds like a good one. After LXG, that'll be much appreciated.


And in other news...
We have a cat in our hall, called Oscar. Rather, Oscar is his name; he's generally referred to simply as 'Fat Cat'. Now, while he's certainly not the most athletic feline in town, I'm loathe to call him Fat Cat anymore, not after reading about this bloated beast. Mikesh used to be fed four pounds of mince a day, and now clocks in at an ample 41 pounds in weight - that's 18.5 kilo in new money. He's six times heavier than a normal moggy, can't clean himself properly, and is incapable of taking more than four steps without getting knackered? Now, that is a very fat cat.

I can't help feeling sorry for the poor puss.* A quarter of a stone of meat every day? I've long been amazed at how Irish men in the first half of the nineteenth century apparently used to devour a quarter of a stone of potatoes a day - how in God's name did the cat manage that much meat? I had a big bowl of pasta this afternoon and still feel zombified. That'd be the carb coma, I suppose.
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*As opposed to this pseudopuss, who's been a very naughty boy and should learn to keep his hands to himself. Whatever would A.A. Milne think?
posted by Greg at 9:34 PM

 
Well, it looks as though my instincts were correct. Phelan, that scurvy knave, was wholly responsible for yesterday's email 'from' Mark Steyn. Two emails from the hound littered my account this morning:

1. Ok, ok, I'll own up. It was me. Couldn't resist a good wind up. Actually, reminds me of the valentines card you got in the Granite. When you went around checking everyone's hand writing. He he he.

2. Sent that last mail before reading your blog. Damn you. Foiled again because of pesky Daly. Anyway, I managed to dupe three people into believing I've been transferred to the US by Elan (as if I'd go there), using a fake website, I convinced another two that Elan's share price had jumped from $20 to $40 overnight, and finally, I tricked someone into thinking their shoe lace was open. People still fall for that one.

Hohoho, as the man said.

Back to this Clarke business
Well, it looks increasingly likely that Dick Clarke was right, and that the Bush Brigade really didn't have their eye on the ball before 11 September 2001. Their focus seems to have been on that stupid missile shield rather than on terrorism. That's not really surprising, when you think about it. After all, in Rumsfeld, George has a Secretary of Defence who's been long obsessed with the idea of missile defence.

This should really make us think more carefully about claims such as this this: "The terrorist war proved that he [Bush], like the Greek iambic poet Archilochus' hedgehog, knew one thing, but a big one: how to galvanize his people and lead them into battle against an evil enemy in the hour of his country's great peril." That's Hanson, of course - Steyn simply states that 'Bush got it right: go to where the terrorists are, overthrow their sponsoring regimes, destroy their camps, kill their leaders.'

You see, in the aftermath of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, the standard line wheeled out by so many people - not just right-wingers, I'm sad to say - was 'Thank God Bush is in charge! Can you imagine what things would be like if Gore were President...?' The thinking, apparently, that Bush was decisive whereas Gore would have dithered. Hmmm.

But look at it another way. Think about how the Clinton regime responded to the threat of a huge terrorist attack on Los Angeles in 1999; Clarke is quite clear that the Clinton team took the threat very seriously, and prevented the attack from happening. It's pretty likely that Gore would have had a fairly similar team under him. In that case, maybe they might well have taken the warning signs of Summer 2001 seriously. Maybe if Gore had been President then the atrocities of September 2001 would never have happened.

Just maybe...

Ah, good old Rummie
It's well worth clicking on that link up the top, by the way.* Lots of important and fascinating stuff about Donnie's dark history, including how he effectively ended Henry Kissinger's career in Washington because he thought Kissinger was too much of a moderate and a liberal. Perhaps most alarming is his contempt for any form of arms control. It does seem particularly ironic that the Bush regime claims to be working against the proliferation of Nuclear weapons, while simultaneously planning on a whole new arsenal of the things.

In fact, this may be more than ironic; it may be downright illegal. You know all the recent fanfare about Gadafy signing up to the war on terror blah blah blah? George Monbiot observed a couple of days ago that 'amid all the backslapping last week, something was forgotten. This is that the treaty which Gadafy has honoured was a two-way deal. Those states which did not possess nuclear weapons would not seek to acquire them. In return, the states which already possessed them - the US, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom - would "pursue negotiations in good faith... on general and complete disarmament". Libya is now in conformity with international law. The United Kingdom is not.'

Nor, presumably, are the USA, France, China, India, or Pakistan. I imagine Russia is, purely because she can't afford to maintain her arsenal. Food for thought, as they say.
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*Though if you somehow find that boring, this at least should amuse you. This might too.
posted by Greg at 10:14 PM