2418 George Orwell's Burmese Days and me

The BBC Radio Four has selected several works of George Orwell to celebrate the holding of a national day to mark his life under the title The Real George Orwell. Eric Blair has given us several cultural masterpieces with Animal Farm and 1984 and which together with Huxley’s Brave New World, say all there is to say about revolutions and the development of totalitarian states under dictatorships. More than this he wrote a number of semi autobiographical works and essays which provide us with an understanding of his development as a writer and indeed as a human being.

He tried to explain his reasons for being a writer in an essay (Why I write) in which he covered something of his childhood in which he felt isolated and undervalued and he discovered that he no only had a facility with words but was able to face unpleasant facts. He also admits to be a day dreamer and putting himself into situations, points which I shall come again when considering the BBC production Burmese Days in which the a different perspective and motivation is suggested. He also lists  what he believes are his objective motives for being a writer at a time when he was an established writer and which I shall comment on in a separate  writing

I do not know enough about his life to claim a great understanding of the man or the process by which he evolved but the BBC series has provide some key issues  and turning points which I assume are factually based.

I have also noted some interesting  parallels and points of connection between us especially the sense of isolation in childhood,  the sudden wish to break out from the pattern of life that had been set out for him through his education and father’s work and the hope that his personal experiences would also contribute to the enlightenment of other on their separate journeys of self discovery and understanding of the earth world and its place in the universe.

I have yet to find out why birth registered as Eric Blair  chose to write as George Orwell. In my instance the selection of Joseph Grech for my identity as a contemporary artist and writer became clear to me four years after the discovery at the age of 59 that the surname of my father was Grech, ‘of the Greeks’ and that Joseph my second name was the name of the parish church where he served as a priest for fifty years and where my mother and her family of six sisters and four brothers had commenced their education at the school attached to church where they had lived next door for a time, and where she had taught as a pupil teacher and later had played the piano and organ for school and church with other members of the family in the church choir. On my second visit to Gibraltar in 2004 and I stood at the top of the rock looking down not just on the rest of this small community but on the life, and the identity I should have had and wanted throughout my self aware consciousness till then, and vowed that for whatever years I had left they would be spent within the apparel of who I should have been although I also accepted what I had been  and that I was as I had become.

Eric Arthur Blair was born into a very different world a few years before that of my birth and care mothers in 1903  (1907 and 1909 respectively) before the outbreak of World War I which changed the future of everyone so dramatically heralding the technological age of warfare and culture. One cannot underestimate the difference   perspective between those who were brought up  and reached adulthood before World War II and those whose childhoods were spent getting in and out of arid raid shelters, watching the rocket bombs pass over head and hen looking at the craters where there had once been homes.
Eric was born in India where his father worked for Colonial Office with responsibilities related to the manufacture and distribution of opium. His mother of French background was brought up in Burma and shortly after his birth his mother brought him and  older sister by five years to England, to Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. My mother left Gibraltar because of her pregnancy although five of her sisters were required to leave Gibraltar along with some ten thousand other citizens because of the declaration of one and the information that Germany was to take Gibraltar and had to neutral but fascists friendly Spain when the Germany defeated Britain and her colonial empire of territories, colonies and dominions. Gibraltar remains a disputed  independent territory to this day.

I also have two connections with Henley on Thames in that of a year I made the fifty mile return three to four time a week late afternoon into evening to supervised a number of teenage boys for a colleague away in training in addition to the average 50 mile round trip a day work on my existing caseload of child care cases  of children in care, fostering and adoptions as well as being the Court officer for the County Council at Witney and Burford where the benches were respectively chaired by the wife in law and son of the Duke of Marlborough. Later Henley was also the location of a month spent at an International Senior Management course which was to affect  my life in a positive way.

Our first five years appear very different for although without his father apart from a brief visit which led to the birth of his younger sister, he grew up in a comfortable and socially involved environment compared to the deprivations of World War II time and the need for my existence to be kept secret so that all official documentation was removed or never existed in that I was not registered  with a National health doctor until the family GP retired and the war was long over. My earliest memories are of seeing overhead flying V 1 rockets on the way to the garden shelter and looking at bomb craters subsequently  at a time when financial poverty and food rationing limited the family tables and the war time restrictions limited discovery of the surrounding world although I was evacuated to officers married quarters at Catterick for a year missing most of the 140 rockets which fell on the neighbourhood, the biggest concentration in the UK because of our proximity to London’s main airport at Croydon.

Eric then had a female childhood friend and they read and recited poetry together, and while I played cricket with a first cousin after the war there were no books in he household despite my mother being a primary school teacher. My cultural world opened up when we attended the local cinema on Mondays and Thursday, I went to the Saturday morning children’s shows and occasionally saw a fourth cinema programme in a week  going to see the latest releases with first cousins in neighbouring towns, Croydon, Sutton and Purley and only later did I discover the world  of the library when I found I was able to move from  the children’s to the adult sections without questions.

The first point of similarity is that we both went to Catholic preparatory schools where the teachers were nuns although Eric was  also became a boarder at another Preparatory school, St Cyprian’s in  Eastbourne. He was able to gain scholarships to Wellington and hen when a place became available at Eton the most famous of British private schools where as although the John Fisher wanted to be recognised as a Public School, employing an international Olympic Athletics Coach, it never made it. In both instances we were dependent on having additional support for the required fees.

It was our respective years 18 to 21 which were so different in outward appearance yet we both gained experiences which were to govern the rest of our lives and make us individualist, slightly anarchistic socialists. As he approached his eighteenth year and University was considered the normal; next step he was  unable to gained the scholarship and fees to attend a top class college considered the norm for Eton students and joining the Indian Police service, in Borneo because his mother’s family resided there and his father had returned to England and retirement. Eton was then an establishment geared up to providing young men to help rule the empire so his appointment was a natural progression.

In my instance I had panicked on first discovering my problem which short term memory learning so that despite hours of home work and continuous reading during he holiday  I could not remember stuff when it came to examinations and given the mock general certificate of education results had opted out of Latin essential then for Oxbridge and then  decided to seek employment  without going into the sixth form and gained work in the Finance Department of Middlesex and then Croydon Councils before failing as Olivetti sales representatives and becoming Down and Out and becoming a leading activist in the non violent direct action movement against weapons of mass destruction and an executive committee member of the local Labour party and choosing to go to prison for six months  rather than agree to stop my activities. Eric went to Burma and his account of the experience was broadcast by the BBC as part of its celebration of his work.

The first of the biographical programmes was Burmese Days and which I presumed was based on an autobiographical work. It begins with his disappointment that the female friend from his childhood (Jacintha Buddicom) was not interested in marriage and going to Burma to become with wife of a Colonial Policeman.

Jacintha Laura May Buddicom (10 May 1901 – 1994) was a poet and a childhood friend of George Orwell (Eric Blair). They first met  in the summer of 1914 when he was standing on his head in a field at the bottom of their garden in Ship lake (Oxfordshire) south of Henley where the two families lived. One or both appear to have recorded that when she asked what he was doing he replied “You are "You are noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are the right way up." The radio programme makes references to this moment when it covers their experience of growing up writing and reading together, although the relationship included his younger sister and her younger brother and sister.

