1950 Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper and James Cagney in three films

Over the last week of October 2010 I experienced films by three cinema legends, Marlon Brando, James Cagney and Gary Cooper 4th, 8th and 11th in the American Film Institute’s list of top male stars. Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant and James Stewart being the first three.

I have experienced most of Brando’s early films, A Street car named desire, Viva Zapata, Julius Caesar, The Wild One, On the Waterfront(I have DVD), Desiree, Guys and Dolls, The Teahouse of the August Moon (one of my favourites) and Sayonara. I cannot remember seeing his first, The Men or The Young Lions. The Fugitive Kind made in 1959 was next although I cannot remember seeing before Saturday October 30th. One Eyed Jacks, Mutiny on the Bounty, and a Countess from Hong Kong and The Night of the following Day followed and I also remember seeing The Godfather part one, (DVD and Video Tapes) Last Tango in Paris, and the Missouri Breaks, before the latter years films Superman, Apocalypse Now, The Formula, and a Dry White Wine, Christopher Columbus, the Island of Doctor Moreau, Superman Returns and Superman II. 24 films before today out of some 45.

The Future Kind is based on the Tennessee Williams Play Orpheus Descending, generally regarded as the first of his second era plays 1957-1980, having become an International playwright and script writer with The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar named Desire, The Rose Tattoo and Camino Real, and with Sweet Bird of Youth, Period of Adjustment, and The Night of the Iguana to come. Along with Arthur Millar, Williams is regarded by me as one the great 20th century theatre writers. I have a Penguin edition of the Menagerie which I saw on film in 1950 at the Odeon Wallington with my birth and Care mothers and also later saw the 1987 remake. The volume includes A Street Car named Desire in which Brando starred in 1951. I saw later, the 84 and 95 versions. The third play in the volume is the Sweet Bird of Youth which starred Paul Newman both on stage and in the film which I saw subsequently on TV. Over a decade ago I saw a Royal Shakespeare Production of Camino Real, in Newcastle at the Playhouse Theatre. My favourite work is the Night of the Iguana with Richard Burton and Ava Gardner, the story of a former priest. I thought I had the DVD so will add to my list of films to see again before I die.

The Future Kind is set in a southern USA State county where anyone with Negro blood is prohibited from staying overnight. Brando plays a jazz blues guitarist who wears a snakeskin coat who drifts into town and calls in at the local five and dime general store in the hope of finding work only to encounter Joanne Woodward then aged 27 with some film and TV credits, who calls in to see her sister, played by that great actress Anna Magnani, the wife of the terminally ill owner and unstated Klansman leader. She has been repeatedly warned to keep out of her home county because of her drunken and wanton behaviour and she plays with extraordinary brilliance given the mores of the time. Brando accepts a lift to the local roadhouse where he stays although Woodward is told to move on and he obtains work at the store.

We learn that prior to her marriage Magnani had become pregnant by a local worthy who return claiming that her had no idea of her condition and therefore that she and subsequently lost the child. Her lack of love or respect marriage has imprisoned her until husband is restricted to their first floor accommodation following his discharge from hospital. She sets her cap at Brando who succumbs after she persuades him to make use a room on the ground floor as a bedroom.

The situation comes to a head when she is about to open what appears to be a combination of sweet shop/cream parlour/refreshment bar against the wishes of her husband, especially as she is puting Brando in charge. This leads to the Sheriff, under the instigation of the sick husband giving Brando his marching orders. Woodward returns saying she is leaving not just the county but the USA for a villa in Italy and wants Brando to go with her. He says he is leaving town after the threats but not with her. The wife is distraught and we learn why because she is pregnant by Brando. He stays and they are murdered by the husbands cronies in a fire, repeating an admission that her husband had made that he was part of the mob that burnt her father to death in the past. The wife is played magnificently by Anna Magnani. Woodward ends the piece with a comments about snakes shedding skins. The steamy intensity of the film remains at a high level throughout achieved from the combination of the writing and acting. The film is however depressing with the disaster always the likely outcome.

In contrast Forth Worth is a stock Western film about the battle between the emerging railroad and traditional cattle drivers. Randolph Scott plays a newspaper publisher and editor originating from Forth Worth where he established a reputation as being fast and accurate with his gun but has not returned for two decades following a failed love affair. He is part of a wagon train which is joined by a woman known to Scott who is on her way marry his former best friend, a local wheeler dealer with ambitions to be state governor, buying up local real estate and knock down prices to make a huge profits when the railways come to the town and where he has invested in a cattle depot for what he hopes will become the state transit centre for the cattle meat business in the future. Scott is travelling with his mobile printing press, producing newspapers on their journey en route to a majro town which will support his campaigning approach to journalism.

The town is terrorised by local outlaws who fear the impact of the railway and the local Sheriff is a coward while the would be governor talks big but defends his inaction as waiting for the right time. The “outlaws attempt to kill Scott while on the wagon train, stampeding the herd they are trail taking which leads to the death of an orphan boy the trail with his grand mother and who been befriended by Scott.

Following this incident Scott and Wagon train reach Forth Worth where he is persuaded to stay and help run the local newspaper. The story has several layers including the relationship between the fiancée of the former best friend played by Phyllis Thaxter whose late father had run the local newspaper which Scott now develops into a campaign against the outlaws and the failure of the Town to deal with them. The situation becomes more complicated when the former fiancée fo Scott returns to confront the would be governor for his part in the downfall of her father and which led to her leaving town.

Gradually Scott realises his friend is not the man he thought he was but when he confronts him, he is persuaded to hang fire as the man states that the intention is to return the town to its former development having reduced in population from 5000 to 1000. He is also persuaded to go along with a plan to trap the outlaws to attacking the train in the mistaken belief that it contains $50000 to be used to extend the railway into the town centre. However the promised security agents are not on board and the would be governor is using the expected attack as a means of getting rid of Scott in which he nearly succeeds. Scott escapes and goes after his former friend who returns to his ranch where the fiancée is waiting. The governor persuades Thaxter to his cause and Scott returns to newspaper to launch his print attack in retaliation.

His printing publishing partner has previously been murdered and this has spurred the people to get its act together and attempt to drive the outlaws from the town. However they have been taken up with train fever volunteering to lay the track extension into the town leaving the place deserted. This provides the former friend and the outlaws with the opportunity to launch separate attacks on Scott’s life fortunately witnessed by the fiancée who shoots to prevent Scott being killed. However Scott realises that although she did shoot he had heard two shots alerting him to the other assassin.

The film moves on to the arrival of the train into the town and the celebrations marking the development. Scott has married Thaxter and writes a piece paying tribute to the good actions of his former friend. So what happened to the dream?

Fort Worth is now a major city in the United states with a central population of three quarters of a million, expected to rise to a million and a quarter, and an urban population of over 6 million. The town did become the cattle industry centre and the arrival of the Texas Pacific railway in 1876 did result in the boom predicted as it became the centre of the cattle wholesale trade. However it did also become a traditional wild west city with saloons, gambling and bawdy houses on a grand scale, akin to the Barbary coast in San Francisco with high levels of crime and violence. It was several decades before this aspect became under civil control. The development of oil drilling in Texas added to the economy while its local natural gas deposit improved its position further. The city is also an important cultural and multi cultural centre with the Hispanic and Latino population one third and Black and African just under 30%.

Newspaper publishing and Wild West excess and lawlessness is also the main subject of the Frisco Kid. The film begins with Cagney arriving on the Coast as a seaman and is Shanghaied by a local gang but escapes and retaliates. His actions bring him to the attention of the local newspaper editor and its female propriety whose father was killed by elements on the Barbary Coast because of his campaigning against them. Cagney is attracted to her but sets his sights on making it on the Coast, establishing a theatre like entertainment which attracted the sons and fathers of the growing middle class. His approach led to taking a leadership role in organising the Coast to protect its interests and eliminate the violent and major criminal elements. Just when it seems everything is coming together and his relationship with the newspaper owner blossoms there is a disaster. A close associate is unjustly accused of murdering leading citizen when it was the citizen who drew the weapon and death was accidental. However this is taken as the opportunity to mobilize the town into vigilantism and open warfare with the Barbary coast develops. Cagney narrowly escapes the lynching with the help of the Newspaper owners It is not one of Cagney’s great performances or a memorable film but as with Forth Worth is does chronicle small towns in the USA which grew quickly into major cities is less that 100 years.

1949 Two unexpectedly interesting films

It has been a good week for films. I would not have bothered with Africa United had I not heard the praise from the good doctor. Mark Kermode and his buddy, Simon Mayo last Friday. It is an odd film which as one reviewer suggests is a combination of a United Nations education film about the importance of condoms in the fight against the spread of AIDS, a GCE geographical guide to the countries of black Africa, a protests against the use of young boys in domestic warfare, and against the exploitation of young women as child brides and prostitutes, together with an appeal for a programme of education for all young people.

A streetwise orphan Rwandan boy small in stature called Dudu played by Eriva Ndavambje and his sister Beatrice (Sanyu Joanita Kintu) scrape a living, it is not clear how, while the brother dreams of the world Cup, and acts as unpaid manager fro a young man, Fabrice(Roger Nsenglyumva. with talented ball skills but whose middle class parents want him to concentrate on his education and turning out like brother who is a doctor in the United States.

Om an occasion when Fabrice has been breaking a record of the number of ball controls before the ball touches the ground an agent fo the creation fo a skills team to perform at the world cup invites the young man “and his manager” to attend an audition at the national stadium in the Rwandan capital Kigali and gives them the fare. In Europe there would have been contact with parents but this is Africa. They get on the wrong bus heading for a city with a similar name but over the border in a neighbouring country of the Congo to the West. Having got on the bus without tickets, Dudu assume that the stop is for a ticket check not appreciating it is a passport documents control point. Thus the trio find themselves without papers and in the wrong place and are quickly are placed in a refugee camp having encountered a teen soldier Foreman George( Yves Dusenge) who persuades the trio to run off with him when some men, he alleges will press gang fit young men into the rebel army, bribe their way into thee camp at night. In fact they are after him, because he has run off with the General’s money. They escape the chase this time and use the money to cross a lake in small boat which they buy. They arrive at a white tourist hotel where they encounter Celeste (Sherie Silver) who later reveals she is the daughter of a King who fell on hard times and who attempted to sell her a young bridge with six cows to someone she did not wish to marry and eventually became a sex slave girl for the hotel manager/owner.. Typically from their naivety as well as thin story telling they reveal their wealth which is quickly removed but they manage to escape again but encounter the General’s men again and where we learn that one fo these in in fact the older brother of Foreman George. They hand over the money in exchange for their lives, although Dudu later reveals he has kept some back.

This they use to gain transport by boat. There are three mini adventure before they reach the South African Border. They are chased by young teenage thugs in one community and Fabrice is forced to give up his boots in exchange for the return oft he case which contains their remaining money. Crossing over the next border Dudu thinks he had done a great exchange rate deal only to find the new money is worthless because the currencies has been changed. They then go to an Aids testing centre when in exchange for the test there is a monetary payment. Celeste is understandably concerned about her condition but all given the all clear and everything appears set fair for the rest of the journey. Dudu then becomes ill and is taken to the nearest hospital a charitable undertaking run by a order of Nuns who also provide a free school. It is revealed that he has Aids presumably the disease which killed his parents and he is told to wait for three days before required medication arrives, but this will mean they will not arrive in time for Fabrice to arrive and stake his claim for a place in the World Cup ceremony. They elect to go off, that is everyone except Beatrice who with consent of her brother, stays to take up a place offered to her at the school and follow her dream of an education and becoming a doctor to cure disease. The four adventurers reach the border in time with Dudu increasingly ill and being carried by the former boy soldier who and confronted his past and thrown him pistol away.

They are detected as they attempt to cross the border without paper and with little money and the story of why they have come is not believed until Fabrice demonstrate his kills and contact is made with the stadium. They arrive amid the excitement and traffic chaos of the build to the World Cup and Fabrice is allowed to participate despite lack fo rehearsal .

