tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47203122189413499022024-02-21T01:03:36.292+00:00plenty more fishThe world is more straightforward than you think. (Unless you're one of THOSE people, of course, in which case it is more complicated.)Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.comBlogger1120125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-65699475039320725832022-05-21T10:02:00.006+01:002022-06-20T09:24:34.926+01:00Binge<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzSQmur_dowJakj47qGi8yn72NtZnWOdi92OGxJ9F1kHD3fgjvEU4xNvnxyw316yTFyw6dbmAKR5RO4opkPBzuQi3QLYpSGlobcoxIIU1lmyKSAIN5GBmhusOxKBfIqnpjplkAgI84E_bcFq3xmu3K8k5LYk8XPyAqSl-DzLpOqtKAl8Wiq08-Pxa09w/s8640/038C03B2-7A5C-4442-A9AF-F4914925E6C4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3776" data-original-width="8640" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzSQmur_dowJakj47qGi8yn72NtZnWOdi92OGxJ9F1kHD3fgjvEU4xNvnxyw316yTFyw6dbmAKR5RO4opkPBzuQi3QLYpSGlobcoxIIU1lmyKSAIN5GBmhusOxKBfIqnpjplkAgI84E_bcFq3xmu3K8k5LYk8XPyAqSl-DzLpOqtKAl8Wiq08-Pxa09w/w418-h183/038C03B2-7A5C-4442-A9AF-F4914925E6C4.jpeg" width="418" /></a></div><p><br /></p>I'm not sure why I'm here. (This is no time for philosophy.) Yes, I am. It's so I can say I told you so. I have this urge because, unusually, the Italian Publishing Industry has not asked me for my futurological input this year.<p></p><p>1. Streaming services releasing things weekly instead of in binge-lumps: partly - simple - you can release fewer things, ergo cheaper.</p><p>But also lots of highly-educated people need jobs which aren't there in traditional industries. The US healthcare industry is terrifically inefficient at producing at healthcare, but one reason it persists is that its weird insurance, servicing and billing wastage creates tons of white collar jobs that would be a disaster for the US economy to lose. (See also universities.) It's a version of the subsidies paid to the uneconomic bits of farming and fishing. It's less romantic and it creates different distortions, but it's distortions everywhere and it's not like people don't need jobs. I do not have a solution.</p><p>I have not drifted off the point: releasing shows weekly has created a decent-sized and growing derivative industry in commentary recaps, podcasts and so on. It's like watch-the-bouncing-ball politics or sports podcasting. Or, differently, fantasy sports.</p><p>Also, this derivative industry is attracted to discussing certain types of show and story and not others. So a sitcom, whose traditional raison d'être is to reset the table, is not so interesting as a who-will-die story. This definitely fed into online discussion of the amazing, amazing Succession which is sort of built on the sitcom premise of resetting the table on a season-long basis.</p><p>So, various incentives head towards weekly rather than spurgely.</p><p>2. All the different subscriptions! The answer will be when services are bundled together under a single bill and you get them through your main provider, be that Sky, Virgin or whoever, and it will be like cable again but with more choice in terms of bits but more cost because more white-collar middlemen will need to be paid.</p><p>3. I enjoy the continued slippage of the vowel sound associated with the letter 'I' across different English language accents ('eye' slipping to 'ah').</p>Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-32356470624598116832021-11-03T10:01:00.005+00:002021-11-03T10:01:57.763+00:00Podcasting Will Eat Itself<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzBKIsyM7RbI7vBs7XUz0iL_jazcMerZ2ItFW-ndPdSE9Nl0_XNfpzbVtZWL94vfCEyud58CLSPgfhU31701o0JEcrzs7LJyHRLz732iHuRKkTpirObAvlg1zxxJ1CedRfjPVnwLteQK9/s2048/2EA4A229-407A-4BBC-9262-D898341C3E68.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzBKIsyM7RbI7vBs7XUz0iL_jazcMerZ2ItFW-ndPdSE9Nl0_XNfpzbVtZWL94vfCEyud58CLSPgfhU31701o0JEcrzs7LJyHRLz732iHuRKkTpirObAvlg1zxxJ1CedRfjPVnwLteQK9/w490-h329/2EA4A229-407A-4BBC-9262-D898341C3E68.jpeg" width="490" /></a></div><br />1. Despite what I said in my recent post below, people are still using the word obviously to describe things that aren't obvious. I have pointed it out to some of them who, theoretically, are 'worried' about what forces are abetting the rise of extremism. They persist. (I doubt they noticed.)<p></p><p>2. I'm worried that non-fiction, isn't-this-an-interesting-and-revealing-story style podcasting has a real problem. Non fiction books used to operate on a sort of cycle, churning back through the same topics every ten years ago once the world had forgotten the story of, say, the tulip mania or the Dutchman who sold Goring a forged Vermeer.</p><p>But podcasts are rapacious for content. They get through all these stories quickly. If you like this sort of podcast, you reach the point fast where almost everything that doesn't depend on in-depth reporting is being recycled.</p><p>The tendency then is to focus on the now. But if you are doing the now, you are contributing to the problem of watching the bouncing ball. Watching the bouncing ball when it is your job to say something about it is interesting makes you angry when nothing happens and you start blaming the ball. Take, for eg, some complicated negotiation that would always have taken a few months. Now a weekly group of podcasters starts getting irritable that there's still no new news about this thing and they're still speculating more or less in the dark about it. They have to say something, though, and so they start saying things like there is a kind of problem with a system that isn't getting anything done and how can we still be looking at this thing again. But some things are just complicated and take time.</p><p>And some things are a problem. But it's not hard to tell which is which from inside this environment which treats the two imposters just the same.</p><p>Again, these are the kind of podcasters who will blame Facebook for knowingly harming public discourse, and who understand that online sources of news and the 24 hour news cycle are problems. But they still can't stop themselves making the situation worse because it is literally their job.</p><p>I'd be interested in some kind of experiment where we try to look at what today's tv or newspaper news would have looked like without the internet or 24 hour cycle. It's impossible, really, but it might be on some level an interesting thought experiment. Would the same stories be the top stories? I don't know. I might do it if I weren't already behind on three plays about other subjects.</p><p>(If you don't know what these plays are and you are using this site to keep up with my news, let me tell you that you are making a big mistake.)</p>Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-61869747697234958342021-01-18T09:16:00.001+00:002021-01-18T09:16:32.579+00:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEPUVdkASOYv8gASplX5VIuYXUVVIi6mtd7o2jsachwQWMlIApuK1fUgv4Hva4hxq6lzl_wg-1mQnVDYyYvbu_ZYhwT8w21BWMGW_7UOAcAvtJwgdv1b7V0epRbsPMfTmOMyeiNlLPno-y/s1082/900px-Arms_of_Gordon_Dalyell_of_the_Binns.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEPUVdkASOYv8gASplX5VIuYXUVVIi6mtd7o2jsachwQWMlIApuK1fUgv4Hva4hxq6lzl_wg-1mQnVDYyYvbu_ZYhwT8w21BWMGW_7UOAcAvtJwgdv1b7V0epRbsPMfTmOMyeiNlLPno-y/s320/900px-Arms_of_Gordon_Dalyell_of_the_Binns.svg.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Hey! I like to do this every few years or however long it is. The important things I have to say are:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">1. Above are the arms of Tam Dalyell, former socialist MP. I think we can all agree they are a mess. Normally I would say that the sheer fussiness is the problem but oddly I think this one might work if it weren't for the hideous crossed weapons.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Normally, arms get muckier over time as you add achievements and folderols to pacify the families of wives you have taken because they were rich and whose daddies are furious their names will die out. But here the crossed weapons have been there from the start, because the quarter repeated top left and bottom right show the original arms of Tam o' The Binns, the founding father of the house, who was a bloody baron in the seventeenth century. He was a royalist (his reputation was probably blackened by the few of his enemies he left unslaughtered).