Skyfall

Last night we went to see the latest Bond film had a meal in a Lebanese restaurant we like then went home to watch So You Think You Can Dance, a reality show that we all really enjoy. A good night all round, but this is about Bond.
One of the first films I ever saw was Thunderball. My half sister Ann took us (I think it was brother, sister and me, but it was a long time ago). I didn't understand it, but was wowwed by the action. I think I've seen every Bond since then. It's one of those things you do if you're British, isn't it? I couldn't tell you the plots of most of them, or even which actor played Bond in most of them.
Should you want to know, I never saw Roger Moore as Bond, he was just Simon Templer with a false passport.Pierce Brosnan was a good Bond and Sean Connery is the standard they all have to come up to, but most don't.
Daniel Craig has benefited from the Bond update and has a much better set of scripts to deal with. I think he's also much closer to what Fleming was writing about when he came up with the Bond character.
Anyway, on to the film. Midori and Aki went too. It was Aki's first Bond film, so she didn't have anything to compare it to. She found it too long, which I think was a thing about it. Not that I found it boring, or exactly agreed with her, but is was long enough that you could forget some of the bits that had gone before. So they were both amazed by the motorbike chase across the Grand Bazzar, they thought the 'changing carriages' scene on the train was amazing, they loved the Komodo dragons bit and Aki was waiting to see Craig do the line about his hobbies that she'd spotted in the trailer and tagged as cool. All of that they liked. By the end of the chase and the long set up for the defense of Skyfall, they'd forgotten most of that though and were ready for it to end.
I liked it all though.Javier Bardem is a brilliant villain - there aren't many who are that good at being bad. Daniel Craig I've admired since he played Geordie in Our Friends in the North years ago, even though I haven't seen all of the episodes. He's the model for Phoebe's dad in my sequel, where, like everything else there, he isn't all that he seems. I dunno about the 'best' Bond, but it was good.

In which I get to interview Gerald Lynch and live.

Not my writing, but no reason not to blog about it. Alexander McNabb, Dubai-ite and author, asked me to run up some interview questions for his character Lynch, the Northern Irish spy who is the hero of his new book Beirut. Always willing to help another author, I set to with the sewing machine and knocked off a few. This will take you to what he did with 'em. I think it brings out Lynch's character very well. I'm disappointed to discover that he's a man who will ruin a whiskey just to bully a poor English lecturer, but otherwise happy to have got out without being punched out.
I haven't seen the final edited version of the book, but if it cleaned up the way I think it might have, then it's a hell of a good read and one I'd recommend.

Iron Sky Review

Forgive me Blog, for I have sinned. It's been bloody ages since I last posted. Just not feeling like it really. No good excuse or reason for that. I do have things to write about. Having seen Iron Sky being just one of them.
Anyway, how was it? Answer, good. Maybe not great, but very enjoyable. A few of the gags were excellent (I really liked the speechwriter's tirade al la Der Untergang) and most were passible. I did like the special effects and I thought it was up there with Avengers (possibly better as I didn't like the way Avengers tended to smash action together so fast that some scenes left me dizzy). I took my daughter - Aki, who is 12 and she liked it too. She'd previously checked with her mate Felix (she's 12, more than mature enough to have a male friend who is just that) who reckoned it was good, but a bit 'B' movie. I think I'd generally agree with that. More because I would hate to seem more of a fanboy than a 12-year-old boy than because of anything that I disliked in it, though.
Anyway, well done Finland. First for making it and second for not having weaponised your satellites like everyone else (film in-joke). For anyone who has not seen the film yet, I'd definitely say go and watch, it's worth it. I'm waiting for the DVD to become available here and then I'm going to enjoy watching it again.

Only in the UAE

A pizza whose crust is stuffed with cheeseburgers. Living in the UAE is an experience that is likely to make you feel that food should be regulated perhaps even more that banks. Bankers are much more despicable, but they tend to do a lot of things with more taste than this.

As the article points out, this is only to be had in the UAE. It's up to Americans to ask if anyone else would have got on a plane and flown so far as to actually try it, rather than have got on a plane and flown the same distance to get away from it.
It's perhaps time to give out a recommendation for Bricco Cafe. It's in the Al Ain Mall, is (Paola Conte swears) completely authentic and (I swear) really good. They don't serve this, of course.

The Hunger Games Christopher Brauchli getting it badly wrong.

Christopher Brauchli

Christopher Brauchli is a columnist and lawyer known nationally for his work. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Colorado School of Law where he served on the Board of Editors of the Rocky Mountain Law Review. He can be emailed at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see his web page at http://humanraceandothersports.com

If you look here you can find an article by the above about The Hunger Games film. If you can't be bothered, he sums up his article with
There you have it and there’s no reason for you or your children to go see the movie. Just read them this column. It’s far less offensive than the movie.
To which I'd have to say bullshit.
I'd back this up by saying that the trilogy is a searing attack on a lot of elements of modern day life that get up my nose. One of them is the way that the poor are the main targets of the military for recruitment to go away and kill and be killed. Another is the obsession with 'Reality' TV and its suggestion that there is only winning and losing, only winners and losers.
I wrote an article recently on the change in the way universities are preparing students for by teaching them to co-operate in groups. This is because employers are finding that unis don't prepare kids for the real world where they have to work in teams to achieve objectives. Instead, they tend to prepare everyone to try to be an island. Everyone works by themselves, helping a friend is cheating, only one person gets to be the top student. Very much the Reality show approach.  Anyway, I don't agree with his points and this is what I wrote in reply.

