Breathin' more easily

Off this afternoon to see The Proposition with Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone and Emily Watson, with a script by noneother than Nick Cave. Although set in a raw and brutal colonial period Australia it has much of the Western genre about it, albeit the more violent, dirtier and grittier Westerns which descend from Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch on through Unforgiven. It is an interesting contrast of family values (three of the outlaws are brothers) and loyalty versus dreadful crimes such as murder and rape, the stunning sunsets over the deserts of Australia versus the filth of the frontier town (which is supposedly representing 'civilisation' coming to this land, although since this take the form of government forces murdering Abrogines the viewer is left wondering who, if anyone, is civilised here). Despite colours of the outback however the film I was most reminded of was another low budgt Indy Western movie, the black and white Johnny Depp movie Dead Man. Like Dead Man is has an unusual and cool soundtrack, some beautiful visuals, an unusual take on life and scenes of scenic grandeur suddenly punctuated by brutal and bloody violence.

Wandered down to my local watering hole at the Caley on the way home (got to replenish my fluids after yesterday's blood donation you know) to enjoy a couple of nice afternoon pints and a quiet read (Adam Roberts' new book Gradisil, quite excellent so far - you can read what Adam himself said about it over on the FPI blog). Always something nice about being off and just sitting in a pub in the middle of the day, occassionally glancing out the windows and watching the world go by. And it is so much better now there are no bloody smokers in the pub! The ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces came in to effect in Scotland on Sunday, which means I can now enjoy a drink in the pub and come home without smelling like an old bloody ashtray from second hand smoke.

Before any smokers start on about how this law is cruel to them and denies them their right to choose can I just say blow it out your bum. I'm generally all for indulging vices but smoking around other people is such a damned selfish thing to to. Some smokers I know have tried the old chestnut about personal choice, their point being if I don't want to breathe second hand smoke and stink like an old packet of Malrboroughs then I shouldn't go into the pub, but I chose to go there so should put up with it. Excuse me, but I chose to go to the pub to enjoy a chat with mates and a DRINK, not to be gassed to bloody death by a minority of folks who don't care about what their habit is doing to other people. They had the choice to go to the pub or not too and they had the choice of lighting up or not, so actually smokers had two choices (until Sunday).

Now, I delight in pointing out to those same folks the exact same argument they used on me - hey, you can choose to go to the pub or not, so your choice and mine are both available. And you can still light up if you choose, you just can't do it inside, but if you are so pathetically addicted that you would rather stand outside for ten minutes in the cold and rain having a fag than be inside a warm pub chatting to your friends then that too is your choice - get your cancer-causing breath out of my face and stop whining about it. You had decades of being able to inflict your habit on other people against their wishes, even though you know it is not only disgusting it actually physically harms people, so don't complain about restriction of choices now.

Maybe we should just have a Smokatorium like they did in the early Judge Dredd strips - smoking is illegal everywhere (even your home) in Mega City One except the Smokatorium, a huge dome full of so many smokers that you need to wear a helmet with a special filter on it for your ciggy to go through. When Dredd catches two kids smoking on the streets rather than lock them up he sentences them to two minutes in the Smokatorium without helmets. Kids are put off for life. A good shock tactic to get folk off smoking was used by my old BB captain back in the 80s. his two boys took up smoking and he knew there was no point telling a 20-year old guy he is wrong because he won't listen. So he calls in a favour from a police mate, who gets him and the lads into a police pathology lab where they saw a post-mortem during which the pathologist gleefully removed the lungs from the cadaver who had been a heavy smoker and showed them to the boys. Once they got through puking they found they had lost any notion of smoking.

I also recall some show which was either one of the newer Twilight Zone or Outer Limits shows or something in a similar vein which had a guy attempting to kick the habit with little success. He turns finally to some sort of therapy which turns out to be run by mobsters, who monitor him all the time. When he has a crafty drag when he thinks no-one is watching he gets kidnapped and bundled into a room with a large window through which he can see his wife who has also been snatched. She is barefoot on a wire mesh floored room which then has an electric current put through it, a new take on aversion therapy. I wish I could remember what that show was and how it ended now - anyone remember that one?


