Holmes, the Man of Action.

     Sherlock Holmes: The Game of Shadows (2011) [D: Guy Ritchie. Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, et al.] Conan Doyle’s Holmes this isn’t, but it’s a consistent re-imagining of the character. Moriarty wants massive profit by selling arms, so he arranges for assassinations intended to provoke war. Holmes and Watson manage to spike his guns, literally. Holmes takes Moriarty with him over the Reichenbach Falls, and the movie ends with Watson typing "The End". Holmes materialises out of the armchair against the wall, and adds a question mark.
     Nicely done as a movie, good script with a clear enough narrative line and enough characterisation to give the actors something to work with. But the trend to CGI-enhanced, over-long “action” sequences doesn’t improve it. Robert Downey Jr does a creditable job as Holmes, Jude Law as Watson, and Kelly Reilly gets a nice bit part as Mary Watson, expert at solving ciphers and codes. Jared Harris’s Moriarty doesn’t convince me as the master of evil. Overall, a comic-book version of Holmes, a pleasant enough entertainment. **½

Brexit V: May says the right things

.... but does something strange, appointing Boris Johnson as her Foreign Minister. His history of confabulation, ducking responsibility, and attention seeking does not augur well for his skills as negotiator. So why did May appoint him? Cynic that I am, I suspect continuing internecine war within the Conservative Party. the nest few weeks should be interesting.
     The initial financial shocks have subsided. If the UK can demonstrate something like political stability, its economic decline may turn out to be less serious tan the first panicky reactions to Brexit suggested. We'll see. As with weather, economic forecasts need updating at regular intervals. My bet right now is that the slide of the pound will slow down, with an occasional uptick, but by this time next year it will at par with the dollar.
     Update January 31, 2020: The pound has settled down at around $1.30 US, about half of what it was in the early 1970s. There was of course no deal. Thatcher did got a deal, but it was voted down (three times!), she resigned, and  Boris was elected Prime Minister by his party. He called an election, and won a majority. He used it to "get it done", and Brexit is now a fact. Today is the day of the official separation of the UK from the EU.
    Of course it's not actually a separation. The UK and EU will be entangled for a year of transition, which Johnson claims will end with a super trade deal. It probably won't, but whatever happens, the UK won't do as well without the EU as the EU will do without the UK. And the UK will have to conform to EU regulations aboiut any and everything it wants to sell to the EU, so there will be no "taking back control." It will also have to agree to reciprocal work-visa rules, simply because it will need a continued influx of European workers.
     There have already been mumblings by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (a remarkably inept body in my opinion) about a Canada-UK trade deal. It will likely happen, but which won't help the UK much, as it needs Canadian goods more than Canada needs UK goods. The same is true for any other deal the UK will make. I predict a fairly long and slow decline, which will coincide with the dying off the Littel Englander generation that brought about Brexit. At the end, maybe as far as 20 years from now, the UK will petition to rejoin the EU. That is, if other calamities haven't interfered with the orderly evolution of the international global order.
     In the meantime, the UK's skill at dry-cleaning dirty money will make it a haven for oligarchs from all over the world.

Food matters

     Seeds of Time (2013) Documentary that follows Cary Fowler as he travels round the world  as part of a world-wide seed-saving project. He was one of the instigators of the Svalbard Seed Vault. His message is simple: industrialised agriculture has brought about a sharp decline in crop diversity just when climate change has raised the need for genetic diversity so that crops can be adapted to changing conditions. Besides Svalbard, a project to preserve potato diversity in Peru gets central billing. There are also scenes of conferences, graphics illustrating the loss of seed banks, and so on. This is one of those slow-moving crises that people will ignore until it’s too late.
      Besides the Peruvian potato saving project, the film includes examples of seed saving by gardeners and other projects designed to preserve and increase diversity. Some of the repetitive bits could have been cut to provide more room for gardening, which in pure energy terms is the most efficient method of growing food.
     Unlike industrialised agriculture, a garden multiplies energy. The efficiency of agribusiness is an illusion limited to money. In terms of resources, it’s highly inefficient, because the externals aren’t priced. Gardening is labour intensive, but we get more food energy out of a garden than we put into it. Good thing too, or our ancestors, couldn’t have survived without preserving garden produce for the long cold winter. We subsidise agri-business by underpricing oil, which means we exchange the future of the planet for the present freedom from labour.
     A film both depressing and hopeful, relentlessly earnest, but necessary. Watch ity, and grow beans in your backyard. ***