Throughout the 3000 African tour Dudu tells them imaginative stories in which they all have roles and these are shown in as mini animations. The film has been given a 12 certificate which meant there were several groups of unaccompanied 12 to 15 year olds in the audience include one trio of barely looking 12 year olds sitting in front form whose behaviour I anticipated a noisy interventions. The film opens with Dudu explaining how to make a football from a condom. It first blown up into a ball, then placed in a plastic bag and then tired around with string to give it strength. There was no giggling or anticipated sniggers when the term sex worker was used in relation to Celeste. There could have been parental decision taking involved, responsible parents or teachers encouraging responsible secondary school age children. I was remind of watch the first Lord of the Rings film on a Saturday night in a packed auditorium filled noisy young people. I prepared myself for the worse, but you could not hear the proverbial pin drop throughout the three hour epic.

Brothers at War is also an odd film, set at the end fo World War Two it appears to have been sponsored by the Masons’ to indicate the part they have played in promoting good behaviour in wars whatever side they are on. In this film the story is more substantial A British Officer, played by Hugh Daly is attached to the Russian Army as an Observer as they enter Germany from the Eastern front and head quickly for Berlin. The Russians are about to execute the Polish Government in exile before occupying the country as a satellite communist state, a factually true event, and their attempt to keep the British Officer occupied while this happens fails and escaping from he local headquarters where he is supposed to be entertained he see the event, but is captured and held to be taken to Moscow where he encounters another prisoner, a rebellious German officer, a Mason who has been under threat because Mason are among the many groups who ere rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to the concentration camps if not summarily executed.

The unlikely pairing escape and then rescue an attractive Polish girl who has been used by German and Russians in order to survive as she is about to be raped by a group of drunken soldiers. The trio also go on the road encountering wounded German soldiers without medication and who will be killed by the advancing Russians and the Gestapo who order the men to continue fighting or be shot as deserters. They eventually make the allied lines, the Americans, where the British Officer is short by one the Russian officer who undertook the massacre under orders to prevent the plan to occupy the whole of Berlin and Poland from being disclosed. The German Officer, having discovered that he and the British officers are Masons, manages to convince the USA/British army authorities of the authenticity of the information of the massacre and the Russian intentions. The authorities however decide to suppress the information from their respective governments on the basis that having gone to war following war with Germany because of the treaty with Poland, and with the war with Japan continuing, there was no enthusiasm for War with Russia. A depressing tale of the reality of war and international relations but with a common link with Africa United in that both are about a disparate group of individuals bonding in common cause, developing a loyalty to each other cutting cross everything which divides and separates.

I will write separately about the Fugitive Kind with Marlon Brando, Fort Worth with Garry Cooper and James Cagney in Frisco Kid together with half a dozen James Bond Films.

1520 Politics and an Italian Film about gangsters

After going to bed around 4 am it is not surprising that I missed the press conference of the Prime Minister with Chancellor of the Exchequer following the release of their statement on the immediate measures to shore up the British banking system as the first step in dealing with the system failures which have created the present situation and taking the first step in piloting the British economy out of the world recession. This was followed by a remarkable organised Prime Minister's Question Time, which delighted the Labour Party and thrilled those on the left wing whereas it was evident that the Tory party was reluctantly forced to remain silent with those on the extreme right angry and bitter and what they could see was the betrayal of unregulated monetarism developed by Margaret Thatcher. There was a gasp in the Commons as it was the Conservative party Leader who called upon the Prime Minister to say that those in the failed banks would not receive any bonuses this year.

But first the British Action which is very different from the USA package and where the House of Commons demonstrated to the Republican party how they got it wrong when the matter went before Congress. I can imagine their reaction if a similar package was presented to them.

First the British government is spending £25 billion buying preference shares of the 8 biggest banks. Secondly the Government is offering another £25 billion to be able to increase their capital base but this will be in the form of loans repayable. In relation to North Rock the measures taken by the bank has resulted in repaying more earlier. In both instances therefore this is money which should return to the government. However to qualify for this assistance the banks must agree to a package of changes. Eight of the major British banks have agreed to participate. Abbey, Barclays, HBOS. HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide building society, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered. This means that that government has influence on aspects of the individual policy and practice of the banks in stated areas such as the future approach to remuneration of Directors and the payment of bonuses to staff. This is likely to affect the dividends paid to share holders with possibly a freeze or reduced levels and a freeze or limiting of incomes of those at the top except where there is evidence of making a significant contribution to changing and improving the situation. The additional funds from the shares will provide the funds to enable banks to go back to the basic functions over the next three years. The government will be able to sell the shares to the market when the economic situation improves, potentially at a significant profit as well as gaining dividends when these are issued. The government will not interfere with the day to day running so that inter bank competitiveness will continue and the salary bonus dividend structure will remain in the hands of the Directors and Chief Executive officers but the principles by which they act in future have to be agreed in advance. A further £250 billion in loan guarantees will be available from the Bank of England at commercial rates to encourage banks to lend to each other and a further £100 billion on the existing £100 billion will be available direct to companies from the Bank of England in short term loans to ensure the trading continues and jobs are protected. In total the British Government is therefore providing sums similar to that in the USA although our economy is about a fifth of the size of that in the USA and government income accordingly proportionate. It is anticipated that a number of major European governments will follow the British lead.

The Prime Minister and Chancellor resisted the temptation to remove the independence of the Bank of England in relation to Interest rates but in a significant moved also followed by other European countries there was a reduction of half a percent in interest rates which was followed by the main mortgage lenders cutting their rates by a similar amount.

These development were then support by the leaders of all the political parties in Britain not just the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats but the Scottish Nationalists for example and even George Galloway heaped praise although asking if he would go further and put in a people's representative in every board room! The Tory Party and members in the House of Commons faced a major problem. If they made party political points they could appear unpatriotic and lose public sympathy. They therefore gave their support by asking questions which enabled the Prime Minister to explain at length the nature of the plan. The only difference was the request to punish the people at the top, an attempt to regain support from the public, however the Prime Minister kindly pointed this was potentially self defeating, just as on interest rates there was more than one way to kill the cat, irrespective of the number of lives.

The Tories sat with glum faces and one former leader Michael Howard was raging. Labour and other party back benchers could not contain their glee and there were outbursts of scorned derision, childish in the circumstances as Cameron felt he had no alternative but support the socialist measures or risk losing the present political advantage in the polls. It was reported that several leading Conservatives were drawing a parallel when Margaret Thatcher found herself with the Falkland's War. They will continue to have to bite their tongue while the crisis continues which will make the subsequent attack on why the Government did not introduce better regulation before now less effective. However the difficult is that it was Thatcher who commenced the approach in the late 1970's followed by all governments and their cabinets for the next three decades. Those who argued that the system was morally and fundamentally flawed were accused of being cranks and pro communism.

Yesterday there was an interview with a lady who had invested the money from the sale of a property in the Icelandic bank that had gone into liquidation and was thought to have lost half because of the limit of the protection announced only on Monday. However one other development was the announcement that that all individual deposits would be reimbursed 100% of deposits. The position of local authorities who invested is under discussion.

For the second time in two days I have heard the spiritual, jazz blues number I feel like a motherless/fatherless child.

I enjoyed the individualised view of New York in the first of he World's Great Cities series, in which he covered the usual sights from Central Station to Central park, to alas grand zero, to the cost of staying in the best hotels and Broadway preparing to go on stage with 330000 seats. He goes out with the trash clearers where the collection is put on a barge to the out of town depot be sorted and crushed and then taken by train 300 miles to a monster tip. It also put on a harness to clean windows off the side of skyscraper of which here are over 3000 in New York, He visited correctional institution preparing up state offenders among the two million or so to prepare for discharge through day release. The establishment overlooks central park. He attended a call to prayers at the central Mosque with surprisingly 300000 Muslims in the city, and a Russian Jewish wedding, the birth of baby.

As I write this the Q E 2 is sounding her horn and fire works sound off as she leaves the Tyne for the last time on her round Britain voyage. I was able to see the great ship as I went to B and Q to get some daffodils and Tulips to add to those kept from last year.

Last night I decided I need to give the kitchen a good clean and made a start while I washed up and washed clothing and then dried. However with staying up for the Presidential debate it was a slow start. I had a bacon and tomato sandwich around midday and another toasted mid afternoon, and hen peppered frying steak with some pasta shells filled with spinach. It was too peppery for my taste so will not be tried again.

The evening ended with another dose of American Italian catholic Gangsters which called The Funeral and which could be sub titled Sins of the father's. I was interested when I discovered that the daughter of Ingrid Bergman had a small part in the film. She looks and sounds like her mother and has many of her mannerisms. It also starred Chris Walkin, Chris Penn and Benicio del Torro. Some criticms claim it is a thinking man's God father, which amazed me because these are uneducated yob killers who not even fool the priest into accepting them as practicing Catholic and with no redeeming features. It was a merciful ending for everybody when one decides to kill himself, along with the surviving brother and other relatives on the night before the funeral of the third.

1518 I love the Oxford of Brideshead

It is Monday of a new week and Brideshead Revisited is still with me. I dallied with this and that for a while and then decided how my day ahead should unfold. I took half an hour to work out how to show the video tapes of Brideshead on the digital TV and this required changing the connections. One consequence of the change is that Sky now comes on the first channel; and the video on the second whereas previously terrestrial and Freeview TV came were on channel one, the DVD player on two, sky on three and PC channel 4 or five. I hope to remember to get things back as they were if need me. Later I found that I can watch both DVD's and Video tapes on channel two, so the need for Freeview and the rapidly disappearing terrestrial channels will only occur if Sky fails however temporarily. Thus the change has led to a tiny improvement. The issue and impact of the change to digital TV came to the fore during Question Time in the House of Commons , on the first afternoon of the reassembled Parliament when it appears in the next area to do the switching some residents will not have any TV at all because of the lack of Freeview coverage. Such a development is unacceptable as it will force everyone to take Satellite or cable/internet TV. It is something that the government is aware of but one hopes that concern will be translated into appropriate action.

Once I was able to play back the video I discovered the recording was now poor and I wondered if the mechanism for converting to DVD would change this. Later I decided on an amazingly inexpensive DVD set from Amazon and was tempted to a DVD series of programme about Venice, but resisted. Although I am now hesitant about increasing my libraries the possession of a viewable edition of what is regarded as the greatest dramatic work series made by the British TV industry is important, especially as I wish to go through both the book and TV series as my next day to day activity.

My next action was to get the book, a paper back edition now yellowing and with pages that became loose as I read. I was driven to reading the book as well as watching the video in part from irritation and disappointment at the review by Dr Mark Kermode during the Simon Mayo Friday afternoon programme and a separate BBC review. There was little understanding of the film or appreciation of the importance of the TV series about which I was not alone in my opinion. Mark is usually so spot on and I was surprised at his dismissive manner, and his failure to have read the book or seen the TV adaptation, but I was also reminded of the comment of one the academic friends of Charles Ryder "To understand all is to forgive all;" something I came to regard as more of a curse than a virtue especially as I am unable to apply such forgiveness to myself.
I quickly established the evidence for commenting that the recent film has significant lowered the social class of Ryder's father, as in the book it is mentioned that he had met the Warden (usually deals with the financial affairs of the individual college) at the Athenaeum where membership has been restricted to those of a certain status and social class which continues to this day. The Warden had advised that Charles should be given an allowance of £100 a term which was a fortune in 1920. I earned less in my first year at work three and half decades later. When Sebastian throws up into Charles' rooms in college he leaves 5 shillings for the Scout, the college servant, who looks after the rooms of a group of students, and he mentioned filling the book shelves with French writings in Russian leather and watered silk, all indications of man from the upper middle class which was subsequently confirmed by his being at ease in the company of the Aristocracy and with their homes. At one level the book is about the aspiration of a man from the upper middle class who wants to be part of British Aristocracy, and given that during the work he becomes a fashionable painter, one could expect that the would become a Royal Academician and gain a peerage, despite his apparent bisexual nature and involvement with a brother and his sister and this having tragic consequences.