Movie fest

So far I've only been to see three movies on my week off (Mel and I caught Spike Lee's new movie - joint as he calls them - Inside Man on Sunday which I thought looked awful in the trailers but was actually a brilliant heist film), although I reckon I need to see Eli Roth's new horror flick tomorrow - his last, Cabin Fever, was terrific fun; not exactly original as such, but great to see a proper nasty horror flick again, but I have been catching up on some DVDs, enjoying some good late night film fun. I got partially into the Indy Western mood for today's outing to The Proposition by rewatching Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark, one of the few combinations of the Western and the Vampire genres and one I've loved for years (please, Kathryn, make another movie soon), especially enjoyable as it is the special edition with a good documentary with most of the cast as well as Kat herself; Lance Henriksen's anecdotes about the making of the movie were especially amusing.

I've been on a bit of a vampire-themed DVD jag actually; apart from Near Dark I had an urge to rewatch Neil Jordan's lush adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire (ah, the old days when Anne still wrote good books), then Coppola's Dracula (Keanu's accent is still hilarious but has Winona ever looked more gorgeously biteable than in that red, Victorian dress and long dark hair?) then the original Tod Browning 1930s Dracula, which despite its classic status is a terribly static film, largely saved by some intersting design (the Count's castle) and, of course, Bela Lugosi's hypnotic performance. The incredibly cool series Ultraviolet demanded to be watched once more as well too, then I think it is back to the 30s again for a double bill set I was given with Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein together this evening. When I was doing my interview for Radio Scotland about V For Vendetta the other week the interviewer commented she was very impressed by how well Hugo Weaving acted through a mask.

She was correct, but it is hardly something new - look at Karloff in Jack Pierce's incredible make-up in the Frankensetin movies (make-up which created an iconic look everyone now recognises even if they have never viewed the films) and the sheer humanity he invests in the monster through all of those prostethics ("We belong dead."). And even earlier than this in the 20s was Lon Chaney Senior (who would have been Dracula but he died unexpectedly and the role passed to an Eastern European actor called Bela Lugosi) - anyone who has watched his performance in the amazing silent version of Phantom of the Opera will probably agree with me (famously he created some of the make-up effects himself, including painful rings inside his nose to create the effect that his nose had rotted off).

In more recent years both Brent Spiner and Rene Auberjonois in and Star Trek the Next GenerationDeep Space Nine respectively gave wonderful performances not only through their heavy masks of make-up but often made the mask a part of the performance (something Japanese theatre actors would understand). And of course a good actor is always acting through some form of mask - even in a film where they are not in special make-up and the face looks like their own, the good actor, through a thousand tiny non-verbal signals, creates the illusion of their face being not their own but that of their character, unlike a star who is really just themselves in every film. V himself addresses the issue of the mask directly in the film, when he tells Evey that yes, of course there is a face beneath that mask, but it is not him, any more than the muscles below that skin are him or the bones are really him. We all wear masks of one sort or another although they may portray aspects of us, they are not actually us. But it does give me a good excuse to quote Tori Amos' Happy Phantom from the Little Earthquakes album:

And if I die today I'll be the happy phantom
And I'll go chassin' the nuns out in the yard
And I'll run naked through the streets without my mask on
And I will never need umbrellas in the rain
I'll wake up in strawberry fields every day
And the atrocities of school I can forgive
The happy phantom has no right to bitch
oo who
The time is getting closer
oo who
Time to be a ghost
oo who
Every day we're getting closer
The sun is geting dim
Will we pay for who we been

So if I die today I'll be the happy phantom
And I'll go wearin' my naughties like a jewel
They'll be my ticket to the universal opera
There's Judy Garland taking Budda by the hand
And then these seven little men get up to dance
They say Confucius does his crossword with a pen
I'm still the angel to a girl who hates to sin

oo who
The time is getting closer
oo who
Time to be a ghost
oo who
Every day we're getting closer
The sun is geting dim
Will we pay for who we been