Her main complaint stated in the programme is that she still had the intention to go to Oxford which he had now abandoned, maintain and develop her intellectual interests and write. When he persists she ridicules the notion  going to Burma and playing eh role of a colonial wife to a policeman and attempts to force her to yield to him physically, something which she implies they willingly attempted before and it failed because they were more like brother and sister than potential lovers.

The programme also records, in a conversation Blair is said to have had  with a stranger on his way to the frontier out post of Katha after  an incident with an elephant which I will come  to shortly, that he continued to write to her after his arrival in Burma  but she did not reply because he says his letters were full of complaints about the life he had found for himself. The programme gives he impression that this was the end of their contact.

My understanding is that on his return from Burma and staying he visited the Buddicomes but Jacintha was not  there because she was away after having a child (1927) from a  relationship. She then had a relationship with an unnamed peer for 30 years and  one source claims that she did not realise that that her childhood friend was George Orwell until shortly before his death but they did corresponded, telephoned and planned to meet. She attended his funeral (unnoticed) in 1950.

She wrote a book about their childhood together Eric and us in which she challenges the portrait he has left of his experience during the same years. She left the copyright of her book and papers to a relative who in 2006 published an updated version of the book which included the information that the reason why she  had not replied to his letters was that he had attempted to rape her.

The main part of the BBC programme covers two situations  during his  years in Burma. He was called to act in a situation where an elephant had run amok and flattened  and killing a man  as well as destroying building. He was under great pressure to  shoot the animal from his white subordinate and his local police contact although he is reported as reluctant but agrees to do so when he told to do otherwise would involve a loss of face before the increasingly large crowd when the elephant is cornered and quietened down. He has to send for a larger gun and although the first shot stops and then drops the creature he has to fire several rounds from two weapons before the  animal dies after half an hour although before this the locals have begun to cut up the  creature for its meat. He expresses considerable regret noting that for decades the creature had served men and did not deserve to be treated in this way.   He is then summoned to see his chief to says a complain has been made by the firm who owned the elephant demands that action is taken against he officer and this the reason for his being sent to the backwoods, effectively ending  his career.

It is on his way to the posting that he meets a philosophical teacher of the  locals. They meet when Eric enters the compartment after having a physical confrontation with some local young men who are angry with the continuing presence of white colonials in their country, he loses his temper and beats the most vociferous. He expresses shame at having behaved in this way although as he a admits he has beaten native prisoners as part of his official duties.

He explains his dislike for the country and his role and that his life blood is reading novels which are sent out, His reading distinguishes himself from his colleagues who read for entertainment and passing the time while his is more discerning and critical. The companion is clearly a communist who sympathises with Blair’s apparent distrust of the locals but which the Scotsman from Aberdeen pointedly explains the consequential reaction to colonialism and the exploitation of the mineral and occupational wealth of the country for the City of London. This is something which his boss had also explained was the purpose of their presence to protect the commercial interests of the empire. The teacher was employed in native education and expressed surprise that the people appeared to accept  their exploitation for the profits of a few without rising up. He explains that his father had a job with the port authority which required him to ask the masters their  port of destination and this has fuelled his desire to visit the places for himself.

Blair puts the blame for his presence on his father and the rejection of his suit by Cynthia who cried when he when he went shooting but did not respond to his advances. He said he did not understand women. The stranger suggests he will have made do with a native woman, who cooks and cleans and does not answer back. Blair reacts to this accusation, but in the programme he also does not deny. Blair sounds self piteous and questions the purpose of existence, cogs in the wheels of evolution. The stranger challenges this concept and tells him to go outside his experience of education and society of his peers and find out how the rest of world live and tells him to read the 11th Theses ( of Karl Marx) although they part without stranger explaining what it is in anyway.

The programme then includes experiences from being Down and Out in London and the  in Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia and where he asks a Communist does he know what is the 11th theses and who explains this where Marx argued against the Philosopher Feuerbach. This was written in 1845 but not published until 1924  the main point the 11th in this short work is his conclusion that philosophers attempt to describe the world as it from different perspective  but not to change it  The stranger was telling Orwell he needed to act and not just think and  talk about it. Orwell was already conscious of this because previously he talks of the need to feel and be in reality to feel alive rather than existing. I also felt like that then and  look at trouble it got be into! And for Orwell he needed to take a very different pathway (Theses on Feuerbach by Karl Marx Google it)

My understanding is that Blair was trained at Mandalay in 1922 after travelling via the Suez canal and that after a period at the principal hill station was posted to the frontier outpost in 1924. He was responsible for the security of two hundred thousand people and from there he became an Assistant Division Inspector to a town  with an oil refinery close to Rangoon. In 1925 he moved again to a town with the second largest prison and then in 1926 to where his maternal grandmother lived and it was towards the end of that year he was assigned to Katha the location of his first novel Burmese Days. In 1927 he developed a fever and because he was entitled to leave in England (after five years) and returned to his family to recover  and while on holiday with them decided to change his life and resigned  from the police. It was while on in France swimming naked the pool villa while the rest of the family were out and I spent the day eating crusty French bread, olives and salami drinking wine looking down the valley in 1991 that I reappraised my life and determined to write the novel that  had fermented inside me for the previous thirty years. It was written in 1994 and I keep rewriting the opening chapter from year  to year or two. It is set

The  novel Burmese Days was not published until 1934 and  according to once source it is a portrait of Imperial Britain although Orwell attempts to present a wide  perspective from the naked exploitation and commercialism to the provision of health and education, and order and security. The widespread racism of predominantly white Britain is reflected not surprising given the country that produced the biggest slavers in the Caribbean and the USA and the superiority of the white races over others but also those who rejected such prejudices or were indifferent to the issue. The others issue was identity and its collapse of the basis on which the central character had built his life. It is not  a book preaching revolution or major change, or promoting  socialist or communist ideas. I have not placed the book on my reading list. I still do not know why he  commenced to break in such a fundamental way from the belief system created for him by his family, education and social structure and which would lead him to abandon his attractive young wife to kill fascists.

2417 Equilibrium and Mrs Caldicot's War

I have been pleasantly surprised by a number of films on TV over the week. The most enjoyable starred Pauline Collins and John Alderton entitled Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War. Similar to Judi Dench in the Exotic Marigolds Hotel Mrs Caldicot (Pauline Collins) had a husband who insisted on controlling her life down to going through every  item of expenditure to ensure she economised. Immediately upon his death, attempting to catch a cricket ball to impress a posse of friends, Mrs Caldicot‘s frustration boils over when she finds that her husband spend even more freely than she had appreciated. First she cuts of the heads of his prize Chrysthanemums with her son played Alderton assuming this was vandalism from a rival. When he finds that she has mutilated her husbands expensive set of golf clubs he seizes the opportunity to get her GP to sedate her and arranges a placement in one of the residential homes provided by the firm where is a director.

Behind his moved is the knowledge that in order to avoid death duties his father has left the family home to him but on the basis that his mother remains inn residence during her lifetime. Gaining immediate access will enable his company to acquire a number of adjacent homes to demolish and build a new property for his company.

