Monthly Archives: March 2003

To Be A Politician

It must be an odd career being a politician – whatever you do somebody will disagree. After all, there is there is always somebody with a different coloured rosette. If your opinions are not being shouted down in some debating chamber due to political differences then you run the risk of being called self-serving. It’s one job where you know you will not be popular everywhere.

So is Robin Cook, former Foreign Secretary and now former leader of the House of Commons, a man of integrity or self-serving? I don’t know him so I can’t answer that. What I do believe is his resignation speach last night was one of the best speeches I have ever seen by a politician. It wasn’t bitter (although there was a sadness to it) and there were no personal attacks (even though he resigned because he disagreed with Government policy). He is not leaving his post because of some scandal but because he feels he can’t continue to serve in a Cabinet that supports a war he does not. With it he loses the trappings of office (house, car, staff?) and returns to the back benches.

I don’t know much about Robin Cook. I know that last night’s address was remarkable. He was eloquent and appeared to speak with a sincerity and conviction you do not see often in the modern politician. His argument (regardless of your stance) was delivered with a calm clarity that is, also, unusual. I admired the fact that he spoke to the House of Commons before the press and seemed, genuinely, to respect the workings of the British democracy. Isn’t it a shame more politicians don’t do that?

Now, some have suggested throughout the day that he was positioning himself for a role if all goes wrong for Tony Blair. But doesn’t taking a stance and having the integrity to declare when you believe something is right or wrong mean that you are positioning yourself. You can’t do anything about that. If he is proved to have been right then it’s only proper that people turn to him in the months to come. If he is wrong at least he has his integrity intact. If more of our elected representatives cared more for the policies than public opinion or their image and more spoke with the passion that Robin Cook did, I think British politics would be a better place.

Perhaps Claire Short should take another night to think about it.

On this day…

2005: Myths Perpetuated By Queer Eye

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Far From Heaven

Far from Heaven is a strange film set in a place called Hartford in 1957 and it really does look like it. It’s melodramatic – as all 1950s movies should be – and it’s got that feeling (you could say retro as the look is very in at the moment) which makes you think, for some reason, that Formica is the path to happiness for us all.

Cathy and Frank are a successful couple living in a well-to-do house with successful friends and the appearance of a respectable, 50s suburban family life. She lunches and hosts parties, the maid looks after the children and he is a top salesman. The family, however, is rocked when Cathy (Julianne Moore) catches Frank (Dennis Quaid) in a passionate embrace with another man. This repressed homosexuality eventually wrecks their marriage and Cathy finds comfort in the friendship of Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert) – a black man in a time when white men and black men could not ride in the same part of the bus.

The film is certainly moving and there are some scenes where you see and feel the emotional trauma that the pair of them go through. The reaction of the middle-classes is an insight into what, for me, seems like a different world. It’s played well and the three leads should all be praised for their performances. Far and Heaven addresses difficult issues in an interesting way but the 50s styling allows you to distance yourself from the feelings and opinions of the characters. I suspect, that some of the fear and prejudice still lies beneath many and this film won’t make people address them.

Some of the scenes seem too forced, stylised or stereotypical to be carried off with believability. Having said that, it’s an enjoyable film and one I would recommend.

UPDATE 24 MARCH: Sadly, Julianne Moore, didn’t win for this or The Hours. However, Michael Moore did win Best Documentary Feature for Bowling For Columbine.

On this day…

2006: Links For 17th March 2006
2005: Birthday Boy

Referral Check

Well, I do occasionally look at my referral logs and see what’s sending people to my site. Nothing too strange, really, and usually very relevant to the content. As noted previously (see here) the Man of the Moment project (which is shameless, really) generates a good number of the impressions.

So, I thought I would look and see who are the top couple of men who generate traffic. And the top ten of all time is:

  1. Julian Essex Spurrier
  2. Dermot O’Leary
  3. Matt Damon
  4. Mark Owen
  5. Justin Timberlake
  6. Jonathan Kerrigan
  7. Ben Affleck

Interestingly, Julian Essex-Spurrier is top of the list despite only one mention in my review of London West-End performance of The Full Monty. I hope his real site is actually ranking better than my one review across search sites.

jonathan kerrigan topping the referral chartHowever, If we looked at the past month, Jonathan Kerrigan is now out-doing the Ben Affleck in tight leather searchers and all the others! And I wondered why as there has only been a Man of the Moment project for Jonathan and Ben has been mentioned more in the general blog. To be honest, I am not sure as there appears plenty of web content for Jonathan Kerrigan (who I saw in Sleuth and was looking lovely in a nice tight black vest and shorts).