Or will I see you dear and wish I could come back
You found a firl that you could truly love again
WIll you still call for me when she falls asleep
Or do we soond forget the things we cannot see

oo who
The time is getting closer
oo who
Time to be a ghost
oo who
Every day we're getting closer
The sun is geting dim
Will we pay for who we been

Kaloogian the Lying Klown

A Republican Congressional candidate with the unlikely name of Howard Kaloogian has been caught out by bloggers for indulging in the same sort of misleading (or what most of us would consider downright fibbing really) propoganda masquerading as fact which US and UK governments used to justify the war in the first place. As right wing nutters are wont to do , he rubbished media coverage of the violence in Iraq and produced a photograph of downtown Baghdad to illustrate how peaceful it actually is. Except resourceful bloggers identified the picture as being downtwon Istanbul in Turkey, which the unfortunately named Kaloogian has now admitted, but of course, he personally didn't have anything to do with it being posted on his campaign site, even although he used it to demonstrate how peaceful he found Baghdad... Draw your own conclusions, but is it a surprise to find a politician - or even a wannabe politician - is somewhat economical with the truth.

Poled

According to the Edinburgh Evening news around 20, 000 Polish folks have taken advantage of EU membership to move into the city to work in the last ten months, which is an awful lot of people in a pretty small city. Which may expain why I've gone from seeing one car with Polish plates on it in my street (usually incredibly badly parked) to numerous cars with Polish plates round town. Not to mention hearing more folks wandering around talking Polish - especially in Lidl where you can do your entire grocery shopping without actually hearing anyone speak English. I don't mean that as anything bad, just an observation since Lidl - at least the one nearest me - seems to be constantly full of migrant workers or foreign students shopping and I have literally gone right round it without hearing English spoken until I got to the checkout, where there was English, albeit it rather accented. The fun of the melting pot society!

Thanks to multiculturalism I can listen to couples arguing over which breakfast cereal they prefer in ten languages. I am intrigued by the Polish deli which opened recently but have no idea what Polish delicacies they sell and if they are suitable for veggies - guessing a lot of it probably isn't. I do wonder at the double standards of society though - can you imagine the outcry if 20000 Asian or coloured folks settled in Edinburgh? Funny how one kind of immigration is fine and others draw flak, when at the end of the day most are here to do jobs we either have a skills gap for in Scotland or to do something no Scot wants to work at, but still the colour of the skin on an immigrant affects how people see them.


Bang goes the ball

Bus drivers back from their one day strike which forced us to cancel the book club last night (thank you, LRT, so nice to have you out on strike again so soon after your strikes last year too - do I get a credit on my bus pass for that day??) heading into town this afternoon to go to the blood donor clinic and I can see on the busy main road ahead a bunch of idiots in sports clothing arseing around with a football. Bouncing it off the walls (which just happen to be people's apartments) and just missing the windows, laughing I wait for one of them to do the inevitable and let the ball go off the pavement into the traffic. Of course it does happen and one of the aforementioned eejits runs right out into a main road to retrieve his ball, naturally without actually looking.

Barely back on the pavement he demonstrates his cranial capacity for learning from stupid mistakes by doing exactly the same again but this time as he jumps right into the road he hears the bus approaching and jumps back. Luckily for his stupid ass the bus driver was watching and had obviously figured this was going to happen and had slowed down. From the top deck I can see the ball now rolling right into traffic, bus driver tries to avoid it but a double decker isn't built for sudden turns and suddenly there is an almighty BANG as the big wheels go over the ball. The idiots, all red faces and shaved heads, howl abuse and gesticulate at the bus because obviously it is the driver's fault that they were so reckless and stupid (maybe he should have run over the guy instead). And no, this wasn't a bunch of 12 year olds, they were all grown men in their late 20s or early 30s by the looks of it. Needless to say after watching their antics I laughed out loud when their ball got burst.

