Yesterday the Pakistan Opposition Leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide attack, as she returned to her country to contest he forthcoming general elections. My day had commenced without attempting to engage in great thoughts other than an awareness that December and the year were drawing to an end, but hopefully not my life, although it continues to ebb away against the tide of my wishes. I felt on top of my work although I am not up to-date because there some 50 or more sets of work requiring Artman cards and then to be photographed recorded. The delay is the need to conserve photo cards until I can track a new inexpensive supply. One local supermarket has indicated there will be a good offer at the end of the second week of January and I will need to check Staples and Neat ideas before then for some additions in the interim so that I can recommence the completion of the second volume of Rivera 2007. I will also look out for white card although I have at lest three months supply as present work levels. Yesterday such was the progress that I completed the first two master volumes of creative work and memorabilia about my mother and almost completed a six or seven set volume about films experienced prior to 2003.
The work was such that that I continued to watch films, trivial frothy films to begin with. In the afternoon trhere was the Race for Yankee Zepher which starred Donald Pleasance is a good role for him as an drunken old codger with a conventional daughter by one of his marriages, whose help he seeks to enable him, and his friend, who runs a dilapidated helicopter, to embark on an expedition in a remote mountainous region of New Zealand to recover the contents of a US plane Yankee Zepher, which the audience is instructed at the commencement of the film contained 50 million dollars in gold 1939-1945 prices ( no inflation adjustment is made), and which disappeared on a pre Christmas flight intended to provide for the American Troops fighting in the Southern hemisphere. Our anti hero discovers the plane having been dropped into a lake by his partner from a rope under the helicopter which for some inexplicable reason has never been discovered until several decades after its disappearance. Would today such a valuable transport be left in the hands of one pilot and one plane, but then the information on 25 million Britain's on computer disks has recently disappeared and cannot be found!
The old codger brings back some pristine medals which he finds in the wreck unaware of what he is leaving behind and more interested in the crates of Christmas Cheer. He sells the medals to a local dealer for 75 dollars apiece to raise cash for booze and gambling at cards having had no difficulty in making the trek home, despite his age and the isolation of the location, although as we subsequently learn the area appears to be inhabited of a race of mountain hard drinking and gambling fearless aging mountain men. The creation of the stake money, sets in train the arrival of Mr Big, the baddie, played in as comic way as he can by George Peppard, who although has no knowledge of the location of the plane comes in a convoy of off the road vehicles, a helicopter and two boats capable of skimming through the only entrance to the lake because of the shallow waters.
It is never clear how the gang learn of the find and are so quickly are to assemble the items necessary for the expedition, including full arsenal of modern weaponry, and arrive in the area without attracting the attention of the authorities. However as this is the Land of the Lord of the Rings one must accept that anything can happen. There then follows a James Bond type adventure in which the two partners and the reluctantly involved daughter, race ahead or behind the baddies to get to the plane to claim the treasure. It lacks the credibility of Bond in the sense that Bond lives in a world of violence, whereas the famous trio are able to participate in the death of their adversaries as if something experienced on a regular basis. Although by the end of the film the treasure has sunk to the bottom of lake along with several baddies, with others disposed of along the way, by luck rather than skill and endeavour a box of gold bars is retained to enable them to live happy ever after, for we are told along with the credits that the old codger is now running a dubious bar in the most unlikeliest of locations, convincing the more gullible of cinema goers that this story is based on fact. The film was directed by David Hemmings.
There was no such pretensions with The Boy Friend which I first say as a show at the Streatham Hill Theatre in the later 1950's taking my mother my aunt and another aunt to see Sandy Wilson's energetic song and dance, having first seen a performance on my own earlier in the week. The musical opened in London in 1953 as a small scale show but quickly transferred to the West End and to Broadway(1974) and ran for five years and over 2000 performances. The musical captured the nostalgia of the British middle classes for the roaring twenties of the Charleston era and who were able to afford their summer on the French Riviera. There are several catchy songs whose words I learnt having purchased the ten inch long play record, and the script is suitable for children and middle aged church going folk such as my aunties. The film was given the Ken Russell Treatment in 1971 with Twiggy in the main female role, supported by Glenda Jackson and Barbara Windsor. The Russell idea was to have a small time seaside theatrical company performs the original show on the night that a big time film producer happens to visit and when the leading lady is injured and understudy Twiggy is give her big moment. The film stage production has props more West End and than end of the pier and is augmented by Busby Berkeley type moments, extending the original song and dance routines into a film lasting 2 hours and 17 minutes. It is very colourful but despite the energy of the dancing routines loses for me the vitality and freshness which the show brought to a still drab post war and ore sixties country, Despite having the early success in the USA in 1954, the film was not a box off office success although there was a Broadway revival in 1970 and a North American Tour in 2005 after Julie Andrews directed a New York production in 2003. There were also smaller scale reproductions in London in 1995, 2006, and 2007, thus confirming my reaction 50 years before that this was harmless frothy entertainment one could take a maiden aunt or two to see, or in my case three.