Encyclopedia of ETs

     Wayne Douglas Barlowe et al. Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials (1979 & 1987) With an introduction by Robert Silverberg. A nicely done survey of 48 extraterrestrials as described by 40-odd writers. Barlowe has done his best to interpret descriptions of varying completeness and vagueness into accurate renditions of their appearance, as well as summarising what the stories say or imply about their biology, social structure, political role(s), and so on.
     Several of them contradict my visualisations (e.g., Dickson’s Ruml, from The Alien Way), others are wonderfully unearthly (e.g., the Dextran). It is after all logically impossible to imagine anything that is utterly alien: all ETs are inevitably extrapolations and interpretations of what we know about life on Earth, and what we can estimate about the physics and chemistry of exoplanets.
      Nevertheless, both writers and artists have tried to convey the sense of the Alien as something other than a human in a weird costume. The notes to the illustrations sometimes come close (e.g., Radiates, starfish shaped beings from Mitchison’s Memoirs of a Spacewoman, “will join an interlocking wheeling dance”).
      A well done compendium, that any SF fan will enjoy. It should be on the reference shelf of anyone contemplating devising an SF movie or book. ***

Brexit IV: The rats want to leave the sinking ship.

Standard Life Fund, the investment arm of the British-based multi-national life insurance company, has stopped withdrawals from its real estate investment mutual funds.  All of them hold London real estate, whose value is unknown now that Brexit may eliminate London's role as the world's premier financial services provider. If Standard Life's action is the first of many, there will be a world-wide financial crisis. Let's just hope it won't happen, and if it does, that it won't be as bad as 2008.

Related risks: The pound was always overvalued in terms of purchasing power. Anyone travelling to the UK found out pretty quickly that the UK was expensive: A pound spent in the UK bought about as much as a dollar spent in Canada or the USA, so prices were roughly double in real times. Its high exchange value reflected the financial power of London. The pound was a safe haven currency. If it loses that status, the financial crisis will be very bad. "Investors" will try to unload pounds. But the only people who ever wanted them in the fist place were the people who will be trying to get rid of them. So the Bank of England will have to buy pounds, and that means a serious risk of major sloshing of currencies around the world. When currencies slosh around because nobody wants them, hyperinflation looms on the horizon.

Pictures from a road trip.

     Michael Glover. Big Lonely and Beyond (2009) Disclosure: I have several pieces by Michael Glover, you may surmise that I like his work. This self-published book collects 58 sketches and drawings Glover made on several trips across the country. He likes to show us objects in a landscape or townscape, cars, buildings, boats, trains, and so on; and a few people. Glover has a confident line and knows how to use shading to model objects and create depth. His choice of subjects reveals a strong nostalgic streak; he focuses on the effects of time. Well printed, with a brief introduction.
     Glover’s website is www.meglover.ca He paints in a slightly abstract realistic style with strong shapes and muted colours. Worth a look, I think. Anyhow, I like his work. ***

The Years of Bitterness and Pride (1930s Depression photos)

     Hiag Akmakjian. The Years of Bitterness and Pride (1975) A selection of Farm Security Administration photographs from 1935 to 1943. The Preface reminds us that the project to document the USA in photographs almost didn’t happen, and that it became one of most thorough and complete records of people and places ever undertaken. The photographers made over 250,000 pictures, all of them archived in Washington. A handful have become visual summaries of times and places that Americans that know of them hope will not be forgotten. But I suspect that we now have a couple of generations of Americans for whom the Depression is at best a remembered emotion passed on to them from elderly relatives, not an historical event.
     Yet anyone who sees these images will, I think, be reminded that economic dislocations engendered by laissez-faire capitalism have long-lasting effects on individuals and communities. I wonder what happened to these people who allowed themselves to be photographed. Some are defiant, some look beaten, some see hope around them. All look damaged in mind and spirit a well as in body. And yet the majority rebuilt their lives.
     There have been many collections of FSA images published. Look for them. They are fierce reminders that economic ideologies that mistake money for wealth and profit as a goal will inevitably hurt people. You can search the collection yourself here.
****

Brexit 3

    UKIP leader Nigel Farage has resigned. Another coward, afraid to face the consequences of his actions. He knows perfectly well that no one can deliver on the Leaver promises.
    Boris Johnson is now a mere backbencher and newspaper columnist, and as such he can repeat his nonsense about the UK's ability to negotiate the same deal outside as they have within the EU, but without the heavy hand of Brussels bureaucracy.
    To keep access to the Common Market will require accepting freedom of movement between the EU and the UK. The UK will lose EU subsidies for its agriculture etc., subsidies that are actually UK money coming back from the EU.
     But worse is that Leave voters will discover that they will not get what the thought they were getting, and will lose a lot what they've become used to. That will cause unrest, to put it politely.

