Mud and sky

I’ve continued working my through my DVDs by watching All Quiet on the Western Front, the 1979 version directed by Delbert Mann, and starring Richard Thomas.

It’s along time since I saw the original 1930 film by Lewis Milestone, but I remember being impressed, mainly by the battle scenes, not, I’m sure, what the director would have wished of me.

Being the first and one of the best (reputedly) anti-war films, it had the privilege of inventing the clichés: idealism trampled in the mud of Flanders; stupid old people banging on about honour and patriotism without the need to die for it themselves; bullies exposed as cowards and artists revealed as heroes; the idyllic pastoral interludes; first sex experienced as a taste of life before it is snuffed out; death’s random choices of victim; and the sheer filthy waste of it all.

Lew Ayres, the original 1930 star, was so affected by his role that he became a pacifist himself ten years later when ‘the bitch was in heat again’.

Aces High regurgitated all of the clichés to little effect and it needed something more than Delbert Mann and Richard Thomas possess to make this old warhorse come alive again. It doesn’t say much for this film’s impact that I merely laughed to see Thomas hoisting Ernest Borgnine, of all people, on his back and carrying him back from the front line.

That was when war did indeed become hell.

A little harmony

I was told how to fix my email by a broadband Medic online advisor. My ISP being Virgin, I went onto their website where I was able to log into my email account and view my messages. I, naturally, had been unaware of this possibility.

I was advised to delete what was not that important because the trouble was probably down to a long or complicated email clogging up the system. I couldn’t see any fitting that description, but I did some weeding and went back to Outlook, which is now operating normally.

Thank you, Jason.

*

My first childhood hero was Davy Crockett, as incarnated by Fess Parker. By the age of ten I was reading Lon Tinkle’s book, Thirteen Days to Glory, which was re-issued to accompany John Wayne’s movie, The Alamo.

The story of the Alamo is what we like to call epic and Wayne wanted to give it epic treatment, in other words make it long. Unfortunately, apart from the final assault, not a lot happened. So the film is padded out with extraneous action and a perfunctory love interest to help pass the time until the spectacular finale, which is packed with stunts and interesting deaths by sword and lance.

I thought at the time that Wayne made a great Crockett, but then he was my second childhood hero.

John Lee Hancock’s The Alamo (2004) version of the siege is notable primarily for Billy Bob Thornton’s portrayal of Crockett. Not only is there a striking resemblance but he plays him as I like to think Crockett was, charismatic, gregarious, moderate, talented, brave and wise.

His fiddle accompaniment to the Mexican Deguello is a marvellous moment of cinema, and his meditation on the distinction between ‘plain ole David’ and ‘that Davy Crockett feller’ a succinct commentary on the curse of fame.

I’m having problems with technology.

It’s not quite as bad as last week when I followed the advice of a TV energy-saving ‘expert’ and began switching my computer and internet off at the mains overnight. I wouldn’t recommend it because I found that whether I could get back on line was very much a matter of chance.

I was disappointed about that because I’ve discovered that my IT equipment uses over 1 kWh of electricity every day. That’s according to my consumption meter which also, as a matter of interest, tells me that my freezer uses much the same, as does the TV/DVD/VCR when left on standby.

This is out of a total daily consumption of about 7 kWh/day, which is in itself pretty low.

I was about to write that my internet connection is now behaving, when it cut off the Radio 5 broadcast of the test match, which I had to recall. However, the main problem is Outlook, which has about a dozen emails waiting but keeps timing out. The solutions I’ve found on the web are either technical beyond my understanding or ‘increase the time out period’ – in other words, instead of waiting 90 seconds to be told the system has failed, why not wait 5 minutes?

I’ll treat it the way I’m treating my cold, by ignoring it and waiting for it to go away.

*

I haven’t commented much on my economy drive over the last few weeks, primarily because failure is embarrassing. The trick is to stay out of the pub, naturally, and the tactic is to replace that pleasure with another, namely re-viewing my DVDs from A to Z, my other great pleasure being temporarily unobtainable and in any case rarely lasting two hours at a time.

Which brings me to the next technical problem: there’s something wrong with the colour movies; they’re either washed out or tinged with green. To someone who tinkers for ages to get the screen ratio correct, this is bloody irritating. Is it the disc, the player, the TV, or is it me?

Why the hell does everything go wrong? It’s enough to drive you out to the pub.

*

So enough moaning and a few comments on what I’ve watched over the last day or two:

Above Us the Waves, 1955, directed by Ralph Thomas. Starring John Mills and the usual crowd.

One of the crop of British war films made in the fifties, including most notably The Dam Busters and The Cruel Sea. It’s a fictionalised account of the midget submarine attack on the Tirpitz, documentary in tone, understated and restrained. As you expect from movies of this period it’s efficient and economical. When I compare it with the dizzily edited and CGI’d action films I’ve seen recently, it’s refreshing to see an attempt at character, plot and pace.

And it makes you proud!

Aces High, 1976, directed by Jack Gold. Starring Malcolm McDowell.

If the typical WWII film is about the heroism of war, the typical WWI offering is about its horrors. The former celebrates victory, but the latter doesn’t care, because it’s not worth the cost. Everyone dies.

In Above Us the Waves the different classes rub along, where to know one’s place is to know one’s function in an effective team.