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">He also had exciting times as a successful Scots general in the armies of Moscow. Quite a lot of Scots did this and not just in Dorothy Dunnett. He also beat the devil at cards, and the devil threw the card table at him, but it missed him - the devil can't throw very straight but he has a huge arm, like an early Byron Leftwich (NFL joke) - and ended up in the pond.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This doesn't explain the naked man. If I didn't have to write a bee play I would do more research.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">2. Language watch: people are using the words obviously and of course all the time and I think it's a problem. Even if something is obvious to you, if many people disagree, then it it's most likely not obvious and there is no 'of course' about it. The only alternative is that all these other people are evil or mendacious. So if you use the words, then you build a framework wherein people disagreeing with you are evil and bad. Usually, they just have different points of view or priorities.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I do it, obviously. Also, this is not saying some things shouldn't be 'of course'. Of course racism is wrong, etc. But because there are such clear wrongs going on right now, I think the language is leaking to a lot of places where things really, really aren't obvious and saying they are is digging you into a mindset that's not helping you and it's not helping me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">3. Language watch 2: broken and destroyed, used of people's emotions: 'I am broken by this news', 'This destroyed her', etc. I think this is recent (last few years). It is now solidly in contemporary novels. I assume this means it will stick and people will be surprised it didn't exist before but I think it didn't really. Certainly not in any routine way.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">4. Language watch 3: I have mentioned that novelists use 'skittering' too much before. This hasn't stopped them. You'll almost never get through a book without it and very frequently you will get it more than once. This is much more often than the word appears in the world. There is something about it that really appeals to writers while writing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">(I know this because I noticed in my second book in time to reduce the skittering and I hope I took it down to one but maybe I thought I should be permitted two which I really shouldn't have been. I am so weak.)</div><br /><p></p>Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-6246207986595031372019-09-17T14:29:00.002+01:002019-09-17T14:29:30.879+01:00Buccaneer Surgeon or The Deadly Lady of Madagascar?It's me again!<br />
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Don't think this is going to be a regular thing. If you want news, you should go to <a href="http://www.listenandoften.com/">my literal website,</a> but I'm feeling a bit retro, and for no obvious reason I've been reading an ancient bookmark about Dr Frank Slaughter (also CV Terry) whose novels sold 60 million copies and drew on his doctoring (<i>Air Surgeon</i>), his pleasure in historical research (<i>Sangaree</i>) and his faith (<i>The Galileans; The Song of Ruth; The Scarlet Cord: A novel of the woman of Jericho; David, Warrior and King; The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ</i> and many more). It made me feel like a lazy slug, but lots of things do because I am.<br />
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Oh! I've looked all the way to the end of the Wikipedia page and now I think I know why I bookmarked him some years ago. Some special ones among you may be able to work it out too. It could be a coincidence but I don't think so.<br />
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I saw Long Shot on Sunday night. I was surprised it hadn't done better. Two weeks before, I watched Joe vs The Volcano for the first time since it came out. I loved it then and didn't think it would have held up and it does in spades. In other cultural news, read long sagas about trees or villages on battered coastlines. You never go far wrong.<br />
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<br />Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-64528937325744333732018-02-19T11:39:00.001+00:002018-02-19T11:43:34.257+00:00Technically Equal Education<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Theresa May is saying that technical education needs to be valued the same as traditional academic education. Good luck with that, given that it isn't and kids aren't stupid enough to think it is.<br />
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A list of people who have previously said this thing at inordinate length and which I happen to have read as a way of becoming as prominent as I am in the field of intellectual history (practically invisible but I am a doctor) includes various 19th century school and higher education commission reports in the UK, similar administrators, school officers and technocrats in early 20th century South Africa and every generation of politicians I have encountered since I was an adult.<br />
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This idea that anyone might viably think politicians might regard technical education as 'equal' founders pretty spectacularly the moment you think how they would react to little Publius being told that it would be more suitable for him to study electrics than latin.<br />
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I'm not pretending I have a solution, but I find it a particularly mealy-mouthed formulation.<br />
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In brighter news, may I recommend this cat with a pet cat: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=https://twitter.com/CUTEFUNNYANIMAL/status/964262574937296896&source=gmail&ust=1519126739744000&usg=AFQjCNF1D07i2vkHpbSVTNPqnzWDZ-lI4A" href="https://twitter.com/CUTEFUNNYANIMAL/status/964262574937296896" style="background-color: #e6ecf0; color: #1155cc; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/<wbr></wbr>CUTEFUNNYANIMAL/status/<wbr></wbr>964262574937296896</a>Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-69441989159863300632017-06-13T15:04:00.003+01:002017-06-13T15:04:31.361+01:00redundancy in parrots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In my current office is this book, which is not written by Juniper Parr (a character name I intend to use) but by Juniper and Parr.</div>
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What can you learn from a book of parrots? Quite a lot of things, but the big first message I took, with due respect to the environmentalists, is that there seems to be a lot of redundancy in parrots. Look at the Amazon ones. Really, these are all different species? And the parrots are as sure about this as we are? I mean, a lot of these guys seem more from the same species as each other than I seem to be from the same species as Lady Gaga, Ryan Gosling and Rafa Nadal. It's only in plate eight where they even seem to be trying.</div>
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(Maybe I should look at it for more than five minutes next time. I bet some of the species are disputed. Wikipedia seems to think the yellow headed ones are three different species. Just what constitutes a species is sketchy in general, which is a constantly riveting biological fact.)</div>