Brexit Vote II

     The fallout continues pretty well as I expected.

      Harassment of immigrants has escalated. The Leavers expect things to get “back to normal”, to quote a woman interviewed by BBC. A young man in Leeds said he expected the immigrants to leave right now. The spin doctors are downplaying the racism in the anti-immigration sentiments, but it’s pretty obvious that race is the reason many Leavers want the immigrants out.
     The leaders of the Leave side always knew that they wouldn’t be able to deliver what they promised. Farage has already said that his claim that 350 pounds going to Brussels every week could be redirected to the National Health Service was “a mistake”. In one interview, he even denied making that claim. BBC News showed a photo of a bus plastered with that claim.
     Boris Johnson has stood down from running for Prime Minister. This supports my suspicion that his support for Leave was entirely a matter of rivalry with David Cameron. I don’t think he expected Leave to win, but hoped to get a strong enough vote that he could challenge Cameron. With a Leave win, he would have to negotiate the terms of leaving. The Europeans have made it quite clear that the best Britain could hope for would be a Norway deal: Accept the obligations of being in the EU in order to get the rights, except the most important one, which is having a say in how it’s run.

     What’s the likely future? A realisation by the Leavers that they can’t have what they thought they would get: jobs, security, control over the borders, well-funded public services, etc. As this realisation grows, “political unrest” will increase. It’s only a matter of time before a Leaver kills an immigrant. There will be a general election. It will be one of the nastiest ever in the UK.
     Northern Ireland will have to reconcile its desire to be British with the reality of losing access to Europe. I think the odds that they will want to join the Irish Republic will increase as that sinks in.
Scotland will play it both ways: try to block the exit, and separate from the UK. For them, it’s a win either way.
     If the Conservatives can get away from their stupid personal rivalries, they could use Scottish intransigence as an excuse to ignore the Leave vote in order to keep Britain united. But I’m not holding my breath on that one. This whole mess came about because of personal rivalries. Cameron wanted to keep the premiership, and offered the referendum to get enough votes to keep it. Johnson and others saw it as a wedge they could use to replace Cameron. None of them, I think, thought the vote could be close. If they had, they would have ensured a super-majority clause (60% or more) in the referendum rules.

     A few commentators have suggested that the Leave vote was as much an anti-government vote as an anti-Europe vote. The government, with the slobbering assistance of the tabloids, has used Europe as convenient whipping boy to explain and excuse the austerity programs they’ve imposed on Britain. Privatisation all over the place, an ill-disguised shift towards becoming a tax-haven, corruption on a scale not seen since the late 1700s, greed, contempt for the working people, all these things played into the Leave vote.

     For the time being, if you have money in Britain, get it out before the pound falls even further.

Churchill in Pictures

     Martin Gilbert. Churchill: A Photographic Portrait (1974) Published in the centenary year of Churchill’s birth, this combines a well-done selection of pictures with citations from Churchill’s letters, speeches, and books. I hadn’t realised how completely political Churchill’s life was: the hiatus between his early career and the recall to leadership in 1939 loomed much larger in my imagination than it really was.
     Churchill was a complex private man, and a simple public one. He loved his wife and children, there are hints of his friendships, his pastimes, and his religion, and how his public life sometimes made him regret the anxiety he caused Clementine. Publicly, he was Burkean conservative from beginning to end. He believed that the role of government was to maximise the freedom of the individual, hence that government must ensure that a decent life, free from want and fear, was essential. For how can someone be free when his whole waking life is focussed on where the next crust of bread is coming from? But he also opposed Socialism, which he believed to be the path to tyranny. I don’t think he reflected much on the inconsistencies of his political principles. He was a practical politician, and a very good one. His leadership during the Second World war was a major factor in the Allied victory. He willingly exposed himself to danger, visiting with the civilians whose streets had been bombed to bits, and the troops during a brief respites from battle. This encourage people to trust him, as well as giving him a direct impression of how the war was going.
     He made mistakes and enjoyed successes, he made both wise and silly decisions, he influenced the direction of events. For that last reason alone this book is worth a look. That it also gives us an impression of him as a human being is a bonus. ***

