It Is Wrong To Deify The Armed Forces

It seems to me, in recent years - or at least I've only just begun to notice it - that our boys in Afghanistan and elsewhere have been deified as faultless, self-sacrificing heroes. I feel this is a fallacy. Before I continue I must assert that I do genuinely have great respect for those that choose to put their lives on the line to try and secure the safety of others, and what I am going to write next should not been taken to be dismissal of those who don't make it back to these shores alive. I know people in the army, and I know people who have been affected by the death of friends on duty.

"We believe that anyone who volunteers to serve in time of war, knowing that they may risk all, is a hero. These are ordinary people doing extraordinary things and some of them are living with the consequences of their service for life. We may not be able to prevent our soldiers from being wounded, but together we can help them get better."

Help for Heroes

These sentiments are all in the best possible faith but it is disingenuous to describe Britain as being 'in a time of war'. We are at war, but the war in Afghanistan is not a total war like the World Wars; the safety of Britain isn't under threat. Those guys that fought in WWI and its sequel are heroes because the safety of Britain and her allies were under serious threat. Iraq and Afghanistan are wars of foreign policy, closer to imperialism than defence of the realm. Because of this, a modern-day soldier does not have the same chime of heroism. A role in the army in 2011 is a job in the most mundane sense of the word, rather than a duty or an act of 'volunteer[ing]' that the Help for Heroes blur speaks of. Strictly speaking, if HfH were to help just the volunteers, then it would have a very minor task indeed. The position of army serviceman is a job that may require self-sacrifice, but it is in pursuit of money rather than as the sole defenders of a nation.

This is not an attack on Help for Heroes; those guys that come back from a warzone infirm of mind and/or body do need the extra help, and I've read various articles outlining the poor treatment they received from whichever branch of the Armed Forces they fought under. No, rather this written against the 'hero' assumption, the assumption that putting one's life on the line makes one worthy of the tag of  'hero'. I haven't got the statistics for the British Armed forces, but the American Armed Forces suffers a casualty rate of 27 per 10 000, in comparison with the American logging industry that suffers 11.7 per 10 000. The death rate in the army is just 2.3 times higher than in the lumberjacking business. Does anyone claim lumberjacks to be heroes just because there is worryingly high mortality-rate? No, because chopping down trees is not romanticised in the same way that 'fighting for one's country' is, whatever that means.

Adorning soldiers with the ‘hero’ tag has further implications than just creating a false sense of valour. By creating such a romanticised view of the army, more young men are encouraged to join despite the very real threat of serious bodily harm, or even death. A more realistic outlook needs to be taken. Like the men of the middle ages that journeyed to far-flung climes in search of fabled treasure, our modern day perspective of the army is similarly distorted, if not to the same extent. The horrors that a soldier is likely to experience is overruled by the heroic image that the armed forces still carry.

It’s also interesting that the ‘hero’ tag has survived the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, despite the various documented abuses carried out by British and American soldiers. None of these seem to dent its image. I think the hero defence wilts when it goes up against hard evidence with the soldiers in question disgraced, but since these abusive acts are far from the norm, the hero tag absolved the army as a whole.

Band Awareness #3 - Box Codax

Among my favourite bands, Franz Ferdinand are among the most frustrating. Their debut is one of the best albums ever made; their second and third albums have islands of excellence amid fairly average surrounding songs. After each successive album release I have to wait an age in anticipation of what I hope to be the band's redemption. With the fourth album having an incredibly vague release date of some point, eventually, perhaps I'd all but given up hope.

Then I discovered that album to fill the Franz Ferdinand-shaped hole, and it comes from none other than Nick McCarthy, FF's guitarist. His band, Box Codax, are brilliant and virtually unknown. I've complied a crash course for your aural entertainment, courtesy YouTube.

Dawning: an acoustic version of Seven Silvers that's even better than the original.


Choco Pudding: There is a general trend running throughout Box Codax videos - they're all mad.