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Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-53389685444840238802016-10-19T09:14:00.003+01:002016-10-19T09:14:33.640+01:00Sea Monsters! U-boats! Donald Trump!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The number one story on BBC news is that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-37691283">a wrecked u-boat has been found off Stranraer, and it might have been sunk by a sea monster</a>. The sub's commander, Captain Kerch, talked of a beast with 'large eyes, set in a horny sort of skull… with teeth that could be seen glistening in the moonlight.'<br />
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The BBC quotes a historian who says that obviously it wasn't that, but who is game enough to say it would be nice if Nessie were helping. Then, because it's the BBC, it gives equal weight to Gary Campbell, who curates Nessie's 'Official Sightings Register' (whatever that means). He says,<br />
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It is entirely feasible that some large sea creature disabled the submarine. </blockquote>
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The World War One report from the captain of the British ship HMS Hilary a year earlier makes it clear that sea farers at that time were well aware of large sea 'monsters' that could be harmful to their ships. </blockquote>
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The area of sea where the attack took place has a history of sea monster sightings - they have ranged from the north coast of Wales to Liverpool bay. What the German captain said could well be true.</blockquote>
I guess we will never know, except for that <a href="http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/47088-hms-coreopsis-ex-drifter-later-q-ship/">five minutes of research</a> found me the much more plausible and better sourced story that the sub surfaced, was fired on and immediately dived, but forgot to close the hatch (maybe because of some extra cabling ordered by Captain Kerch). The U-boat had to surface and was easily destroyed, whereupon it had to scuttle.<br />
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Because everything on earth now relates to Trump, I read this as first a story of first false press equivalency and second the story of a man who screwed up royally bloviating that an invented monster did it (and of his being believed by conspiracy theorists).Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-15855453062108298922016-07-26T21:22:00.000+01:002016-07-26T21:22:05.819+01:00i'm still standingI find myself with half an hour and about a dozen open links that have been open for a month. I wonder what they are?<br />
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Oh,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Jump"> this guy</a>. I mean band. I've periodically enjoyed the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hchOYs_d_Bw">lunatic Quantum Jump Lone Ranger song</a>, which doesn't seem like it's hugging the racing line, PC-wise (Mitchell and Webb, Edinburgh, 2000 or 2001). I enjoyed reading about Rupert Hine, who went on to become a sort of super producer. He looks massively like he should have been bowling fast for England in teams which lost to the West Indies in two days.<br />
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<a href="http://maximumfun.org/">Maximum Fun</a>: I suppose I bookmarked this to remind me of my own brilliant observation that 95% of the podcast phenomenon is Americans realising-without-realising how much better the world is if you've got Radio 4 in it.<br />
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Maybe I've done James Hilton before. He wrote Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr Chips. You might think the second is famouser, but only if you don't know anything about the former. Leaving aside the fact that it was one of the first small-format paperbacks and sold about a billion copies, the main thing was that it introduced the term Shangri-La - in the book it's a mythical, impossible to find Tibetan monastery of eternal life. FDR was a huge fan and he called the new Presidential retreat Shangri-La. Later it got renamed Camp David.<br />
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Also, when America long-range bombed Japan in quick revenge for Pearl Harbour, and he was asked, 'How could the bombers reach that far? Where did they take off?' he replied, 'Shangri-La'. The US Navy soon named an aircraft carrier Shangri-La in tribute.<br />
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'Robert, who is your favourite living artist?'<br />
'Do you mean visual artist?'<br />
'Yes.'<br />
'Well, I am not the world's greatest art expert. But if I had to give a name, it would be <a href="http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/">Nina Katchadourian</a>.'Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-18306717378124292772016-01-19T16:53:00.004+00:002016-01-19T16:53:50.988+00:00fat kittenHoaxes are usually fun; forgery and con-artists can be fun but can be awful; fraud is bad. I have been doing a lot of reading in these fields and these are my preliminary conclusions. Also, one book described a table in Goering's office whose massive legs were carved into the shape of penises.<br />
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But hoaxes: I'm pretty sure it was on Slate's Politics Gabfest that someone described <a href="http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_great_moon_hoax">the Great Moon Hoax of 1835</a>. The <i>New York Sun</i> published a string of articles featuring new discoveries made by UK astronomer Sir John Herschel (pretty convincing authority). The reason no one had made them before was that no one else had such a fantastic telescope, which was of 'vast dimensions' and used 'an entirely new principle'.<br />
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Among the things Herschel found were brown bison-like quadrupeds, blue goats, advanced beavers who walked on two legs and had discovered fire, man-bats who appeared to be having rational conversations and a temple built of sapphire. In case you doubted this, some Wesleyan ministers were prepared to vouch for it.<br />
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It created a huge buzz. It was debunked reasonably fast, but by no means immediately. Contemporary accounts agree that most people fell for it at first. Edgar Allan Poe wrote, 'Not one person in ten discredited it'.<br />
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Anyway, this is just a sketch. The whole article is great.<br />
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In other news, stop reading this right now if you haven't seen <i>Endeavour</i> 3.3, which is called PREY. I will do a spoiler after a gap for a kitten.<br />
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<i>Endeavour</i> is hilarious. The stories are completely insane, which I am not criticising, because the characters are really fun, and this is the best series so far, I think, because the insane stories do at least sort of follow, which they didn't always previously. Anyway, PREY was the most insane so far. Among the many questions that arise: Why did Morse never mention to Lewis in latter years his adventures with a tiger in a maze? Also, as an old Africa hand, I have to agree that a shot into the belly from behind is the perfect way to stop a big cat instantly. They never move again.Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-1762392632298458392015-12-08T21:01:00.001+00:002015-12-08T21:01:43.841+00:00poor matthew<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I heard a genuinely heart-rending story the other night about someone who dutifully checks this blog every day hoping for something to have changed, like a sort of digital Greyfriars Bobby. It's not like I haven't been learning interesting things about winter horseshoes (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16929522">Napoleon didn't take winter horseshoes to Moscow</a> - BIG mistake) and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-doomsday-scam.html?_r=3">idiot terrorists hunting for a mythical super-substance called red mercury</a>.<br />