There was a plethora of films to see again in the evening at 9pm and I opted for The Queen, the film which Dame Judy Dench played her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. As I thought at the time when I saw the film in theatre no one comes out very well except for the Queen, with Tony Blair shown as a twit who reveals himself as a secret monarchist and ties to help her understand and respond to the public reaction. Coming worse off are Mrs Blair and Tony's inner circle who are seen to want to seize the opportunity to push the nation towards a republic, Having watched the wall to wall news coverage including that of the US news channels on Sky and then visited London during the funeral week I also understood the public reaction as did the Prime Minister. The public mourned Diana, not just because she was glamorous trend setter, or her good works, but because she came across as being a flawed human being like the rest of us, willing and able to exploit her talents and position to the maximum of her capabilities, and to be honest about her lifestyle and interests. She captured the mood of changing Britain. The initial failure of the Queen and her Royal advisers was not to realise that the public needed her to do what she subsequently was forced into, according to the film, and join them in public demonstration of mourning while her natural instincts was to express feelings in private and concentrate on the welfare of the grand children. It is understandable that the Queen recognised that Diana had become the catalyst which threatened not just the future of the Monarchy but the future of the old order and a stable quartet of nations at the heart of the Commonwealth
The significance of the Blair Premiership will not be Iraq but that he completed the transformation of the UK initiated by Prime Minister Thatcher into an elitist, competitive, global money making enterprise in which Prince Andrew has become its chief salesperson and Princess Diana its Icon.
As the recent TV series on the Queen at work has demonstrated, the Royal firm led by the Queen has learnt to survive better than before. The ban on Foxhunting has been circumvented and the democratic and essentially republican reform of the Lords put on ice, I suspect on the duration of the lifetime of her Majesty. If the monarchy in the UK is to survive then it will need to jump a generation sorry Prince Charles and Camilla, as what will work, is a good marriage and a next generation Kingship, although the situation could change if the Queen is able, like her mother, to continue for another decade, or two.
At one level the protracted inquest into the circumstances into the death of Diana (and what I expect to be an inconclusive conclusion but rejecting the wilder conspiratorial speculations) will aid this viewpoint that to skip a generation will protect the Monarchy and traditionalist Britain until the Chinese need an Emperor to lead their economic imperialism, as a buffer to the Russians who are moving back towards a contemporary Tsar, while, the Indian Sub continent will move towards an identified aristocracy to counter the need for Pakistan to have a dictator if it is not to quickly become a fundamentalist state with its independent nuclear weaponry which in turn would precipitate the third World War and potential the premature ending of all our self conscious beingness.
OK so this is all wild and fanciful at the end of a workmanlike day full of froth and frills! Or is it. I hate to admit but without knowing anything about the reality of Pakistan, the last thing we and the world in general needed is a genuine free for all democratic elections in which the Muslim fundamentalists could gain legitimate power. The premature death of Benazir Bhutto is a tragic loss for her family and her political party, and it may be for all of us unless a strong single minded anti Muslim fundamentalist government can be established in that country for at least the next decade, while Europe and he USA adjust to the rise of China, the development of Russian and India
Moreover back home the Labour Party is playing the wrong card in accusing the opposition of having no policies and the Liberal Democrats of thinking they need to have different ones from the other two parties. What the British nations need is good mature government and leadership. It does not need lots of new policies, new legislation or new anything. It has enough new to cope with thank you. It wants good government and a government it can trust. Gordon Brown was able to provide this over the first months after Blair and then there was some madness that he had have a General Election and a vision which requires changes in policies and lots of legislation. The Queen is now more popular and secure as a concept that ever before because she had the guts to face the music, as did Queen Victoria when she came out of her long period of mourning for her husband. The only danger I can foresee to her now is that the stronger a symbol of Britishness she becomes, the more she will be a threat to all those who want to see a divided and disillusioned people. This is an era for strong leadership, good government and stability.