The film failed to show that when Ryder first goes to college he is a diligent and serious student, attending lectures " in those days I still went to lectures" and discussing subjects with friends something which was rare even in my day. The not going to specified lectures was something I also chose but for very different reasons, He abandoned serious study following the dictum of his family mentor, that it was important to get a first or a fourth, the latter signalling that one had spent the entire time as an undergraduate playing sport, making a name for oneself at the Union or perhaps engaged in dramatic theatricals, only eating the required dinners in college, attending tutorials, and managing to pass the first public examination. The award of a fourth was indication that one had been to the university for three years without being sent down but without doing much study. In my case it was because I found keeping up with the work a great challenge, having changed courses from politics and economics to public and social administration, a post graduate course for those already with firsts or good second class honours degrees and where my tutorial partner in criminology had an accomplished first, and my tutor in psychology bombarded me with philosophical and behavioural sciences in an effort to get me to abandon social work and take an Oxford degree course in Philosophy and Psychology via the Ruskin back door which meant one avoided the first public examination and the Latin, and was then given three years to take the second, whereas everyone else did so in two.

There was another parallel academic experience although again for difference reasons. He spent a week working night and day towards the end of term cramming texts in order to pass the first public examination. I was required to sit an examination at the end of each term and would also work day and night over two weeks before the examination trying to go over everything that I had worked previously. My memory was awful although I had done the work and needed reminded triggers to remember what I had read, thought and written in the context of having been required to take my penultimate year at preparatory school twice, and then failing the eleven plus, such had been my sense of terror and nervousness at the prospects of failure.

One connection not previously recognised from the books is that when a relative calls to give advice he is treated to a tea which included anchovy toast. Last year I acquire two massive tins of crackers for an amazing sum of £5, this year one tin cost just under £7, and which are now approaching their end. I will switch to toast after removing the crust from the bread.

Things that one may or not remember. Charles first encounters Sebastian as he leaves the city centre barbers and I have this memory of being in such a barbers, I only bought my copy of the book after I left Ruskin but did I do so before leaving Oxford, although I remember hearing references to Brideshead and all that from one friend and other contacts in the university, rather than from fellow students at Ruskin, and of course the TV series was not made until the 1980's. yet I have a recollection of going to the Barbers. Is this false memory? There was one fashionable couple at the university at that time, active politically and where the male distinguished himself by gain a fourth.

I also missed the information about the high profile recitation of Anthony, the choice of surname conveying everyone, Blanche, the Argentinean member of the set who is full of affectations and a self proclaimed homosexual with an extraordinary background of relationships with the famous, information which is in the book but not in the TV series or film. The recitation is from Catholic writer and poet T S Elliot's ,The Waste Land.

It is over half an hour since I wrote the last sentence having undertaken a search for what I believed was a yellow dust covered edition of the extended poem but in vain, finding the Cocktail Party and the Family Reunion, his plays and the Four Quartets and then after I had bathed of sorts and shaved I turned to my three volume Oxford Library of English poetry and the whole of the Waste Land was is included. Another instance of false memory. It was the first major indication that this is work primarily about Catholicism and catholic guilt, although I admit the relative had also warned about not getting involved with any of the religious sects, which Catholicism was regarded

I have often considered that being English is about wearing dinner suits with black bow ties. I have done so myself only a handful of instances. Once to dine at the House of Lords and once the suit was ordered with photograph taken for the first conference dinner of the Association of Directors of Social Services but then the decision was made by the hierarchy not to wear them under pressure from Labour Councillors, and at least one other instance, not immediately remembered. Everyone in the middle classes and upwards dressed for the evening dinner meal and it was only after World war two that the practice was limited to a much smaller section of society.
However I did wear a white bow tie, dark suit and gown for the seven three hours papers sat at the Oxford University Examination schools which led to the award of the Diploma in Public and Social Administration and there is a photograph with other Ruskin students looking pleased at having travelled such a long way from the ship yard and the pit. I was reminded of this from the novel as after completing his own end of first year public examination, so called not because the results are posted and published, but they can be entered by the likes of me who was not a member of a recognised Oxford University College, and visited by his cousin wearing "subfusc." I also laughed at the reference to the peace and quiet of the wide roads throughout the colleges, given that the whole of the city become a restricted parking area such is the congestion and overcrowding of the city centre car parks.

It was the reference that Charles' mother had lived apart from his mother and died while serving with the Red Cross during the first world war that struck the greatest chord with me as it was evident that eh and Sebastian were effectively fatherless children without loving and caring mothers in the normal use of these words. Charles was only technically brought up by his father, a distant man, preoccupied by his personal interests, and with the help of an aunt who looked in from time to time. My own experience has similarities, a distant mother and mothering provided by an aunt although with respect of the latter far from being occasional it tended to be overwhelming. It is also of interest that the parents of Sebastian lived apart and that in any event in keeping with the lifestyle of their class he was effectively brought up by a Nanny with his mother also appeared distant and censorious.(Later I completed the viewing and reading until the end of the first year and Charles returns to London with only a few shillings and having spent his allowance and no cheque cashing right until his father provided more funds for the start of the second year in the Autumn. There were no new matters of interest to write about).

I broke off from viewing and reading to watch the reassembled House of Commons in time for Culture, and Sports Questions before Prime Ministers statement about the Financial and economic situation. This was a good decision for two reasons. The Member of Parliament for Jarrow, someone who I worked closely with when he was a leading local councillor asked about the application for the former Monastic sites and present churches of St Bede and St Paul at Sunderland and at Jarrow to be recognised as World Heritage sites. The Minister agreed to a meet in order to hear representations about the matter.

The second issue of special interest was the concern of several Members on all sides of the House about the ownership of football clubs and the need to ensure that owners, irrespective of their country of origin, met recognised standards as Fit and Proper Persons. While there was no specific reference to Newcastle it was evident that this situation as well as the take over of Man City was very much in mind. The government response was to argue that it was a matter to be addressed by the British Football authorities.

I felt very sorry for Tessa Jowell, who if my memory is accurate was one of the Labour members now in the Cabinet who was sitting at the front of the Fringe meeting at the Party conference years ago when I spoke to the mental health interest meeting along with Barbara Castle on one side and David Owen on the other, and started to lecture about the lack of any motions or references to child care in the conference agenda papers and resolutions. Minister Jowell had to answer questions as the Olympic Games Minister as the House assembled to hear the Chancellor's statement in the presence of the Prime Minister and other Party Leaders. There has been chaos across Europe over the weekend such has been the impact of the delay in the USA reaching its decision with all share dealing suspended in Iceland. Iceland with a population of 300000 has banks which have given operating loans to such British High Street firms as House of Frazer and Oasis. It is perhaps not generally understood the extent to which most businesses use cash borrowed from the banks to meet their every expenses such as fuel costs and staff wages while they await for payment for goods and services supplied. Later in the evening my forecast that the USA election would become dirty was proven a good one as the Republicans realises that they needed to move the agenda away from the economy and turning on the character of Obama. Such tactics at this time is irresponsible and one hopes the American public will respond accordingly.
I had a good stir fry at lunch and then soup and pasta in the evening with black grapes and coffee, The grapes were obtained from the supermarket with bananas and apple pies. I remembered the roasting potatoes the tea bags, and such like, treating myself to one carton of prawns with shell and two small tins of anchovies which are not a better value buy than the prawns and found four giant cartons of fruit juice on a special off at £1.75 for 1.75 Litres. The following morning I realised I had not bought shaving foam.

In the evening I watch a DVD which was presented as a serious film about an Italian adolescent girl facing the challenges of growing up in a sexually aware and internet active generation. The film started Geraldine Chaplin as a dying grandmother packed off to nursing home. Her involvement was excellent and the part of the film which concentrated on the relationships between mother daughter and grandmother was excellent. The grand parent fulfilling the role of Nanny, is often the difference between a teenager making it through adolescence without making irrecoverable mistakes and in this instance disasters happened because granny was placed in the residential home and could not respond to the warning signs exhibited by the daughter and missed by her mother finding the absence of her husband working away difficult to beat, However the film was vivid in depicting how quickly a young person can change and endanger their lives and futures if great care is not taken over what they do without parental presence unlike the treatment of the young girl in London to Brighton viewed at the weekend, The film is said to have been based on the autobiographical story of an Italian young woman who became something of a notorious celebrity.

Earlier in the week I inaccurately described a new computer game Ink Paul suggesting that one could gain between 1000 and 3000 points a time while attempting to amass a high score. The following is an indication of how I reached 62500. Plays 1-6 : 481,1351,2031,2905,3581,5175; Plays 21-25: 18206,18961, 19602, 20299, 21899; plays 40-45: 3534574, 35219, 35950,36849, 38449 ; plays 81-84: 60725, 61443, 62427,62623.

A new friend advised that his browsers had crashed on attempt to load my site and the second time I had been noticed of this problem so I attempt to view my site as others and found that the same happened to me although I was able to do sp by clicking on myself as listed on the site of a friend. This revealed that many of the MySpace music videos are now shown as errors so these were painstakingly removed leaving those still functioning. I was able to load myself directly by the time I staggered to bed in the early hours and will see what the position is later in the day.

1517 Maverick Man at Newcastle

In the mid 1960's according to the musical Hair we entered the age of Aquarius and now with McCain and Palin forming the Republican Presidential ticket, Peter Mandelson returning to the Cabinet of beleaguered Prime Minister Brown and Keegan, Ashley, Wise and now Joe Kinnear at Newcastle we can be said to have returned to the age of the Maverick, the Creative.

I was up in time to listen to the Sunday Supplement reveal that when he attended his first press conference, Joe Kinnear, went at specific journalists who had ridiculed his appointment with a torrent of swearing. In most circumstances he should have been sacked. However the point about Keegan is that he is a Maverick as much heart as head and that is true in relation to Joe who like Keegan was out of the game for several years and therefore out of touch with the market and the way the dressing home has changed with players all millionaires and only prepared to submit to authority they can respect. The present team has loss confidence and has only one natural goal scorer. The new defence has not worked so far and critics agree that so far this season apart from the performance at Manchester United they have look a team that will struggle to reach mid table whoever is in charge, Keegan knew this and this is why be became so angry when for whatever reason the club failed to provide the players in the pre season transfer market. So he had worked with the players for a week and done the talk and now he had to sit in the stands because of an inherited ban from the pitch side. We would all be able to see the situation when he faced poor start Everton who had not year won a home this season on Sky at four this afternoon.

More importantly the programme revealed the gap between Michael Ashley's objectives when he bought the club and the aspirations of the 50000 who packed the stadium. The programme also revealed the ignorance and bias of some sports writers and their contempt for the average football supporter.

Lets begin with the reality. Newcastle was an average club well supported, but included a significant number of racist yobs, reflecting Newcastle as a City in the sixties and seventies, industrial working class, anti education, anti middle class culture and excessively tribal. The club had a number of tough and pushy centre forwards who went down well with the core fans. A good crowd was 30000. Two men were responsible for getting the crowd over 40000 to the 52000 when the stadium was completed. More than this the club was able to sell all its season tickets and at one point to have a waiting list in thousands. Tickets for homes games became gold dust and the club became the fans second favourite club after their own. The reason for this was the style of play under Kevin Keegan and his charismatic leadership, But the man who had the vision, the drive and the money to create the stage for the dream was Sir John Hall, also a Maverick and someone who I once met with his son and son in law.