When she first arrives she allocated the best suite, has a personal nurse although she remains confused about her situation, helped only by the staff member Gina who she begins to explains  about the relationship with her husband and that  he had  a group of friends who he treated to drinks especially a member of a charity Mrs Caldicot was involved with played by Wanda Ventham who passes he observation that he husband had a wandering eye for the ladies and given that she did not like cricket it had been evident that she had been a close friend of her late husband. She also enjoys telling the story of how her son had also been upset to discover that she had given her husband’s expensive cellar of wine to the milkman to distribute on his round to her neighbours.

The nurse played by Angela Bruce attempts to stop the son bullying his mother to authorise the sale of the family home on the basis this will be invested to provide an income for her remain at the private home. However the husband and the family solicitor  brining in the Matron who has to the pressure on Mrs Caldicot to sign. Once she has signed she is moved into a shared room, and is treated he same as other residents. The piano is kept locked. The TV is rarely working, the food is awful and the residents feel like prisoners. The only change is that the nurse Gina encourage Mrs Caldicot to stop taking the medication and  she in turn successfully encourages others to do the same.

She develops a plan to successfully take  a group of her friends on an outing into town where they are found enjoying themselves playing bowls at a  local park by the police and returning to the home. Gina is sacked for  assisting in the escapade. 

While they are out one of the other residents dies and Mrs Caldicot organises a wake with a great meal, drink and have a sing song around the piano which they force open before the arrival of the Manager called back to the home  after staff find Matron played by Isla Blair drugged unconscious through her evening meal.  This is he last straw and manager  giver her marching orders to leave the following morning.

When she goes to depart a number of  friends determine to go with her so she takes them off to the nearest four star hotel and tricks her some by phone to authorise her own and the rooms of the others  on his credit card. Another guest, the owner of a  the local newspaper tips off the local TV and she gives an interview explaining why they have left the home and taken the protest action. By this time the son‘s managing Director is none too pleased by the turn of events and warns the son that his future is now on the line. The son  is told to sort it. Meanwhile the owner of the local newspaper has taken a shone to Mrs Caldicot, taken her out to lunch to her story and arranges got her full story to national press. With help he has  also discovered the device by which the son gained control of the home  which was to remain during the lifetime of his mother. Mother is then invited to appear on a national TV show, to be  made fun of but with a great make over which builds up her confidence she put the interviewer in his place and makes a great little speech about  the issues of getting older and needing a degree of care.

The local business man has arranged for her to meet the Board of the company to do a deal to take over the recently completed new residential home in the grounds of her old home with a low interest mortgage to provide the home for her friends with the sacked nurse  installed as the Matron and of course she now has a serious relationship with the local businessman. The son is shocked to find the size of bill for the stay at the Hotel given the full use made of room services and other facilities, meals and drinks. The Hotel manager has attempted to put them out prematurely on orders  when it was appreciated the Hotel was part of a chain owned by the same company controlling the residential homes. However the point has to be made that given the high cost of residential care most of the residents portrayed in the film could have function quiet well at the hotel with the overall cost about the same if not cheaper. The  reality of the care which those in residential homes need is of course very different. And the title? You will have to see the film!

2416 San Francisco disappoints at Superbowl XLVII

In addition to supporting Durham and Surrey County  cricket clubs, Newcastle United, Sunderland, and Crystal Palace in association Football, Warrington in Rugby League, I had followed the Chicago Bears and San Francisco Forty Niners for thirty years and in so doing watched more than half the Superbowls regarded as a World Cup in the USA  despite the fact that only teams from the two Premier Football leagues in the USA compete.

On Sunday night into the early hours I watched Superbowl XLVII when I was  almost in tears before the start as the Sandy Hook Elementary School chorus sang America the Brave with Jenifer Hudson..

I became interested in American Football game when it was first shown on television in the UK and watching a game on a projected large screen during my month at the Henley management Colleges was one of my highlights there. This was the era of the Chicago Bears and the fridge. Because a relative could not find a shirt for the Bears in the shops one Christmas I was given the bright red, white lettering with brown helmet shirt for the San Francisco 49ners instead. This was a shrewd purchase because the 49ners had commenced an extraordinary decade of triumphant under coach Bill Walsh and quarterbacks Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. My enthusiasm was such that I bought a computer game in the days of tapes and also saw  two pre season warm up games at Wembley  with the 49ers playing in one. 

San Francisco won 5 Superbowls between 1981 and 1994 The team has remained in San Francisco throughout its Franchise and for a couple of decades had close rivals the when the Cleveland Rams moved and became the Los Angels Rams 1946-1994, a rivalry similar to that between Newcastle and Sunderland.

It was the arrival of Joe Montana as the Quarterback whose influence helped bring the first Superbowl title in 1981 breaking record after record and in the 1984 season the team lost only one game of the sixteen, winning all the others. And although a 16-0 has been achieved their record of 19 successive wins remains to this day. They beat the Chicago Bears to play in the final and beat the Miami Dolphins to take the title for the second time. Their entire defence was chosen for the subsequent Pro Bowl, the first time.

In 1985 there was the arrival of another legend Jerry Rice a draft pick from Mississippi State university. After winning their third Superbowl with Rice named the most valuable player (Montana was named three times) coach Bill Walsh retired but this did not stop the team continuing their run of success as they gained their fourth title beating Denver 55 to 10, the biggest margin of victory in the competition to-date. They were the first team to win back to back Superbowls under different coaches. The last of the five wins came in 1994 after a number of major team changes.

As the decade and millennium drew to a close family disputes led to legal actions over the controlling interests and which appeared to signal a downturn in the playing fortunes of the club.

The appointment of Jim Harbaugh as head coach in January two years ago and the arrival of Colin Keapernick as first choice quarterback. Has changed fortunes one more and brought the 49ners to the Superbowl once more.

Jim Harbaugh was born just before Christmas in 1963, the son of a college football coach and his brother John is head coach of the Superbowl rivals the Baltimore Ravens, A sister is married to the head coach of the men’s Indiana basketball team. He has had cardio vascular surgery to correct  an abnormal heart beat and is a co owner of Indy car Racing Team, the Panther racers.

I first encountered Jim ( on TV) when after his career in college football he was a first draft pick as quarterback for the Chicago Bear in 1987, He moved to the Indianapolis Colts 1994-1997 and eh also played one season for the Ravens, he continued playing until 2001 but from 1994 he also gained experience as an Assistant coach to his father at Western Kentucky University. He then became quarterback coach for the Oakland Raiders and in 2004 became head coach at the University of San Diego, moving to Stamford University for the 2007 season before his appointment to the 49ners.

A new stadium to replace that at Candlewick Park commenced to be built in 2012 at Santa Clara outside the City although all the titles and legacy will remain when the team moves to the new state of the art premises for the 2014 season, where on the site is already the training facilities and administrative offices.