The work was such that that I continued to watch films, trivial frothy films to begin with. In the afternoon trhere was the Race for Yankee Zepher which starred Donald Pleasance is a good role for him as an drunken old codger with a conventional daughter by one of his marriages, whose help he seeks to enable him, and his friend, who runs a dilapidated helicopter, to embark on an expedition in a remote mountainous region of New Zealand to recover the contents of a US plane Yankee Zepher, which the audience is instructed at the commencement of the film contained 50 million dollars in gold 1939-1945 prices ( no inflation adjustment is made), and which disappeared on a pre Christmas flight intended to provide for the American Troops fighting in the Southern hemisphere. Our anti hero discovers the plane having been dropped into a lake by his partner from a rope under the helicopter which for some inexplicable reason has never been discovered until several decades after its disappearance. Would today such a valuable transport be left in the hands of one pilot and one plane, but then the information on 25 million Britain's on computer disks has recently disappeared and cannot be found!
The old codger brings back some pristine medals which he finds in the wreck unaware of what he is leaving behind and more interested in the crates of Christmas Cheer. He sells the medals to a local dealer for 75 dollars apiece to raise cash for booze and gambling at cards having had no difficulty in making the trek home, despite his age and the isolation of the location, although as we subsequently learn the area appears to be inhabited of a race of mountain hard drinking and gambling fearless aging mountain men. The creation of the stake money, sets in train the arrival of Mr Big, the baddie, played in as comic way as he can by George Peppard, who although has no knowledge of the location of the plane comes in a convoy of off the road vehicles, a helicopter and two boats capable of skimming through the only entrance to the lake because of the shallow waters.
It is never clear how the gang learn of the find and are so quickly are to assemble the items necessary for the expedition, including full arsenal of modern weaponry, and arrive in the area without attracting the attention of the authorities. However as this is the Land of the Lord of the Rings one must accept that anything can happen. There then follows a James Bond type adventure in which the two partners and the reluctantly involved daughter, race ahead or behind the baddies to get to the plane to claim the treasure. It lacks the credibility of Bond in the sense that Bond lives in a world of violence, whereas the famous trio are able to participate in the death of their adversaries as if something experienced on a regular basis. Although by the end of the film the treasure has sunk to the bottom of lake along with several baddies, with others disposed of along the way, by luck rather than skill and endeavour a box of gold bars is retained to enable them to live happy ever after, for we are told along with the credits that the old codger is now running a dubious bar in the most unlikeliest of locations, convincing the more gullible of cinema goers that this story is based on fact. The film was directed by David Hemmings.
There was no such pretensions with The Boy Friend which I first say as a show at the Streatham Hill Theatre in the later 1950's taking my mother my aunt and another aunt to see Sandy Wilson's energetic song and dance, having first seen a performance on my own earlier in the week. The musical opened in London in 1953 as a small scale show but quickly transferred to the West End and to Broadway(1974) and ran for five years and over 2000 performances. The musical captured the nostalgia of the British middle classes for the roaring twenties of the Charleston era and who were able to afford their summer on the French Riviera. There are several catchy songs whose words I learnt having purchased the ten inch long play record, and the script is suitable for children and middle aged church going folk such as my aunties. The film was given the Ken Russell Treatment in 1971 with Twiggy in the main female role, supported by Glenda Jackson and Barbara Windsor. The Russell idea was to have a small time seaside theatrical company performs the original show on the night that a big time film producer happens to visit and when the leading lady is injured and understudy Twiggy is give her big moment. The film stage production has props more West End and than end of the pier and is augmented by Busby Berkeley type moments, extending the original song and dance routines into a film lasting 2 hours and 17 minutes. It is very colourful but despite the energy of the dancing routines loses for me the vitality and freshness which the show brought to a still drab post war and ore sixties country, Despite having the early success in the USA in 1954, the film was not a box off office success although there was a Broadway revival in 1970 and a North American Tour in 2005 after Julie Andrews directed a New York production in 2003. There were also smaller scale reproductions in London in 1995, 2006, and 2007, thus confirming my reaction 50 years before that this was harmless frothy entertainment one could take a maiden aunt or two to see, or in my case three.
