Theme Time: The Word - 808 State

Ah yes it's time to look at that enfant terrible of Channel 4 in the 1990s, The Word

Love it or hate it, you cannot deny how influential and important The Word was. It's almost twenty-five-years since the last episode aired and yet almost everything The Word pioneered has now become absorbed by other shows and accepted into the mainstream.

Remember 'The Hopefuls' those shameless glory hunters who gave up their dignity by eating worms and sheep testicles (among other more disgusting stunts) because, as they would each gamely say to camera "I'll do anything to be on TV" Remember how offended and disgusted people were? They're all fairly quiet now when watching celebs eat the very same thing as part of an I'm a Celebrity bushtucker trial aren't they?

It wasn't just gross stunts though; The Word provided a platform for some of the best music of the day (often breaking new bands) and some brilliantly candid, off-the-cuff interviews with famous figures from the world of music, acting, sport and the arts, and the kind of through-the-looking-glass exposes of the weird and wonderful life in America that Louis Theroux would later mine. It was The Tube via a kind of X-rated Tiswas - perfect for the laddish, baggy, grungey, britpoppy 1990s.

Described by Wikipedia as 'a mayhemic mixture of pop music and teen attitude' The Word was must-see post pub viewing on a Friday night for some 49% of the viewing public at that time. It ran from 1990 to 1995 and featured presenters such as Amanda de Cadenet, Mark Lamarr, Dani Behr, Hufty and Katie Puckrick, the one constant being it's main presenter, Mancunian motormouth Terry Christian whose book, My Word, is an eye-opening, candid and funny read of his time with the show.

The theme tune was entitled Olympic, provided by Madchester's own 808 State.

Some full episodes of The Word are available on YouTube, whilst a series of compilations can be viewed on All 4. They're well worth watching, whether you simply fancy a bit of nostalgia or whether you just want to see some cutting edge tele before it become so diluted. Chris Evans was only just around the corner, and he had obviously been paying attention.

RIP John Stalker

Sad to hear of the death of former Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester John Stalker this week at the age of 79.

Stalker gave over 30 years of dedicated service to the police force and was one of the investigating officers on the Moors Murders. But perhaps most famously of all, he was brought in to investigate the RUC's shoot to kill policy in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s, where his integrity suffered at the hands of an RUC and Security Services smear campaign. The simple fact of the matter was that the truth he sought was not one the establishment wanted to be known. Over thirty years on and the families of the six unarmed men shot by the RUC still have no inquests or justice. 

Stalker's memoir remains compulsive reading and his inquiry into the RUC formed the basis of two dramatised films; Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda (which is the Stalker affair in all but name) and Yorkshire Television's Shoot to Kill which starred Jack Shepherd as Stalker. The author GF Newman also wrote his novel The Testing Ground which had direct parallels to the Shoot to Kill inquiry and was later loosely adapted by the BBC as the then near-futuristic Nineteen96 starring Keith Barron. David Peace was also inspired by Stalker when he came to write his Red Riding series of novels which were subsequently adapted by Channel 4 with Paddy Considine as a Stalker-like honest detective heading up an inquiry into a corrupt and failing hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

RIP

Boris Johnson Is An Outright Liar

The idiotic and dangerous Boris Johnson is playing the Skripal affair for everything he can get. His weird Churchillian fantasies are coming to the fore; likening the Russian hosts of the World Cup to the Nazi Olympics (and conveniently forgetting that the Nazis wouldn't have been defeated without Russia's brave soldiers) and posing in vintage war rooms. But worst of all, he's lying through his bloody teeth, leaning heavily on experts in a way not seen since Blair's sexed up Iraqi WMD dossier.

Here's what Boris Johnson said to Deutsche Welle in an interview yesterday;

"They (Porton Down) were absolutely categorical. I asked the guy myself, I said 'Are you sure?' (that the Skripal's have been poisoned by the Russian nerve agent Novichok) and he said there's no doubt" 

Let those words sink in for a moment. 'Categorical'. 'Sure'. 'No doubt'.

No compare them to what was said by evidence submitted by the government at the High Court yesterday (the same day Boris ran his mouth off saying how sure this was the Russians) from Porton Down.

"Blood samples were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound. The samples tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent."

That evidence proves that Porton Down, by their own words, are not 'sure'. That they are not in 'no doubt' and that their findings are not 'categorical' as Boris Johnson claims. So he is lying. He is dangerous. He is the real traitor to the British country he represents and claims he loves dearly. It sickens me that ordinary people who are advising caution are being painted as treasonous and not patriotic. But this proves Russia should not be considered an enemy. There is no clear answer as to who was responsible as yet. It is dangerous to claim otherwise.

Please do not believe the hype of the government propaganda machine of the MSM; the Murdoch newspapers and the BBC. Look beyond the hysteria and jingoistic hyperbole for the facts. Read Craig Murray's blog and share widely. Because make no mistake we are being lied to. We are being set up to fail.

The Facts Behind The Hysteria

With all the mass hysteria going on at the moment, you'd be forgiven for missing this damning letter to the Times; 

Sir, 

Further to your report ('Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment', Mar 14) may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.

Stephen Davies,

Consultant in emergency medicine, Salisbury NHS foundation Trust

It's also worth pointing out that the government's line that the nerve agent is 'a type developed by the Russians' doesn't mean made or used by the Russians. And in the midst of the attacks against Corbyn for advising caution (including the 'impartial' BBC's decision to photoshop him as a Russian stooge behind a USSR backdrop last week) how come no one is concerned with the £30,000 donation made to the Tory party by the wife of a former Putin minister - just one of many donations from Russians in recent years. Even Litvenyenko's widow is talking about this, but the media don't seem to want to give her views an airing.