The departure of Kevin Keegan was a great blow, but unlike his departures from Fulham, Man City and England there was regret and sadness at what might have been rather than anger. The appointment of Bobby Robson was seen an as attempt to reconnect the club and fans and for a time he was successful with both. However there were those who wanted nothing less than the championship win where Keegan had come so close. It was Robson's departure so early in the season which marked the effective end of the dream, and also heralded the fundamental change in British football with the arrival of the billionaire willing pay £1000000 a week wages and endorse cheques of £10, £20 and £30 million to bring to the premiership the best players in the world. From the commencement of the twentieth century it was apparent that only a handful of clubs would be able to command the attention of the best players because of that combination of financial backing, theatrical stadium, media and public interest and ability to perform every year in European as well as English competitions.

There are now three options facing those clubs who do not have these ingredients. Sell the club to someone or an organisation with the necessary funding which is what has happened at Manchester City.

You can buy one or two known and experienced world class players and attempt to build round them a mixture of experience and youthful promise, hoping to gain sufficient points to have a chance of making the second European competitions direct or through winning one of the two domestic cup competitions. There was a hint this morning that Keegan wanted to bring Beckham back to England and United or someone similar who would help the crown to get through an otherwise moderate season. Home supporters might expect to win at least a third of the home games and draw the majority of the rest, winning at least once in the most important local derby and giving the big four or five a good game and a surprising win. The season ticket holders need to feel that their investment in time and money and in all weathers and times to suit TV has been justified.

There is a third way which requires the confidence of Board and supporters to take a long term view as there is no attempt to achieve a quick fix. You commence to build a team from scratch, knowing that you will not attract big name players until you are to have more than one season at a time in Europe. Such teams have to be greater than the sum of the individual parts. A key aspect I the creation of an effective world wide scouting structure finding the young men as early as possible and bring them into the academy or directly into the playing squad. The two most successful managers in British Football of the last two decades have accomplished this more than once at the same club, Ferguson at Manchester United and Wenger at Arsenal.

In their instance, they did it themselves with appropriate help and neither would have tolerated a Director of Football acting for the Owner Chairman Board. The truth of the matter is that when Ashley bought the club he may have had this approach in mind or may have been persuaded to adopt this approach but he failed to communicate with club and more importantly its supporters. He anticipated bringing Harry Redknapp which could have worked except Harry had too much sense to buy into the operation whether he knew who would become the Director of football or not. The second decision was to appoint Kevin Keegan, cashing in on the brand name and supporter's enthusiasm, but h also must of known he needed to take Kevin with his plans or he would walk away. He was a maverick in the business world and is among football club owners and demonstrates the problem that when Mavericks foul up there are no half measures. He is said to be intent on selling the club although there would be more belief in anything's said on his behalf if he had not misrepresented the physical threat to himself and his family and inflated the asking price which despite the alleged reduction is said to want to make a profit in the tens of millions of pounds. So much for putting personal money into the club and wanting what was best for the club and supporters. To the sports writer who attempted to defend the indefensible I would remind that the road to hell is always paved with good intentions, but also leads to eternal damnation if the intentions are not good ones.

When this afternoon/s game commenced t was quickly evident that there were two desperate team who were throwing caution to the winds. Newcastle were two down with half time in sight and it seemed that Everton had won the gamble and Newcastle defeat and disaster. However they fought on and scored either side of the half, goals which the Manager did not see as he was making his way to or from the dressing room from his position in the stand. Both teams had the opportunity to win the match which ended in a an honourable draw and with Spurs beaten at home again by Hull of all teams, Newcastle was able to climb a place but remain in the bottom relegation three. Hill is now is the top three. Liverpool managed to score three goals in the second half to win at Man City. Joe Kinnear also lives to fight anther day.

Being Sunday it was also a day for political commentators to assess the impact of what has happened across the pond and at home. The decision of the USA Congress to ratify the Presidential plan to write the toxic loans featured. That is the loans which bankers should never have made and from which they made great personal profit, may or may not work and is not an approach which either the Prime Minister or Shadow leader would support in the UK unless there was no alternative. Far greater attention was directed to the reappointment of Peter Mandelson to the Government, a man who is said to have masterminded the first two Labour Government victories at the Polls and also had an important say in the third. The Tory party, caught out by the dramatic collapse of confidence between banks and between banks, government and the people were floored by the appointment of Mandelson, nearly as much he was when approached as late as the day before the announcement. He is said to have consulted Tony Blair before agreeing. Yesterday/Today the press was briefed that within the past weeks Mandelson had dropped anti Prime Minister poison to the opposition. This was immediately denied by Mandelson who said the cause of the story was likely to have been a conversation between him and the Tory Shadow Chancellor on a Greek Island in which they had both talked politics and political personalities. He reminded Mr Osborn that he would never reveal such comments, this taking the high ground and serving a warning shot that he is no lightweight and from now on he is joined at the hip with Mr Brown and the government. This also a good warning to those on the left of the party and those continuing to plan a coup on Mr Brown that from the moment of the decision to accept the invitation he is now in the corner of Mr Brown I have said that Mr Brown needed a miracle to survive. He has just created one.

1516 A man with no Identity watches London to Brighton

It is 2 pm Saturday, cold and raining. I did not rise from bed until 11am having stayed up Blog writing and it was midday before I started to tackle, the Man with no Identity.

It is not that I am afraid of death itself but I am afraid of what the process of dying could be like.

I am more afraid of writing about myself.

I did make a start. A few opening paragraphs. I am not yet in the dimension to write and write, abandoning everything else/ I need to organise myself better than I have so far., but I have the experience of completing works of 200 x (3), 300 and 400 pages, the later also had an addition of 75 pages of photographs, so I know what can be achieved when the research has been completed,, the work is clearly set out in my head, or at least there is a notion of a beginning and an end.

I have made toast and coffee.

I have looked at what football and other programmes there are on TV during the rest of the day and will listen to Sunderland at home against Arsenal at 3pm. I could watch one of the two DVD's that have arrived over the past two days about which I know almost nothing. I will concentrate on getting myself up to-date with project work in hand and hopefully return to the writing before the day is done. The car insurance documents have arrived. I will switch the heating on and make lunch. Do I want to put myself through the pain of writing? Do I need to do it? Is it right?
A good lunch of vegetables followed by a chunk of sea bass with seasoning, black grapes and tea. Complete printing of recent Blogs for Creatives sets in Volumes 5669 5673. Transfer photos of Durham parading with trophy at Riverside, and the latest condition of the patio plants from memory sticks to computer and then recharge the camera battery. Prepare five two set volumes for future Blog sets while listening on Century radio to Sunderland hosting Arsenal on Century radio. The commentary suggested that Sunderland were well organised and defended well but did not sit back and took the game to Arsenal whenever they could. Five minutes before the end a 0.0 draw seemed a worthy result and then Sunderland scored a brilliant goal electrifying everyone including men. Then according to the commentators there was no justification for the referee adding four extra minutes which was sufficient for Arsenal to equalise. Later I watched the whole of the second half on Sky and the Match of the Day highlights and noted that the Manager, Roy Keane, did not complain about the additional time, perhaps it looks as if Arsenal had a good goal disallowed when the linesman thought the ball had gone over the end line before a player sent it into the goal mouth where is was struck into the net.
I have been enjoying playing different games against the computer recently. Ink Ball is a game when with the use of the mouse one has to steer coloured moving balls into their correct pocket, allow one to enter a different colour and the game ends. The mouse can create ink strokes which prevents a ball going astray or help steer. About between 1000 and 3000 points can be won per game and my first target was 10000 points although I quickly reached just under 25000 and then just under 50000, and then in one long game I not only broke 50000 and then 75000 but went on to 82166. My effort now only reached 11000 but later I made 66000. About a decade ago I played all the numbered games from 1 to 10000 on free cell so this time I am concentrating on percentages wit 46 games won from 50 a 92% after a shaky start losing two games in succession but with a run of 41 wins since. Winning 269 from 278 games at level three the best run has been 57 but the three loses is unacceptably high. Hearts is the game where I had an appalling start winning only one in ten games before working out how to play and win so that now the percentage has risen to 43% 638 games from 1468 and were a winning streak of 26 now is better than an early series of loses which reached 25. Spider Solitaire is another form of patience which I quickly mastered winning 718 of the 788 games played 91%, There is a three form child's game where one of the three is spatial, and two guess and memory. I occasionally enjoy a game of finding matching pairs of tiles among 20 with 37 turns to find the ten pairs is the best effort. I am hopeless at Minesweeper with tune squares and one has remember of ten mines. And Mah-jong Titans is yet to attempted.

I watched Strictly dancing while enjoying bottle of beer some pasta, and small apple pie with custard. Around midnight, may have been later I had a tomato sandwich. I have discovered two video tapes of Brideshead and went though most of my cabinets of tapes thinking there should be a third until in the early houses I discovered that although the first was marked as having episodes 1-3 it has 1 to 7.5 with the second having the remainder. I look forward to seeing if the quality has been maintained and enjoying the big screen showing.

Whereas I went to the cinema to experience the film of Brideshead with my head filled with visuals and sounds from the TV series I knew nothing about the low budget independent film London to Brighton produced in 2006 and which had limited showing but received some good reviews. The DVD contained a good range of additional material including the after show discussion at the Curzon Cinema. Films about gangsters and low life set in London and Brighton are popped up over the years with Graham Greene's Brighton Rock set just before World War 2, appearing in the late 1940's. I have the DVD. I also may have on tape Mona Liza. The film is what happens when a young girl, aged eleven runs from home and tries to live on the streets of London and is picked up by a drug taking prostitute whose pimp has demanded she finds such a girl, for a millionaire paedophile. The girl is played by thirteen year old Georgia Groome, an already established child actress who has attended both a school and an academy of performing arts. Understandably her mother was unsure when reading the script but the girl claimed she had a fair idea of what it was about from what was talked in the school yard. She was subsequently chosen to star in a teenage film released this year, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging which is based on the work on someone who has become a world wide recognised writer about the reality of being a teenager in contemporary society.

The film is described as gritty and authentic. I would add grim and realistic about the behaviour of men with money and the exploitation of the young at risk whether here in the UK or from central Europe and Russia and Asia. The film avoids glamorization, titillation and sensationalism and cannot be regarded as entertainment, My problem with the film is that the story will all too familiar with social workers and those working in the justice system and rather like the latest attempt to put people off smoking with lurid pics on the fag packets, it will have no effect as a cautionary tale. What impressed me was the quality of the performance of the cast who were not paid with the shooting and cutting script around £80000 and the whole film about a quarter of a million. If contemporary art is to reflect the truth of contemporary life, then while this is no Shakespeare it can be regarded as a contemporary art performance captured on camera and then edited.

1515 From book to TV series and now on Film Evelyn Waugh's Masterpiece

It has been said that Evelyn Waugh was not content with his novel Bridesehead Revisited, rejecting its tone as pretentious. I do not know if he regarded the eleven hour TV adaptation of the work as justification, but I felt both were triumphs with the eleven hour TV series capturing the nuisances, the complexity and intensity of the characters. Recently I caught a repeat of the first two episodes which centre on the life of Charles Ryder, an upper middle class young man, and Sebastian Flyte, the second son of an Aristocratic Catholic family as they meet at Oxford University, and whose beautiful and spectacular country home and estate is Brideshead. I knew that a film version was about to be released and when I saw that this was today I had only one thought which was to get to the cinema theatre in time for the afternoon showing.

The first surprise was that audience comprised three sets of older women and one other male also within my generation. I feared that the experience was going to by spoiled by three housewives catching on the latest gossip. I know this because they spoke in loud voices throughout the adverts and then the trailers but then kept quiet throughout a film. Glory be.

The book and the TV adaptations are long and for me it was difficult to work out the core story, especially with the focus on Oxford and then Venice, two of the most beautiful cities within my experience/. Having rushed off I had not prepared myself for a film, a fifth the length of the TV series and for different music, music which had added to and branded the film the inter war era of the upper classes it represented.