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Or the battle for Castle Itter. The Daily Beast writes <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/12/world-war-ii-s-strangest-battle-when-americans-and-germans-fought-together.html">a big feature</a> about it asking, essentially, how the hell come this isn't a movie already? The Daily Beast is right to ask.<br />
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In a nutshell: during WWII, Castle Itter houses French VIPs, where P stands for Prisoners. Also in the Castle (fairytale, 13th century) are some of the prisoners' wives, who have chosen to be interned with their husbands. Just after Hitler commits suicide, it's liberated by the Americans. But a crack SS regiment arrives to take it back and execute the prisoners. At which point, the Americans are joined by an anti-Nazi Wehrmacht unit which had joined the resistance.<br />
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Featuring also: Jean Barotra, the Bounding Basque, who won Wimbledon twice, as well as the French and Australian Opens. He was a prisoner - he escaped three times, once during the final battle to go for help.Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-71833212453623832192015-08-28T11:45:00.002+01:002015-08-28T11:45:57.071+01:00shall i tell you what this blog is really useful for?If I don't blog, I literally never clear my tabs. But what is the point of clearing / memorialising them. It's sort of in case I need them again, sometimes. It's sort of because I'm in the habit of wanting to tell people about things.<br />
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Anyway, I liked this story of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33880350">a not Nazi gold bar found in a lake</a>, but nothing like as much as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34072660">the story of the lost Nazi gold train</a>. It's easy to think nothing on land can stay hidden, but forests are amazing. And canyons, but especially forests. One of the most useful things I have ever read - in terms of helping me understand lots of little other things I read from time to time that have to do with lost stuff - was a book which pointed out that explorers hunting a lost Amazonian civilisation walked within five feet of a major city on numerous occasions before finding it. If you don't touch it, and the forest is really thick, it's like it just isn't there...<br />
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The other incredibly useful thing - tangent - that every human should be forced to do is play Murder in the Dark in a large enough space for people to be able to flit between rooms, bits of outdoor, and so on. I've done it a few times and all the people I've done it with have radically, and I mean absolutely radically, changed their view of the reliability of eye-witness testimony. You can be clever, more or less sober, concentrating and be certain of a thing that happened five minutes ago, and totally wrong.<br />
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<a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/crowdfunding-is-driving-a-196-million-board-game-renaissance/">Crowdfunding board games</a> (what about the Cones of Dunshire*), which reminded me of <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/designing-the-best-board-game-on-the-planet/">the best board game on the planet</a> article, which reminded me I haven't played the best board game on the planet.<br />
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* Oh, actually <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/15/7552123/parks-and-recreations-settlers-of-catan-mayfair-kickstarter">the people behind Settlers of Catan had a go at Kickstarting Cones of Dunshire! But failed.</a>Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-87347656799310537692015-07-21T09:20:00.001+01:002015-07-21T09:20:09.934+01:00so, blogsI don't read many. I don't write mine much. I used to. I used to really like writing it and I flicked back through it the other day looking for something and I got stuck following links around Duff Cooper and some old earls, and I wondered why I didn't do this any more.<div>
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The answer is time, obviously. Is it a problem all the bloggers have, now they are older, childier, successfuller, etc? Probably. And the young bloggers are on twitter. And so are the old bloggers, obviously. I didn't even write down where I heard the thing which said that we don't blog about a thing any more, we just link to it, and those are different things. I liked blogs because I got a sense of personality from them that I guess you do get from tweets, and I like twitter, but... Whatever. I don't know. I haven't killed this blog, as you can see, and I don't intend to, but it's getting to be a historical artefact.</div>
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In news of just links: <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2015/07/garden_gem_tomato_why_harry_klee_s_perfect_cultivar_isn_t_sold_in_supermarkets.2.html">this is nice Slate article about how taste is not one of the things supermarkets even consider when buying tomatoes, because customers also don't really.</a></div>
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<a href="https://purplepersuasion.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/what-mindfulness-isnt/">This explained the good side of the mindfulness craze to me better than anything else has</a>.</div>
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Doom doom doom. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one">This time Seattle</a> is going to fall into a crack.</div>
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<a href="http://www.clickhole.com/article/oral-history-friends-2638">Oral history of <i>Friends</i>.</a></div>
Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-45093857263819541462015-06-29T20:11:00.002+01:002015-06-29T20:11:33.962+01:00flying tigers and other animals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay, <i>A Damsel in Distress</i> has finished its Chichester run. I bet you'll be able to see it again some sunny day, but it's a big show and all the cheeses involved are big ones, so it might not be easy to corral them. It wasn't last time, but it was worth it. It was literally lovely to be in the room with it every night I was there. I'm absolutely biased, of course. But there are reviews.<br />
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In other news, I've been interested in volunteer air forces every since I researched Charles Sweeny, who married <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Campbell,_Duchess_of_Argyll">Maggie, the eventual Duchess of Argyll</a> (who did rude things to a headless man). He was the American who set up the US volunteer squadrons in England - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Squadrons">the Eagle Squadrons</a> - and helped fund them, in WWII. He's been deleted from Wikipedia. I wonder why.<br />
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I didn't know about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers">Flying Tigers</a>, who were Americans who flew for China. That picture above has their nosepiece, which is very famous, and which I did know from putting it on planes in my Airfix youth (I was bad at them). I also didn't know that they copied it from some Nazi bombers.<br />
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I also recently googled, I'm not telling you why, The Best House in London. It turns out to be a movie starring a wide range of characters, from Warren Mitchell as an Italian Count to John Cleese as 'Jones'. It also features Sherlock Holmes and IMDB's description runs: <i>In Victorian London, the British Government attempts a solution to the problem of prostitution by establishing the world's most fabulous brothel</i>. I dare say it seemed like a good idea at some point, but I do not plan to watch it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2015/06/kodokushi_in_aging_japan_thousands_die_alone_and_unnoticed_every_year_their.html">An article about Japan's ageing population</a>. It's a cliche to say things are beautiful and sad, but still.<br />