The game was a great anticlimax as San Francisco made mistakes from almost the first moment when a gain of 20 yards first down was riles out because of an illegal line up formation. They never recovered from this with Baltimore scoring three touch downs and taking a 21 to 6 point lead just before half time. During the  interval between the first and second quarters, the BBC (two) had a American football fan Olympic gold media list rower who was attending his first live game in the USA and was sitting a couple of rose away from  legend Jerry Rice. He was too shy to ask for a photo with the man although the BBC team no doubt arranged for one after saying he should mention was an Olympic gold medallist, The second half guest  while the  entertainment was being prepared was the British Rugby player Martin Johnson who captained the Lions World Cup success in 2003. He had been a strong American Football and 49ners supports having attended their training session where he was introduced as the worlds greatest rugby  union player. He had never seen the team play live and was very disappointed with how things were going. They went from bad to worse as at the kick off by the 49ners the received caught the ball on the one yard line and touched down to make the longest return run in the history of the competition for Baltimore with 109 yards in 11 seconds to lead 28 to 6.  When the lights in part of  the ground and there was a temporary delay I decided enough was enough and went to bed. I was both wrong and right.

In fact the temporary break provided the opportunity for the coach to impress upon he team the need for considerable improvement in he execution of he  play book  Colin Keapernick finds Michael Crabtree who avoids two tackles to reach the end zone and the score becomes 28 to 13 after the conversion. Frank Gore then runs the ball into the end zone to make the score 28 to 20 after the conversion and for the first time the Baltimore fans realise the game is not over. Could this be the greatest turn around in Superbowl history? After another couple of minutes San Francisco are able to add another three points with a field goal and the gap becomes 5 points. 17 points scored in four minutes of field play. This brought to an end the third quarter with everyone now tense as the fourth commenced. Of course by then I knew the outcome as I watched the rerun of the game the following day.

Baltimore can only get a field goal themselves tot take the score to 31 to 23 so San Francisco need  a touch down with a two point conversion to tie the game. The clock is running down. San Francisco get another touch down. Is history to be written? Unfortunately the two point conversion attempt fails. It is 31 to 29. The Ravens retaliate with a field goal but the difference is only five points so the 49ers ruin the field clock down to the two minutes before making their push for a winning touch down. The play is brilliant and they get with six on the fourth which fails. The coach claims he player was held back but his pleas are ignored. Baltimore concedes a safety and two points. They know what they are doing. The final score is 43 to 32. In fairness  the 49ners never took the lead and were always chasing the game after such a s disastrous start, There  is always next year.   

2415 Oh lá lá Frenchman Sissoko becomes an instant legend on Tyneside

I listened to Newcastle playing Chelsea at St James Pak on Saturday afternoon February 2nd 2013  on BBC Live 5 via the TV and then watched the whole game as Sky’s match of the day at 8.25 and then the highlights and analysis on Match of the Day. Newcastle started confidently with Gouffran having a shot in the first minute and Cabaye in the third who had two more  attempts in the 21st minute as well as one before in the 19th. However it is Cisse who had the better opportunities in the 4th and 19th, Moussa Sissoko was playing well but no indication of the performance to come. Juan Mata and Frank Lampard for Chelsea were  threatening but as yet finding it difficult to get into the game. I, and I suspect many other supporters in the ground was becoming concerned that with all this dominance but no goals, the team would go behind when Chelsea got themselves into full gear, I have witnessed so many game where if dominance fails to be converted into goals, the game is drawn or lost. A third of the game has passed without an indication of the excitement to come.

There were then two incidents which changed the game. Jonas Gutierrez, who has been captain this season indicated to the club that he wished to return to Argentina for personal reason before the Winter Transfer period but has been persuaded to remain until the end of the season. As if to mark this development he scored a rare goal, with his head, glancing it into the corner beyond the reach of the Chelsea goal keep in the 41st minute. This was fair reward for Newcastle after controlling much of the first half. However this was marred  when  Demba Ba about to head the ball into the Newcastle net received a kick to the nose which in most circumstances would have resulted in a penalty and a sending off. After being patched up he returned to the play but was forced to leave in the 42nd minute to be replaced by £50 million man Torres.

Chelsea were ordered out early onto the pitch at half time and scored two goal in the 55th and 61st minutes which were outstanding and unstoppable. The first by Frank Lampard dipped into the goal and the second from Juan Mata swerved into  the corner, At that point it looked as if  my premonition about playing well but not converting opportunities would prove accurate.  I am not sure when it was the TV commentator made the point that given their recent  arrival, especially Sissoko who not played many games recently their substitution was likely but after a great piece of moving play, the Chelsea goal keeper palmed the ball into the path of the Frenchman who calmly poked the ball into the net away from the goalkeeper in the 67th minute. This lit his and the crowd’s touchpaper and where in fairness the crowd has remained loyal and supportive despite the recent setbacks.

A few minutes later there was the first of two star performance runs by the player. In one, playing on the right hand side of the field he out run and manoeuvred one of the best English defenders to have his shot saved by the goal keeper and  in the other he made another run against a defender on the left side of play to also have his show saved with John terry stopping the corner from Cabaye who than had a  shot coming in from the wing just past the outside of the goal post. Both teams then had chances with Cabaye for Newcastle, Meta and Lampard for Chelsea.

It was then the legend was made when in the 89th minute Moussa Sissoko who had  placed himself in the centre of the play received a pass from the wing and drilled a  powerful  lowball into the back of the net to win the game for Newcastle 3.2. In order that the crowd could show their appreciation the manager substituted Moussa a few seconds later although there was 4  minutes of extra time to defend with two shots having to be saved by the Newcastle goal keeper.

Needless to add the home crowd had become delirious and players did a full lap  of honour around the ground to about a half the stadium who stayed to enjoy the experience. The whole game, the Newcastle win and performance by Sissoko was then praised by all the commentators and news reports. While this is only two wins out of two, for many the season has now begun and relegation no longer appears the threat it still remains.

Next weekend Newcastle are at fourth placed  Spurs and the game is covered by Sky while ESPN are showing the first knock out stage home tie in the Europe League on the 14th with the return leg a week later at 6pm and I have booked a ticket for the 1.30 but not the televised home game against relegation strugglers Southampton on the following Sunday and after that we shall see the progress, (or otherwise) before booking further tickets and with Sunderland, Liverpool and Arsenal coming as visitors and Man City, in form Swansea, relegation fighting QPR and also on the slide West Ham as away fixtures, Wigan and WBA are also away with Fulham and Stoke at home. There are no easy fixtures or points. But the hope, anticipated excitement of a return to glory days which I felt last season, returns.

2414 Oh lá lá Ten Frenchman come to Newcastle

For the first time in weeks I gave undivided attention to two sporting events on television although I went to bed in the early hours shortly after the second half commenced of the Superbowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens.

Although I expected Newcastle United to lose against  the European, former Premier League  and F A Cup winning Champions, Chelsea I wanted to view how the new arrivals from France were performing after an excellent win, the first away win of the season against lowly Aston Villa last Tuesday evening, The commentators had noted the rally by the Villa in the second half and suggested that the Newcastle would find Chelsea a different proposition because of the defeat against Swansea in the FA Cup and the succession of recent 2.2 draws.