I have to admit what the Director has achieved is a beautiful but coherent and serious film about the nature and impact of Catholicism upon the psyche in a way which should please the Pope and his Vatican Therefore the film will mean less to non Catholics unless they also have become embroiled with Catholicism. Charles Ryder is not just a non catholic but an open atheist and that he is consistent in his rejection of the notion of any God, let alone a Christian God is the one aspect of his personality to his credit, and this serves as a means of exposing the strengths and the weaknesses of the faith. I say this because the film, (I do not know if it is in the book or TV adaptation, the wealthy American husband of the eldest daughter, Julia, and female love of the life of Charles, tells him that had been willing to convert to Catholicism like he, he would have been allowed to marry Julia.

Because of the emphasis on Catholicism, the film spike to me directly and I was not distracted by the views of Oxford where I lived for five years and I found myself making mental notes for the book about my quest for a core identity and the relationship with my birth and foster mothers. I had hoped to have written the greater part by now, although it is fitting that this moment arises during the first anniversary of the death and funeral services for my mother and within three months of ten years of finding out who my father was, and was not, and a further two months before my seventieth birthday.

In the TV series Jeremy Irons plays Charles Ryder and has a likeable and intense quiet inner certainty and presence, arising from his comfortable and well educated background and drive to become a painter. He is comfortable within the society of after World War One Oxford and immediately at home at Brideshead, to an extent this Lady Marchmain sees him immediately as a potentially who could help protect Sebastian, and invites him to join them in the Chapel for prayers after an evening meal, in the hope that despite his stated atheism, he is convertible. While Irons, and the book character is not completely convincing as an artist painter, in contrast to Michael Yorke, who plays the bisexual artist writer in a version of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin based books, the musical Cabaret, the actor who plats Charles in this film version is hugely disappointing.

Matthew Goode is not able to communicate the kind of personality that would seduce all the members of the aristocratic family within moments of first meeting, together with the audience, or able to make the audience feel sympathy for someone who stripped of all the flim flan is a social adventurer trying to establish the family he never possessed as a child and young man, who is full of judgements and moralising about the behaviour of others, while least critical of his own behaviour as be betrays the relationships of everyone he encounters. This is harsh and he is given the opportunity once to show something of why Charles takes to him when his wish to become a painter is ridiculed at the first lunch party in college when one says you are an artist or you are not, and argues that photography has replaced the need for painters, Charles shows his self belief arguing that the painter reflects what one feels about a subject, and such is the level of those surrounding Sebastian that no one points out that this is also the what can make a photograph art when it sets out to express the totality of a moment rather than the objectivity and detailed memory of a scene.

By second and only other criticism of the film is that by concentrating on the key events and characters, the film almost bypasses the wealth of other characters who help to create a symphony about the upper classes between wars whereas what we are left with is an important and profound piece of chamber music about the impact of Catholicism on a family and with whom they interact.

In the TV series and book you also feel that the father is an interesting man and would like to know more about him and why he has such a distant, almost detached relationship with his only child. In the film the father and his social status is downgraded to an extent that he is unlikely to have sent a son to Oxford without academic ability and pushed him off to study art and its history. I and I suspect that others were not convinced that Charles from a lower middle class home in Paddington would feel at home among the Aristocrats.

The film is rescued by the other actors. I am most impressed by Ben Wishaw which I hope is considered as an Oscar/Bafta supporting actor nomination fro his performance as Sebastian who tries to lose his maternally inspired Catholic conscience through drink and debauchery, and who then finds redemption in caring for someone in a worse condition than himself, until his own ill health takes him to a hospital run by a religious order in North Africa. Charles fails in his mission at the request of Lady Marchmain to bring Sebastian home to make peace with each other and their God before she dies. She is comforted that at least he is with men of faith. Sebastian has gone to pieces when he discovers that Charles has switched his intentions to Lady Julia, his sister, when they journey to Venice at the request of their father who is living in sin with an Italian Catholic in a mini palace overlooking the grand canal. The Venice adventure has however a greater significance as Lord Marchmain half admits that he has escaped his wife Catholicism and attitude towards sex and his mistress explains that the Mediterranean Catholics are different from the English as they enjoy life, and by implication sex, and then go to confession on a regular basis to repent their sins. It is no accident that the last two Popes, one Polish and the other Germanic, are men who adhere to the puritanical form of the religion.

The brilliant Emma Thompson also gives a major performance which could get her an best actress nomination. She takes her faith and her family seriously and one immediately thinks of Cheri Blair the wife of Tony Blair who has converted to her faith, and Ruth Kelly who has not only left the Cabinet but is to leave Parliament. Charles frustrated that Lady Marchmain prevents Julia marrying him describes her actions as poisoning the lives of Julia and Sebastian and fails to understand that she was right in banning him from further contact with the family when while attempting to save both his soul and his body Charles gives him the cash to go out and get drunk on the day when the eldest sister is twenty one and her engagement is announced.

In real life that should have been that. Charles who denounces all contemporary art as bosh at one point finds fame and wealth as an artist through the help of a wealthy and influential young admirer who he marries but several years later he encounters Lady Julia on an ocean liner returning to England from New York. They have sex but Charles being Charles cannot then carry one with the life he has made and persuades Julia to live with him as if helping to destroy one member of the family is not enough. His interest in being able to visit and possible live at Brideshead is too strong and he successfully gets Julia's husband to agree to an annulment fro the price of two of his fashionable counterparty art paintings. He appears to have no understanding of the impact on Julia of living in sin as a Catholic until the elder son who is about to marry a Catholic widow with family says his future wife will be unable to receive her while she remains in such a state. Julia who believes the still birth of her child within the marriage was God's punishment for her religious disobedience agrees to leave with him despite knowing that she is disinheriting herself, but them she is given the first of two signs. He father is rushed home to die as they set off. Charles sensing that the combined pressure of the eldest son, the devout younger sister and the Catholic Mistress will affect his future, attempts to persuade Lord Marchmain to reject the visit of a priest to perform the last rites and at first is successfully, but as Lord Marchmain, played notable by Michael Gambon dies he makes the sign of the cross upon himself, restoring Julia to her faith and home from which Charles departs again, apparently not to return. The TV adaptation and book opens with Charles finding himself moved to unknown new base during World War Two prior to the Normandy landings and in the morning gets of his tent in the grounds of an estate to be told they are at Brideshead. He learns that the title inheriting brother has been killed and that the Lady of the House is away on war work. Charles re visit the Chapel signing himself with Holy water, the first indication of man who knows he made the wrong choices in the past. Theer is a holy light flickering and for a moment in goes to extinguish it, but desists. This is not just the actions of an atheist in wartime creating a reserve position or responding to an earlier statement that Lady Marchmain had infected every stone and blade of grass, but the actions of man on the verge of finding faith in something other than, we are born, we live and we die, as expressed by his batman.
Some will see the film as a bi sexual love triangle without the usual torrid sex scenes or as a commentary on the decline of the British Aristocratic way of life. Most will find the work a travesty of the wit in the writing of Waugh and a poor attempt given what many regard as thee greatest drama series ever made for British Television. I cannot see those who go to the cinema on weekend evenings queuing up to see the film and then going off to buy the book. For me he film did great justice to the intentions of the author, Evelyn Waugh who converted to Catholicism and who described the work as the operation of divine grace on a diverse but closely connected group of characters. Amen to that.

Amen also to the Democratic and Republicans who put their duty to their country and all its fellow citizens before their political future and personal ideologies. I hope they will experience the operation of divine grace as the money they have voted to the President and his administration is put to effect lasting good use. They did on a two to one basis and restored some of their standing in the rest of the world, if not among many of their electorate.
Amen to Gordon Brown for tacking an extraordinary decision to ask Peter Mandelson his arch enemy for over a decade, but one time close political friends because he supported the candidature of Tony Blair for the Labour Leadership over that of the Prime Minister., to return to the Cabinet as Trade Minister with a peerage to the House of Lords on the grounds he was the best person available after the resignation of the present, Mandelson is a hated figure within sections of the Labour party and the media, who was forced to leave the Cabinet twice because of allegations of misuse of position although he was cleared of the latter and is reported to have been a very successful Trade Commissioner for Britain and for the European Community during the past four years. The argument of the Prime Minister is that at this important moment it is essential to have the best available people working together regardless of what has gone .., especially between them. No one was more surprised than Mandelson and most commentators regard the development as a stroke of desperation rather than of genius. However most also hope that it works such is the reality we now find ourselves in. So amen to that too.

1514 Films in early October 2008

Practicals, pleasures and politics does not quite sum up Thursday October 2nd, but nearly. The alarm did not go off but the inbuilt body clock ensured that I was up around 8.30 but it was still a rush to get myself ready to take the car for its annual service and MOT. Last year the bill was around £500 but this year it was less than half, although there is a list of things that could go wrong over the next year. I walked back in bright sun light but there was a chill air. There is no progress with the new supermarket, and the site has been cleared and partially made good but in such a way suggesting the contract was not completed. The opportunity was taken to buy two punets of grapes at the station on the way back. The credit card payment for the month was made after working out what one debit was for and sending an email to Spectrum internet regarding a double charge for the use when in Croydon in August.

Although it was chilly outside I decided that with the car being serviced I would sweep the floor of the garage and patio, attend to the plants and assess the need for additional spring bulbs given the increase in container space. On the way back from collecting the car I looked in at B and Q to see what was available including some autumn flowering plants but decided to return next Wednesday when a 10% discount will be available. I received two telephone calls regarding the car and then one from the GP Health centre to invite for the Winter flu jab next Tuesday at lunchtime.

For many decades I have been interested in the workings of the mind and the interaction between mind and body. The mind control all body functions as well as creating our awareness of the external world, and our inner life, from normal waking dreams to the hallucinations of disturbed minds, in some instance substance induced hallucinatory experience. This interest was aroused several times over the past few days, including in the morning. There was a radio interview with a researcher who argued that changing the sound of cooking and eating food affected our perception of the pleasures of the food. Apparently by altering the sound rather than the food we think we are enjoying some foods better and an example of this was crisps, although I although believe that the look, the packaging, and the feel are also involved.

This afternoon I watched a film called Cello and there was much cello playing to enjoy and in fairness I had read that it was a sinister frightener from Korea. Despite the language barrier it was genuine frightener with moments of horror and with a very effective twist at the end, which for once I do not reveal in this edition. The story is that of a music theory teacher who was a promising cellist before she married but no longer plays and who is confronted by a student who she failed and who now threatens to make her pay. What follows can be attributed to this student, or to the woman becoming increasingly disturbed and hallucinating, by a series of unrelated family tragedies and horrors, or by some something she did in the past. The film does not attempt to provide answers for specific events but makes the general point that what we do and in what we do not, lives with us for eternity, and that if we do bad or evil things and then run away from our action, refuse to take responsibility and face up to its social consequences, then such behaviour will affect our lives in appropriate proportion in other ways. While I have no direct experience and I appreciate there are conflicting views on such situations occur, I do believe that the human mind can create physical manifestations.

The previous day I watched the Memoirs of an Invisible Man, again, and found this concept film just as enjoyable as before. It has always been considered science fiction that someone could have a physical presence in an environment and not be seen by others in the same environment. Animals, fishes and insects have developed evolved natural coverings which help then merge into their environment in such a way that tot eh casual eye they are not recognised for what they are, and similar approaches have been used to disguise solders, and their weaponry, including craft on land, water and airspace. Why not then the human form?
I also saw part of an X files in which a combination of a chemical spay and subliminal messaging created violent, murderous and self destructive human behaviour.