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<br />Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-28446589379837316352015-06-17T17:11:00.001+01:002015-06-17T17:11:19.125+01:00whisky galore<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been a while since I parroted Wikipedia.<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_Mackenzie">Compton Mackenzie</a> wrote it, and <i>Monarch of the Glen</i>. He was English, technically, but allegiance is an odd fish and it seems perverse to go with the technicality when Mackenzie was an ardent Jacobite, Governor-General of the Stuart Society and helped found the Scottish National Party.<br />
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Among is seven million other books were histories of the Battle of Marathon and Salamis, a biography of FDR and <i>Extraordinary Women</i>, a roman a clef about three lesbians based on what sounds like a very frisky time he had on Capri in the 20s. He married three times and supported, enjoyably given everything else, West Bromwich Albion. I want to know more about him and, given the fact that he wrote ten volumes of autobiography, there is more to know.<br />
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In other news: this is funny about the awful experience of having written what might have been a good script for <i><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/grace-of-monaco/writer-twitter-nicole-kidman-arash-amel/">Grace of Monaco</a></i>.Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-33552960864650663652015-06-12T10:44:00.005+01:002015-06-19T09:11:52.759+01:00a damsel in distress<i>NB I will periodically update this page.</i><br />
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Me not writing anything here has been good news for you, maybe, but bad news for the heroic cast of <i>A Damsel in Distress</i>, who had to deal with all kinds of preview week changes (Query: is not lesson from this that should have written a more competent show in the first place? Answer: probably best not thought about).<br />
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The first night was marvellous. The cast was brilliant. The reviews are in. Modesty, I find, is flexible enough to permit me posting all the reviews I can find.</div>
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<b>an instant classic ... In an age of metamusicals from The Producers to the current Broadway hit Something Rotten, which offer their own ironic commentaries on the genre itself, A Damsel in Distress is both blissfully affectionate yet never affected as a young Broadway composer (Richard Fleeshman) and a British socialite (Summer Strallen) are set on an tangled but inevitable course towards each other in a dizzying, but always sincere, series of romantic collisions</b> - <a href="https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2015/damsel-distress/">The Stage</a></div>
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<b>perfect summer fare ... a sunlit fantasy realm of ancient castles where batty peers, feisty showgirls and affectionate pigs get into comic muddles ... an evening of sheer, effervescent summer fun</b> - <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/11662586/A-Damsel-in-Distress-Chichester-Festival-Theatre-review-jolly-good-fun.html">Daily Telegraph</a></div>
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<b>Here’s a joyful thing: a confection of butterscotch and sunshine, a tale of turrets and twosomes and tap-breaks, friendship and chivalry and secret passages and great legs, with glorious, soaring Gershwin songs to punt it all along </b>-<b> </b><a href="http://theatrecat.com/2015/06/11/a-damsel-in-distress-chichester-festival-theatre/">Libby Purves</a> (She also tweeted, <i>A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS wins fifth mouse cos I woke up grinning 8hrs later. Sunshine, kicks and Wodehouse whoopee.</i>)</div>
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<b>This magnificently ridiculous romantic comedy sweeps all objections aside, and, while constantly reminding you of the absurdities of the Broadway musical, revels in them to joyous effect. It’s another canny musical triumph for Chichester’s creative team</b> - <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e1926fc2-1341-11e5-ad26-00144feabdc0.html">Financial Times</a><br />
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<b>diamond-bright, five-star froth</b> - <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3111672/BAZ-BAMIGBOYE-Branagh-Dench-lucky-young-star.html">Daily Mail</a> (Baz Bamigboye)</div>
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<b>A Damsel In Distress is a great “new” musical. It completely encapsulates the feeling of a different time, a different style of musical. It is not Les Miserables or Wicked, but that is its strength. It is what it is – and what it is is beautiful, full of froth and bubble, syrup and cream. Utterly delicious </b>- <a href="http://britishtheatre.com/review-a-damsel-in-distress-chichester-festival-theatre-5stars/">BritishTheatre.com</a></div>
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<b>As a huge fan of Wodehouse I was as happy as the Empress in her sty at Blandings to see what Sams & Hudson had done. What we have is a cute, schmaltzy, feelgood, funny musical</b> - <a href="http://www.stagereview.co.uk/theatre-review/a-damsel-in-distress-review/">Stage Review</a><br />
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<b>Crazy, hilarious and tremendous fun—great show!</b> - <a href="http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/a-damsel-in-dis-chichester-fest-11599">British Theatre Guide</a></div>
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<b>by golly it works ... a spiffing good show</b> - <a href="http://www.whatsonstage.com/chichester-theatre/reviews/a-damsel-in-distress-chichester_38023.html?cid=homepage_news">What's on Stage</a><br />
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<b>There are perhaps only two words for this show: one is delightful and the other is ditzy</b> - <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3120888/Quaint-love-story-s-ditzy-delight-Damsel-Distress-old-fashioned-pleasure-says-PATRICK-MARMION.html">Daily Mail</a> (Patrick Marmion)</div>
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<b>what joyous nonsense</b> - <a href="http://www.theargus.co.uk/leisure/critic/13325925.A_Damsel_In_Distress__Chichester_Festival_Theatre__Oaklands_Park__until_Saturday__June_27__call_01243_781312/?ref=rss&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed">The Argus</a></div>
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<b>a delight </b>- <a href="http://www.thepublicreviews.com/a-damsel-in-distress-festival-theatre-chichester/">The Public Reviews</a><br />
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<b>Fresh, funny and scattering musical numbers from brothers George and Ira Gershwin like so many petals, it reduced the audience to tears of mirth and rapturous applause</b> - <a href="http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/leisure/stage/13338210.REVIEW__Damsel_in_Distress__Chichester_Festival_Theatre_/">The Southern Daily Echo</a><br />
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<b>the entire show sparkles</b> - <a href="http://inthecheapseats.co.uk/post/121245119664/review-a-damsel-in-distress-chichester-festival#more">In the Cheap Seats</a></div>
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<b>an evening of pure escape</b> - <a href="http://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/what-s-on/review-distress-this-damsel-will-impress-1-6791859">Eastbourne Herald</a></div>