Hunger Games for Dummies
Katniss is the STRONG Female lead. She looks after and
provides for her 12-year-old sister and is clearly established as a GOOD
PERSON. Her society takes 24 children every year and forces them to fight to
the death. The book and film take care to tell us that this is a BAD THING. (It’s
a bit like the Minotaur story, which was a cheap rip-off of a Central European
slasher story).
When Katniss’ younger sister is chosen to go to the games,
where she will clearly be killed by older teens - a BAD THING, Katniss
volunteers to go in her place. She is a VERY GOOD PERSON. Again, the book and
film make it clear – she isn’t going to kill, she’s trying to protect in the
only way open to her.
Her community of poor, oppressed coal-mining families is
encouraged to view this as a moment to CELEBRATE, but refuses to buy that line.
They bid her farewell in dignified silence. She reports herself as proud of
them for this, thus telling the reader that glorifying needless slaughter is
NOT A GOOD THING.
The other tribute is a boy who has a track record of taking
risks to help her when she has needed it in the past – he gave her bread when
she was starving. He is also a GOOD PERSON.  He tells her that he knows he is going to die,
but wants to find a way of showing that he doesn’t belong to the people who are
running this. He has to tell her this in private because it is a SUBVERSIVE
idea. The people who run this, do it to show that they have total control and
can make people jump through any hoop they want for their entertainment.
Before the games start, there is training. In this we find
that some of the other tributes are very keen to kill and win. To do that, they
would have to kill the GOOD PEOPLE, so we know they are BAD PEOPLE. One boy,
particularly, is very violent and stands out as NASTY.
Once the games start, Katniss just tries to stay alive. Since
people are trying to kill her she is placed on the HORNS OF A DILEMMA. She is
forced to take action that leads to the death of others.
She also teams up with a younger girl who is so CUTE that
you have to be a racist not to just love her on sight. It’s clear that Katniss
could kill this girl easily (she is a STRONG character), but doesn’t because
she is a GOOD PERSON and good people don’t take advantage like that.
When the young girl, Rue, is killed by others, Katniss
mourns her and bids her farewell in the same way her community did to her. This
is seen by people from the farming community Rue comes from and starts a riot. The
message is much clearer in the film – SOLIDARITY BETWEEN OPPRESSED PEOPLES IS A
POWERFUL ENGINE OF CHANGE.
The film goes further in making it clear that the powers
that be then try to spin things to make themselves look better and stop the
revolt spreading by declaring that there can be two winners. This is clearly a
CYNICAL thing because the boy from Katniss’ district has told everyone that he’s
in love with her. Love is a GOOD THING, but being cynical about it is not – ask
any teenage girl.
Near the end of the film, the very violent boy from the
training reappears. His girlfriend has been killed and he repents and disavows.
He recognizes that everything he was told about the GLORY and HONOUR due to
winners in this dog-eat-dog contest was a lie; a BIG LIE.
When only two are left, the powers change their minds and
declare that there can only be one winner, so that they will be forced to fight
and kill each other. Both refuse to do it and engage in the act of eating
poisonous berries as an ACT OF REBELLION, demonstrating to everyone that they
refuse to lay down their PRINCIPLES, even if it means death.
In summary, the way to TRUE GLORY is be GOOD PEOPLE. How? STICK
TO YOUR PRINCIPLES, CARE FOR OTHERS, SHOW RESPECT, HAVE SOLIDARITY, STICK IT TO
THE MAN.

Book Review - Stories We Keep by the Yoga As Muse Tribe

A very interesting little read this one.
I won this in a Goodreads giveaway and I'm glad I did.
The book is a collection of short stories (with two excerpts from books,)interviews with the writers of those stories and recipes for sweet potatoes.
The writing is captivating. Women's fiction is what I suppose it would be called. That's a genre I don't usually read, being a bloke and old, but the quality of the writing caught my interest.
I was also caught by the idea that links all of the stories. All of the writers are members of a group called Yoga as Muse. Being someone who has practised yoga (I still do, as my karate sensei approves of it) and writes, or tries to, I wanted to know more about how these two things go together.
In that, I found the writer interviews less illuminating than I'd have liked. I don't think that is a major fault - I don't believe you could get so much information into such a small book and fit the stories and the recipes as well.
I'll chase down the websites they give and read more on the yoga as muse concept there. The recipes? Okay. I'd simply search Google if I really wanted them, but I do quite like the idea of mixing them up with the stories. I enjoy cooking and talking about it, so it's a thing that chimes with me.
Overall, the stories are things I will come back to. Several of them are the type that rewartd a second read with more than you saw the first time. The recipes are things I might try in the kitchen and the interviews will get me to read more on websites. Yeah, three out of three ain't bad.

