Sunday, September 14, 2008
The Cavy is Dead.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
You mean Sherlock Holmes wasn't real??
Stunning proof of ignorance of Brits?
Surveys are great aren't they? Especially when filling up otherwise empty gaps in newspapers with news that "13% of Brummies think that the Return of the Jedi is a better film that Empire Strikes Back". Michael Moore's tv show TV Nation once parodied this by conducting nonsensical surveys such as "10% of people who would go into a jacuzzi with Dan Rather have no health insurance" and "25% of those in possession of a firearm believe that the Second Amendment protects their right to buy explosive fertilizer."
Before shaking your head at the stupidity of people in general after reading the latest survey, it is always useful to ask a few questions about the methodology. I'm not a trained pollster or statistician but I think the following points are pretty valid
1) Who is doing the asking and who is being asked? "99% of Britons own a Tibetan nose flute" is less impressive when you discover the poll was carried out by the editors of You And Your Tibetan Nose Flute magazine among their readers
2) What size is the sample? "50% of Britons think Culfy is the sexiest man in the known universe" was the result of a poll of two people, Julia Roberts & Wislon
3) What question is being asked? "Do you think that evil murders should be hanged for the good of society to prevent them from taking more innocent lives" and "Are you willing the take chance of innocence people being hanged if capital punishment is brought back" ask substantially the same question, but would probably produce totally different results. And what do you think the answer would be to the question "Do you not think that capital shouldn't be brought back providing no evidence isn't found which wouldn't not prove the guilt of the accused?"
4) How honest are the answers? I leave to your own imagination the problem of doing a survey of the size of men's penises.
So let's take a look at the recent survey which has caused shock horror as 23% of Britons identify Winston Churchill as a mythical character. First of all it is carried out by UK Gold of 3000 of its viewers, in other words 3,000 viewers of a minority television channel. But more worryingly is that the survey itself is, to use a technical term, a complete pile of bollocks.
The survey results give a list of 10 historical characters the British public think are myths and 10 'fictional' characters the British public think are real. The trouble is that the character claimed to be mistaken for fact (by 65% of the population) is King Arthur. Now I'm pretty sure that King Arthur didn't literally live at Camelot, have a round table and a faithful knight called Sir Launcelot etc. But there is certainly enough evidence to suggest that someone called King Arthur existed and there is some basis to the legends about him. Certainly there is no basis for simply dismissing him as fictional. Moving down we have a similar problem with Robin Hood who may well have existed (although many legends have built up around him). More shockingly, the survey shows that 35% of people identified the 'fictional' Mona Lisa as real. But surely, the Mona Lisa (or the model for the painting) was a real woman, unless someone is now trying to claim that old Leo painted her from his own imagination. Moving down, the survey says that 34% of people identified Dick Turpin as a real person. Trouble is that Dick Turpin was a real person. The article states the reason for his being included in the list of 'fictional people' is that he didn't make the legendary ride from London to York. But hang on a minute, the survey also expresses surprise that people thought that Richard The Lionheart was a fictional character, even though there are as many myths about Richard the Lionheart as there are about Dick Turpin (for example, Richard didn't have his favourite minstrel search for him by singing a song at every prison in the Middle East). Why not put Richard and Dick Turpin in the fictional list, or both in the historical list? And of the 12% who identified the three Musketeers as real characters, where they perhaps aware that Dumas did base much of his work on real events and real people?
Given this apparently arbitary division between fictional and real characters, is it any surprise that people may have put Winston Churchill down as 'mythical'? Given that there appears to be a confused distinction between fictional (created by one or more authors but not necessarily believed as real), mythical (something fictional believed as real) and legendary (something real but exaggerated), is it any wonder people may have been confused? If someone had asked me "Is the Robin Hood who lived in Sherwood Green and robbed from the rich to give to the poor a myth" but had also asked me "Is the Winston Churchill who was a poor latin scholar and whose father died of syphilis a myth" I would have given the same answer to both questions.
But of course "23% of people who responded to a confusingly worded survey for a minority tv channel think that Churchill was a myth in a arbitary classification system that also classes well known historical characters such as Lady Godiva and Dick Turpin as myths" doesn't quite have that same ring.