I Won't Come Back: featuring - a cat; a creepy Leonardo Di Caprio lookalike; suits.


Hellabuster: more silliness, this time on a mountainside


I'll stop there, but I think most of their songs are on YouTube.

Okay, there's only the barest hint of Franz Ferdinand in there, but that's more or less an irrelevance because the songs stand up so well by themselves. The album is called Hellabuster, and it's a cracker. Anyway, with the songs above there's not much left for me to say, enjoy xoxoxoxo


P.S Band Awareness #3? What happened to #1 and #2 I hear you ask. I decided that the Detektivbyran post from earlier in the year and Everything Everything post from last year constitute parts 1 and 2.

On reviews of "The Guard"

I was bored earlier, so I checked out reviews of The Guard online to see how they compared with mine. Turns out, mine is almost identical to Peter Bradshaw's in the Guardian. And Kim Newman's in Empire. And Tim Robey and Jenny McCartney's in the Independent. And almost every other reviewer out there.

Apparently, there is only one way to review this film (even though the scores span three to five stars). It has to be positive (95% on RT, and the few negative reviews are actually just sitting on the fence and don't reach any real conclusion. One even has the line "I'm not really quite sure what to make of "The Guard". Americans.); there are a lot of similarities to In Bruges, only In Bruges is better; Brendan Gleeson is excellent; the Irish racism bit has to be mentioned. Cut, paste, file.

Why is it that at least 60% of every review (and I'm moving on from simply The Guard here) is just synopsis? People watch the trailer to get an idea of what it's about; the reviewers job is to assess it. I've read reviews where the entire thing is synopsis, with one line of appraisal thrown in at the end. Awful.

The Guard: Review

Synopsis: A $500'000 (that's half a billion!) cocaine shipment is due to arrive somewhere near Galway in Ireland, bringing with it FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) and a gang of crims to disturb Gerry Boyle's (In Bruges' Brendan Gleeson) quiet life of being a rule-ignoring policeman.

When I write reviews I try and avoid trotting out the same key discussion points that most tend to flag up, but even though I go into writing this review having not read a single one, I can say with assurance that nearly all of them will mention its companion piece, In Bruges. The director of The Guard is Irishman John Michael McDonagh, brother of Martin McDonagh. Those who know me will know that In Bruges is my all-time favourite film, so I went into The Guard with expectations sky-high.

I'll get to whether it met said expectations shortly, but one thing I wasn't expecting is just how incredibly similar the two films are. Mimicking the directors, they could be siblings; outwardly different, but dig a little and they are comparable at nearly every level. Plotting and structure are the same; humour is pitched in a similar manner; both are bold, bright and gorgeous to look at; the main characters all have relatives across the celluloid divide; etc. etc. etc. Also, happily, in terms of quality they are comparable too, although In Bruges is still by far the superior film. If you like In Bruges, stop reading and just go and see it*.

One difference, however, is the centrality of the main character, Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson). The Guard revolves solely around him, whereas in In Bruges Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson take equal importance. Boyle is brilliant, he's vulgar, racist (in one great moment his racist attitudes are made easier to swallow when he voices assumption that all Irish people are racist, and it's therefore excusable. Boyle is as Irish as they come), hostile towards rules and regulations and he gleefully indulges his many vices; but he loves his ma, he allegedly came fourth in the 1500m freestyle at the Seoul Olympics (Wikipedia backs him up!)  and has a well-buried moral compass. We're happy to root for him though, mostly because he's Brendan Gleeson and he's just so huggable. In short, he holds the film together, and does so excellently.