Once again, my advice is look to the truth and not what the government are saying. This is May's Falklands moment and she's loving it, as is the odious Boris Johnson who seems to think he's his beloved Churchill; just in time for The Darkest Hour buzz. Why? Because just like Thatcher's government in '82, it gives them the perfect excuse to bury the real unrest and disasters occurring under May's premiership and the chance to boost her ailing approval ratings with the sheep like contingent of the general public. Brexit, Grenfell etc can all be ignored while they wave what remains of the Union Jack against the menacing Soviet bear.

9 Songs (2004)

In which Gruey grew up to be a rather unconvincing glaciologist and is shown shooting his muck on screen. Yes I know, not exactly something we were crying out for, but Michael Winterbottom thought we were and so he gave the world 9 Songs in 2004; a film that tells the story of a modern day romance across nine live band performances, and one of the misses in his surprisingly frustrating hit and miss career.

It's a popular misconception to claim that 9 Songs is the first British film outside of pornography to feature genuine sexual intercourse. Patrice Chéreau's 2001 film Intimacy, based on Hanif Kureishi's 1989 novel, featured Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox getting it on for their art. Aside from this inconvenient truth, 9 Songs bagged the controversy but, having finally watched it, I'm left thinking why? It was one of the most tediously dull films to sit through. It offers absolutely nothing other than a series of vanilla sex scenes and extremely mild bondage interspersed with scenes at the Brixton Academy where our lovers watch various indie bands including Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Primal Scream, Franz Ferdinand, and Elbow.  Well, there are enough bare arses on screen, we may as well see an elbow eh?

I wouldn't mind if the relationship between the aforementioned Gruey (does anyone else other than me remember that?) Kieran O'Brien and Margo Stilley, was an interesting one, but it's not. There's no fireworks here, this isn't Betty Blue, despite the occasional insistence that Stilley's character has 'Issues©', what we have is just two seemingly compatible young people meeting, fucking and ultimately splitting up on good terms. 

It's all quite elegiac and downbeat, which only adds to the nondescript, uneventful nature. Perhaps that's the point - perhaps Winterbottom just wanted to depict an authentic everyday relationship on the big screen. If that's the case I have to hand it to him, he succeeds to a certain extent, but after 66 minutes (mercifully brief) I knew absolutely nothing about the characters. The authenticity is definitely there in the headline grabbing sex scenes, which are shot with a conventional, unselfconcious and straightforward air. It's actually quite interesting to watch real sex on screen as, for all the Mary Whitehouse style cries of 'this is porn!', nothing could be further from the artificial, emotionless, antiseptic world of pornography if it tried. The sex here is tentative, sweaty, and yes, hairy. In short, it is sex you can relate to.

But who does a line of charlie before going to see Michael Nyman's 60th birthday concert? Feck off back to your Franz Ferdinand, you philistines!

Wanker of the Week: David Walliams

It's been a week of stiff competition really. Phil Neville who - despite having zero managerial experience -  has somehow been given the top job with England Ladies, could easily have walked away with this dubious honour after misogynistic tweets came to light in which he joked about feeling better after he 'battered the wife' and suggested a woman's place was in the home, tidying up. I await results of his coaching with great interest.

But no, the absolute wanker of the week has to be David Walliams. The odious 'comedian' has had quite a week: from the highs of winning an NTA, to the lows of being embroiled in the Presidents Club scandal.

His defence that he was at the event as a host, that he left as soon as his duties were concluded at 11:30pm and that he saw nothing of the allegations that have subsequently broke, is very poor indeed and I for one am not buying it. You were hired to host an evening's entertainment which was men only and whose atmosphere was blatantly misogynistic and unsavoury. You would have to have been blind and deaf not to notice that. Given that Walliams likes to pride himself on having an eye for the ladies, I'm sure that the young girls forced to wear skimpy outfits as they performed their waiting on duties would not have gone unnoticed by him either - especially as they were there long before this 11:30 departure he's at pains to point out. If that was the case and he had eyes in his head, then surely he would see the groping they were subjected to (or did the businessmen and politicians attending the event resist their lascivious urges until this 11:30 cut off point? I doubt it!), and if he head ears too, then surely he would have heard his co-host proclaim how plastic surgery, one of the prizes on offer for the highest bidder, could 'spice up your wife' Walliams would like us to believe that he didn't observe or comprehend any of this, that he was naive to take part. But he's banking on his fans and the general public to be even more naive to accept this bullshit. Just like everyone involved in this scandal, he must pay the price.

The reaction to his involvement is only really starting to take shape. For Walliams himself, he is carrying on as normal after his mealy mouthed public statement on Twitter. However with the news that some bookshops have removed his successful children's titles from their shelves, I hope that his career takes a significant blow which he may not recover from because he no longer has the right to inform the minds of our next generation. As the folk singer Grace Petrie reminded us on Twitter this week, Walliams is not a nice person: "You've got a comedian who has made obscene amounts of money from stereotyping and degrading gay, trans, disabled, working class folk and then you find out - out of the blue - that he's an absolute bellend. Well, knock me down with a feather"

POW Double Bill: The Camp on Blood Island (1958) The Secret of Blood Island (1964)

Mention Hammer Films to anyone and the first thing that comes to mind is horror. But Hammer were actually responsible for a variety of film genres and styles and in the late '50s and early '60s they produced two war movies that proved to be as  spine chilling and unflinching as anything they produced featuring Dracula or Frankenstein's Monster. These films were 1958's The Camp On Blood Island, and its 1964 sequel, The Secret of Blood Island.

"Never before  has any film portrayed with such honesty and accuracy, the tormented sufferings, brutality, heroism, and degradation that were the lot of the POW under his demonic slave masters, the Japanese. I believe everyone in the so-called civilised world should see this magnificent picture, absorb and digest it, and realise that this could happen again. For the animal minds of our former captors will never change and all ex-POWs know this"

So wrote the journalist Leo Rawlings on the release of Hammer's hit 1958 movie, The Camp on Blood Island. Strong words, but perhaps understandably so given his own experiences as a POW in Singapore.