I am not sure the explanation of the present financial chaos is that presented to the public by politicians a d in the media by financial and political commentators. If I was a fundamentalist who wanted to inflict my beliefs upon the world and regarded causing harm as well as death and destruction as means towards an end, then the use of the terrorist bomb is surely only one weapon, especially if I had access to unlimited funds. I would look go creating havoc and undermining confidence in those I wished to persuade or eliminate, and I would not need to signal my actions in any way. Destabilising financial systems and depressing economies is one obvious approach where the risk to ones warriors is limited, however similar to weapons of mass destruction, such an allegation and not be made unless there is the means to substantiate. I was alarmed by a couple of news reports recently which are open to different interpretations, It was alleged than Iran has been taking steps to further disguise its nuclear weapons programme and was also said to be undertaking tests which were the basis of an inter continental ballistics programme which if so has to be dealt with as strongly and effectively as possible for not to do so threatens the whole middle east and consequently the rest of the humanity. There was also a report that the UN Nuclear minority body were claiming they could not do the job required because of lack of funds to employ the required number of people and monitoring equipment. I would rather see spending a greater proportion of our defence budget in this way than in developing a new generation of nuclear weapons ourselves.

The subject of the Middle East, the security of Israel, the deployment of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan was one of the subjects in the Vice Presidential debate held at 2am British time and which I stayed up to watch, I was pleased that both candidates were aware that the future of Pakistan poses greatest threat to world peace and our safety from terrorist activity, and consequently fighting the enemy when they went to Iraq and back to Pakistan is preferable from having to conduct a war within Pakistan and its nuclear capability.

Senator Palin did better than I and most neutral commentators expected. It was important to view the whole debate rather than fifteen second sound bites selected by the media. Finding neutral commentators is also difficult especially within the USA as they jockey for position and favour after the election. The idea that Senator Palin could take over as President is ludicrous and it became more obvious than before that she had been chosen by the Republican would be President as a vote winner who will be sidelined if office is gained. The idea that one wants two let alone one maverick to hold one of the most important positions on the planet is even more ludicrous. Listening to the debate what stuck me was that the best of the four was Senator Joe Biden as a man of principles but who was also capable of getting things done within the present American political system. There are two things which voters should look for when making their choice at the ballot box. The first is proven record of good character. The second is the ability to get things done. Ideologies, policies, programmes and plans are irrelevant as what ever is said has to be modified because of changing circumstances and being part of a global financial system and economy. In Britain Labour's attack on Cameron is to argue that once a Thatcher Tory always a Thatcher Tory to which he has now replied Yep and I am proud of it what is your character and principles other then to try and cling to office. A charge which I though Prime Minister Brown answered with authority and conviction. Until now Cameron has also resisted the pressure to bring forth detailed policies, or make specific commitments. The reasoning for putting the pressure is obvious. The public are tired of Labour and do not like Prime Minister Brown and the slightest failure or difficulty is being blown up out of all proportion and in the absence of detailed programmes and election commitments the only thing which can be attacked is his and his party's character, which is always a two edge sword. Cameron has shown effective ruthlessness is ending the political careers of anyone who threatens the present image of his political party. He has also presented himself as a solid family man and is travelling the Queendom engaging as much with the floating voter and opposition as he is with the Party faithful. As a consequence he is tackling the charge that coming from a privileged background he cannot know what it is like to live without up. The problem for Brown is that Cameron does not apologise for his background and appears genuine in his efforts to engage in direct communication with those who have and continue to lead very different lives. The problem of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is that by nature he is a conviction politician who wants to translate ideas into practice and worse still for him, but far better for the country, he is weary of taking decisions which change things without understating all the potential consequences as well as seeing the forecast of possible unintentional consequences. He is no good at communicating his ideas to Joe Public and looks as if he is manufacturing an manage when he tries to do this. It is the media after all that has created the media society and I thought the best Cameron swipe of the day was to point out that Britain is a country and not a media channel. In my view if politicians showed more contempt for the media and did less going on media training course, the public would have more respect for them and more contempt for the media who on the whole are politically gutless in that few have been willing to put themselves up for political office and put themselves and their families up for public and media scrutiny.

1513 The Conservative approach 2008

Two weeks ago I believe Prime Minister Gordon Brown was very successful in uniting the majority of his Party behind his leadership and saw whatever bid was being made by or on behalf of David Miliband sunk for the duration of this Parliament even if the Prime Minister decides or is forced to resign before the next General Election. The Prime Minister appears to have been effective in communicating to the general public that he was the right man for the job at this time of present crisis, and his observation that this was not the time for a novice was as effective in relation to Conservative Opposition leader, David Cameron, as it was towards Mr Miliband and any other young pretender.
The problems which Mr Brown faces over the next two years is that although he will maintain support while the financial and economic crisis lasts, he will come under increasing scrutiny over his stewardship of the Treasury and his financial and economic decisions as Prime Minister. A year ago I believed there was no justification other than party politics to hold a General Election unless he proposed major policy changes to those which had been in the Election Manifesto of Prime Minister Tony Blair. That he funked the decision to hold the election after getting everyone fired up and ready showed a worrying change of mind which does not omen well in terms of future crisis. He will also find it difficult to live down his mistake over the 10 pence tax rate abolition and it will be noted as the election approaches if the rate has not been reintroduced, something which the economic situation is unlikely to make possible without having to raise taxes or cut government expenditure elsewhere. Moreover if the Scottish By-Election result is a bad loss to the Scottish Nationalists and the opinion polls do not swing in in his favour there will be pressure again from within his own party for him to make way.

It was this situation which the Conservative Party found themselves holding their Party Conference and where speeches by Government Minister would have cleared through the central office to ensure no one overlapped or said anything which would cause the Leader or the Party difficulties. They would have been ready to praise the record and fitness for office of their Leader along with a speech by the Leader emphasing that he was the right person for the Premiership. They would have launched into a blitz on the record of the Government and for the need of radical change and they would have commenced to put into the public domain policy statement and programmes qualified by emphasising the need for reassessment as the General Election approach and on the state of national finances when they came into office.

This had to be changed when the House of Representatives rejected the financial stability and survival plan on Monday The approach taken by the Conservative Opposition was clever and clear. They would support the government and David Cameron made a short statement about this and the crisis on Tuesday morning before the Shadow Chancellor had a meeting with Chancellor to plan for legislation to be quickly passed through Parliament next week. At the same time he paved the way, as much for his own party as for the General Public, for a re-launch of himself and his Party's policies. His plan, as is evident from his speech, was to revert to traditional conservative values with which Margaret Thatcher would have had no quarrel, but then emphasise the need for change because of the today's circumstances and tomorrow's challenges.

This is what he had to say.

Speech David Cameron: Conference Speech 2008 David Cameron MP, Wednesday, October 1 2008

"It's great to be here in the Symphony Hall. But it's even better to know that in this party, everyone: the Shadow Cabinet, the Members of Parliament, the council leaders and all our candidates and colleagues. Everyone is playing the same tune.

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
Today the financial crisis means that all eyes are on the economy and the financial markets and that is absolutely right. As I said yesterday, on this issue, we must put aside our differences and work together with the government in the short-term to ensure financial stability. I am pleased that our proposal to increase the protection for depositors to £50,000 has been taken up. I'm pleased that the European regulators are looking at our proposal to bring stability to the banking system. I repeat: we will not allow what happened in America to happen here, we will work with the government in the short term in order to protect our economy. But as I also said yesterday, that must not stop us telling the truth about the mistakes that have been made. It is our political duty and if we had a written constitution I would say constitutional duty to hold the government to account, to explain where they went wrong, and how we would do things differently to rebuild our economy for the long-term.

So we must not hold back from being critical of the decisions that over ten years have led us to this point. We need to learn the lessons, and to offer the British people a clear choice. It is our responsibility to make sense of this crisis for them, and to show them the right way out of it. We started to do that in Birmingham this week. We've had a good conference this week, an optimistic conference - but a sober one. We understand the gravity of the situation our country is in. And our response is measured, proportionate and responsible. The test of a political party is whether it can rise to the challenge of what the country requires and what the times demand. I believe we have passed that test this week and I want to thank George Osborne, William Hague, all my team in the Shadow Cabinet and all of you for making this conference a success. The reality of government is that difficulties come not in neat and predictable order, one by one and at regular intervals. Difficulties come at you from all sides, one on top of the other, and you've got to be able to handle them all. So amidst this financial crisis let us not forget that we are also a nation at war.
AFGHANISTAN
In Afghanistan today, our armed forces are defending our freedom and our way of life as surely and as bravely as any soldiers in our nation's history. Let us be clear about why they are there: if we fail in our mission, the Taliban will come back. And if the Taliban come back, the terrorist training camps come back. That would mean more terrorists, more bombs and more slaughter on our streets. That is why we back our troops' mission in Afghanistan one hundred per cent. I've been to visit them every year since I've been doing this job. Earlier this month, up the Helmand River in Sangin I met a soldier in the Royal Irish Regiment, Ranger Blaine Miller. He'd just turned eighteen years old. He was the youngest soldier there. He's not much more than a boy and he's there in the forty-five degree heat, fighting a ferocious enemy on the other side of the world. I told him that what he was doing was exceptional. He told me he was just doing his job.

Every politician says it's the first duty of government is to protect our country, and of course that's right. But today we are not protecting the people, like Blaine, who protect us - and that is wrong. In Afghanistan, the number of our troops has almost doubled but the number of helicopters has hardly increased at all. American soldiers start their rest and recuperation the day they arrive back home, our troops have to count the days they spend getting home. We've got troops' families living in sub-standard homes; we've got soldiers going into harm's way without the equipment they need we've got businesses in our country that instead of welcoming people in military uniform and honouring their service choose to turn them away and refuse them service. That is all wrong and we are going to put it right. We are going to stop sending young men to war without the equipment they need, we're going to stop treating our soldiers like second class citizens we will do all it takes to keep our country safe and we will do all it takes to protect the heroes who risk everything for us.

GURKHAS
And today there are a particular group of heroes that I have in mind. They fought for us in the slit trenches of Burma the jungles of Malaya and the freezing cold of the Falklands. Yesterday the courts ruled that Ghurkhas who want to come and live in Britain should be able to. They risked their lives for us and now we must not turn our backs on them. I say to the government: I know there are difficult questions about pensions and housing but let's find a way to make it work. Do not appeal this ruling.
Let's give those brave Ghurkha soldiers who defended us the right to come and live in our country.

VALUES AND CHARACTER
These are times of great anxiety. The financial crisis. The economic downturn. The cost of living. Big social problems. I know how worried people are. They want to know whether our politics, and let's be frank, whether our politicians - are up to it. In the end, that's not really about your policies and your plans. Of course your plans are important but it's the unexpected and unpredicted events that can dominate a government. So people want to know what values you bring to big situations and big decisions that can crop up on your watch. And people want to know about your character: the way you make decisions; the way that you operate.

RESPONSIBILITY
My values are Conservative values. Many people wrongly believe that the Conservative Party is all about freedom. Of course we care passionately about freedom from oppression and state control. That's why we stood up for Georgia and wasn't it great to have the Georgian Prime Minister with us here, speaking today? But freedom can too easily turn into the idea that we all have the right to do whatever we want, regardless of the effect on others. That is libertarian, not Conservative - and it is certainly not me.

For me, the most important word is responsibility. Personal responsibility. Professional responsibility. Civic responsibility. Corporate responsibility. Our responsibility to our family, to our neighbourhood, our country. Our responsibility to behave in a decent and civilised way. To help others. That is what this Party is all about. Every big decision; every big judgment I make: I ask myself some simple questions. Does this encourage responsibility and discourage irresponsibility? Does this make us a more or less responsible society? Social responsibility, not state control. Because we know that we will only be a strong society if we are a responsible society.

CHARACTER
But when it comes to handling a crisis when it comes to really making a difference on the big issues it's not just about your values. There's something else people want to know. When people ask: "will you make a difference?" they're often asking will you – i.e. me – will you make a difference? You can't prove you're ready to be Prime Minister – and it would be arrogant to pretend you can. The best you can do is tell people who you are and the way you work; how you make decisions and then live with them.