In Bruges' plotting follows the characters and wanders off to do some sightseeing of its own, only occasionally flitting back to the core narrative, and it's the same here. Much of the film is just spent mining the dynamic between Boyle and Everett for laughs. Unfortunately The Guard is always amusing but rarely hilarious, and it maintains the lighthearted tone even when it feels like it needs to be serious. Boyle for some reason just isn't phased whatsoever that he's about to go up against some armed drug-dealers, including the bad guy of the piece, a world-weary drug-smuggler (the ever-excellent Mark Strong). His determined defence of Ireland should feel heroic, but it's played for laughs and doesn't quite work. The firefight itself is similarly silly and is one of the more bizarrely unrealistic fights I've seen. That wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the film wasn't grounded in something approaching the real world; characters can shoot straight and act rationally, but right at the end that goes out the window, and it jars slightly.

That said, the positives far outweigh the negatives. The Guard is entertaining and has a crock o' gold heart, with a cast of real quality that carries it over the uneven patches. It'sIn Bruges' little brother, and that's no bad thing.


*Good fackin' luck! Retarded distribution means you'll have to dig pretty deep to find a showing. Harbour Lights only got it a good two weeks after it cropped up elsewhere.

A Short Story

So begins a heartbreaking tale of unrequited love, broken promises and mistaken identity. 


"Will you go out with me?"

"No"

"But you promised!"

"I thought you were someone else."

Fin

Rebranding the FA Cup

No one cares about the FA cup any more. As nice a change as it was, there is no way Cardiff and Portsmouth (twice) should have reached the FA Cup Final; nor, in all honesty, should Stoke. Manchester United haven't won it since 2004, and suffer regular giant killings. Even the small clubs don't seem to treat it with much respect, often fielding weak teams in order to prop up their domestic campaign.

The FA Cup is branded as The World's Oldest Cup Competition. Who gives a rat's ass? The Premier League and the Champion's League both dominate the club scene. History doesn't matter if the present doesn't matter. It needs a re-branding.

Instead of the The World's Oldest Cup Competition, the FA Cup should re-position itself as The World's Second Best Club Competition. The former branding draws attention only to its increasing irrelevance; the latter draws attention to the fact that the FA Cup has a very generous serving of the European club pie. Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool - each an elder statesmen the European scene and precious scalp for whoever knocks them out (usually Barcelona or one of the other three)  - and latterly Manchester City and Tottenham. This lineup is stronger than the Europa League, the Copa del Rey, the Copa Libertadores and the Club World Cup. These are big teams, with big stadia and strong support. Add Barcelona, Madrid, Bayern Munich and Inter and you've got the last-eight in the CL. Add to that an appearance at Wembley, one of the best stadiums in the world, and you've got yourself something worth fighting for.

Of course it wont solve the entire problem. Bragging rights don't compare to a place in the the First Best Club Cup Competition in the World, so ideally a berth in the qualifying rounds or group stage would be on offer. But it's a start at least, I think.

Edinburgh Fringe

Until my trip up to Edinburgh with the family last week, I didn't really understand what the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was all about. I knew it as a stomping ground for up-and-coming comedians like Russel Kane and Daniel Sloss, and as a place for lesser-comedians to remain performing forever in front of tiny crowds, but I wasn't expecting the sheer abundance of energy, talent and diversity on show. It's not just comedians, not at all, in fact the best shows I saw were all leaning towards theatre, although humour is to be found in abundance.

Days are hectic - much more than the two full days we had there would have rapidly become too much - but so much fun. Most shows are an hour long, so it's possible to cram in five, or six if you're really well organised (not to mention tough), into a day. A good outline for the day is pick two things that really interest you, then spend the rest of the day spontaneously going to see whatever the endless leafleteers foist upon you. It might sound guaranteed to clog your day up with drivel, but such is the talent on show that the chances are you won't be too disappointed. There are bound to be bad shows, fortunately I only came across one awful one, but you will be surprised by the quality of the small companies.

Because I might as well, and because I've never reviews live performance before, I'm going to review the nine shows I saw.