Unfortunately there hasn't been any mainstream or widespread ability to take Rawlings' advice and see, absorb and digest the film for thirty-eight years now. Despite The Camp On Blood Island being televised in Britain on a handful of occasions throughout the 1970s, the film that was one of the most popular hits in British cinema in 1958, has effectively been banned from our screens since 1979, presumably (and at the risk of sounding like an uber twunt Farage-a-like here) on the grounds of political correctness. Granted, it's trying and deeply regrettable to see so many white British actors (Ronald Radd, Lee Montague and, perhaps least convincing of all, Michael Ripper!) don offensive make-up and accents to play Japanese soldiers but, given that so many of the films of this era indulged in such dubious casting and still manage to get broadcast today, one is left to wonder if the real bone of contention is in fact the light in which the Japanese are portrayed in the film. Hammer certainly live up to their reputation for X rated filmmaking here, depicting the cold blooded executions and brutal torture of British POWs at the hands of their captors in an unflinching manner (along with the same lashings of 'Kensington gore' they indulged in for their horror output), but the film's truth - it's wholly unempathetic and hardline depiction of the Japanese forces - isn't in any way different from any number of Japanese POW films, from the recent Unbroken and The Railway Man right the way back to this film's more contemporary stablemate, David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai, which is rightly regarded as a classic. Perhaps there's another reason then why this rattlingly good film, an ostensible Hammer 'B movie', hasn't seen the light of day for almost forty years - snobbery?

The film was said to have been based on a true story that Hammer's Anthony Nelson Keys had heard from someone who had been a Japanese POW. Seeing the potential for a movie, Keys took the story to Michael Carreras who commissioned a script from John Manchip White. The film went into production in the summer of 1957 with Val Guest as director and boasts an impressive cast, including André Morell (who also starred in Lean's POW epic) as the senior British officer, Carl Möhner, Barbara Shelley and the perpetually pained looking Richard Wordsworth, the star of Hammer's The Quatermass Xperiment, as a deeply convincing near-starved and heroic prisoner.

Unfortunately, whilst The Camp on Blood Island proved to be a neglected gem, its sequel, The Secret of Blood Island, most emphatically isn't.

This belated offering from Hammer came some six years after the success of their first foray to Blood Island and has proved to be equally little seen since its release; indeed, I can't find any transmission details for this one at all on BBC Genome (though it may have appeared on ITV as some reviewers on IMDB recall watching it on TV at least once in the '70s) Unlike its predecessor, it has not been released to DVD, making it all the more scarce, but it is available to watch online. Rather than a sequel, which would have been difficult given The Camp on Blood Island is set as the war ends, The Secret of Blood Island is, in fact, a prequel set around a year earlier. Filmed in colour, it stars a handful of actors from the original film but, confusingly, they are playing completely different characters. Those returning included Barbara Shelley, Edwin Richfield, Lee Montague and Michael Ripper.

Unfortunately, the whole film is simply ill advised. The original film was said to have been based on a true story related to the production team at Hammer by a former POW and, whilst the veracity of such a claim could be doubted, what wasn't in any doubt was the intentions behind such a film; The Camp On Blood Island may have been, to quote one critic, the examination of an open wound in Post War Britain,  but it was one that was perhaps required. This film may have toned the brutality down a little, but there's no denying its exploitative credentials as it is clearly a cash-in with so little to say as evinced by the unconvincing and dumb narrative from screenwriter John Gilling.

Barbara Shelley takes centre stage as an SOE agent shot down over Malaya and discovered by a work party of British POWs who agree to hide her in the camp until she's able to continue on with her mission. Quite how Shelley is meant to evade recognition by their Japanese captors with the sole disguise of an elfin cut and side-parting care of the camp barber is beyond me! Nevertheless, it's up to the likes of Jack Hedley, Charles Tingwell and Bill 'Compo' Owen, along with the aforementioned returnees Richfield and Montague, to ensure the game isn't up. Presiding over them is the camp commandant played  by Patrick Wymark - and if you thought Ronald Radd's heavily made up turn in the previous film was offensive and unbelievable, just wait until you see Wymark - and Michael Ripper as his sadistic lieutenant. Quite why Ripper was 'promoted' when his turn as a Japanese soldier was so laughably unconvincing in the first film is beyond me, but to his credit he has improved a little with this more central role and is leaps ahead of Wymark.

The film was directed by Quentin Lawrence, who has none of the skill of The Camp On Blood Island's helmer, Val Guest in the same way that Gilling has none of that earlier film's author Jon Manchip White's flair for telling such a story. I'd also quibble over the decision to place the end of the film at the front in the form of a pre-credit sequence, which adds nothing and effectively gives away everything. Unlike it's predecessor, this film failed to make much of an impact with audiences and so its retreat into relative obscurity is no real loss.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

I guess A Clockwork Orange is something akin to a movie buff’s ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ moment. Every self-respecting film devotee from the UK is likely to recall the first time they watched Stanley Kubrick’s controversial masterpiece and, if you’re of a certain age, chances are you were breaking the law when you did. Which seems kind of apt when watching this vivid study of a young man who not only likes Beethoven and milk, but a bit of the old ultra-violence too.

Let me explain. If you hail from the UK and you’ve purchased this beautiful, extras packed Warner Bros Premium Collection DVD/Blu-ray/Digital download of A Clockwork Orange or, if you’ve seen it for the first time any time in the last seventeen years (perhaps you saw it on ITV2? The grandmother of Northern comedian Peter Kay did, who claims she famously uttered the maloprop “did you see Stanley Kubrick’s A Chocolate Orange on TV last night?”) you’re not familiar with how surreal that seems to a generation of moviegoers who have gone before you. Kubrick, like Baron Frankenstein fearful of the Monster he gave life to, withdrew his creation from general release within the UK indefinitely in early 1974 as a direct reaction to a growing number of so-called copy-cat crimes and protests from councillors, politicians, the clergy, Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, and, most damning of all, the press. A Clockwork Orange became, to all intents and purposes, a dangerous cult movie.