To mark the French invasion of new players into the squad the club shop had ordered 1000 berets and these had quickly sold out and the pub next to the ground the Strawberry was  reported to  have changed its letter board to the French equivalent. There has been these kind of marketing stunts before, some of which have taken off but given the dramatic loss of form this season compared to last and the selling of Demba Ba to Chelsea something was desperately needed to move the club out of the relegation zone.

Ba was replaced by Frenchman (1)Yuan Gouffran  b 1986, with 69 goals to his credit, 12 this season to date and European playing experience. I thought his performance was very encouraging, Newcastle’s problem this season has been the comparative failure of Papiss Cisse  from the French speaking player from Senegal who has still scored 7 time but missed a host of chances and whose all round play is also being questioned. They join the locally born Ameobi brothers and one other Englishman (Ranger)

The Newcastle midfield was already dominated by Frenchmen with one of the most creative players in the Premiership, capable of  dazzling runs (2)Hassam Ben Arfa b1987 who scored a brilliant goal during one of my few visits to the ground last season, scoring 7  in total  with 3 more this year (32 career total). His return eagerly is anticipated after two months of injury to which he appears prone. He has played 13 times for his national side. (3)Yohan Cabaye b 1986 can also score goals, often long range shots which delight the crowd and who also has played for his country 19 times. He has scored 42 goals in total with 4 for Newcastle this  season.

(4)Gabrial Obertan b 1989 is more  of a holding midfield player with 7 goals, 1 for Newcastle and is commanding a  regular first team  place,  (5)Silvain Marveaux can also score goals 19 in total with 2 for Newcastle in his 23 appearances this season, joining the club last January, (6) Romain Amalfitano b 1989 has played  5 times for the club this season from Reims. I will write more about the other new signing from France bringing the total  number of midfield Frenchmen to 6 alongside  Dutchman Anita, Gutierrez- Argentinean, Tiote-Ivory Coast, Vukic-Slovinian  and. Birgirimania- Burundian.


In the defence there is (8)Mapou Yanga -Mbiwa b 1989 from Montpelier club and who has played three  time for his country this year.  (9) Massadio Haidara  by 1992  from Nancy club is only 20 and is yet to play for the first team (10) Mathieu Debuchy b 1985 from Lille club has played for France 13 times, (4 this year) and played  4 times for Newcastle. They join six Englishman including local man Stephen Taylor, one form Northern Ireland, the Argentinean Coloccini and the Italian Santon while regular first team goal keeper Krull is from Holland with Englishmen Harper and Elliot.

So with ten French outfield players in the squad it is no exaggeration to talk of a French invasion.

Gouffran, Cabaye, Debauchy lined up on Saturday afternoon with the new midfield man  and immediate Tyneside legend Moussa Sissoko  born 1989 from the Toulose Club where he scored only 23 goals in 200 appearances, Yanga M’biwa and Marveaux came on as substitutes,

2413 The real George Orwell Down and Out in Paris and London

I was delighted to come across a BBC radio production of George Orwell’s Animal Farm last week and quickly discovered that the programme is part of a new series The Real Gorge Orwell. He was Eric Blair in fact and I will write more later about him, his wife who came from South Shields, Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia, part one which is being repeated today with the second part on Sunday afternoon, a discussion of his short story Politics and Language and Burma, a biographical play. 1984 is to close the season plus other programmes and I have found a site where all his works are available to read.

It is fitting that the BBC has chosen Down and Out in Paris and London as  his work to abridge in ten episodes for the book at bedtime this week and next, given that more people have become down and out or become greater strugglers wage slaves in the UK during the past two years because of the policy of the coalition just as the situation in the UK and the USA in the 1920’s when on his return from a colonial policeman in Burma he decided to explore life on the streets and the poverty of being a wage slave to survive first in London and then in Paris while reporting as a journalist and wanting to become a professional writer.

In the Guardian on Thursday 24th January 2012, the new George Orwell day, Stewart Jeffries asks what would Orwell make of the state affairs in 2013? What  would he be writing about and on what would his reputation be founded? His article disappoints although I agree  with the conclusion that he would certainly have written a 1984 to which I would have added Animal Farm given his views the Russians and the Germans through Communism and  Fascism created totalitarian societies and how much greater knowledge of this reality of political speak he would have gained had he lived after 1950 when he died at the age of 46.

 Anthony Powell The right wing writer whose books I possess and admire ( and want to reread again) argued in his journals that he anticipated that Orwell as he aged would have become right wing, anti CND, in favour of the Falklands War, and against the miners strikes to which I must say perhaps in terms of the specifics,  because his  writings always suggested the individualist, the liberal democratic socialist at heart, and a man who liked  good order but hated injustice and waste. Whether he would have earned a living writing about food, another suggestion, is more  questionable although he would  have campaign about food waste and its misrepresentation  for commercial reasons. Would he approve of reality TV programmes? For this piece I will review the first week of  Being down ( but I suggest not out) in Paris, listening to the radio broadcasts while I reread my copy of the book purchased three shillings and sixpence in in 1964 while I was the University of Birmingham, Penguin books edition  reprinted in 1963.

I was disappointed with the first abridgement on Monday evening January 29th 2013, because of the omission of the whole of the second chapter. In 1927 Orwell undertook the experience of being a tramp on the streets of London and experience which other journalists and social commentators have undergone since and then he went to Paris in 1928 to  have the same experience again and the book begins with surviving on six francs a day in a bug ridden lodging house.  In fairness to the BBC the second chapter is not essential to make the point  of what it is like to survive just on bread while seeing  the piles of food in shops, the food left on plates in  restaurants or dumped in trash cans.  However part of the purpose of his writing is not just to describe his experience but report on the condition and behaviour of others and in this respect the tale of Charlie is relevant and could have been summarised in a few words saying Charlie boasted of how he stole 1000 francs from his brother and the blew the lot on raping a girl kept as a slave by an old hag in a cellar.

The episode highlights one aspect of being poor without expectation of a permanent change in circumstances, the tendency to blow what ever comes ones way without regard to  tomorrow, in this instance 1000 francs on a brief sexual encounter and while Orwell is surviving on six. It is the poor who tend to gamble and smoke more on a regular basis often at the expense of food, shelter and new clothes; and thirdly that sexual slavery is nothing new. The omission smacks of censorship although it may be typical of the Book at Bedtime abridgements although I also mention in the context that the original Animal Farm film now available as a U certificate was graded X for over 18 year olds only when first released to theatres.

It is an abridgement series but in this instance missing out on some fo the characters not only reduces the colour of the piece but also reveals that it is no accident why many of  the characters are poor,  the inadequate, or immoral beings, prone to prone to petty criminality and in some instance violence and therefore should be no surprise that they are where they are. What percentage  continues to be a matter for debate, a significant minority from my experience but something which does not affect any analysis and sense of injustice at the extremes between the poor and the wealthy.

The edited radio programme does communicate the reality of being down and out with the author ending the third chapter explaining the consolation in poverty, that is the feeling of relief, almost of pleasure that at last you have reached the lowest you can get of being genuinely down and out.” You have talked  so often of going to the dogs- and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.”