Surveys are great aren't they? Especially when filling up otherwise empty gaps in newspapers with news that "13% of Brummies think that the Return of the Jedi is a better film that Empire Strikes Back". Michael Moore's tv show TV Nation once parodied this by conducting nonsensical surveys such as "10% of people who would go into a jacuzzi with Dan Rather have no health insurance" and "25% of those in possession of a firearm believe that the Second Amendment protects their right to buy explosive fertilizer."
Before shaking your head at the stupidity of people in general after reading the latest survey, it is always useful to ask a few questions about the methodology. I'm not a trained pollster or statistician but I think the following points are pretty valid
1) Who is doing the asking and who is being asked? "99% of Britons own a Tibetan nose flute" is less impressive when you discover the poll was carried out by the editors of You And Your Tibetan Nose Flute magazine among their readers
2) What size is the sample? "50% of Britons think Culfy is the sexiest man in the known universe" was the result of a poll of two people, Julia Roberts & Wislon
3) What question is being asked? "Do you think that evil murders should be hanged for the good of society to prevent them from taking more innocent lives" and "Are you willing the take chance of innocence people being hanged if capital punishment is brought back" ask substantially the same question, but would probably produce totally different results. And what do you think the answer would be to the question "Do you not think that capital shouldn't be brought back providing no evidence isn't found which wouldn't not prove the guilt of the accused?"
4) How honest are the answers? I leave to your own imagination the problem of doing a survey of the size of men's penises.
So let's take a look at the recent survey which has caused shock horror as 23% of Britons identify Winston Churchill as a mythical character. First of all it is carried out by UK Gold of 3000 of its viewers, in other words 3,000 viewers of a minority television channel. But more worryingly is that the survey itself is, to use a technical term, a complete pile of bollocks.
The survey results give a list of 10 historical characters the British public think are myths and 10 'fictional' characters the British public think are real. The trouble is that the character claimed to be mistaken for fact (by 65% of the population) is King Arthur. Now I'm pretty sure that King Arthur didn't literally live at Camelot, have a round table and a faithful knight called Sir Launcelot etc. But there is certainly enough evidence to suggest that someone called King Arthur existed and there is some basis to the legends about him. Certainly there is no basis for simply dismissing him as fictional. Moving down we have a similar problem with Robin Hood who may well have existed (although many legends have built up around him). More shockingly, the survey shows that 35% of people identified the 'fictional' Mona Lisa as real. But surely, the Mona Lisa (or the model for the painting) was a real woman, unless someone is now trying to claim that old Leo painted her from his own imagination. Moving down, the survey says that 34% of people identified Dick Turpin as a real person. Trouble is that Dick Turpin was a real person. The article states the reason for his being included in the list of 'fictional people' is that he didn't make the legendary ride from London to York. But hang on a minute, the survey also expresses surprise that people thought that Richard The Lionheart was a fictional character, even though there are as many myths about Richard the Lionheart as there are about Dick Turpin (for example, Richard didn't have his favourite minstrel search for him by singing a song at every prison in the Middle East). Why not put Richard and Dick Turpin in the fictional list, or both in the historical list? And of the 12% who identified the three Musketeers as real characters, where they perhaps aware that Dumas did base much of his work on real events and real people?
Given this apparently arbitary division between fictional and real characters, is it any surprise that people may have put Winston Churchill down as 'mythical'? Given that there appears to be a confused distinction between fictional (created by one or more authors but not necessarily believed as real), mythical (something fictional believed as real) and legendary (something real but exaggerated), is it any wonder people may have been confused? If someone had asked me "Is the Robin Hood who lived in Sherwood Green and robbed from the rich to give to the poor a myth" but had also asked me "Is the Winston Churchill who was a poor latin scholar and whose father died of syphilis a myth" I would have given the same answer to both questions.
But of course "23% of people who responded to a confusingly worded survey for a minority tv channel think that Churchill was a myth in a arbitary classification system that also classes well known historical characters such as Lady Godiva and Dick Turpin as myths" doesn't quite have that same ring.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Shock Horror as motormouth Jeremy Clarkson says something Cavy agrees with
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Evil! Evil! Evil!