You could start over at the BBC’s Mersey Beat pages where there’s a page on Jonathan’s character Steve Taylor or read the transcript of his web chat. Then there are, what appear to be some fan sites: jonathan-kerrigan.co.uk; The Jonathan Kerrigan site at Geocities or www.jamespaullockwood.co.uk.

Fans of the BBC series Casualty can read more about Jonathan’s character Sam at The Casualty Files or the Casualty fan site at Tripod. Finally, the theatre story noting that Jonathan is to take over a role in Sleuth.

I might keep updating this chart for my own amusement.

On this day…

2005: All Change
2004: Do I Need Another Suitcase
2004: Unexpected Saturday Racing

Fries and Fredom

Something about this story alarms me. Basically, somebody in the US has had the bright idea of renaming French Fries and referring to them as Freedom Fries in protest at France’s stance to the action against Iraq.

Sure, it could be a humorous aside to some very serious issues facing the world. It’s not the actual story that I find distressing but the ideas behind it. I suspect that I am exaggerating the importance and relevance of it but why do some Americans find it so hard to accept that other nations have a different take on events and may have genuine reasons for opposition? It doesn’t make other nations bad.

Similiarly, the suggested “restrictions on French participation in any postwar construction projects in Iraq” [Yahoo] already implies that the US will be taking over and running things should war happen and the Iraqi regime be toppled. I do not believe that’s in the best interests of anybody.

Elsewhere, A US appeals court has ruled that prisoners held at a US military base in Cuba do not have the right to hearings in American courts [BBC]. It is suggested that they are not covered by the US Constitution as they are not being held on US soil. This may be fine but surely the basis of a democratic society is that it affords basic human rights to all. That’s also one of the things that sets us apart from the terrorists. Yet we continue to hold these people without charge and without access to legal advice. The very things that are supposed to make us civilised democracies are slowly being eroded and it’s allowed because we’re presented with a scenario that is supposed to make us scared. This can not be right.

On this day…

2005: Festen

No Clause 28

Finally, that hateful clause looks like it is on its way out [Stonewall]. Remarkably little has been said about this in the news, but I guess we all have other things on our minds right now. Regardless, this is going to make life better for gay and lesbian teenagers across the country.

Often straight people just don’t get it – those’s years when, growing up, you feel isolated and alone because you know you are different. The suicide and attempted suicide rate amongst gay teens is, apparently, quite high. Schools and teachers now have a clear message that it’s OK to talk about homosexuality. And if that stops one person thinking about suicide then this is a fantastic day.

But it’s not over yet. Here comes the House of Lords. [Read more at Stonewall].

On this day…

No other posts on this day.

Watch Your Email

In the process of developing this blog (read some of the history) I have gradually been putting on the pre-blog content into Moveable Type. This morning I came across this superb item – The Tyranny of Email (aka When Email Goes Bad) [via Tom] – and it reminded me of something I put together just before I left a job with the web projects at IPC. Having dug round backup discs last night, I finally found it, cleaned it up and posted it via Moveable Type in – what I hope – is the correct date (I left IPC in December 1999).

As always, I find somebody else can express my thoughts better than I can. Ole Eichhorn’s piece is spot on the mark and I will be turning my email client off at times in the day. And, I found a great new blog to read.

On this day…

2003: Dreams of the Downsized

Dreams of the Downsized

I went to see a client this morning: nothing too unusual in that fact. It was a client I have worked with over several years – the internet arm of a well-known organisation. Again, nothing too exceptional. Nice chat, coffee and a new product overview (from my part). As I had not seen them for a while, I thought it would be nice to go back. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was great to see people there. What was sad were the changes that have happened to the online group over the last year. Gone are the product managers, most developers and many of the other staff. They are now much, much smaller than they were.


Again, nothing too unusual in this, but today it struck me as sad. The ideas and the passion, the desire to make something happen and be part of it that all those people had – gone. How many people in so-called new media industries have been through it (some, several times)? I have been through the cut-back mill as people around me are “downsized” to allow companies to survive. Yet, today – I think – was the first day the scale of it struck me. I can’t explain it, and I am not sure that I want to try, but today I think I understood how the internet was built up and how it failed to deliver on those dreams for many people.


