"RIPPER STREET" : A BBC PIECE OF NONSENSE.

How is it that the BBC can produce, on the one hand the quite outstanding 'Call the Midwife' and yet follow it with the quite dreadful 'Ripper Street' ?

 

'Call the Midwife' is so real as to be almost creepy; it shows some of the true horror of post-war life in a deprived area of London and is beautifully acted by a quality cast.

 

'Ripper Street' is so unreal as to be risible. It shows English police running around with a shady American, gun-toting, ex-Pinkerton detective who has a penchant for prostitutes. In today's episode this character engages in a gunfight on a London street, in front of an assembled crowd, which ends with him walking up to within a couple of feet of his opponent before shooting him in the head. The implausibility of this storyline seems to have been ignored by the programme makers, possibly because they think that very few of their audience will have any knowledge of how life was really lived at that time, the late 1880s.

 

In the US, it has long been the case that programmes and films have been produced which fly in the face of reality and history; films such as the 'Die Hard' series take implausibility to the very limit in pursuit of anything that will hold the attention of an increasingly puerile and simplistc audience. They think nothing of re-writing history and lauding the shocking behaviour of those who committed a genocide against the indigenous population of their land. The myth of the heroic gunfighting US marshall, à al Wyatt Earp, is all-embracing; the fact that such people were little more than terrorists and murderous is brushed under the carpet.

 

Such figures did not exist in the London of the 1880s; why the BBC finds it necessary to invent them is a mystery. This is not dssimilar to their ridiculous, though apparently successful amongst the unwashed masses, approach to the re-invention of Sherlock Holmes. We now seem to have entered a world in which historic costumes and sets are simply a means of providing an environment in which modern day fantasy, and rehashed storylines, can be acted out in a variety of different settings, conning the gullible public into believing they are seeing something new, revealing and wonderful.

 

If the public really are that gullible, what does it say about our vaunted education system ? "Not a lot", is the only possible answer.

TOYNBEE : ADVOCATE OF GAY GOBBLYDEGOOK.

Listening to the likes of Polly Toynbee is almost always a trial; hearing her utterly illogical support for the lunacy of 'Gay Marriage' is also a lesson in Orwellian gobblydegook.

 

On today's 'Daily Politics' the ultra left winger was, yet again, the 'guest of the day', being asked to pontificate on all manner of subjects of which she probably has no real understanding. Given that the House of Commons are due to vote later on the 'Gay Marriage' issue, this was a subject that was discussed and on which Toynbee gave her expert opinion : "most of the people aren't bothered by the issue, most actually support the proposal and they're all really confused as to why politicians are making such a fuss about it".

 

This is, of course, the typical view expressed by socialists when trying to curtail proper debate on any issue. The nebulous reference to 'most people' belies the true facts - there is a relatively small bias in favour of 'Gay Marriage' according to certain opinion polls, but we all know how wrong such polls can be. Certain sections of society, notably older people and many who hold religious beliefs, are quite strongly opposed to the plan. Toynbee's sweeping dismissal of such people is, again, typical of left wingers who simply want to impose their 'forward thinking' views on everyone else.

 

If the subject under discussion had been membership of the European Union or restoration of the death penalty, I'm pretty sure that Toynbee would have dismissed the results of opinion polls as irrelevant; she would have claimed that the people simply didn't understand the issues and that it was 'right' for her contrary views to prevail. Such is the way that left wing politics works.

 

'Gay Marriage' is an oxymoron. It is also of so little importance that one has to wonder why the Government, or more specifically David Cameroon, is insisting on wasting so much time on it when the country is faced with an ever-worsening financial crisis. One might, perhaps, come to the conclusion that while we're all arguing about the rights and wrongs of 2 men, 2 women or a mule and donkey getting married, we're not paying much attention to the other, and much greater, problems that surround us. Such is all politics.

VIRUSES WILL GET US ALL.

Watching a recent television programme about winter viruses makes me wonder just how stupid many of our supposedly brilliant doctors and medical researchers actually are.