The Spectacular Tales of Grinburrell - Southampton University Theatre Group

I'll freely admit, I only went to see this because my housemate is in it. However, after about fifteen minutes her presence was no longer the important thing: this is a really, really good show. It's a story about a theatre troupe, lead by the aging Mr. Grinburrell, a wheelchair-bound old man directing his last show, who has is performers act out a series of fairy tales, each of them wonderful in their own way, underpinned by the narrative of the performers themselves who fall in love, squabble, and compete for the role of troupe director.

It's energetic and charming, and the cast prove versatile in playing characters who in turn play other characters, something that always impresses me.  It's funny, engaging and at times quite poignant, and although it doesn't try to break new ground, Grinburrell is a whole-hearted success.


Damion Larkin - Cuddly Dreamer

My first spur-of-the-moment choice, and my trepidation wasn't eased as we made our way down increasingly dank flights of stone stairways into a room that felt like a dungeon. Damion Larkin is 42 years old, chubby, and his life has been on a steady decline since he was 19, and the entire show is based around those three facts. I'm not very good at revelling in other peoples' misery, so I found this show a bit of a struggle. He started by reeling of a litany of illnesses, injuries and problems that he suffers from - how many are genuine I don't know - and it only gets worse. Damion used to be a stockbroker which while boring, won him a good living, a Porsche and a beautiful girlfriend (to make sure we believed him he had a slideshow, a proper analogue one with actual slides, of said house, car and girlfriend), only to be made redundant, the big step in his decline.

There's self-depreciating humour, and then there's trying to turn a sob-story into comedy. It wasn't unfunny, but hearing a man declare that he wished he'd taken the decision to jump into the Tyne rather than end up where he is now is a bit much at 4pm on a Monday.

The Improvised Musical - No Shoes Theatre

Six actors, one hour, and absolutely no idea what they are going to be made to perform: that's the basis of this absolutely brilliant show. Before it starts, the audience is invited to give any random items they have to the cast to be used as props, to suggest names of songs, to suggest the name of the show, and to use flashback, spotlight and song cards at any point in the show, if it weren't already difficult enough.

It really is 100% improvised; the actors set no parameters themselves so there is no script, no pre-planned jokes, and no learnt song lyrics. It's astounding how good it is. For the performance I saw, they were challenged to make a song called 'Aaaaaaaa', basically just a strangled vowel sound, and I'm sure I wasn't alone in not having any idea how they could build that into a song. And yet they managed it; in one song about losing control of a spaceship (the play was titled My Rusty Spaceship) the chorus was crying out for direction, and just as the moment looked to have failed one girl reappropriated the 'aaaaaaa' into a shit we're going to crash! sound. The rest of the cast immediately caught up and began harmonising, and a moment of tension was just so wonderfully resolved the crowd immediately broke out into rapturous applause.

 There are of course bumps and imperfections, but frankly I think I'll give them that. Unless you have a heart of stone, the whole performance was so hard to fault. I can't recommend this enough, it was the best thing I saw at the festival, and going on reviews of the other shows, it seems like they somehow maintain this high level of quality.

Ali Cook - Pieces of Strange

Ali Cook's brand of magic is a modest one. None of the tricks were lavishly dressed up, or partiularly mind-blowing. However, it was solidly done, and he has a good rapport with the audience, but I was expecting something a bit more dramatic. The high-point for me was a trick that supposedly foiled Harry Houdini; he could, supposedly without movement, return a card inserted into the middle of the deck to the top. This he did, and I can't even hazard a guess at how. Then he turned the deck from blue-backed to red-, again without movement. Now, that was impressive.

I can't massively recommend this one; it was good without being consistently amazing; it was funny without being uproarious, but the overriding feeling was one of mild apathy.

You Last Breath - Curious Directives

Your Last Breath is a clever piece of serious theatre, there are no laughs here, tightly plotted with a storyline that flits between four interconnected storylines spanning 140 years that all centre on the icy Norwegian landscape. It's something like a theatrical David Mitchell novel in that respect. There's the English cartographer from 1896, charged with mapping the frozen reaches of Norway; there's the girl in 2011 who travels to Norway to bury her recently deceased father's ashes; in 2034 there's the young scientist who has perfected the process of deeply cooling a human body for medical reasons; and there's the downhill skier around who the story is hung, plunged into a river in a skiiing accident in 1991 she was nearly frozen to death, but miraculously made a full recovery.