The “why” of it all is a different story for a different day. Today is about the good people who have moved on. Hopefully, they’re doing better.

On this day…

2003: Watch Your Email

Adaptation

Adaption Movie Poster, 2003
Adaption Movie Poster, 2003

It’s wowed audiences and received Oscar nominations (for Nicolas Cage, Chris Cooper, Meryl Streep and for Charlie Kaufman’s writing) but it didn’t do very much for me. Sadly, I was almost asleep, which I guess isn’t a good review.

In theory, it’s an interesting movie. Instead of being able to write a screenplay based on Susan Orlean’s bestselling novel “The Orchid Thief“, Charlie Kaufman (and his twin brother, Donald – more about him later) write a movie telling the tale that the film can not be written. We suffer with the author as he faces writer’s block and is tormented by false starts. Of course, during this process, we also get to see something of The Orchid Thief itself as characters within the novel have to face their own torments.

Charlie Kaufman is, of course, a real screenwriter (he wrote Being John Malkovich), and the tale appears somewhat autobiographical. Donald Kaufman, who shares the writing credit and is – I imagine – also nominated for The Oscar, is fictitious: a plot device to add to Charlie’s trauma and help finish the film.

I’ve heard great things about this film – and that made me want to see it. I read a great feature on it in a recent edition of Empire which also made it sound interesting and people have raved about it. I was looking forward to seeing it and, sadly, I left the cinema bitterly disappointed. You can’t fault the film on originality, story-telling or acting (Streep is fantastic, Cage superb as both twins) but something didn’t work for me. It’s terrible when that happens in a film, but this time it didn’t work. It would be an interesting take to see if I could watch it again and if I could get more out of it.

Unfortunately, I do think that while it’s clever it’s also confusing. Those who understand more about the screenwriting process or the struggles of the author may get more out of it.

On this day…

2004: My Music And Radio Posts Connected

Freddie, Will and George

There seem to be a lot of rumours about Arsenal footballer, Freddie Ljungberg. I thought his stance in the papers was one of the better ways for a celebrity to say that he is not gay without being offensive:

“I know what I am,” he says. “My family know I’m not gay and my girlfriend knows. But I’m not offended. Gay men can be very fashionable.” [The Mirror]

“I’m not gay. But gay men can be very fashionable, so maybe it’s a compliment.” [The Sun]

Now a real-gay celebrity, George Michael, appeared on Top of the Pops last night with his anti-war protest song, a cover of Don McLean’s The Grave [Yahoo!]. Not sure what I think of pop-stars and politics, but it’s good to hear the George is back on the television. Can you believe he has not been on Top of the Pops since his Wham days? Seems sad that a lot of the coverage was about the what t-shirts the backing singers wore.

I do like the fact that Will Young claims record bosses have told him not to mention he is gay if he wants to crack the US [Annanova] but do wonder how on earth that is going to be kept quiet over there given the publicity surrounding him on the web and in the press over here. It’ll be an interesting story to watch but I am not sure it can be in Will’s best interests.

On this day…

2007: I’m Silent. You Are Not.
2004: Defining Your Own Space
2004: Similarities At BBC Radio
2003: And The Years Pass

And The Years Pass

Years pass very quickly, don’t they? PY and I went to dinner last night with some friends. We have been friends since our university days and, last night, the old photographs came out. We all sat around having a laugh at the state we were in for four years. When you look back, in many ways, they were much more carefree days and I got to wondering where the time had gone. It was more-or-less ten years ago when we all left and headed out with hopes and dreams into the big wide world. Life has been good to me but I do note that, back then, I had no clue about what was coming up in my life. I had no clue that the internet would change the way I do a lot of things.

What shocked me most, of course, was the realisation that it actually was ten years ago. It seems much less and that’s what set off the chain of melancholy. Have I regretted anything over the last ten years? No, I can honestly say that I haven’t. I enjoy my life and feel very privileged to have good friends and colleagues. Nevertheless, ten years has passed and that is a long time. It reminds me that our years here are limited and I must continue to make the most every day. Funny, how these thoughts enter your head.

On this day…

2007: I’m Silent. You Are Not.
2004: Defining Your Own Space
2004: Similarities At BBC Radio
2003: Freddie, Will and George