Another Serving of Interviews

     John Mortimer. Character Parts (1986) A follow up to In Character, and just as good. Mortimer had a list of standard questions, but willingly departed from the list if an answer suggested further conversation. The effect very often is that I would like to talk to these people myself, that they would be good dinner companions.
     As in the first book, I get the impression of a complete character with every interview, although rational reflection reminds me that I’m getting a performance. Two performances, actually, Mortimer’s and the interview subject’s, and very convincing ones. Still, some of the subjects seem to me nicer people than others, more aware of their own vulnerabilities, less sure that they deserved their successes, even while they sought them. Lauren Bacall, for example, or David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham. Others have arrived at some certainty about their place in the world, such as Graham Leonard, Bishop of London, whose lack of doubt is dangerous, or Lord Hailsham, First Law Lord, whose certainty about his ability to reason prompts him to change his mind when a question suggests a different take on a problem.
     I think both of these collections are wonderful historical resources. They also allow a wallow in nostalgia. I knew of almost all the characters Mortimer interviewed. But even those who were new to me reminded me of the 70s and 80s, a time when I took many things seriously that now seem to me have been mere bubbles on the surface of the river. ***

BREXIT Vote

52% voted to leave, 48% voted to stay, 72% of eligible voters cast ballots.  So 37% of eligible voters wanted out, 35% wanted to stay, 28% didn't vote at all. Pre-vote polling indicated that Leave supporters were disproportionately older, male, white, working class and rural, while Remain voters were disproportionately younger, female, ethnically mixed, professional class and urban.

Historically, older voters are more likely to vote than younger ones. The polling showed a slight margin for Remain (the UKIP leader actually conceded a Remain victory before the votes were counted). Thus, even a small difference in percentage of voting on either side would affect the outcome. Which is apparently what actually happened. The BBC map showing the distribution of votes supports that analysis, I think. In several urban constituencies that voted Leave, the margin was as narrow or narrower than the national vote. Scotland voted to stay, but there were places where the vote was as narrow as south of the border.

So we have a profoundly disunited Britain that has put itself on the outside looking in.

It’s a given, I think, that the UK will not thrive economically outside the EU. The warnings that trade deals are off and will have to be renegotiated are real. England’s major export has been financial services. Without the ease of access to the EU, that value has hugely diminished. Other countries will be only too happy to supply those services instead. Its industrial base has shrunk, and like that of other developed countries has either been displaced or bought out by foreigners. That’s both good (it’s part of a multinational, global industrial complex) and bad (there will be less incentive to keep operations in Britain).

Politically, Britain will continue to be part of NATO and other international organisations, but its partners will, quite naturally, view it with a combination of disdain and suspicion. Disdain for the failure of the current leadership, and suspicion of the coming nationalist, inward-looking cadre that will attempt to fulfill the empty promise of reconstituted British greatness. But national greatness isn’t like orange juice: you can’t just add emotion and stir.

Socially, Britain is in for violent and bloody times. The Leave vote will encourage the racists and bigots, who will see it as permission to attack immigrants and other groups that they blame for all that they see as having gone wrong since the Second World War.

And will it even be Britain much longer? Scotland voted to remain: the SNP leader has already said she will introduce legislation to enable a Scottish referendum to leave Britain. That will embolden the Welsh separatists, too, and Lord only knows how the Northen Irish will react.

2016-06-24

Movers and shakers no more

     John Mortimer. In Character (1983) Collection of interviews of important, influential, and interesting people, first published mostly in the Sunday Times. Mortimer has the knack for getting people to talk frankly about themselves, and knows how to assemble the quotations that reveal and illuminate character and life. He’s an engaged interviewer, more than willing to give us hints of his own reactions and impressions.
     We end up believing that we know these people. We certainly know them better than we knew them before, but are Mortimer’s versions of them the real thing? That’s a pointless question: a person is their interactions with other persons. Mortimer’s willingness to give us his side of the interplay convinces me that we get an accurate record of what was done and said in that interview, even if obviously edited. What I make of these people is up to me; but in every case where I had prior and alternative knowledge, my impression of those people was enhanced and clarified. I’m left feeling that I would like to spend some time with any of these people, politicians, novelists, journalists, bishops, actors, artists, etc. I’m not sure whether I would have such a good time as Mortimer had, though.
     It’s also a record of its time. Many of the interviewees are now at best semi-remembered. The interviews remind me of the politics that seemed important at the time, and 30-odd years later, they show that some problems are as difficult to solve as ever, not because they are insoluble, but because the attitudes and values that cause them continue to prevent action. We humans are an irrational animal. As often as not, irrelevant feelings and wishes interfere with the ability to accept reality, and to fix what can be fixed. ***