I'm a forty-one year old father of three who thinks that family is the most important thing there is. For me. For my country. I am deeply patriotic about this country and believe we have both a remarkable history and an incredible future. I believe in the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and I will never do anything to put it at risk. I have a simple view that public service is a good way to channel your energy and try to make a difference. I am not an ideologue. I know that my party can get things wrong, and that other parties sometimes get things right. I hold to some simple principles. That strong defence, the rule of law and sound money are the foundations of good government

But I am also a child of my time. I want a clean environment as well as a safe one. I believe that quality of life matters as much as quantity of money. I recognise that we'll never be truly rich while so much of the world is so poor. I believe in building a strong team – and really trusting them. Their success is to be celebrated – not seen as some kind of threat. Thinking before deciding is good. Not deciding because you don't like the consequences of a decision is bad. Trust your principles, your judgment and your colleagues. Go with your conviction, not calculation. The popular thing may look good for a while. The right thing will be right all the time. Tony Blair used to justify endless short-term initiatives by saying "we live in a 24 hour media world."

But this is a country not a television station. A good government thinks for the long term. If we win we will inherit a huge deficit and an economy in a mess. We will need to do difficult and unpopular things for the long term good of the country. I know that. I'm ready for that.

EXPERIENCE
And there is a big argument I want to make – about the financial crisis and the economic downturn, yes but about the other issues facing the country too. It's an argument about experience. To do difficult things for the long-term or even to get us through the financial crisis in the short term what matters more than experience is character and judgment, and what you really believe needs to happen to make things right. I believe that to rebuild our economy, it's not more of the same we need, but change. To repair our broken society, it's not more of the same we need, but change.

Experience is the excuse of the incumbent over the ages. Experience is what they always say when they try to stop change. In 1979, James Callaghan had been Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor before he became Prime Minister. He had plenty of experience. But thank God we changed him for Margaret Thatcher.
Just think about it: if we listened to this argument about experience, we'd never change a government, ever. We'd have Gordon Brown as Prime Minister – for ever.

Gordon Brown talks about his economic experience. The problem is, we have actually experienced his experience. We've experienced the massive increase in debt. We have experienced the huge rise in taxes. We experienced the folly of pretending that boom and bust could be ended. This is the argument we will make when the election comes. The risk is not in making a change. The risk is sticking with what you've got and expecting a different result. There is a simple truth for times like this. When you've taken the wrong road, you don't just keep going. You change direction – and that is what we need to do. So let's look at how we got here – and how we're going to get out.

HOW WE GOT HERE
At the heart of the financial crisis is a simple fact. The tap marked 'borrowing' was turned on - and it was left running for too long. The debts we built up were too high. Far too high. The authorities – on both sides of the Atlantic – thought it could go on for ever.

They thought the days of low inflation and low interest rates could go on for ever. They thought the asset price bubble didn't matter. But it's not just the authorities who were at fault. Many bankers in the City were quite simply irresponsible. They paid themselves vast rewards when it was all going well and the minute it went wrong, they came running to us to bail them out. There will be a day of reckoning but today is not that day. Today we have to understand the long-term policy mistakes that were made.

In this country, Gordon Brown made two big mistakes. His first big mistake – and his worst decision, sowing the seeds of the present financial crisis was actually contained within his best decision: to make the Bank of England independent.

Let me explain. At the same time as giving the Bank of England the power to set interest rates he took away the Bank of England's power to regulate financial markets. And he took away the Bank of England's power to blow the whistle on the total amount of debt in the economy. He changed the rules of the game, but he took the referee off the pitch. Eddie George, who was the Bank of England Governor at the time, was only given a few hours notice of this massive decision. He feared it would end in tears – and it has.

Gordon Brown's second big mistake was on government borrowing. After a prudent start, when he stuck for two years to Conservative spending totals, he turned into a spendaholic. His spending splurge left the government borrowing money in the good times when it should have been saving money. So now that the bad times have hit, there's no money to help. The cupboard is bare.

HOW WE'RE GOING TO GET OUT
So the question is, how are we going to get through this crisis? How are we going to rebuild our economy for the long term? Now I've studied economics at a great university. I've worked in business alongside great entrepreneurs. And as Gordon Brown never stops reminding people, I've been inside the Treasury during a crisis. But when it comes to handling the situation we're in, none of that matters as much as some simple things I believe to be true.

SOUND MONEY
First of all, I believe that government's main economic duty is to ensure sound money and low taxes. Sound money means controlling inflation, keeping spending under control and getting debt down. So we will rein in private borrowing by correcting that big mistake made by Gordon Brown, and restoring the Bank of England's power to limit debt in the economy. That will help give our economy the financial responsibility it needs. But we need fiscal responsibility too.

So we will rein in government borrowing. You know what that means. The country needs to know what that means. And it has a lot clearer idea now, thanks to that fantastic speech by George Osborne on Monday, one of the finest speeches made by any Shadow Chancellor. Sound money means saving in the good years so we can borrow in the bad. It means ending Labour's spendaholic culture it means clamping down on government waste and it means destroying all those useless quangos and initiatives.

So I will be asking all my shadow ministers to review all over again every spending programme to see if it is really necessary, really justifiable in these new economic circumstances. But even that will not be enough.

The really big savings will come from reforming inefficient public services, and dealing with the long-term social problems that cause government spending to rise. To help us stick to the right course, we'll have an independent Office of Budget Responsibility. There will be no hiding place, no fiddling the figures – for all governments, forever. It's not experience that will bring about these long-term changes. Experience means you're implicated in the old system that's failed. You can't admit that change is needed, because that would mean admitting you'd got it wrong. We propose a major shake-up in the way the public finances are run and we have the character and the judgment to scrap the discredited fiscal rules and make this vital long-term change.

LOW TAXES
It's a change that will help us get taxes down. I believe in low taxes – and today, working people are crying out for relief. Like the young couple I met in York three weeks ago, who both work seven days a week and still struggle to make enough to pay the mortgage.

But I am a fiscal conservative. So is George Osborne. We do not believe in tax cuts paid for by reckless borrowing. So let me say this to the call centre worker whose mortgage has gone up by four hundred quid a month but his salary's gone down. To the hairdresser who's a single mum doing another job on the side to try and make ends meet and pay for childcare. To the electrician whose fuel bill, rent bill and food bill have all gone up and he's trying to work out which one to pay when the tax bill's gone up too.

I know it's your money. I know you want some of it back. And I want to give it to you. It's one of the reasons I'm doing this job. But we will only cut taxes once it's responsible to do so once we've made government live within its means. The test of whether we're ready for government is not whether we can come up with exciting shadow budgets. It is whether we have the grit and determination to impose discipline on government spending, keep our nerve and say "no" - even in the teeth of hostility and protest. That is the responsible party we are and that is the responsible government I will lead.

ENTERPRISE
Sound money; low taxes. Simple beliefs with profound implications. And here's something else I believe about the economy. I believe that people create jobs, not governments. I understand enterprise. I admire entrepreneurs. I should do – I go to bed with one every night. And today, Labour's taxes and regulations are making life impossible for our entrepreneurs.

Just this week, the exodus of business from Labour's Britain continued as WPP announced it was moving to Ireland. A man called Steven Ellis Cooper emailed me at the end of last month. You know him, this conference heard his story on Sunday. He's from Worcestershire – and with his wife and two daughters he's been running his business for nearly twenty years. He saw it grow into something he described as "magical", employing five people and contributing to the economy. And then along came Labour . Now he's down to his last employee and he says "I am sat at my desk now in tears as I'm so sad that what I have spent such a long time trying to build up is being so systematically smashed into the floor and the Labour Government are to blame." What an outrageous way for a government to treat someone who's trying to do their best, trying to make a living for their family, trying to create opportunity for others. So here's what we're going to do. We'll start by dealing with the nightmare complexity of our business taxes. We'll get rid of those complex reliefs and allowances and use the savings to cut corporation tax by three pence.

BEYOND FINANCE
But I don't believe that the government's role in the economy is just about tax and spend and sound money and finance. I have never believed in just laissez-faire. I believe the government should play an active part in helping business and industry. So when our economy is overheating in the south east but still needs more investment in the north the right thing to do is not go ahead with a third runway at Heathrow but instead build a new high speed rail network linking Birmingham, Manchester, London, Leeds let's help rebalance Britain's economy.

But the problems this country faces go far beyond financial crisis and economic downturn. In the end I want to be judged not just on how well we handle crises, but on two things how we improve the public institution in this country I care about most, the NHS and how we fulfil what will be the long-term mission of the next Conservative government: to repair our broken society.

NO TIME FOR MORE STATE CONTROL
Now there is a dangerous argument doing the rounds about how we do that. You may have heard it. I have to tell you, Labour are clutching at it as some sort of intellectual lifeline. It goes like this. In these times of difficulty, we need a bigger state. Not just in a financial and economic sense, but in a social sense too. A Labour minister said something really extraordinary last week. It revealed a huge amount about them. David Miliband said that "unless government is on your side you end up on your own." "On your own" - without the government. I thought it was one of the most arrogant things I've heard a politician say.

For Labour there is only the state and the individual, nothing in between. No family to rely on, no friend to depend on, no community to call on. No neighbourhood to grow in, no faith to share in, no charities to work in. No-one but the Minister, nowhere but Whitehall, no such thing as society - just them, and their laws, and their rules, and their arrogance. You cannot run our country like this.

It is why, when we look at what's happening to our country, we can see that the problem is not the leader; it's Labour. They end up treating people like children, with a total lack of trust in people's common sense and decency. This attitude, this whole health and safety, human rights act culture, has infected every part of our life. If you're a police officer you now cannot pursue an armed criminal without first filling out a risk assessment form. Teachers can't put a plaster on a child's grazed knee without calling a first aid officer. Even foreign exchanges for students…you can't host a school exchange any more without parents going through an Enhanced Criminal Record Bureau Check.

No, when times are tough, it's not a bigger state we need: it's better, more efficient government. But even more than that we need a stronger society. That means trusting people. And sharing responsibility.

NEW POLITICS
But no-one will ever take lectures from politicians about responsibility unless we put our own house in order. That means sorting out our broken politics. People are sick of it. Sick of the sleaze, sick of the cynicism. Copper-bottomed pensions. Plasma screen TVs on the taxpayer. Expenses and allowances that wouldn't stand for one second in the private sector.

This isn't a Conservative problem, a Labour problem or a Liberal Democrat problem. It is a Westminster problem, and we've all got to sort it out. In the end, this is about the judgment to see how important this issue is for the credibility of politics and politicians. And it's about having the character to take on vested interests inside your own party.

That's what I have done. The first to say: MPs voting on their pay, open-ended final salary pension schemes, the John Lewis list – they have all got to go. And it's no different in Europe. We've drawn up a hard-hitting code of conduct for our MEPs. With European elections next year, the message to them is simple: If you don't sign, you won't stand. And while we're on this subject, there's one other thing that destroys trust in politics. And that's parties putting things in their manifesto and then doing the complete opposite. Next year in those European elections we will campaign with all our energy for that referendum on the European constitution that Labour promised but never delivered. Taking responsibility is how we will mend our broken politics. And sharing responsibility and giving it back to professionals is how we will improve our public services.

NHS
Let's be straight about what's happened to our NHS. Money has been poured in but maternity wards and A&E departments are closing. Productivity is down. The nurses and doctors are disillusioned, frustrated, angry and demoralised. I know from personal experience just how brilliant and dedicated the people who work in the NHS are. But they have been terribly, terribly let down.

Instead of a serious long-term reform plan for the NHS working out how we can deliver a free national health service in an age of rising expectations and rising healthcare costs, never mind the rocketing costs of social care, we've had eleven years of superficial, short-term tinkering. Top-down target after top-down target, with another thirty seven targets added last year. Endless bureaucratic re-organisations, some of them contradictory, others abandoned after just a few months. Labour have taken our most treasured national institution, ripped out its soul and replaced it with targets, directives, management consultants and computers.