See my full review at The Geek Show

It Was Thirty Years Ago Today...

15th October, 1987

"Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't, but having said that, actually, the weather will become very windy, but most of the strong winds, incidentally, will be down over Spain and across into France"

Several hours later, hurricane force gusts of up to 100 knots (or 120 mph) attacked the UK, France and the Channel Islands, causing a number of fatalities, power outage and felled an estimated 15 million trees. The great storm is said to have cost the insurance industry £2billion and an internal inquiry at the Met Office following Michael Fish's gaffe.

Fish himself maintains his report was taken out of context, claiming that his comment was in relation to the news story preceding his bulletin which referred to an approaching storm in Florida, Hurricane Floyd. However, he has appeared to contradict himself down the years, claiming that the call was from a colleague's mother at one point, whilst at others suggesting no one phoned up at all. Either way, it secured his notoriety and a snippet of the bulletin was even included in Danny Boyle's 2012 Olympic opening ceremony. 

Louder Than Words

For me, this goal celebration on Tuesday night - the first of 6 goals against Russia in the first World Cup qualifier from Prenton Park - led by goalscorer Nikita Parris and taken up by the whole team speaks louder than any words. At the risk of alienating some people and appearing controversial, I am deeply saddened and frustrated that the FA chose to sack Mark Sampson.

Let's look at the facts and admittedly this can be hard to do with such murky half statements, hints and suggestions that are swirling around this whole incident. Chelsea striker Eni Aluko made allegations of bullying and discrimination against Sampson, suggesting that she had not been picked for the squad because he is racist. Evidence flagged up to suggest a bullying practice within the team's coaching included a recorded commentary in which a coach said she is 'lazy as f*ck'. I see nothing racist in that comment. In fact what I see is a coach who has concerns over her commitment or capability to play for her country. In a TV interview Aluko stated that the first time she wasn't picked in eleven years occurred after such an incident. Surely the clue here is in her own words? Aluko is now thirty years of age and in two years time when it comes to the World Cup she will be 32/33. A manager must consider the long term benefits to the squad and unfortunately for Aluko that may mean not being selected and allowing younger players a chance to shine. The vibe I get from Eni Aluko is that she is someone who believes that playing for her country is a right not a privilege that she must work for.  

Aluko subsequently claimed that Sampson made a remark regarding her Nigerian family and the Ebola virus, a remark he strenuously denies. Now if this remark did actually occur then Sampson is an idiot. Is he a racist? I don't think so. To me this is just an example of ill advised banter in a culture that places 'bants' highly; the kind of stereotyping comment that he, as a Welshman, has probably born the brunt of many times with the old 'sheep shagging' gag. If he did say that, I don't for one moment think race or the colour of Aluko's skin entered into his mind. 

Sampson was cleared by two inquiries over Aluko's allegations, and it's clear from that photo that the team have the upmost faith in him as a manager and as a person. Aluko's sour grapes spilled over onto Twitter with a near incoherent ramble that effectively alienated her even further from her former Lioness teammates, proving once again that she simply isn't team orientated. This came not long after she called everyone who attested to having positive experiences of Sampson's coaching 'enablers' for racism - an unfair comment given that her desire for a further inquiry was based on hearing all views...all views except perhaps those that do not support her own experience perhaps?

The tipping point to this whole saga came yesterday when fresh allegations came to light regarding Sampson's previous role as the coach of Bristol Academy. This is where things get complicated as, beyond a mention of a 'safeguarding issue', we haven't been told what this complaint amounts to. However what we do now is that he was cleared in this inquiry too. So why is it that a man who has been proved innocent three times in a row has been sacked for misconduct?

And why is it the FA paid Aluko £80,000 compensation? The FA come out of this terribly it must be said; they claim not to have known about the Bristol allegation when they came to hire Sampson for the prestigious England job in 2013. The news only came to light, they say, in 2014 whereupon the inquiry commences that subsequently cleared Sampson's name. What makes things very murky indeed is the fact that this wasn't raised during these fresh allegations from Aluko.

In summary, it's a terrible mess and one which I feel the Lionesses will struggle to overcome. Losing a skilled, talented and passionate coach like Sampson will not help a team who have, under his tutelage, become one of the strongest international sides in the game and this has immediately seen them start the road to the World Cup on the back foot. Equally, should any new manager reinstate Aluko to the squad (which I feel they will inevitably do, for fear of being branded racist themselves) it will make for a decidedly fractious team given the comments that Aluko has made regarding what she perceives to be miss-placed faith and trust in Sampson. 

I don't know, you ever get the feeling that we're not allowed successes in this country? It seems we as a nation delight in building people up only to knock them down. I know I won't be in step with everyone's opinion when I say this, but speaking as a long term fan of women's football, I fear a good manager's career has been ruined here.

Massacre In Rome (1973)

Based on screenwriter Robert Katz's own controversial 1967 bestseller, Death in Rome, the 1973 film Massacre In Rome is from journeyman director George Pan Cosmatos and tells the true story of the 1944 partisan roadside bombing that killed thirty-three members of the SS Police Regiment Bozen, and the subsequent Nazi reprisal, ordered by Hitler, that saw a staggering 335 Italians executed in what became known as the Ardeatine massacre. Katz's book achieved notoriety because it accused the then incumbent Pope, Pope Pius XII, of kowtowing to the Nazis and refusing to intervene in or condemn the slaughter of innocents. As a result Katz was sued by the Pope's heirs and was incarcerated in gaol.