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Book Review - Demoniac Dance by Jaq D Hawkins.

I read a review copy of this that I'd been sent by the author. Let's be honest, on looking at the blurb, I was wondering if saying I'd review had been a good idea. It wasn't long though before I realized that there is much more to this story than meets the eye.
The first clue is that the writing is good. It never drops below polished and competent, but it has passages where it really shines. The initial description of Namah's flight from her village early in the morning when she runs away from the marriage that has been arranged for her is captivating and pushed me to read on.
I found out that this world is a post-apocalyptic one (this may be a spoiler, though I don't think so – I've come to this as the second book in a series and don't know what was revealed in the first). There are goblins in this tale, but they are descended from humans. They have powers which seem magical, but they aren't the Harry Potter style of magic that I find hard to accept.
The goblins are very easy to believe as another species, related to humans, but culturally as well as physically different. Their lifestyle and customs are well imagined and give evidence of a lot of very serious world building.
I found myself warming to this as I read on. There are battle sequences that read like warfare should – in my opinion anyway. There are people who have conflicting desires and motivations for their behavior. That's good – all the real ones that I've met usually have those.
There is good politics between the different factions and believable behavior from the magical beasts.
The only thing that I found lacking is perhaps a feature of me coming into a series late, or maybe a thing that the author didn't want to reveal yet because the series is not finished. There is quite a lot in the story that shows its world to be linked to ours. I found myself really wanting to know more about the links, to know how this world came about.
I can understand that that isn't a project of any of the people in the story, but I found I wanted it to be. I want them to want to know how their world came into being. I want to know how magic came into this world and the only way I felt I'd find out was if they decided that they wanted that too. Perhaps this will happen in the next part of the story.
At the end of this part, I wasn't sure about that and that is the reason why this got four stars from me rather than five. That might be a bit mean, but I'd been enthralled by the concept and wanted to know how it worked out. When I got to the end of the story and found that there wasn't a clear sign that I'd ever know, I felt a bit let down. With luck, the answer comes in the next part of the tale. For certain I'd read the next book to find out if it answers my questions and probably the first to see what it adds to my understanding of this world.
Definitely it’s a book to read. The imagination is captivating and a lot of strands of story-telling are woven together skillfully. I'm sure if I go back to it, I'll find things that I overlooked the first time. I hope that if I go on with it, it will lead me to a world of magic that I can understand and accept.

Book Review Walker by Jane Alexander

I like the fact that the author tells you most of this is based on her studies of shamanism. I don't honestly care, though. This is a work of fantasy that I'd got for my 12-year-old daughter and then decided to read while she was off on a school trip. I really like that this is a world of magic that owes nothing to JK Rowling or anyone else. I love the fairie folk and the fact that they'd spit in your eye then punch a hole in the wall right through you. There are a huge list of creatures that fascinate in this. The imagination is excellent. And that's before you get to the characters. Good, strong and very real people populate the book and keep you reading to the end. The settings, though, are really what impress me most. I swear that Neil Gaiman will be jealous of the idea of the plastic hell.
Hunter is a teenage American boy who finds out after his parents die that he is a shaman. He goes to stay with his grandmother in the UK and begins to find out that the world is not nearly the way he thought it was. He is led by a young girl, Rowan, to meet with his spirit animal and to survive attempts to kill him.
The book is very suitable for teens, but I'm 53 and enjoyed it too. You can find it here.

Book Review Die a Dry Death - Greta Van De Rol

Beautifully realised account of a true story. The story of the wreck of the Dutch ship, the Batavia, is a true one. Ms Van de Rol has clearly researched not only widely, but very well to be able to retell it as she does. It's not just that the clothing and equipment used are correct, but that the atitudes of the people are of their time. Social differences are so important as to be defining, torture is regarded as a way to the truth, the fact that one of the main characters does not believe in Hell makes his actions justifiable to himself and (in a way) comprehensible to his fellows - he was clearly in a pact with the devil that he didn't believe in. The characters in the book are skillfully writtten and brilliantly concieved. Each one is consistently themselves, so, while they only do what they (historically) did, their motivations for their actions convince. All are fully rounded, with a full ration of human contradiction, though. The villain, Cornelisz, is a cold-blooded manipulator, who never kills another, but has no trouble in getting others to do it for him. He insists on seducing the Lady Lucretia rather than forcing her, however. She, in turn, beds with him to save her life, but suffers guilt over the fact that his love making stirs her more than her husband's ever did. Every part of this book worked for me perfectly, especially the ending, which is Ms Van de Rol's own convincing speculation on events which history does not record.

Iron Sky

I haven't seen this film. I probably won't get the chance to. I am already convinced that's my loss. Iron Sky is a comedy about a gang of Nazis who escaped to the Moon at the end of WW2 using anti-gravity technology. They decide to invade the Earth when President Sarah Palin restarts the space programme and lands another tin box on the Moon right by the base.
It's made by Finns (this is a purely good thing), was made on a church mouse budget - I really think they had to pass round the hat to raise the cash for it - and they seem to have used imagination rather than cash.
You can find the trailer here and can petition to have it shown in your area here.
If you do get to see it, please don't forget to tell me how it was.