The second radio abbreviation covered the next four chapters to almost the end of seven(page 39) and  concerned his relationship with a Russian waiter called Boris who worked at a hotel and boasted of earning  100 francs a day in tips and hoped to save up for his own restaurant, something which all waiters dreamed of doing. Boris said he could get Blair, for Eric Blair is the actual birth name of the writer, a job if he wanted one. Then as the teaching English job ended and he was down to his last francs he went in search of the Russian, Boris, only to find that the man was in a worse position than himself living in a flea and bug invested slum, the room of someone who owed him  money, and where he had been sleeping rough under bridges have lost his job after an accident and breaking his back and still recovering he  was described as lame. He had hopes however about a Russian Restaurant that is opening  the following week but when they visit it is still being  created.

We learn a lot about Boris during  the  four chapters, of a wealthy family shot in the revolution and himself a Riffleman, a  Captain, his father had been a Colonel.  He had been with many women, to whom he writes to appeal for funds none of whom reply except who owed him  money but the letter was an excuse for giving nothing to him. He also had a love of chess as many Russians do,  and he was prejudiced against Jews, something which the BBC abridged out and which in fairness many Russians had at the time and still do.

We  also learn about  the pawn broking system in which you take in goods and receive a number and when the clerk has assessed he will call your number and make you an offer so that all  waiting will hear how  little or  how you   will get, and indeed if you are not offered anything. If you contest the offer, it may be withdrawn or you are offered less but if you go after lunch when the clerks have  eaten you are likely to get a better offer than in the morning when they have not.
It is also evident that if you want a job as a waiter you have to know the right person to bribe and Orwell describes how they bought a drink at the right place and waited for the permitted two hours without being introduced to someone calling for an employee because they had not realised  it was necessary to give the barman 20 francs. Their problem was that the Russian now with a limp was almost unemployable and of course Orwell had no experience and would  only get a job washing up in a kitchen for example on the say so of the Russian who had the experience. He manages to survive for one month when he receives 200 francs for some published work and then expecting only 5 or 10 francs for their winter coast they are given seventy from the pawn broker, probably a mistake, but they then  buy lots of food and drink, forge themselves and get drunk which seems to me the standards for those in this predicament.

The next part of the book better covered in the third abridgement describes what it is like working in a  hotel kitchen as a general dogsbody a plongeur. Boris gets a job as a waiter and smuggles out food over the first three days fo his employment until he gets Orwell the job. Before then in  the book there is the story of the Russian Duke who eat at the hotels and restaurants where he knew Russian officers were working as waiters and then borrowed 300 francs to pay for the food and  to survive which he never paid back or was expected as he was a Duke.

They then fall to a confidence trickster who pretends to run  a communist underground group above a laundry and demands 20 francs from the two as a sign of good faith promising Orwell 150 for articles about British politics and the life under the capitalist system. He promises to send a formal request within a couple fo day after they pay five francs of their remaining money and after a week when they go back there is no trace of the man who disappeared owing rent. However this is nothing like the new Tory led coalition approval for TV advising for loans to the poor at interest rates of over  1000% a year. The bastards including one firm  part of sponsoring Newcastle United.

Orwell is taken on because he speaks English and can help staff as most of the guests are Americans,  with his job to keep clean and ready the private restaurant for senior staff. He is offered a months work, the usual practice but at first says no because of the commitment to work in the new restaurant of the Russian which is due to open in two weeks and where they have both been offered better paid jobs. However when he tells Boris what he has done he is sent immediately back to accept the offer. If the new job comes and is better paid they can leave as there will be no shortage of others waiting to take their places. The way is to ask to be paid on a daily basis although one has to keep money on your person as anything left in outer clothing is stolen and everyone is on the fiddle regarding the food and the drink

He works at one of the top hotels in Paris and his description of how the hotel is run provides an important insight into what was the situation and may well continue to be in  most parts of the world  including some  of the greatest cities where tourist flock and where Orwell questions the value to humanity of their existence. The guests paid extraordinary prices then as now but then were cheated at every opportunity bringing to mind the Innkeeper in Les Misérables but then of course they usually have the funds to so indulge as was brought out  in the BBC TV series on one famous London Hotel series.

There is also a class as well as wages system among the 100 odd employees hired to serve the 200 odd customers. The top hotel employees have their own dining room the Maitre d’ Hotel has his own table with silver service and staff attending. The cooks have moustaches  to show their superiority over the waiters who earn more through tips than those on fixed wages, while the waiters insist on junior staff also being clean shaven as a show of their power. He paints in some colour observing that the older char women with still painted faces are usually former prostitutes. Everyone steals food and from each other with the cellar man selling the rest of the measures  set aside for a few sous if he trusts you.

However he has little sympathy for the guests who eat food with ingredients used in such a way to bring profit, drinks of short measure,  bed linen not properly laundered because of the turn arounds. The emphasis is on the appearance and the presentation, the smiles of service without sincerity or care.

Understandably  Orwell concentrates on the role and life of plongeur or dish washer. They work in filthy condition with no regard for cleanliness as waiters clean the sweat from their faces using the disgusting washing up water from the soiled utensils. The description reminds of the Arnold Wesker literal kitchen sink drama The Kitchen which I saw in theatre, listened to the radio play and have the text part of trio of his works.

He describes the going to work and the coming home at night among the other works, the fights and the swearing, except on Saturday night when they congregate as a small  bistro near the hotel  when the work is done around 11 pm and get drunk returning to their beds between one and two and to sleep through before the cycle begins again. Every Saturday a communist believer by day gets drunk and rises to make a speech, word for word the same, too drunk to notes that he is regarded as a comic turn along with those who dance or sing. He also praises the importance of sleep, describing awakened by a murder  by three men seen running off by hitting a man dead with a lead pipe that after the street checked that the man was dead and nothing could be done for him, they left him there and  immediately back to bed and too sleep,

Whereas the waiters and other senior staff could with some optimism plan to better themselves and to marry, the plongeur had no prospects given the hours of working sixty to one hundred every week there was no time to study to importance job prospects and there was only  sufficient money to get drunk once a week. But you had three meals a day, the rent was paid and here was pride in doing the job although he questions the necessity for the role and why it was done rather than people revolt and demand a better life. He argues that the rich even if they care do not involved themselves with the lives of the poor,  Cameron is presently accused of not having visited one of the soup kitchens that have arisen because of the ongoing levels of unemployment and lowering of wages and benefits in real terms.

Orwell argues that if you put the poor in good clothes under a good roof and they are no different from the rich and vice versa. This is only a partial  truth as it is important to separate those who have become addicted to a substance or have emotional  or psychological problems, or become recidivists from those unable because of disability or lack of jobs or because of the nature of work and its pay.

Thus Orwell has described his experience having nothing and  then as a wage slave. However his experience in Paris continues when influenced by Boris they make the mistake of leaving the hotel when called by the Russian restaurant owner that he is ready to open, but this is for next week.