In August, I got a letter from one of my constituents, John Woods. His wife was taken to hospital. She caught MRSA and she died. Some of the incidents described are so dreadful, and so degrading, that I can't read you most of the letter. He says the treatment his wife received "was like something out of a 17th century asylum not a 21st century £90 billion health service." And then, as his wife's life was coming to end, he remembers her "sitting on the edge of her bed in distress and saying 'I never thought it would be like this'." I sent the letter to Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary.

This was his reply.
"A complaints procedure has been established for the NHS to resolve concerns…
"Each hospital and Primary Care Trust has a Patient Advice and Liaison Service to support people who wish to make a complaint…
"There is also an Independent Complaints Advocacy Service…
"If, when Mr Woods has received a response, he remains dissatisfied, it is open to him to approach the Healthcare Commission and seek an independent review of his complaint and local organisation's response…
"Once the Health Care Commission has investigated the case he can approach the Health Service Ombudsman if he remains dissatisfied…."
A Healthcare Commission. A Health Service Ombudsman. A Patient Advice and Liaison Service. An Independent Complaints Advocacy Service. Four ways to make a complaint but not one way for my constituent's wife to die with dignity. We need to change all that.

But here is the plain truth. We will not bring about long-term change if we think that all we have to do is stick with what Labour leave us and just pump some more money in. Instead of those targets and directives that interfere with clinical judgments we'll publish the information about what actually happens in the NHS. We'll give patients an informed choice about where to go for their care so doctors stop answering to Whitehall, and start answering to patients. This way, the health service can at last become exactly that: a service not a take it or leave it bureaucracy. I'm afraid Labour have had their chance to show they can be trusted with the NHS, and they have failed. We are the party of the NHS in Britain today and under my leadership that is how it's going to stay.

SOCIAL REFORM
But if you want to know what I really hope we will achieve in government. If you want to know where the change will be greatest from what has gone before. It is our plan for social reform. The central task I have set myself and this Party is to be as radical in social reform as Margaret Thatcher was in economic reform. That's how we plan to repair our broken society.

BROKEN SOCIETY
I know this is a controversial argument. Some say our society isn't broken. I wonder what world they live in. Leave aside that almost two million children are brought up in households where no one works. Or that there are housing estates in Britain where people have a lower life expectancy than in the Gaza Strip. Just consider the senseless, barbaric violence on our streets. Children killing children. Twenty-seven kids murdered on the streets of London this year. A gun crime every hour. A serious knife crime every half hour. A million victims from alcohol related-attacks.

But it's not just the crime; not even the anti-social behaviour. It's the angry, harsh culture of incivility that seems to be all around us. When in one generation we seem to have abandoned the habits of all human history that in a civilised society, adults have a proper role - a responsibility - to uphold rules and order in the public realm not just for their own children but for other people's too.

Helen Newlove spoke to us yesterday. I can't tell you how much I've been moved by working with Helen over the past year. This woman, whose husband Gary was brutally kicked to death on her own doorstep This woman, who had to explain to her beautiful children that their father was not coming home from the hospital, not ever, because he had dared to be a good, responsible citizen.
Helen Newlove knows our society is broken. But she believes we can repair it – and so do I. The big question is how. And here is where we need some very plain speaking. There are those who say – and there are many in this hall – that what is required is tough punishment, longer sentences and more prison places. And to a degree, they're right. We'll never mend the broken society without a clear barrier between right and wrong, and harsh penalties when you cross the line.

But let's recognise, once and for all, that such an approach only deals with the symptoms, picking up the pieces of failure that has gone before. Come with me to Wandsworth prison and meet the inmates. Yes you meet the mugger, the robber and the burglar. But you also meet the boy who can't read and never could. The teenager hooked on heroin. The young man who never knew the love of a father. The middle aged failure where no-one in the family has known what it's like to go out and work for two generations or maybe more. Miss the context, miss the cause, miss the background and you'll never get the true picture of why crime is so high in our country.

There are those who say that all of this – mending the broken society - will require state action, state programmes and state money. And to a degree, they are right too. We are not an anti-state party. In the twentieth century, state-run social programmes had real success in fighting poverty and making our society stronger. Pensions, sickness benefits, state education: I honour those men and women of all parties and none who created these safety nets and springboards. But today, the returns from endless big state intervention are not just diminishing, they are disappearing. That's because too often, state intervention deals with the symptoms of the problem. I want us to be different: to deal with the long-term causes. That will be the test of our character and judgment.

FAMILIES
First, families. If we sincerely care about children's futures, then all families, however organised, need our help and support. So I don't have some idealised, rose-tinted view of the family. I know families can be imperfect. I get the modern world.
But I think that in our modern world, in these times of stress and anxiety the family is the best welfare system there is. That's why I want to scrap Labour's plans for a new army of untrained outreach workers so we can have over 4,000 extra health visitors and guarantees of family visits before and after your child is born. To those who say this is some sort of nanny state I say: nonsense.

Remember what it was like the first few nights after your first child is born, the worry, the uncertainly, the questions. Health visitors are a lifeline – and I want more of them. It's because I want to strengthen families that I support flexible working. To those who say this is some intolerable burden on business, I say "wrong". Business pays the costs of family breakdown in taxes – and isn't it right that everyone, including business, should play their part in making Britain a more family-friendly country? Do you know what, if we don't change these antiquated business practices then women half the talent of the country are just put off from joining the workforce.

We will also back marriage in the tax system. To those who say…why pick out marriage why do you persist in aggravating people who for whatever reason choose not to get married I say I don't want to aggravate anyone, but I believe in commitment and many of us, me included, will always remember that moment when you say, up there in front of others, it's not just me anymore, it's us, together, and that helps to take you through the tough times and that's something we should cherish as a society.

SCHOOLS
When families fail, school is the way we can give children a second chance. My passion about this is both political and personal. After the 2005 election, shadow education secretary was the job I asked for in the Shadow Cabinet and Michael Howard kindly let me have it. I'm not sure my reshuffles work quite like that, but there we are. He's a very kind man and was a great leader of our party. But it's personal because I'm the father of three young children – and I worry about finding good schools for them more than anything else.

There's nothing quite like that feeling when you watch your children wandering across the playground, school bag in one hand, packed lunch in the other, knowing they're safe, they're happy, they've got a great teacher in a good school. But the straightforward truth is that there aren't enough good schools, particularly secondary schools, particularly in some of our bigger towns and cities. Any government I lead will not go on excusing this failure. That's why Michael Gove has such radical plans to establish 1,000 New Academies, with real freedoms, like grant maintained schools used to have. And that's why, together, we will break open the state monopoly and allow new schools to be set up. And to those who say we cannot wait for structural reform and competition to raise standards I say - yes, you're right, and we will not wait.

The election of a Conservative government will bring – and I mean this almost literally - a declaration of war against those parts of the educational establishment who still cling to the cruelty of the "all must win prizes" philosophy and the dangerous practice of dumbing down.

Listen to this. It's the President of the Spelling Society. He said, and I quote, "people should be able to use whichever spelling they prefer." He's the President of the Spelling Society. Well, he's wrong. And by the way, that's spelt with a 'W.'

And then there's the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. These are the people who are officially supposed to maintain standards in our school system. You pay their wages. And do you know what you get in return? They let a child get marks for writing "F off" as an answer in an exam. As Prime Minister I'd have my own two words for people like that, and yes, one of them does begin with an 'F'. You're fired.

WELFARE
If strengthening families is the first line of defence against social breakdown, and school reform is the second – then welfare reform is the full, pitched battle. This problem goes very deep – and dealing with it will be very tough. There are almost five million people in Britain of working age who are out of work and on benefits. That's bad for them. It's bad for our society. And it's bad for our economy. Decades ago, when we had a universal collective culture of respect for work, a system of unconditional benefits was good and right and effective. But if we're going to talk straight we've got to admit something.

That culture doesn't exist any more. In fact, worse than that, the benefit system itself encourages a benefit culture, and sends some pretty perverse messages. It's not even that it's picking up the pieces and treating the symptoms, rather than providing a cure. Today, it is actively making the problem worse.

So we will end the something for nothing culture. If you don't take a reasonable offer of a job, you lose benefits. Go on doing it, you'll keep losing benefits. Stay on benefits and you'll have to work for them. I spent some time recently sitting with a benefit officer in a Job Centre plus. In came a young couple. She was pregnant. He was the dad. They were out of work and trying to get somewhere to live. The benefit officer didn't really have much choice but to explain that they would be better off if she lived on her own. What on earth are we doing with a system like that? With the money we save by ending the something for nothing welfare culture we will say to that couple in that benefit office: Stay together, bring up your kid, build your family, we're on your side and we will end that couple penalty.

PROGRESSIVE ENDS, CONSERVATIVE MEANS
In all these ways, and with the inspiring help of Iain Duncan Smith, we have made the modern Conservative Party the party of social justice. The party that says yes: we can build a society where anyone can rise from the bottom to the top with nothing in their way but only if we put in place radical Conservative school reform to do it
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Yes: we can build a society where we end the scandal of child poverty and give every child the decent start they deserve but only if we have radical Conservative welfare reform to achieve it. This is the big argument in British politics today, an argument through which we show that in this century as we have shown in the centuries that went before with Peel, with Shaftesbury, with Disraeli, when the call comes for a politics of dignity and aspiration for the poor and the marginalised, for the people whom David Davis so vividly described as the victims of state failure, when the call comes to expand hope and broaden horizons it is this Party, the Conservative Party it is our means, Conservative means that will achieve those great and noble progressive ends of fighting poverty, extending opportunity, and repairing our broken society.

READY FOR CHANGE
Progressive ends; Conservative means. That is a big argument about the future. That is a big change. And it is because we had the courage to change that we are able to make it. We changed because knew we had to make ourselves relevant to the twenty-first century. You didn't pick more women candidates to try and look good you did it so we wouldn't lock out talent and fail to come up with the policies that modern families need. You didn't champion green politics as greenwash but because climate change is devastating our environment because the energy gap is a real and growing threat to our security and because $100-a-barrel oil is hitting families every time they fill up their car and pay their heating bills.

You didn't take international development seriously because it was fashionable but because it is a true reflection of the country we live in, a Britain that is outward-looking, internationalist and generous and because this Party that has always believed in one nation must in this century be a Party of one world. This is who we are today and those who say the Tories haven't changed totally underestimate the capacity this Party has always had to pick itself up, turn itself around and make itself relevant to the challenges of the hour. Those who say we haven't changed just show how little they have changed.

A UNITED PARTY
We are a changed party and we are a united party. We are making progress in the north in the south in the east and in the west. The first Conservative by-election gain from Labour in thirty years. The first Conservative metropolitan council in the North East in thirty four years. And the first Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. We are a united party, united in spirit and united in purpose. And we know that our task is to take people with us. Rebuilding our battered economy. Renewing our bureaucratised NHS. Repairing our broken society. That is our plan for change. But in these difficult times we promise no new dawns, no overnight transformations. I'm a man with a plan, not a miracle cure.

A UNITED COUNTRY
These difficult times need leadership, yes. They need character and judgment. The leadership to unite your party and build a strong team. The character to stick to your guns and not bottle it when times get tough. The judgment to understand the mistakes that have been made and to offer the country change. Leadership, character, judgment. That's what Britain needs at a time like this and that's what this party now offers.

I know we are living in difficult times but I am still optimistic because I have faith in human nature in our remarkable capacity to innovate, to experiment, to overcome obstacles and to find a way through difficulties whether those problems are created by man or nature.

We can and will come through. We always do. Not because of our government. But because of the people of Britain. Because of what you do – because of the work you do, the families you raise, the jobs you create because of your attitude, your confidence and your determination. So because we are united… Because we have had the courage to change. Because we have the fresh answers to the challenges of our age.

I believe we now have the opportunity, and more than that the responsibility, to bring our country together