There was a plethora of films to see again in the evening at 9pm and I opted for The Queen, the film which Dame Judy Dench played her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. As I thought at the time when I saw the film in theatre no one comes out very well except for the Queen, with Tony Blair shown as a twit who reveals himself as a secret monarchist and ties to help her understand and respond to the public reaction. Coming worse off are Mrs Blair and Tony's inner circle who are seen to want to seize the opportunity to push the nation towards a republic, Having watched the wall to wall news coverage including that of the US news channels on Sky and then visited London during the funeral week I also understood the public reaction as did the Prime Minister. The public mourned Diana, not just because she was glamorous trend setter, or her good works, but because she came across as being a flawed human being like the rest of us, willing and able to exploit her talents and position to the maximum of her capabilities, and to be honest about her lifestyle and interests. She captured the mood of changing Britain. The initial failure of the Queen and her Royal advisers was not to realise that the public needed her to do what she subsequently was forced into, according to the film, and join them in public demonstration of mourning while her natural instincts was to express feelings in private and concentrate on the welfare of the grand children. It is understandable that the Queen recognised that Diana had become the catalyst which threatened not just the future of the Monarchy but the future of the old order and a stable quartet of nations at the heart of the Commonwealth
The significance of the Blair Premiership will not be Iraq but that he completed the transformation of the UK initiated by Prime Minister Thatcher into an elitist, competitive, global money making enterprise in which Prince Andrew has become its chief salesperson and Princess Diana its Icon.
As the recent TV series on the Queen at work has demonstrated, the Royal firm led by the Queen has learnt to survive better than before. The ban on Foxhunting has been circumvented and the democratic and essentially republican reform of the Lords put on ice, I suspect on the duration of the lifetime of her Majesty. If the monarchy in the UK is to survive then it will need to jump a generation sorry Prince Charles and Camilla, as what will work, is a good marriage and a next generation Kingship, although the situation could change if the Queen is able, like her mother, to continue for another decade, or two.
At one level the protracted inquest into the circumstances into the death of Diana (and what I expect to be an inconclusive conclusion but rejecting the wilder conspiratorial speculations) will aid this viewpoint that to skip a generation will protect the Monarchy and traditionalist Britain until the Chinese need an Emperor to lead their economic imperialism, as a buffer to the Russians who are moving back towards a contemporary Tsar, while, the Indian Sub continent will move towards an identified aristocracy to counter the need for Pakistan to have a dictator if it is not to quickly become a fundamentalist state with its independent nuclear weaponry which in turn would precipitate the third World War and potential the premature ending of all our self conscious beingness.
OK so this is all wild and fanciful at the end of a workmanlike day full of froth and frills! Or is it. I hate to admit but without knowing anything about the reality of Pakistan, the last thing we and the world in general needed is a genuine free for all democratic elections in which the Muslim fundamentalists could gain legitimate power. The premature death of Benazir Bhutto is a tragic loss for her family and her political party, and it may be for all of us unless a strong single minded anti Muslim fundamentalist government can be established in that country for at least the next decade, while Europe and he USA adjust to the rise of China, the development of Russian and India
Moreover back home the Labour Party is playing the wrong card in accusing the opposition of having no policies and the Liberal Democrats of thinking they need to have different ones from the other two parties. What the British nations need is good mature government and leadership. It does not need lots of new policies, new legislation or new anything. It has enough new to cope with thank you. It wants good government and a government it can trust. Gordon Brown was able to provide this over the first months after Blair and then there was some madness that he had have a General Election and a vision which requires changes in policies and lots of legislation. The Queen is now more popular and secure as a concept that ever before because she had the guts to face the music, as did Queen Victoria when she came out of her long period of mourning for her husband. The only danger I can foresee to her now is that the stronger a symbol of Britishness she becomes, the more she will be a threat to all those who want to see a divided and disillusioned people. This is an era for strong leadership, good government and stability.
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