More photo fun - abandoned church

This sad-looking abandoned church is right by the canal side, in a strange location, being behind the gardens at the rear of blocks of Victorian tenement flats rather than actually on a road. I have no idea what it was called, when it was built or when it was closed down. I wonder if it was originally open to the street and then the tenements sprung up around it afterwards in the 19th century? I'm not religious, but it is rather sad to see it in this bricked up state with what looks like junk from old cafes lying around it when once upon a time it would have been a place where the community came together. Mind you, if you had plenty of money to spare you could convert it into an incredibly cool designer home right by the waterfront.

Photo fun

The first day in a week when it hasn't been pouring with rain, so on the way back from donating blood I walked along the canal and played around with the camera. Actually on the blood donation front, they actually phoned me because they were running short on my particular blood group and needed more ASAP, so if any of you have been thinking about donating some of the red stuff, or you used to but kind of slipped out of the habit it looks like they could really use it and it would be a good time to start. Half an hour sitting on my Magnificent Celtic Ass donating a pint makes a change from me sitting on my Magnificent Celtic Ass drinking a pint. And there's always a choccy biccy at the end of it :-) Now having completed my good deed for the week I can dedicate the remains of my week off to my evil plans for world domination.





















These are all bits of the Leamington Lift Bridge on the canal where it comes right into the middle of Edinburgh. As part of the regeneration of the canal it has been restored to working order and rises up to let barges through so if you are having a break on one you can tie up your holiday barge only a few minutes walk from the Castle.

















A couple of handsomely painted barges are moored at the basin at the end of the canal at Tollcross all the time now, so it looks like some people are not just visiting on their break but actually living on them, which is pretty cool. I wonder, if I sold my flat at the inflated Edinburgh prices how much would it give me to buy a cool barge instead, live on it like MacLeod did in the Highlander TV series. Of course, I might blow any profit from the sale on swimming lessons and kitty-sized inflatable vests for the cats. Still a lot of work going on on both sides of the end of the canal where old brownfield sites are being reclaimed and turned into apartments and offices. Getting nicer already - in another couple of years it will look even better. The huge brownfield site of the old S&N brewery nearby is all due to be redeveloped too, which isn't going to hurt the value of my humble dwelling either and certainly make the whole area look a lot better.

"Long live the knife"

The BB of C's website has an interesting article on the 18th and 19th century castrati singers of Italy, where at one point some 4, 000 boys were being castrated to protect their singing voices from breaking in later life, which is a lot of balls. There is even an online file of a very old gramaphone recording from 1902 of one of the last of the castrati (not Farinelli, made famous to more mdoern audiences by the movie a few years ago though).

I'm not sure, but it sounds like the one that Arman Leroi played in the Channel 4 series Human Mutants when he was discussing how hormones - or the lack of them - affect the development of the human body. Castrati, like the eunuchs of the Imperial Court in China, were often preternaturally tall and thin with limbs out of proportion to their bodies due to the lack of testosterone and other hormones telling their bones when to cease growing. Leroi's award-winning book Mutants also has a section on the subject as well as a range of fascinating although often disturbing (but never ghoulish, always addressed with respect for humanity) examinations of human development - my old review of the book is still on the Alien Online here.

Yesterday's Science Fiction, tomorrow's Science Fact

The digest from the latest issue of New Scientist has an interesting article from Ian Stewart (not sure if this is the same Ian Stewart who has done much to make science accessible and fun with books such as The Science of the Discworld or not) where NASA engineers discussing the easiest ways to travel through space are drawing on science fiction, arguing it is easier to travel by tube. The article draws on the old - EE Doc Smith - and the contemporary writers - the quite excellent Peter F Hamilton - to discuss creating wormhole networks not for transporter beams or starships but for a form of trains.

Peter had a wormhole-train network in his recent two-part tale Pandora's Star and the sequel Judas Unchained (both huge tomes as Peter's books often are and both excellent as Peter's books usually are), marrying 19th century technology with the far future as people moved from one side of a planet or across entire star systems by going to the station and boarding a large train which would then pass through a wormhole gate and pull into a station at the destination world. No rockets, no warp drive, no deflector screens to protect from radiation and micro-meteorites. Mind you, neither the SF or the NASA engineers mention the trains running late and the staff walking out on strike, so you can tell we are still in the realms of fiction for the moment.