The film plays fast and loose with history and perhaps the most major example of this is in the way it depicts SS-Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, the officer responsible for rounding up those to be executed. Kappler was a thirty-something Nazi zealout in reality, but in the film he is played by Richard Burton as a jaded, pragmatic and natural soldier; a character in the stereotypical tradition of 'the sympathetic Nazi'. It's a curious approach to seemingly sanitise a man who was still, at that time, serving a life sentence for war crimes (he would subsequently escape from prison some four years after this picture was released, via his wife's suitcase no less! At the time, Kappler was suffering from terminal cancer and weighed just 47kg - she simply carried him out!) but, given that so much of Katz and Cosmatos' screenplay is shown from the POV of the occupied forces it was perhaps necessary to depict a leading Nazi in some form of sympathetic light.

Starring opposite Burton is Marcello Mastroianni as a composite Vatican official, a character inspired by both Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty (who would subsequently be portrayed by Gregory Peck in the 1983 film The Scarlet and The Black) and Don Pietro Pappagallo (who was the inspiration for Aldo Fabrizi's Pietro Pellegrini in Roberto Rossellini's 1947 film Rome, Open City) The supporting cast is made up of Italian actors and several British character actors including Leo McKern, Anthony Steel and Peter Vaughan, as well as the British expat Italian star John Steiner whose urbanity, combined with his gaunt features and slicked back hair makes him the embodiment of Nazism. 

The real story requires something more than this plodding Euro pudding and, weirdly, Cosmatos seems to struggle with the suspension required for the film's setpieces. Nevertheless, where the film's sluggish pace rather curiously excels is in the sobering logistics of just such a massacre and the cold, unfeeling emotion such an action requires; scenes of Burton painstakingly writing out by lamplight the death warrants of the hundreds handpicked for execution, or condemning Jews with little compunction, are especially striking and thought provoking, putting me in mind of that infamous 'banality of evil' quote concerning another Nazi steeped in blood, Adolf Eichmann.

The events of 1944 still cast a long shadow; in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI declared Pius XII 'venerable', the first step towards canonization, ie Sainthood. It was a move that created significant protest across the world both in light of his inaction during the Ardeatine massacre and from Jewish groups who cite Pius XII as not doing enough in the face of the Holocaust.

You CANNESnot Improve On Perfection

Cannes has rightly come under fire for their official poster artwork for the annual Film Festival next month. The image they use is an archive photograph of the legendary and beautiful actress Claudia Cardinale. Can you see what they've done?

That's right - they've airbrushed Cardinale's thighs and legs to make them appear thinner as well as bringing in her waist to be more in keeping with what is ludicrously considered attractive today.

Don't they know its impossible to improve upon perfection? This is like trying to photoshop the Mona Lisa.

The silly CANNEsts

Cunts of the Week: Mustafa Bashir & Richard Mansell QC; Domestic Violence MUST Be Taken Seriously In Court

In Manchester Crown Court yesterday, Judge Richard Mansell QC ruled that he would not gaol Mustafa Bashir - a man who beat his wife with a cricket bat and forced her to drink bleach - because he felt that, in light of hearing Bashir was due to play cricket for Leicestershire, it would place Bashir's professional sports career in jeopardy and because he felt that, as "an intelligent woman with a network of friends", Bashir's partner was not sufficiently vulnerable enough. He sentenced Bashir to a wholly inappropriate 18 month suspended sentence. 

If that wasn't galling enough, it has subsequently come to light that Leicestershire Cricket Club have no knowledge whatsoever of Bashir. Why was this claim not fact checked during the trial?

This is just another example of the judicial system failing victims of abuse, specifically women.  If you feel strongly about this, then please sign this petition which demands that Alison Saunders, director of the CPS, takes the issue of domestic violence seriously.

Demand an Inquiry into the Trident Missile Cover Up

It's becoming increasingly clear that Theresa May and her government knew full well the facts relating to the dangerous missfire of the Trident missile ahead of the Trident renewal vote in the House last year.

This is nothing short of a disgusting cover up by the Tory government and it's obvious that May and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon are willing to cower and hide behind the 'National Security' line in order to play down this monumentally dangerous event as much as possible. Meanwhile, Trump's US administration is actually briefing their media on the details of the event - so how exactly is it an issue of national security?

The Green Party MP and Parliamentary chair of CND Caroline Lucas has tabled an early day motion for parliament to call for an inquiry into the missile test and the decision to hold the information from parliament and the public. Please ask that your MP signs this motion by completing the template email letter on the CND website here

We need to poke at the cracks at the Tory Party and the establishment's reliance on doomsday weapons to topple them both.

Me Before You (2016)

Me Before You was 2016's summer romcom weepie that just happened to become one of the most controversial movies of the year.

The filmmakers only have themselves to blame. First there's the marketing campaign '#LiveBoldly or #DieQuickly?' that seemed to argue that the life of a disabled person wasn't worth a bean. And then there was this naive, troubling comment from director Thea Sharrock; 

"My nephew is in a wheelchair and I hope he will be pleased to see this shown in a way that does not make audiences too uncomfortable. If we had shown Will being taken in and out of his chair, or put in a hoist over a bath, the impression we would give is of difficulty. I wanted to make it more normal." 