It may be coincidence that the BBC also chose to broadcast Aung San Suu Kyi The Lady on Desert Island Discs who life’s work has been to bring democracy and a sense of freedom to the people of Burma where Orwell worked as  a colonial policeman. When she lived in Oxford she joked with her son, then a child who said one day you will be on Desert island Discs to which she replied why not? She only selected two of the eight records herself inviting  a family

The first, her selection a song about Aung San  her father who was the first head of Burma after the country was granted independence after World War II. She selected the overture to the Magic Flute, music her husband and Father in law favoured. The British Ambassador to Burma suggested Here comes the Sun looking forward better life in Burma.

The eldest son chose a Burmese song sung be someone he liked and her second choice was a piece she had played at the piano when in captivity. Her present personal assistant selected the Green Green Grass of Home reminding her of home when she was in England. Which Aung Sung had not heard before played in the programme! The New Worlds symphony as a Tribute to support for the USA and the home of the United nations. !

The final choice was Imagine by John Lennon chosen by her youngest son.  She would accept the Bible Complete Books of Shakespeare. Her grandfather converted Christianity and she would read the bible to him when  he had difficulties seeing. She chose a commentary on the teachings fo the Buddha. The amazing aspect is that  she came across exactly as she was portrayed in the film the Lady.

2412 Film of the year Zero Black Thirty Fact more than fiction!

Although I have  started on pieces about Lincoln and Borgen, Sansom’s book Dominion, Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London and a general review of the week, it is with Zero Dark Thirty and the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden that I am devoting today and will publish next. It by far the best film of this and recent years, and also the most important film of all those seen recently.

Although a fictitious account for  the search for the man after 9/11, it rings authenticity to the extent that  Republicans have called foul and are alleging that it could have only been made with agreement from Obama, the CIA and Military and therefore put at risk the security of the nation by releasing classified information, Such is their anger that  a Congressional or Senate Committee the Senate was scheduled to hold, a hearing(s) about the subject in January although I could not find specific reference on the Internet.

I begin with the film and then consider the reality and the controversy. The film is the story of Maya,  recruited to the CIA from University and also immediately appointed to locate the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. In 2003 she is assigned to the USA Embassy in Pakistan as an undercover operative and she spends much of time attending interrogations, often where waterboarding, food, water and sleep deprivation is used on detainees at black sites, unofficial locations. At first she finds the methods difficult to observe or endorse but as the film progresses she appears to approve and initiate such action and expresses regret where the man leading this work, Dan says he is going home having had enough of naked bodies and what he is required to do without any seeming success as  the Al Qaeda atrocities continue.

This is my position on the use of torture. I have no deep seated objection to use by a government if doing so prevents atrocities and makes the people more safe than they were. However the recent public evidence suggests that it does not, that it damages those who undertake the task and creates even more determination among those it is intended to deter.

Under torture a detainee Ammar divulges that someone with the name of Abu Amed (see Sheikh Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (died 2 May 2011), also known as Shaykh Abu Ahmed, Arshad Khan  (see1* ) worked as courier for bin Laden and was one of his most trusted men. He  said that Abu Ahmed passes the  message to one Faraj al-Libbi ( see 2*) number three in Al Qaeda when his superior Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in 2003 (see 3*). Faraj was captured in 2005 and Maya not only interrogates but has him tortured but he continues to deny knowing of the courier Abu Ahmed

Maya remains convinced he and bin Laden continue to  function although  the CIA boss in Pakistan and  at HQ begin to question the value of her single task role especially when other atrocities are committed or attempted in Europe and also  in Times square, New York She is with her female boss having a meal at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad(see 4*) when it is blown up and when she is placed on a target list she narrowly escapes assassination as she leaves her guarded home. This leads to her return to Washington,

The chief Interrogator has advised Maya that the change in Administration from Republican to Democrat means that a new approach to rendition and interrogation is being required, hence his departure. I cannot remember subsequence of events in the film. Maya  is asked to assist in a mission at Camp Chapman ( see 5*) where her work friend who was also with her at the Marriott bombing was official charge of operations undertaken from the base although not directly responsible for base security. In the film Maya is asked to act as communication officer reporting on events to Langley where it is indicated the information is being passed to the President. A meeting has been arrange with a senior  figure who it is proposed to relocate after debriefing in a deal worth $25million.The agreement in advance was that the individual would be able to access the basis without armed security in surveillance. The head of base security is concerned at this and is over ruled. As a consequence when the person gets out he appears to have a limp but is in effect a controlling for a powerful car bomb which takes out the friend and various CIA high ups and other contacts. Maya survives. The deaths affect Maya and CIA morale in general and given the aborted Times Square event the previous year ( unconnected to al brought home to the CIA the failure of their activities at home as well as abroad  to apprehend those involved, with only a quarter of the al Qaeda top people in custody or killed.

It is at this point that the film begins to moves from failure towards success.  A Jordanian detainee when shown the photo of wanted Abu Ahmed claims that he buried him in 2001 and various members of the CIA including Maya’s superior believe that she and they had been following a false trail for nine years. This is something which instinctively she finds difficult to accept. Then a young female recruit working on Moroccan intelligence issues, and who admires Maya at a distance, brings to her information filed away years before which suggested that  the real name of Abu Ahmed was Ibrahim Sayeed, a man with a number of brothers, one of whom could be the man buried in 2001. Ibrahim is part of a large in friendly Kuwait where the mother and other relatives remain living and Maya persuades her boss to back her hunch that that getting the phone number of the woman for surveillance will lead to the whereabouts of the son being traced. This involves bribing a Kuwaiti with a Lamborghini car.

Calls are made and traced back to an area of Pakistan in the North far away from Pakistan border  with Afghanistan where before this. the most common belief was that if alive Bin Laden was living in caves and ineffective. Eventually the team  assigned in Pakistan work out that the individual is using the local call centre as a relay station making calls on a mobile phone from points all over the city, never for long and without any pattern or routine thus indicating someone trained in “tradecraft” expecting being looked for and with a sophisticated level of covering tracks. Then they manage to get a photo of the individual making a call from a distinctive vehicle.

Again Maya is shown having to battle to get the  funds  to employ the numbers required to keep watch on the roads going out of the city and track him down to an isolated dwelling close one Pakistan military college for officer training and with staff living in area. The building has a degree of isolation with a high surrounding wall. It is a three story building with top floor masked in such a way that while there appears to be walk around verandas it is impossible to see anyone moving there. Apart from satellite surveillance there is no way to get closer to the building from the ground or to be able to place cameras to get a closer look any those inside when they the internal open area, to dry clothing or for exercise. Apart from the man making the telephone calls no one  appears to leave the building.

It is evident from this that someone is there who does not want to be identified and the proximity to the Military establishment raises questions. The matter is considered at the highest levels in the CIA, the Military and the White House. There is a general consensus that was the hideout of someone significant unlikely to be a drug baron  or master criminal because there was no telephone and if retired where was the swimming pool and other trappings of wealth and usually a more open protection service. In this instance there were three women which normally meant three men plus a number of children.

