I saw a great film on Saturday. It wasn’t Lions for Lambs. No. While Robert Redford’s War on Terror film touched some interesting ideas – political discourse, the role of the media, and where your average Joe America fits into the big picture – it treated them in an insultingly facile manner.
If you’re interested in these themes, you will have thought about them beyond what this film shows you. Flick on the news and you can see that politicians are smarmy and calculating, that big television networks consider that reading out government press releases constitutes broadcasting news, and that despite its billions spent on defence the US ain’t making much progress in Afghanistan.
And if you’re not interested in these ideas… well then you’re probably not about to run out and see the film, are you?

In compensation for Redford’s film being so disappointingly weak, we headed for FNAC in search of Michael Mann’s The Insider. It took a while to track it down – over here they call it El Dilema – but it was worth the wait. I recommend you hire the DVD, and leave Lions for Lambs till it comes out on free-to-air TV and you can be bothered taking the time to set the video.

Bisher al-Rawi was a UK-based informant for the MI5. As a way of saying thanks for all the hard work he put into liaising with and providing information on people under watch, the agency forwarded incorrect information to the CIA, and al-Rawi was kidnapped, put in nappies and a blindfold, strapped to a stretcher, and flown to Guantánamo bay. For a bit of variety the CIA threw in a three month stopover in a “Dark Prison” in Afghanistan where the only light he saw was the occasional dim beam from the guard’s torch and it was so cold he could feel ice crystals forming in his drinks.

We’ve heard about the horrors of Guantánamo Bay and the CIA’s black sites, but the level of official complicity seen in al-Rawi’s case is astounding. al-Rawi’s arrest was due to the MI5 deliberately passing on completely false information to the CIA, according to the Observer article which broke the story on Sunday. Read the rest of this article »

A while ago in Spanish class we got chatting with the teacher about Spanish attitudes towards the Royal Family. Some students remarked on the overwhelmingly positive coverage of the monarchs in gossip rags: the press gushes over them in a way completely foreign to the snarky tabloids in Britain, for example. Our teacher explained that it was in line with Spanish attitudes: that the public loves the royals and just wouldn’t tolerate criticism of them.

More specifically, as it turns out, it’s the police who won’t tolerate criticism – or even mickey-taking – of them. Recently a judge ordered all copies of the weekly satirical magazine El Jueves to be seized by police. The issue featured a tasteful cartoon of the Prince and Princess engaging in an act generally glossed over in fairy tales, with the Prince remarking that, due to a new initiative to pay couples to have children, if the Princess got pregnant, then this would be the closest he’d ever come to actually doing work. Read the rest of this article »

I’m seeing London through new eyes since I’ve been back. The thing that has struck me the most is the omnipresent environmental awareness: it almost makes me feel a little out-hippied at times.

Carbon footprints and organics are not topics left for soap-dodging Marxist vegetarians to rant about – environmental affairs are so mainstream that huge companies like Marks and Spencers or Sky Television advertise their commitment to ecological principles. Seeing the packaging-heavy programme for the recent Diana tribute concert, a genuinely concerned Prince Harry leaned over to an aide and asked: “What happened to saving the planet?”

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Hugo Chávez knows how to piss people off. He gets his kicks out of winding up Bush administration, implementing policies contrary to US interests and crossing himself in front of the UN General Assembly after calling Bush the Devil. It’s all rather humorous, and generally I’ve admired his courage for introducing many policies. Anti-yank sentiment can be a big vote winner, but it’s one for trapeze artists: most Latin American countries have a difficult job untangling themselves from Uncle Sam’s sticky – and less than altruistic – fingers.
But, as they say, it’s all fun and games till someone loses a broadcast licence.
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Paul Wolfowitz is a good man who is passionate about the plight of poor people in the world.

So said White House Spokesman Tony Fratto.
It’s quite true. Wolfowitz was clearly very concerned about his poor girlfriend’s miserable 130k salary.

Things got a little out of hand at one of my occasional haunts over the long weekend. Police and drunk, bored kids generally make a recipe for trouble, and trouble it was: the news has been filled with great (by which I mean “highly newsworthy”) pictures of flaming piles of rubbish and cops charging around in fluorescent jackets. Thankfully I’m telling this second-hand. I was busy dodging my students at a club in another part of the city and stayed well away from the action. Read the rest of this article »

The first thing I saw was the crowd surging forward towards me, everyone sprinting in a panic away from Sol. Was there an errant car careering down the pedestrian street? Or, god forbid, a bomb? (Unfortunately it’s a possibility in the back of many people’s minds as local elections approach in this country with an active local terrorist organisation.)

Then I realised that it wasn’t the whole crowd that was fleeing for its life, just young black men carrying white sacks. They’d had pirated DVDs, imitation designer handbags, belts, wallets and sunglasses spread out for sale on a white sheet, had yoinked up the corners to make a sack and were running with their wares as fast as they could at the first sign of the authorities.

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So I tried chorizo the other day. As a vegetarian for the past seven years, this was, shall we say, quite a strange experience. The occasion was my Spanish teacher’s birthday: she brought some chorizo to share with the class, in line with the custom here of giving, rather than receiving, on your birthday. Initially I abstained, but as she told us about the origins of the food I started thinking. And as the rest of the class tried not to spit out their mouthfuls at the teacher’s description of collecting the blood shooting from the pig’s neck, I sadistically reached for a taste.

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You can’t miss the electric billboard on the highway out of Madrid: “110 PEOPLE DIED LAST EASTER”, it says in big yellow letters. The New Zealand Land Transport Safety Authority’s road safety campaigns are pretty hard hitting, on the whole. But the Spanish versions go straight to the point. None of these carefully directed TV ads showing horrific injuries, or catchy slogans about bloody idiots; just the big numbers for all drivers to see as they flee the city before one of the country’s biggest holidays.  Certainly got my attention.