You know what? If an audience feels 'uncomfortable' about that, fuck that audience. Diversity in entertainment is scarcer than an original idea. On the night I watched this over the Christmas period, it formed a double bill with the stand up comic Romesh Ranganathan's debut live DVD, Irrational. In his act, Ranganathan admits to feeling a strange frisson of surprise whenever he sees two men kissing in public, arguing that this immediate reaction stems from the fact that the mainstream media to this allegedly enlightened day refuses to show homosexuality as the norm. "I've seen more people get shot in the head than I've seen guys kissing" he points out, and it's so true. If you're making a film about disability, you simply have to show it as it actually is. You have to show that it is difficult - like life can be for everyone in fact  - but that disabled people can still find their level of normalcy for a rich and fulfilling life. Sharrock and Me Before You refuses to do that because it goes against their central romantic narrative and the philosophy at the heart of the film which is that a life with disability is an anathema to the Sam Claflin character. What sparked criticism was the fact that both the film and the characters within it seem accepting of this philosophy, and many disability campaigners argued that this was the wrong message to put out there. After all, suicide is considered a tragic thing in society and, when we hear or see representations of someone suffering from debilitating depression and mental health issues ultimately taking their own life, we express sentiments that this course of action is a waste, and therefore the wrong action to take. The critics issue with this film was that it seemed to think it was OK to suggest that suicide (or rather euthanasia) is acceptable for a physically disabled person, and that their life - such as it is - isn't worth living because it cannot be bold, active or exciting. But in reality there's just no such black and white argument to be had and the comparison that a life played safe and without ambition for fear of failure by an able-bodied person (Emilia Clarke) is on a par with the physically restricted life of a quadriplegic is a trite one.

I also feel I should add that when I first saw the poster for this film in the street it didn't even click with me that Claflin was disabled and in a chair, and you have to ask yourself how much of that was intentional on the marketing campaign's behalf - did they really want to airbrush the disability out in favour of the romance?

Which brings me to the other controversial, problematic issue with this film; yes, the romance. I don't want to bang on about this too much, because I think that my fellow Letterboxder reviewer and the all round superstar that is Vanina says it all far more eloquently than I can in her review on the site, but I will say that the romance at the heart of this film (and presumably at the heart of the source material; Jojo Moyes' bestselling novel of the same name) barely raises above the standard Mills and Boon fayre of 'small town girl meets rich aristocratic type and after frosty acrimonious start they reach an understanding and later find love (dependent either upon the male teaching the virginal female the physicality of love or, in this case, by being utterly unthreatening sexually) before changing her life completely by offering her his wealth'.

So, with all that in mind, why the fudge have I given it a rather favourable three out of five stars I hear you ask on Letterboxd? Why did I actually like this movie?

Well the answer is that, despite myself, I found this glossy piece of fluff actually quite charming and the main reason for that is the performances from Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke. The former manages to inject a degree of dignity and laconic wit to his role of the bitter and depressed quadriplegic, whilst the unbearably cute Clarke burns like the brightest star as the ditzy home help with the quirky, colourful wardrobe and sunny disposition not a million miles away from Poppy in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky. I can't help it, I fell in love with Clarke here - and for a romantic movie, I guess that outcome is half the battle won. It's just a shame I guess that she couldn't shine as a romcom lead in a less troublesome production. Praise to the casting directors too who managed to find actors who actually looked convincingly alike enough to be the respective families of our two leads, and a nice little cameo from Joanna Lumley.

All in all, I found this much better than that other book-club-fave-turned-hit-movie One Day.

Tories Continue to Block Justice for Orgreave

Home Secretary Amber Rudd (yes, the one who said employers should supply the government with the full number and details of any immigrants in their employ - the racist cunt herself) has today announced that there was not 'sufficient evidence' to launch an inquiry or independent review into the Battle of Orgreave.

Read full details here

Words fail me.

Oh no, actually I do have some; fucking bastard Tory cover up! 

This was a brutal act of class warfare in which the police were effectively Thatcher's own private militia. They had been trained for months in advance of this incident and some of the same officers went on to become implicit in that other huge cover up; Hillsborough. The files themselves prove that Thatcher lied to the public when she claimed she had no intention of eradicating the coal industry in this country. How is that for sufficient evidence?

Continue the fight at the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign

The Monocled Mutineer (1986)

2014 saw the centenary of the outbreak of World War One and the coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats seemed keen to mark the anniversary, though the intentions of the latter party were predictably out of step. Prime Minister David Cameron claimed that they wanted a “commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, says something about who we are as a people”, and was rightly and immediately condemned for suggesting that the deaths of 38 million people were something to celebrate. It was the kind of comment that hinted at the mindset of the Tory establishment. It has recently come to light that, in 2012, the then Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt expressed dissatisfaction with Danny Boyle and his Olympic Opening Ceremony team for not representing the might and triumphs of the British military throughout our history, arguing that the NHS segment could be dropped with the same attitude and manner that we have seen him undertake his current stewardship of Health. But perhaps most pointedly of all then Education Secretary Michael Gove claimed that the opinion we have come to hold about The Great War is nothing but a lie spun by "left wing academics...degenerating virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage"

This fear the Tory establishment feel about the truth being told about the horrors, the futility and the downright stupidity of WWI isn't new, the same attitude was rife in the mid '80s under Thatcher's rule, and the thorn in its side was the BBC's The Monocled Mutineer, a drama series written by Boys from the Blackstuff author Alan Bleasdale (from a 1978 book by William Allison and John Fairley) concerning the exploits of Percy Toplis, a deserter, an imposter of officers and presumed murderer (he was tried in absence for the murder of cab driver Sidney George Spicer - the first British inquest in modern times to do so) who was gunned down in Penrith following a two month manhunt instigated by the Home Office in 1920. Like the book, Bleasdale's series depicted Toplis as a leading participant in the Étaples Mutiny  of 1917.

"The Étaples 'mutinies' amounted to no more than a few days of disorder' a little disrespect to officers and some loudly-voiced demands for humane treatment. The army reacted briskly. It restored discipline by bringing in unaffected troops. It removed the cause of discontent by replacing the worst of the staff with wise men. That is about all there was to the British Army 'mutinies' of the 1914 - 1918 war."