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<b>Wow. What a show. The perfect end to a long day at work. The perfect end to any day, in fact ... </b><b>There’s so much to love about A Damsel in Distress, from the wonderful way it exploits all the new staging possibilities at the ‘new’ CFT to the glorious battiness of the show itself; from the fabulous costumes to the delightful choreography; from the terrific score to the complete fun of it all; from the way a castle suddenly appears before your eyes to the wonderful range of characters who inhabit it, all beautifully played by a cast at the top of its game</b> - <a href="http://www.chichester.co.uk/what-s-on/entertainment/review-a-damsel-in-distress-chichester-festival-theatre-until-june-27-1-6791543">Chichester Observer</a><br />
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<b>a new(ish) musical confection that feels like it's been around for years ... a delightful night in the theatre</b> - <a href="http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2015/06/a-damsel-in-distress-review.html">Jonathan Baz</a><br />
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<b>Brilliantly executed blissful nonsense</b> - <a href="http://www.frostmagazine.com/2015/06/a-damsel-in-distress-chichester-festival-theatre-review/">Frost Magazine</a><br />
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<b>gorgeous and joyous!</b> - <a href="http://musicaltheatrereview.com/a-damsel-in-distress-chichester-festival-theatre/#.VXrLSSn5qSI">Musical Theatre Review</a></div>
Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-86621611426648819442015-05-29T11:02:00.001+01:002015-05-29T12:32:21.028+01:00almost thereYo Sushis. This fortnight I have mostly been enjoying the stunt borzoi section of the tech (borzois are marvellous and were bred to hunt wolves, but they are like canine daleks and can't deal with stairs and so only one of three stunt borzois made the grade) and the hats, which are magnifique.<br />
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Also, many other things. If you come to a massive musical tech with no experience of techs beyond the single afternoons you get for your cute little annual shows, then it's a great game of spot the similarity and spot the difference. Since our cute little annual shows are put together by people who know what they're doing, the experience is surprisingly familiar, but the moments of sheer joy at first seeing a new iteration of the castle revolve, or a particular fabulous prop, or a suddenly gorgeous combination of lights, is obviously something a million miles beyond anything that's ever possible for us, and it's properly exciting. (Although, Charles and Tom will be thinking, let's just see if any Damsel in Distress special effect gets two rounds of applause within three minutes.)<br />
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In down moments, I have been teaching cast-members some of the great Ellis stories, and there have been discussions of what the tech and last rehearsal week would have been like for the initial production of King Lear.<br />
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On a personal level, I am not very experienced at hotels, but I've been here for a week and I have finally got to the point where I am not eating every single possible item that is available for breakfast. Also I broke the shower and still don't understand why there are so many cushions or why the duvet is the kind you would expect to find in the Ice Hotel.<br />
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<a href="http://grantland.com/the-triangle/rafa-nadal-on-the-eve-of-the-french-open/">This is a magnificent piece of writing about Rafa Nadal, who I adore</a>.Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-75294935853137584612015-05-18T21:15:00.002+01:002015-05-18T21:15:55.366+01:00change is goodHey. I'm on the train back from the first day of Chichester rehearsals for Damsel in Distress. It has been intense for the last month, very intense for the last fortnight, and at the end of the last week reached an unsustainable intensity. I hope it is back to being very intense now. It's good intense though, in the way really excellent teamwork can be - a combination of understanding and generosity, along with all the talent.<br />
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There really is a lot of talent. I've taught a few songs to hockey teams in my time, but this is literally different from that.<br />
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Anyway, the first victim victim of the process is the truth. No, not the truth. The first victim of the process is Tall Tales. We are taking May off, with the extremely kind permission of The Good Ship. Really, it is one of the best-humoured, best-run venues imaginable. TT wouldn't exist without it.<br />
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This is quite a dull post, I know. I've had some fun things sitting on tabs for a month. I don't know how, for instance, I first heard of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Jones">Tiffany Jones,</a> but it sounds from Wikipedia like a spectacularly awful movie:<br />
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<b>Tiffany Jones is a 1973 British comedy film directed by Pete Walker and starring Anouska Hempel, Ray Brooks and Eric Pohlmann.It was based on a comic strip that had featured in the Daily Mail. The main character, Tiffany Jones, a leading model, also works as a secret agent. She encounters in this film both good and bad men alike.</b><br />
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That alone does not earn it blog space. The thing I love is that the star, Anouska Hempel, hated it so much that she bought all the rights and blocks all versions from being distributed. Unlike me, Hempel comes from Russian and Swiss German heritage and says she was born on a boat from Papua New Guinea to New Zealand. Also unlike me, she has married a property developer who died in a mysterious car crash, Bill Kenwright and a major financier.<br />
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The differences don't end there, but these will do for now.<br />
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Ok, apart from I have never blocked movies of myself, viz. <i>Tiffany Jones </i>and also <i>Black Snake. </i>Also I don't have a showcase hotel in the Brazilian rainforest and I haven't designed two yachts.<br />
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<br />Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-91543162450042543972015-05-07T09:41:00.000+01:002015-05-07T09:41:01.395+01:00u or non-uWe got an election leaflet from the U Party yesterday. We'd never heard of it even though I think that ours is the only seat it's fighting this time round. It's centralist and libertarian, and you're already a member - everyone is automatically enrolled but you can opt out if you want to.<br />
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Highlights:<br />
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<b>Being an MP is a national job, not a local job. There will be no constituency surgeries; solving local problems is the job of local councillors who can if they wish approach an MP to help resolve a problem. In any event, U Party MPs will be unpaid, so they will be too busy earning a living like the rest of us, and too busy to make legislative mischief.</b><br />
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<b>If we have time, the U Party might seek peaceful recovery of our former French possessions under Henry II (if they vote to return, but excluding Calais). And we will form a coalition with anyone and everyone if we can. <i>The U Party will break any and all of its manifesto promises of it sensible to do so.</i></b><br />
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It's not really nuts. Really, it's an issues based leaflet from a guy who knows he isn't going to be elected but can say things a lot of people in politics think but can't possibly say. That's why he can make jokes that he trusts people to get. The main issue is pensions, which need sorting out. It's also sensible about the law (too many laws hastily promulgated lead to confusion), drugs (evidence-based reports across the world favour decriminalisation), prison reform, training for MPs and especially regulators and various others.<br />