There is a top meeting  at the CIA the odds that the  compound holds bin Laden is only put at 60% with Maya 100% and in response to who are you from the head of CIA says she is the mother f.....r   who found him. The plan would involve two stealth helicopters and a team of Navy SEALS involving breaching Pakistan air space,  100 days pass before the operation is given the green light and Maya  goes with the SEALS as they prepare and she appears to wait on her own at the US base Jlalabad Afghanistan, while the CIA HQ shown monitor the operation. We do not see the Whitehouse situation  with the President and chiefs of staff.  The complete darkness with some night sights we witness the operation taking place, the failure and hard landing of the one of the helicopters with its unit taking the perimeter with the second aircraft landing within the compound and then entering the main building where it is suggested that one of the women is killed as she attempts to protect the wounded body of her husband. There is a large office area with many computers and filing cabinets  and some of the force race against time to remove the hard drives and the files especially when information arrives that the Pakistan airforce is launching its fighters.  The body is brought back and Maya is given he task of identification although in reality there would have been a number of test, including DNA checks. While the SEALS celebrate there is no sense of triumphant. The picture ends with Maya being given a ride on her own in a transport plane  for R and to anywhere of her choosing such are the order and the special position she now holds. No doubt if such an individual existed and  exists they would now have been given an entirely new identity and life rather than appointed to a senior position  in the service or feted as a national celebrity. 
`The film engages from the outset even though the main events and the outcome are known. The lack of triumphalism is important and because of the Direction, the script and an outstanding and in my view Oscar winning performance by Jessica Chastain as Maya it communicates what happens to someone who has devoted all their lives to one thing even if they are successful in achieving their objective. I will also be disappointed if  the Director Kathryn Bigelow, previously of the Hurt Locker is not awarded the Oscar as well as the film

As for the reality here is the information I have been able to find.

1* Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti also known as Shaykh and Arshah Khan or Mohammed Arshad was a Pakistani citizen born in Kuwait and was one of the few men bin Laden fully trusted, his right man  and favourite courier.   He spoke Pashto and Arabic, he pupil of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is reported responsible for giving computer training to those given computer training in Karachi to those preparing for the 9/11 attacks. He provided a safe haven at home in a residential neighbourhood of Karachi.   His two languages enable him to communicate with members of Al Qaeda and the Pashtun tribesmen of Pakistan, he was believed to have been killed in 2001 but in 2007 his real name was discovered and in 2009 it was established that he lived in Abottabad Pakistan with the information coming from detainees at Guantanamo, notably Hassan Goul who had revealed the info in 2004 that he was close to  Abu Faraj al Libbi. The CIA did track his whereabouts after gaining access to the telephone of relatives in Kuwait and with the assistance and in 2010 he was tracked from Peshawar where he made his phone calls to the compound at Abbottabad.  He was known in the local community and attended local funerals he and another resident  known as his brother claimed they were from a village near the town of Charsadda on the North-western frontier with their wealth from a family owned hotel in Dubai and that the high walls were to keep out enemies encountered in his profession as a money changer.   Source Wikipedia and others.  He was killed during the assault on the compound. 

Hassan Ghul mentioned above was captured by the Kurdish Military in 2004 and handed to the USA who has detained him since. And was a courier for leading al Qaeda members including bin Laden, Sheik Khalid Mohammed and Abu al Zarqawi the man said to be responsible for suicide bombings in Iran and Iraq although there has never been  formal statements and he man has never been brought to trial. He had been held in various location  a prison in Pakistan and his present whereabouts is unknown. Under USA detention is said to have the name of  Abu Ahmed al Kuwaiti.

2* Abu Faraj al Libbi is the assumed name of the Libyan senior member of al Qaeda whoa real name is thought to be Mustafa al Uzayti. He was arrested by Pakistani forces in 2005 with the help of the CIA. He  is held at Guantanamo Bay. He is said to have become number three  and director of operations for the organisation after the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is said to have been the main planner of the 2006 transatlantic plot and that his accomplice in this was responsible for the murder of Wall Street Journalist Daniel Pearl about whom I have previously written.

3* Khalid Sheik Mohammed is regarded as the chief architect of the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon and captured in Pakistan in 203 he has been held at Guantanamo Bay. He is  said to have been responsible  of  most of the major atrocities and attempted atrocities of he past twenty years, including  murder of Daniel Pearl, the Bali  nightclub bombings. He has  confessed under torture including to the plot to kill the Pope, President Jimmy Carter and atrocities all over the world. He is said to have been born in Kuwait and to speak fluent Arabic, English, Urdu and Balochi. He is known to have been in the Philippines, Bosnia and Qatar.  Where in 1996 he was sheltered by the Qatari Minister of Religion. He is alleged to have warned that the capture of death of bin Laden would result in a secret cell exploding a nuclear weapon in Europe.

During the past three years here has been  much argument about holding military controlled trials in Cuba  and civilian in the United State. It is understood that Mohammed and those charged with him in relation to 9/11 were to have leaded guilty at a civilian trial; but at the Military led Trial  which commenced in May of  last year he and the others refused to answer questions put by the judge. The trial continues.

4* The Islamabad Marriott Hotel was bombed  in September 2008 when a dump truck detonated outside its front. 54 people were killed and over 250 were injured leaving a 60  foot wide and 20 foot deep crater. Five foreign nationals were killed and 15 others reported injured within hours of the first  speech of President Asif Ali Zardari to the Pakistani Parliament. The hotel was immediately and quickly rebuilt. The top leadership of the country was to have met at the hotel but the plan was changed at the last minute (why?) Two USA military personnel and a State Department employees plus a Danish intelligence agent were among those killed or missing. The UK Citizens also died. It is believed that a number of top CIA officer were at the hotel and this appears to be confirmed by the film. There were  significant diplomatic repercussion.

5* Camp Chapman was(is?) a CIA forward base in Afghanistan  close to an area controlled by the Taliban. The base monitored drone movements  into Pakistan Seven CIA officers including the chief of the base and a Jordanian Intelligence officer were killed with six other seriously wounded. The suicide bomber was a double agent who had  visited he base on a number of previous occasions and therefore was not search at the out perimeter and detonated the explosives attached to his bomb as he was about to be searched on arrival. This was the second greatest loss of life by the agency in a single incident. While responsibility initiating the attack remains to be established  a claim was made  that the action was taken following the death of a Taliban leader in a drone attack. The ehad of al Qaeda in Afghanistan praised the bombing and said that it was in retaliation for the deaths of their operatives by drone attacks. The perpetrator as a Jordanian doctor from the same town as Abu Musab al- Zarqawi. It is alleged that  an established extremist he was blackmailed into acting for CIA and Jordanian authorities. He had provided information about low level extremists who were “whacked” by the CIA  but in this instance he as believed to bringing information about top Al Qaeda people. The expectation was that the information he provided would go  immediately to the President. In the film  a sum of $25 million was mentioned and a new life with Maya pr4sent as a communications officer. Because he had been to the base before reports  confirm what was said in the film that he was allowed to pass the three outer checkpoints without being searched. The head of the base Jennifer Lynne Matthews was married with three children. Also killed were two agency security officers contracted to work with the CIA. There has been  an allegation that Pakistani Intelligence was involved in the plot.