 

The programme looked at infections such s the common cold, influenza and norovirus and asked why these are so prevalent and how we can control them. Experts showed how far viruses can spread when we cough, sneeze and vomit; they showed how easily a single child can spread an infection simply by moving around a room in ordinary activity.

 

What they did not discuss was the extent to which viruses live in an ecosystem, exactly as do other organisms. That ecosystem is stable as long as there are no external influences; sadly, human beings are just the wrong sort of external influence. Humans, in their infinite wisdom have been busily finding ways of killing, or at least reducing the affect of, lots of viruses; is it not to be expected that other viruses, or bacteria or even fungi, might take advantage of the void thus created ?

 

Scientists talked with enthusiasm about their apparently enlightening statistics, showing where and when infections had occurred and who had been infected. They were clearly excited by their research and yet all they had was numbers. They had no understanding or solutions. None of them seemed to consider the possibility that the recent spread of previously unknown, or harmless, viruses might be a result of the continuing attack by humans upon a whole range of viruses and bacteria.

 

Medical and biomedical scientists are, without doubt, the greatest danger facing the human race. Global warming and the threat of nuclear catastrophe pale into insignificance beside the shocking arrogance of these scientific experts who merrily coerce us to seek immunization against anything and everything while totally ignoring the one really important fact - that nature abhors a vacuum. What this means is that every rime we eliminate one threat another will take its place. Why can't they see this ? Do they see it but ignore it ? Is this just another case of government controlled bodies keeping the real facts from us ?

 

Today's children seem to suffer from diseases and conditions that were all but unknown when I was a child; this wasn't because they didn't exist, it was because we suffered from other things and, perhaps, gained immunity to some through our greater freedom to be 'dirty'. What I believe is that the effective elimination of diseases such as smallpox, polio and diphtheria from the calendar and the introduction of mass-immunisation programmes against many others, has simply opened up the way for other nasty bugs to move in. Thus we have newer and nastier strains of influenza, we have norovirus and we also have AIDS.

 

This seems to me to be so obvious and yet no one else seems to see it. As a former biochemist, I really do say 'Beware all doctors and their pals - they don't know as much as they pretend'.

'JAWS' IS JUST 'MOBY DICK' IN DISGUISE

I've just watched a great film for the umpteenth time and only just realised how much it owes to a much older classic story. This may simply show how slow I am to see such connections but then who knows ?

 

The film 'Jaws', based on a novel by Peter Benchley, is, on it's own account, a terrific, scary, semi-horror story. In many respects, it's much better than later 'sequels' as the monster is rarely seen and when it is seen the sightings are swift and partial. This is similar to the approach adopted by Ridley Scott in 'Alien', though the latter is actually vastly superior because of the almost total absence of the monster from the screen. 'Jaws' is scary because the  monster strikes unexpectedly and from below and it's a rather unknown quantity.

 

While the beast is swimming around devouring an assortment of unwary people, Quint, the shark hunter, offers to catch it. The man is clearly a bit demented and certainly fixated on catching and killing large sharks; eventually he falls victim to the beast he is hunting and is eaten by it.

 

Although the similarities are not total, 'Quint' is, without doubt, 'Captain Ahab' from Herman Melville's novel, 'Moby Dick' and the subsequent film starring Gregory Peck. The two characters who accompany 'Quint' on his final and fatal voyage, 'Martin Brodie' and 'Matt Hooper', are, just as clearly, 'Ishmael', the rather naive sailor, and 'Queequeg', the obsessive harpooner of whales.

 

I've read reviews that equate the character of 'Quint' with 'Ahab' but none that also see how 'Brodie and 'Hooper' are analogues of 'Ishmael'  and 'Queequeg'. It strikes me that Peter Benchley must have read 'Moby Dick', possibly watched the film and then decided that there was a modern updating available. Much of the film of 'Jaws' is simply a modern American tale of very little, but the dénouement owes everything to Herman Melville's brilliant originality and almost nothing to Peter Benchley.

 

The old ones are nearly always the best.

WHAT ARE THE CONSERVATIVES FOR ?

Watching and listening to various politicians, political discussions and political commentators, I find things all very depressing.