In Aces High the class division is rigid and divisive, even within the small squadron. The larger picture is one of a vast divide so great there is no hope of understanding or trust bridging it.

The African Queen, 1951, directed by John Huston. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn.

When I made that sweeping comment about WWI movies being about the horror rather than the heroism, I should have known there were exceptions, but I hadn’t expected one to come along almost immediately. For The African Queen has to be one of the most accomplished feel-good films to have sent audiences home with lighter hearts.

It’s set in Africa, well away from the trenches, with just a few comic Krauts at the end. In fact, it’s not a war film at all; it’s a love story, with a happily explosive consummation at the end.

This, one of my all-time favourites, deserves more than a paragraph. Which, in due course, it shall recieve.

It took me a long time to get the latest Flashplayer downloaded, not an uncommon problem I gather from other people’s blogs. And how I succeeded I still don’t know. So, sorry, no advice to be found here.

I needed it to be able to access BBC iPlayer, which has now become my main source of TV programmes. In fact, I’ve noticed that my considerable leisure time is not squandered on television anything like it used to be. Apart from the odd football or rugby match, and news programmes (which I usually switch off in disgust halfway through) I watch very little live. I have to admit I’m the sort of sad character who will sit and watch a whole Parliamentary debate.

Next July and August will obviously be spent following the Ashes ball by ball. I resent having to pay Sky for that privilege, but I mustn’t let self-interest influence my views on the freedom of the market, must I?

A series I’ve been keen to follow is The Devil’s Whore, a drama set in the English Civil War. Partly because it was written by the man who created Our Friends in the North ten years ago, co-starring Daniel Craig, now of James Bond fame; and partly because I wanted to see how it portrayed my flawed hero, Oliver Cromwell.

Ho-hum is my verdict.

Incidentally, although ‘The Devil’s Whore’ is a nickname given to the heroine of the plays, it is also what Martin Luther called Reason, one attitude at least that he shared with the Pope.

She might be a whore to you, Herr Luther, but I married her.

World War II: Behind Closed Doors has been fascinating. Excruciatingly honest interviews with war criminals and victims, new military footage (possibly enhanced by CGI) and dramatised scenes of the diplomatic manoeuvrings, which despite one reviewer, who called them intrusive, I find to be the heart of the series.

If nothing else, they turn it into ‘The Uncle Joe Show’, which I feel World War II to have been.

It’s sad to see an increasingly weak Churchill, sidelined by Roosevelt and Stalin, protesting to no avail against the imperialism of Russia. Sad to see Britain, which went to war for Poland and suffered so much in consequence, emerging into a bankrupt peace having failed to preserve her. Was Roosevelt obtuse, or was he playing his game of appeasement?

Stalin, of course, always knew his goal, and had no qualms about how he achieved it. His cynical, ruthless vision is as terrifying and admirable as that of a shark, and just as inhuman.

Watching the actor portray him I was often reminded of newsreel I’ve seen of Saddam Hussein. There is that same calmness and quietness of demeanour, the same menacing watchfulness, the same wariness of all around in case the wrong thing is said, or even thought.

Absolutely chilling. I must obviously practise more.

It was a shame to hear this morning that Oliver Postgate, writer and narrator of many children's TV series, has died.

Like so many I was intrigued by his whimsical tales, charmed by by the primitive animation and mesmerised by his style and voice, of which this link will give a taste:

http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/children/noggin/noggin.htm

A kindly man, it seems, who created my favourite villain, Nogbad the Bad.

*

What's this I hear about 'The EU's first naval task force' and 'The EU takes over policing in Kososvo'? Constitution or no constitution, we edge nearer and nearer to the Europhile Promised Land.

I also hear that the Irish are going to be dragooned into a second referendum on the constitution. Defying all logic - approriately - the proposed document will be presented as altered enough to justify a second vote in Ireland, but not enough to necesssitate re-ratification in other states.

*

Meanwhile our own Nogbads are busy. The government has used the whips to lob the Speaker's committee of wise men into the long grass, using the sanctimonious excuse that if it meets now it risks prejudicing the police enquiry into leaks. Drop the enquiry, I say. It's pitifully unimportant compared to the assault on Parliamentary sovereignty.

And shame on Gordon Brown for turning this into a party issue and interfering in a strictly internal Parliamentary matter.

For God's sake, Mr Speaker, speak out!

The Speaker has spoken, sort of.

He groveled a bit, 'regretting' this and that, but overall merely passed the buck.

The police were wrong, he says. Quite right. They didn't have a warrant, and the Serjeant-at-Arms didn't think to ask. So explicitly he balmes the police; implicitly he blames the Serjeant, Jill Pay, a former civil servant, appointed no doubt for reasons of political correctness. After all it's just a sinecure, isn't it, the only duties being to cart around the mace?

Is she ignorant of the symbolic significance of the mace? Is she so stupid she didn't think to as the police for their search warrant? Should not, in any case, such a search be permitted only after a resolution of the House itself?

So Mr Speaker Martin delays the inevitable by calling for a committee of enquiry. What enquiry? Does he not understand the authority of the House of Commons is supposed to possess?

I despair of the Commons. It's just an office block now, home to ambitious apparatchiks and timeservers. No wonder it's treated with comtempt.