The pacing is very well controlled, with none of the strands outstaying its welcome at any point, but nor do any feel under-developed. The skiier gets the least screen-time (what's the theatre version of screen time?) by far and isn't a narrative as such, but underpins the other storylines, popping up in the background occasionally, representing though dance the path of the downhill skier. All the actors are either very good or excellent, with the cartographer and Norwegian guide to our intrepid Englishwoman being the standout performers.

It was set design, props and music that elevate this show into really-rather-good territory. The music, performed live by an unseen musician, took the shape a melody intrinsically Norwegian (apparently) and varied it according to setting and timeline. Projections on to the back wall were also astutely planned, but best of all was a physical representation of the longitude and latitude lines that the cartographer would be using to plot his map; several strands were strung across the stage and were manipulated to form mountains and rivers, before being incorporated in a dance. They all felt like good ideas, and they helped the narrative without ever feeling gimmicky.

Nick Helm - Dream A Dream

GOOD AFTERNOON COCKSUCKERS!



...AND GENTLEMEN,

LET'S FUCK THIS PUPPY! LET'S KICK THIS IN THE DIIIICCCKKKKKKK!

Not the subtlest of starts, then. As far as I know, this is an entirely new brand of humour. Helm doesn't seem to have any jokes (though bizarrely he won the Best Joke award. I don't even remember heard that one(sorry for linking to the Daily Mail)), he just loudly berates his audience until they start laughing. Or walk out, as two people did. I found myself laughing out of fear. He has the mannerisms of a rock-star, all hoarse, raspy delivery through a loud sound-system, and had us fist-pumping along to a motivational song or something.

Once things simmered down a bit, he was actually less entertaining. There was an okay songs, and he made a very uncomfortable man lie on a mattress for half the show, eventually stripping down to his y-fronts and snuggling up with the unfortunate audience member. It was a small mattress, and Helm was very sweaty by this point. Probably the best part of his act was his two down-trodden backing musicians, who took the mountains of shit flung at them with cowed dignity.

With a good deal of largely forgettable material, this is an average show at best.

Theseus Is Dead - The Effort

Theseus Is Dead is the worst thing I've ever seen. Stuck with nothing to do at 6pm on our last day, we take a risk and get punched really hard in the part of the brain marked 'boredom'. It's got a good title, the flyer made it sound somewhat interesting, and it kept us warm for an hour. The positives stop there.

The plot has something to do with the rumoured death of Theseus, and the fallout that such an event caused, but it was incomprehensible. The entire cast spent the whole time in this increasingly unsettling state of hysteria; every line was delivered as if in the middle of a catastrophic nervous breakdown. They didn't calm down for the entire hour; I can't imagine how the characters could live constantly so highly-strung. The dialogue was the standard archaic babble. It aims for the highest heights but has absolutely no substance behind it. Many sentences sound cleverly worded, but make no mistake, it was always an unremarkable sentiment smothered in layer-upon-layer of fossilised bullshit.

I'm unfamiliar with Greek theatre, it may be at times excellent, but this does its reputation absolutely no good whatsoever.

The Pajama Men

What a show to end my stay on. I don't really know how to describe this. Two guys, dressed in pyjamas (pajamas - another new Americianism to annoy me) act out bizarre scenarios involving fantastical characters and anthropomorphic animals. These are two guys absolutely confident in their routine, it's so odd, and yet so brilliant. The two frequently started laughing during a sketch as if they couldn't themselves believe the ridiculousness of their show.

Look them up on YouTube. Bit of a lame way to end this post, but I don't know what to about them, other than that they are just sublimely entertaining.