 

Everyone knows, or should know, that 13 years of a Labour government left our country in a terrible mess. Of course, the problems were exacerbated by the banking crisis of 2008 but this was also a consequence of the actions, and inactions, of governments including our own so Labour can hardly claim to have been innocent. Given the appalling financial position that we are in, I find it almost shocking that recent opinion polls are suggesting that Labour are the clear favourites to win the next general election outright.

 

It's obvious that the memories of most people are very short and there's always a new generation coming along who have no real knowledge of what happened yesterday, even if they're interested in it. However, how it can be that the Conservatives not only failed to win the last election but have also made themselves so unpopular as to be rank outsiders to win the next is the question that has to be answered.

 

To my mind, the answer is two-fold. Firstly, Labour very deliberatly created a huge 'client state', committing enormous amounts of money that we did not have to all manner of benefits and other state hand-outs; so many people are now dependent on financial support from the state that it's almost impossible for any government to bring control back to state spending without upsetting millions of voters. Secondly, the Conservatives, in trying to make everyone believe that they're a lovely bunch of fellows, have mired themselves in a horrible mish-mash of pseudo-socialist policies that have alienated many of their natural supporters; add the two issues together and they'll be lucky to get 25% of the vote in 2015.

 

The Conservatives under David Cameron have completely lost their focus. Admittedly they have to accommodate at least some of the madness of their Liberal Democrat partners but they no longer seem to have any real conservative policies of their own either. Every pronouncement from Cameron adn his senior colleagues is hedges around with all manor of hand-wringing platitudes aimed at telling the unwashed masses how important they are or how much they will benefit from being screwed to the floor. Instead of telling the truth, that the country is in a potentially terminal condition, they prefer to pour forth a pile of condescending waffle, usually meaningless, always disingenuous.

 

The Conseravtives have stuck to the outdated and totally wrong notion that we have 'world class' public services when the truth is that the NHS is falling apart, our education system is wrecked and our transport system is hopeless; our border controls are non-existent, immigration is out of control and most of our laws are determined by a foreign conglomeration of countries whose disparate aims have little to do with British wants and desires. All of this while we have historically high levels of  overall taxation, vast government borrowing and horrendous levels of both government and private debt. Basically, the country is on its knees and the people are gearing up to bring back the government which caused most of the problems, mainly because the Conservative-led coalition has been utterly inept in setting out the truth and has no clear policies beyond what has been dubbed 'austerity'.

 

Labour have it easy in all of this. They have stuck to their own outworn mantra that brands the Conservatives as the party of the rich while they are the party of the 'working man', the 'man in the street', the 'ordinary man', and so on and so on. They ignore the fact that investment bankers, despite their high salaries, are actually workers, that they walk the streets with the rest of us and probably work twice as hard as most; they ignore the fact that it is the current government which has made substantial increases in the basic personal allowance for income tax, benefiting millions of lower paid workers while recouping the difference from those who are better off. The trouble is that most people don't think for themselves, they only hear the sound bites and adhere to the outdated ideas of their forebears.

 

In the midst of all of this, Cameron has chosen to forsake his own natural constituency and, instead, try to win over those who will never see the light. His mad stampede over 'gay marriage' has no logic while his sycophancy towards the NHS education and the rest shows a total lack of understanding about the realities of our situation. His failure to make any meaningful statements about the European Union have alienated the right wing of his own party, while his failure to be truthful about financial matters has alienated everyone with the slightest leftish lean. All in all, Cameron's chances of being Prime Minister beyond May 2015 are remote and his chances of being Conservative leader beyond October of that year are virtually non-existent. How he can't see all of this is one of the greatest mysteries of the modern world and one that even Sherlock Holmes would have trouble explaining.

 

I'm left wondering what the Conservatives actually do stand for. It would seem they believe in the sanctity of the NHS but not of marriage; they believe in selling off our roads and ending so-called universal benefits. They believe in giving vast sums to foreign despots while cutting spending on our own defences. In fact, they believe in most of the things that a Labour government would do, so why bother with them ? The answer is that you shouldn't. The Conservatives have become so attached to the nebulous 'centre ground' that they are now almost indistinguishable, at least at the top, from the Liberals or Labour. My view is that, without a substantial repositioning, they're dead in the water.