<br />Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-68083057911197830562015-05-04T11:11:00.000+01:002015-05-04T11:11:13.484+01:00i bet this won't change your mind about anythingI don't know how to change people's minds about politics. It almost never happens which means, in social circumstances, what's the point in trying? I think: I shouldn't get into this, basically.<br />
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Then I see something like the Times scandal, which is properly scandalous, where the newspaper basically lied on Page 1 that average working families would pay £1000 more in tax under Labour. The next day they retracted this on Page 24 and explained they had reached this figure by adding up the extra tax paid by the highest earners, by owners of very expensive houses and by various companies, and dividing that by the total number of working families, almost all of whom wouldn't be paying it. The naked bias of these self-interested, knowingly deceitful [rude word] makes me want to thcweam.<br />
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Yes, the BBC is, more or less, left of the current political centre. But it tries, more or less, to be impartial. And frankly if almost all the commercial enterprises owned by really rich people are right of centre and literally electioneering in their owners'; direct material interests, thank goodness the media giant paid for by poorer people is in a small and almost entirely unelectioneering way a counterbalance.<br />
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And while I am writing something that won't persuade anyone: mansion tax.<br />
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax">A comprehensive Land Value Tax would be better</a>; the mansion tax is politically more viable and better than nothing; of course there will be victims, there are victims of any policy change, I wish there weren't; but at least this time the victims are those who have been overwhelmingly lucky with when they have been born and can therefore better afford the hit; some of the victims will be at the more victim end of the scale and they will make the papers and I do feel sorry if anyone has to move out of their house, I really do, but on the upside, if they are having to move they are moving from a £2m house whose value has been hugely inflated by things other than their own hard work (this is not to say they haven't worked hard to pay what they did pay) which gives them a step up on an entire generation which can't possibly buy.<br />
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Two other comments:<br />
1. Please don't call this the politics of envy. I hate this 'I'm the victim of jealousy' stuff from people who have loads of stuff. Maybe you are, but it's not really an argument. I am very lucky. I totally expect a kid who didn't have my massive advantages to be jealous of me.<br />
2. Yes, yes, I'm a member of the liberal urban intellectual elite. It's one of the two big groups (with working class Tories) who vote against their narrow economic self-interest. Doesn't make us either right or wrong, but I mention it because it irritates me when people call me smug for wanting to share a good fortune I know I haven't entirely earned.Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-22769796053305505192015-04-15T17:12:00.001+01:002015-04-15T17:12:58.951+01:00Do you want to see Damsel in Distress but are scared of Chichester?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOrOkMy7466YlbgA8aWo2quQ1dOGCdyxVe5clmywwNgfJfE02SwrANn_v7CWNwdnJHY7otV6AB_04ZGXJvX9DV17Ioqeol8AI4HDG7vThYzlLNf7wKv1UNogvDWhtSCdF359EvrK4E3qla/s1600/IMG_1494.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOrOkMy7466YlbgA8aWo2quQ1dOGCdyxVe5clmywwNgfJfE02SwrANn_v7CWNwdnJHY7otV6AB_04ZGXJvX9DV17Ioqeol8AI4HDG7vThYzlLNf7wKv1UNogvDWhtSCdF359EvrK4E3qla/s1600/IMG_1494.JPG" height="199" width="320" /></a></div>
Tricky, because Chichester is where it's on, and <a href="http://www.cft.org.uk/cast-confirmed-for-a-damsel-in-distress">its whizzo cast has now been announced</a>. Richard Fleeshman, Summer Strallen, Desmond Barrit, Isla Blair, Nicholas Farrell and Sally Ann Triplett are just the start of it.<div>
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If you are scared of Chichester and want to learn something about it but without the brilliant actors, great songs and inspiring choreography, or the lights, costume and other complex aspects of design, <a href="http://www.muchadobooks.com/damsel-in-distress.php">you can hear me talk about writing the script at the lovely Haymarket Hotel on Weds 20th May</a>. The evening - with wine and nibbles - is hosted by Alfriston's Much Ado Books, which is my official equal favourite UK bookshop with West End Lane Books. (My favourite non-UK bookshop is in <a href="http://www.kalkbaybooks.co.za/">Kalk Bay on Cape Point</a>, you will be riveted to learn. It was jammed with things I wanted to buy when I went there last month.)</div>
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What is the worst movie ever made? IMDB's algorithms think it is probably Paris Hilton's <i>The Hottie and the Nottie. </i><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-story-behind-the-worst-movie-on-imdb/">But another movie has a lower IMDB score. Which one and why?</a></div>
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That will have to do for now.</div>
Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-84839771399171892692015-04-01T09:54:00.001+01:002015-04-01T09:54:39.824+01:00this and that<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8GGqPk7U5OE3QkqCDGK_EQlSQYmLSh4407u9cD2kxGu9LlPkWCf13iYAjC1QAsYoKmfMG-T6xjv12fXrKmihlMKIqekSQmLpN2_uNNGXA3ryT2QCfFb2h6vSZO5PjUpma54aAsBUfV6O/s1600/IMG_1535.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8GGqPk7U5OE3QkqCDGK_EQlSQYmLSh4407u9cD2kxGu9LlPkWCf13iYAjC1QAsYoKmfMG-T6xjv12fXrKmihlMKIqekSQmLpN2_uNNGXA3ryT2QCfFb2h6vSZO5PjUpma54aAsBUfV6O/s1600/IMG_1535.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
Been a while. I am partly editing some scripts. I am partly preparing for <i>A Damsel in Distress</i> (come see me talk about it at the Haymarket Hotel, May 20th, details will follow when they are finalised). Various things to clear from my tabs.<br />
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<a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/bolanos-2666-coming-to-the-stage-thanks-to-a-powerball-jackpot/?_r=3">I love what this guy is doing with his lottery win.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.radiolab.org/story/la-mancha-screwjob/">The not very recent Radiolab podcast about wrestling and Don Quixote was the most interesting story about storytelling I've heard in ages</a>. I am for obvious reasons very interested in the nature of sport as a narrative form; the differences between sport and returning drama; and so on. Wrestling and the meta-negotiations taking place between its construction and reception are some of the most complicated in any narrative, even more than highly constructed reality TV where the outcomes aren't <i>quite </i>so fixed. And the Don Quixote stuff is also very good.</div>