So argued military historian Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan OBE FRSL in the Daily Telegraph (Torygraph) on September 9th, 1986. Not a very good military historian if you ask me; his claim of 'a few days disorder' is an outright lie as, after a fractious summer in 1917 in which complaints regarding how troops were being treated at the Étaples training camp known as 'The Bull Ring' were routinely ignored, things came to ahead on September 9th of that year, when the mutiny exploded and remained in force until mid-October. This is recorded fact by many sources, including no less a figure than Vera Brittain in her book Testament of Youth which recounts her time with the Voluntary Aid Detachment at Étaples; "the mutiny was due to repressive conditions......and was provoked by the military police". The Monocled Mutineer depicts Military Police and Instructors at the camp 'crucifying' soldiers (tying them to posts on the parade ground) soldiers for various misdemeanors, and doling out savage beatings, instances I imagine Keegan and the like would vehemently refute. The real truth about what occurred in Étaples should by rights come to public light next year in 2017 when classified documents have reached the 100 year embargo for their release. However, it was discovered by the House in 1978 following the publication of Allison and Fairley's claims, that  all the records of the Étaples Board of Enquiry had been destroyed long since - this is nothing more than an establishment whitewash and cover up.

Keegan's words were just the start of the controversies that dogged the transmission of The Monocled Mutineer exactly thirty years ago. But there was more going on here than just the disgruntled criticisms from so-called historians. In 1986, the BBC was under fire from the Tory government in the same way that the corporation has been on shaky ground with the present government with regards to its Charter renewal. Throughout 1985 and '86, the BBC was subjected to the Peacock Committee, which was purportedly set up to decide the future of the corporation, but in reality saw Norman Tebbit instigate a McCarthy-esque style witch hunt throughout the BBC, monitoring its staff, output and ethos for 'left wing bias' which saw, amongst others, police raids at BBC Scotland in relation to the planned and subsequently banned programme concerning the Zircon signals intelligence satellite, a dossier suggesting the BBC news team were biased against America in their coverage of their bombing raids on Libya and 100 Tory MP's sign a motion for"the restoration of proper standards at the BBC" and the sacking of DG Alisdair Milne. 

The Daily Mail, ever the bastion of right wing ire, launched a vitriolic campaign against The Monocled Mutineer that must have made Thatcher and Tebbit proud. They especially went to town over the claims that official records show that Toplis' regiment was en route to India during the Étaples mutiny, and that there is no actual evidence in existence that shows Toplis played a part in the mutiny or that he was absent from his India-bound regiment at this time. In defence of the rising criticism and derision the programme faced, the BBC's director of television Bill Cotton and the series producer Richard Broke admitted to "small examples of dramatic licence" having been taken, but argued that the drama spoke of "the greater truth about World War I". But the damage had been done, not least because BBC Worldwide, the advertising arm of the corporation, had shot themselves in the foot by inaccurately representing Bleasdale's series as "a true-life story" in its marketing and promotional campaigns. The Tories had their wish granted and Alistair Milne was unceremoniously ousted from the BBC, whilst The Monocled Mutineer has been repeated just once in 30 years, and that was in the summer of 1988 - two years after its original broadcast. The series itself wasn't even released to DVD until 2007 and anyone expecting to see the programme form a part of the BBC's commemorations for WWI between now and 2018 need only look to the current mindset of the government for their answer. It ain't gonna happen.

Alan Bleasdale was originally loathe to write the series. Claiming he didn't do adaptations, he avoided all attempts by the BBC to coax him into staging it from 1981 through to the mid '80s. He only changed his mind when he recalled that his own grandfather died in WWI six months before his father was born and that - and this is what really resonates with me, what I feel is actually crucial to understanding the whole story about The Monocled Mutineer and the reaction and backlash it faced - he felt that he had "studied history books people in power had wanted me to read" and had "never learned what it was like for a common man to go to war, and a common soldier to go through those times". By the latter half of the twentieth century the tide was finally turning and the accurate notion of 'lions led by donkeys' was at last becoming accepted fact. By 1986, seventy years after the conflict, Alan Bleasdale, and others that came after him, finally felt able to seek out the truth for themselves, to think for themselves, and to get that message across to the masses to ensure we never have to endure such catastrophic folly again because, as he told the Radio Times "It's a costume drama, with something to say about the times we live in". It is that freedom to think for ourselves that the established order of this country would rather we did not have, should they need to lead us lions with as much gross incompetence as they can muster once again. 

Percy Toplis utterly fascinates me, having read the Allison and Fairley book as a teenager (I only vaguely recall seeing The Monocled Mutineer on TV in either '86 or '88 - I know my dad watched it but I was of course too young to rightly understand the situation) and although the received wisdom now has it that he wasn't involved in the mutiny, I remain uncertain. I may be being naive here, but though there's no evidence he was in Étaples, there's equally precious little evidence he was with his regiment at that time either. If the man was a notorious deserter, surely he could have left his troop before they boarded for India and taken himself Étaples, where he had previously hidden out in the forests around the region with other deserters, pacifists and socialists? And why did the Home Office effectively run such a massive manhunt for someone the authorities deemed guilty of murder? Why was his funeral held in private, his family lied to and turned away, and why was he buried in an unmarked grave? I just think the whole thing is a huge cover up and that, as we have seen, it is all too easy to cry 'left wing propaganda' when the right wing establishment don't want to be embarrassed.

The Monocled Mutineer remains one of the must-watch TV series ever produced by the BBC, and one of the most pivotal and polished from the 1980s (not bad for a decade that also brought us Edge of Darkness) it boasts a central performance from Paul McGann as the anti-hero Toplis who takes the notes Bleasdale gave him to play it as a cross between Cool Hand Luke and John Lennon and runs with it beautifully to deliver a charismatic, multi-dimensional career-best turn. But above all this is just an incredibly deep and well textured piece of writing that continues to provoke thought and debate to this very day.

Truth (2015)

In September 2004, CBS’s 60 Minutes, anchored by respected veteran anchor Dan Rather, led with a story that cast doubt on the then president George W Bush's service as a Texas Air National Guard pilot from 1968 to 1974. 