 

Only 4 or 5 years ago it appeared that Labour was dead and yet they're still with us and likely to be the next government. Now it actually looks as though the Conservatives are the dead ducks and I can see no way back for them unless they really return to their roots. Labour have survived on the back of the impossibility of reversing the disastrous socialist policies of the previous 13 years and the consequence may well be total financial meltdown of the country and the ultimate demise of the Labour party, but not before they've had at least another 5 years in which to torture us. The Conservatives on the other hand will almost certainly suffer their own meltdown after the 2015 election and may well find themselves reduced to a 'rump' in parliament; all true Tories will, by then, have defected to UKIP, the only remaining mainstream party of the right.

 

Cameron may well go down in history as the last Conservative Prime Minister and, possibly, as the worst, Alec Douglas Home included, while the Conservative Party will become the new Liberals, a former party of government reduced to a handful of MPs. The 2020 General Election will be won by UKIP but, by then, it will be far too late to revive the patient and all any of us will be able to do is reminisce about the glorious days when Britain was a power in the world and we all had a decent standard of living. In the end, perhaps this is the ultimate perverse purpose of the Conservative Party, to destroy the nation that they once made mighty, in pursuit of some crazy 'one-nation' ideal.

PORTRAIT OF A DUCHESS IS WRONG.

The portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge unveiled yesterday seems to have found approval only from the royal couple themselves. Critics whose views have been expressed on television and radio appear to be mostly critical and I have to say that I tend to agree with them

 

At first sight, there is no doubt that the picture is of the Duchess but on closer imnspection it simply looks wrong. I'm no art expert so my view is entirely personal but there is clearly something about the picture which is odd. One critic I heard said that there was an inconsistency between the top half of the subject's face and the lower portion and this may be the problem.

 

The Duchess's eyes appear to be less than fully open, giving the impression of a slight frown, while the mouth has a slight upturn suggesting a smile,although the lips are tightly closed which also seems wrong; in between, the cheek bones seem to be ever so slightly over-emphasised

 

There can be no doubt that the Duchess is a very attractive woman, but this portrait simply doesn't do her justice. It is "wrong", and that's all there is to  it.

WANT AN HONOUR ? WIN A MEDAL !

Inevitably, a tranche of 'honours' have been handed out to a bunch of assorted athletes. Why escapes me.

 

There was a time when to be awarded an OBE was a mark of great distinction; being made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire was something of which to be very proud as it signified that you had made a genuinely important contribution to socirty, the nation or mankind in general. Not any longer. Honours are tossed out like confetti to whomever is currently in the news plus, of course, to a raft of time-serving civil servants.

 

Bradley Wiggins, whose exploits perched atop a bicycle have been very laudable, is to be made a Knight of the Realm as is David Brailsford who's credited with coaching Wiggins and his chums to their recent run of success. Someone of whom I've never heard, Sarah Storey, is to be made a Dame of the British Empire for doing something in a wheelchair, while the likes of Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis and Victoria Pendleton are all to be given CBE's, an award just one rung below knighthood or damehood. Possibly due to his previous comments about being Scottish rather than British, Andy Murray is to receive only the lower honour of an OBE; that'll teach you to think before you gob-off, young man !

 

The real point in all of this, though, is that the recipients of these awards together with 70 or more of their compatriots, have mostly done nothing whatsoever that will ever enhance the lot of anyone other than themselves. Leading sportsmen are, by the very nature of what they do, utterly self-centred; they are focused on their own achievements to the exclusion of all else. These days, they are also funded very generously by the state and some even become very wealthy due to the large prize money available at many meetings and events. Given all of this, to further reward them with national honours when they succeed in doing what they love doing is ludicrous.

 

Wiggins was a worthy 'Sports Personality of the Year' and, in 20 or 30 years time when he's passed on his experience to generations of younger cyclists, he might well deserve an award; today, he does not, any more than do any of the other sporting recipients of these wholly devalued gongs. Sadly, we have reached a stage in which real contributions to our society go unnoticed while pointless celebrities and others in the media are showered with plaudits and honours. Is this really the way it should be ?