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<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/8828418/Helena-Morrissey-I-thought-wed-stop-at-five-children.html">I have before found this woman (nine children, super high-flying, runs an organisation trying to get more women into the board room) incredibly impressive</a> - I still do. For a differently v. impressive businesswoman, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/3578467/The-house-that-Wasfi-built.html">here's Wasfi Kani of Grange Park opera</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-witness-20141106?page=6">This Rolling Stone piece on whistleblowers and why there haven't been bank prosecutions has been an open tab for about three months until I finally read it</a>. 1. It's excellent. 2. It slightly leaves out how hard it is for the government to fight law cases with people who are much richer and more personally motivated than the government. 3. I repeat my ancient thing: putting law-breaking bankers in jail would work. Putting thieves in jail might not deter them, because it's part of the cost-benefit analysis of a very different life, but putting bankers in jail would definitely, definitely affect the behaviour of other bankers.Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-90578719431191949942015-03-13T15:32:00.001+00:002015-03-13T15:32:18.262+00:00stupid librariesI decided to spend ten minutes looking at something for a sequel to <i>The Dazzle</i> that I literally don't have to the time to write just now. I signed out a few 1920s-30s memoirs. I opened the books pretty much at random. After a total of fifteen minutes reading (I lost discipline) I had to move on to urgent tasks, but I did quickly type up what I had found.<br />
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These books are a terrible danger, time-wise.<br />
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<b>I became very friendly with Euphemia Lamb, whom I had first met in Paris when I was a child. She was then wearing a black velvet dress and it was a shock to see that she wore no corset or underclothes. Father may have been boasting when he later told me she had been his mistress. She came again into my life during the war and Father and I lunched with her at the Ritz. She was then always accompanied by a small, silent Russian Baron.</b><br />
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And:<br />
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<b>One hot summer afternoon I was passing the courtyard that leads to the stage-door of the London Palladium. Taking the air was a perfect specimen of manhood. Wearing a short white and gold tunic and breastplate, his magnificent brawny, brown body made him look to me like a Greek God. I was transfixed and willingly answered his call to have a chat, sitting with him on a prop basket. I told him a few things about myself and learned he was the principal dancer of the Marian Morgan Dancers from America. This meeting led to many experiments in the sexual sphere that could parallel Noel Coward’s Private Lives. He and his wife opened the door to a tumult of love-making and encouraged me to explore the many facets of sex: the one great gift nature has bestowed on all of us. They believed that the lack of courage to explore love-variations, caused the failure of many marriages. Their antidote was threesome, or ‘Chelsea Sandwich’, and I subsequently learnt that I was just one of many to have come between them.</b><br />
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And:<br />
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<b>According to his Swiss medical adviser, the formation of his body and skull was an exact physical reproduction of a renaissance nobleman, and when he first took up his appointment as Privy Chamberlain of the Cape and Sword at the Papal Court everyone was astonished by the way he seemed to know all the elaborate ritual and ceremonial as if from memory or instinct or both. He used to surround himself with beautiful things by Michelangelo, Donatelli and Leonardo da Vinci. He was a gourmet and a music lover. An example of his exotic life may be found in the circumstances of his succession to the title not long afterwards. He was in a New York millionaire’s yacht off Venezuela when Prince Paul of Greece heard the English wireless bulletin and informed him was now the new Welsh peer.</b><br />
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And:<br />
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<b>He was also a godfather thirty times over and a best man thirty-five times. Somehow he managed to remain a bachelor and become a wit. One of his phrases, ‘beetle off’, was, at my suggestion, adopted by PG Wodehouse.</b>Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-24809997239941053742015-03-06T14:05:00.001+00:002015-03-06T14:05:22.318+00:00damsel in distress<br />
<img alt="A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS" height="250" src="http://assets5.cft.org.uk/images/A_Damsel_in_Distress_media_54ef4f1dc787e.jpg" width="650" /><br />
Back. While I was away, Jeremy Sams and I quickly wrote a new version of this Wodehouse story, with Gershwin songs, and the marvellous Chichester Festival Theatre got wind of it and immediately decided to insert it into their summer programme, which is excellent.<br />
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Ho ho ho. But this show, which has been maturing like a very, very, very fine wine over the last few years, and of which I am inordinately proud, will finally see the light of day in the main house at Chichester, <a href="http://www.cft.org.uk/5341/A-DAMSEL-IN-DISTRESS/811">starting 30 May and running till 27 June</a>. It's a big theatre, so you can all come and I want you to.<br />
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This is not the last you will hear of it.Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-30726346183944740552015-02-07T17:38:00.000+00:002015-02-07T17:38:53.079+00:00gone fishingI'm off and about. See you in a bit.<br />
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But how can I buy old Mighty Fin shows like you periodically talk about? Er. For reasons not unconnected with future plans and comments from our various agents, it is deemed sensible not to rush things into the public domain.Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4720312218941349902.post-22393498987653149022015-02-05T12:30:00.003+00:002015-02-05T15:45:30.522+00:00the earl of qatar<div>
Just a snippet of <a href="http://www.dearmanmollett.id.au/Dearman_Mollett_Family/Kates_children.html">dead earl news</a>, because it's been a while:</div>
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<b>She was known as Irene - pronounced Irenee - and was an extremely vivacious woman. She is also the subject of one of the family legends. The legend has it that she married the 6th Earl of Craven on an impulse. He, having been in a drunken stupour at the time, woke up the next day realising what he had done and promptly left, although he left her pregnant. There is a modicum of truth to the story as this item in Time Magazine’s events page shows: “Marriage Revealed. William Robert Bradley, 21, orange-haired Sixth Earl of Craven; and Irene Meyrick, daughter of the late in-and-out-of-jail Mrs. Kate ("Queen of the London Night Clubs") Meyrick. The Earl's gallant, one-legged father caused a newspaper uproar in 1926 by eloping with another earl's wife, Countess ("Moral Turpitude") Cathcart.” </b></div>
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There's a lot more to this story, obviously - lots involves Vera Cathcart - <a href="http://articles.mcall.com/1990-12-31/features/2764281_1_countess-cathcart-scandal">in the year 1926, after the Teapot Dome oil scandal but before Lucky Lindy flew to Paris, she was the hottest news story in America.</a></div>
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If you read one thing about how the horrible Qataris bought the handball world cup, naturalised a load of players for money, do read this. Villainous Qataris and greedy sportocrats - hard to see what could go wrong. My favourite bit, for what it's worth:<br />
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<b>It was conspicuous that all the referee couples who have a reputation for being particularly capable of standing up to pressure were kept away from the games of Qatar in the ‘round of 16’, the quarterfinal and the semifinal. And in all cases, ‘less resistant’ referees were seen by neutral observers as having had a lot to do with the Qatari wins in very narrow games. In turn, Austria, Germany and Poland left the court fuming about mysterious decisions in critical moments, and also totally neutral observers found it to be a bit too much.</b></div>
Robert Hudsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12347761587707437261noreply@blogger.com0