In the aftermath of the story breaking, the authenticity of the key documents that shaped CBS's story was called into question, along with the conduct of the reporting team led by producer Mary Mapes who were forced to cut corners to reach deadlines enforced on them by the channel itself. Critics were quick to argue that the team had been duped, that the documents were fake and that poor and biased journalism had sought to tarnish an incumbent president seeking reelection. Pretty soon, the story was no longer about whether Bush shied away from active service and was protected by his superiors thanks to political pressure, it was about the documents and the doubt thrown upon them, and then eventually the CBS news team itself became the news. With pressure from above and arguably from the White House itself, 60 Minutes was subsequently forced to retract and apologise for the story they broke and Dan Rather's twenty+ years with CBS came to an acrimonious close, whilst Mapes - who received a torrent of vitriolic online abuse and unbearable scrutiny - never worked in TV news again. 

Truth, the directorial debut from James Vanderbilt(the screenwriter of David Fincher's acclaimed Zodiac), is based on Mapes’s own memoir, as such it's only right that the film comes firmly down on Mapes's side - something which some critics and audiences don't seem to appreciate. Like the actual event it depicts, Truth has had some unfair and unjust scorn and derision poured upon it and I cannot see why. Sure, its script is a little hokey and it tries a little too hard to be inspiring in a year when Spotlight rightly walked away with an accurate and rewarding experience of crusading journalism at its best. Truth was perhaps always going to play second fiddle (and arguably even third fiddle when you consider how Aaron Sorkin's second season of The Newsroom detailed a fictional duping perpetrated against the news team) but the brickbats it has received does make me wonder if the nature of the story CBS sought to break is still the key here. Or maybe people just didn't want to see a film in which the heroes lose and the ultimate findings are, in the general consensus, begrudgingly considered inconclusive at best, or scurrilously false at worst.

Cate Blanchett is her usual reliable and impressive self as Mapes, a celebrated journalist juggling the demands of the job in this new demanding media world which sees stories being fitted around Billy Graham and Dr Phil specials, her troubled and abused childhood and her own family life, whilst Robert Redford provides a stately, dignified presence as Rather. It's just a shame that the rest of the team, including Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace and Elizabeth Moss (the silly scientologist clearly not taking the message from the film to 'ask questions'), are given scarcely fleshed out or developed characters to perform.

Ghostwatch (1992)

For my money this 1992 Screen One drama is still the most compelling, technically accomplished and effective scare story television has ever staged. I can enthuse about Ghostwatch for hours amongst friends in pubs, explaining just why I think it was so successful, influential and unique, and indeed I often have.

Ghostwatch remains a clever, controversial and utterly shittifying experience.

Broadcast by the BBC just after the 9pm watershed on Halloween night 1992, Ghostwatch purported to be a live BBC broadcast from Foxhill Drive in Northolt, where a council house has been haunted by a malevolent spirit. The traumatised and unfortunate Early family - single mother Pam and daughters Kim and Suzanne - have been placed under the microscope by Dr Pascoe who has been investigating the poltergeist given the name ‘Pipes’ for some time before the BBC descends. 'Pipes' - it's a name that sends a chill down the spine of British men and women of a certain age.

Ostensibly an outside broadcast and studio discussion fronted by familiar TV personalities of the day (veteran chat show host Michael Parkinson, Saturday morning kids TV presenter Sarah Greene and her former Radio 1 DJ husband, the late Mike Smith and performance poet and Red Dwarf actor Craig Charles) many viewers were easily duped into believing this was in fact a real live TV event, failing to notice author Stephen Volk's writing credit, the cast list printed in the Radio Times or the Screen One logo before the action commenced. Not since Orson Welles' infamous 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast had a deception been so widespread and convincing and,spurred on by a minority of infuriated viewers upon realising that they'd literally been tricked and treated, the media created a shitstorm in the aftermath of its broadcast citing numerous examples of extremely effected viewers including, if memory serves, a tenuously linked suicide. As a result, the programme has never been repeated on British television.

If you were there, and I was 13-years-old at the time, Ghostwatch had a huge impact and remains a crucial TV viewing experience. It was, understandably, the talk of the playground for days after and from both its controversy and its stunning depiction of psychic phenomena - influenced by the real life paranormal incidents at Enfield, which were finally effectively dramatised this year with Sky's The Enfield Haunting - continued to fuel the morbid fascinations of many a teenager. Remember this was an era long before Sky+ and 'Live Pause', and Ghostwatch's subtle, spine tingling chills in the form of the fleeting, cameos from 'Pipes' really are of the blink and you'll miss it variety. But if you were quick enough to catch it, even from the corner of your eye, it was suitably unnatural and made you question your own eyes and, quite rightly given the context of the piece, what it was that you were actually seeing.

Ghostwatch's skill lies in just how realistic it actually is. It really does emulate the live broadcast superbly shot on videotape and using infra red cameras to create a fascinating postmodern narrative. The tropes of live TV are all there; the awkward, mundane chat between studio and outside broadcast; the satellite delays, the phone-in segments and the naturalistic air employed by the performers. It's especially commendable that the production includes the rather daring gambit of not always making the action totally clear, with lines being delivered in a murmur or people talking over one another. 

The jovial, jokey 'it's only TV, folks' tone  slowly gives way as the sinister goings on in the area is slowly drip-fed into proceedings - we learn of children going missing, a pregnant Labrador butchered in the nearby playground, and folkloric tales of a murderous babysitter and a disturbed cross-dressing lodger with convictions for child sex abuse -  before its nihilistic conclusion where it becomes clear that the broadcast has acted as a gigantic, universal séance, thus making the viewers truly a part of this well designed, edited and plotted drama with some surprisingly good and natural performances - specifically from Parky as the host - and the experienced acting talent of Gillian Bevan as Dr Pascoe and Brid Brennan as Mrs Early.

It's the kind of drama that sadly could only ever have been made in 1992; risky and totally reliant on the shared experience of TV viewing. 

To get the BBC to consider repeating some of these classic plays, please sign the petition I started here