No other words for it, but this must be the most nakedly racist headline the Daily Express have yet produced. I believe that even if the Daily Express had printed a headline which said "Britons beware, the wogs are coming for your wives and daughters" it couldn't be more racist (after all that would be a bit of obvious editorialising).
Because the headline "1.3 million Poles arrived in Britain" is wrong. Quite simply wrong. Not inaccurate, not biased but factually wrong. 1.3 million Poles DID NOT arrive in Britain last year. There were 1.3 million VISITORS from Poland last year. This includes business visitors, tourists and people visiting relatives etc. The population last year did not swell by 1.3 million genuine beatroot soup eaters. Many of these people are business travellers who make more than visit to the UK. I visited Oxford twice last year, there are not two of me walking round Oxford, using up its resources and refusing to merge with its culture. And the figures only measure visits of last than one year so not a single one of these 1.3 million visitors is settling in the UK.
This is quite clearly wrong. And evil.
This headline will be in your local newsagent. It will be imprinted on your mind. You will walk out of your newsagent and hear a foreign voice or two. You will immediately connect it with the headline (not realising it is lies). And its work will be done
Because the headline "1.3 million Poles arrived in Britain" is wrong. Quite simply wrong. Not inaccurate, not biased but factually wrong. 1.3 million Poles DID NOT arrive in Britain last year. There were 1.3 million VISITORS from Poland last year. This includes business visitors, tourists and people visiting relatives etc. The population last year did not swell by 1.3 million genuine beatroot soup eaters. Many of these people are business travellers who make more than visit to the UK. I visited Oxford twice last year, there are not two of me walking round Oxford, using up its resources and refusing to merge with its culture. And the figures only measure visits of last than one year so not a single one of these 1.3 million visitors is settling in the UK.
This is quite clearly wrong. And evil.
This headline will be in your local newsagent. It will be imprinted on your mind. You will walk out of your newsagent and hear a foreign voice or two. You will immediately connect it with the headline (not realising it is lies). And its work will be done
Labels: daily express, evil
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Review Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach
Kudos television, with their productions of Life on Mars and Spooks, have managed to produce some of the most compelling and kinetically exciting drama, and with their duo of Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach, they may have come up with one of their best concepts yet; Echo Beach being a Hollyoaks/O.C. style soap set in Cornwall and Moving Wallpaper being a 'fly on the wall documentary" set around the making of the same soap. Some people have criticised the idea for being an example of 'television eating itself', however I looked forward to the potential satirising of the tv industry and the idea of getting a priviliged insider glimpse into the making of tv (I'm fascinated by the minutae of tv and film making, one of my favourite films being Tim Burton's Ed Wood).
Unfortunately, on the basis of the first two episdoes; the potential of the set up is totally wasted. Take, for example Echo Beach. What is it meant to be? Pastiche, parody or actual genuine soap? If the former, then it is quite simply just not broad enough to show; there are no 'Acorn Antiques' style wobbly cameras or continuity fluffs to make its parody nature clear. If it is, god forbid, meant to be a real soap then this has some of the worst acting ever since the infamous El Dorado with Martine McCutcheon and Jason Donovan particularly shocking specimens of the 'smell the fart' school of acting. And the idea of young beautiful people having australian style beach parties on a Cornish beach seems ludicrous (and looks ludicrous on screen). Unless this is part of the joke.
Moving Wallpaper does nothing to clarify the spoof/real soap dilemma, partly because the whole programme is so clunking itself. Ben Miller as producer Jonathan Pope overracts terribly, partly because a) everyone else in the programme is so relentlessly dull and b) if you're giving the part of a tv producer who gives out parts to actresses in return for sexual favours and spends all the show budget on a chauffeur limousine then there's very little point of giving a subtle performance in the first place. The show attempts to build up Pope as a David Brent style villain, complete with self-incriminating bluster and border-line racism, but the whole set up is so forced that the genuine embarrasment factor that characterises Ricky Gervaise's work at its best is lost and becomes merely tedious. A lame blowjob/snow job joke is deconstructed here but for me, the far more embarrasing 'joke' was in the second episode when the production team managed to all get hold of copies of the payroll and were able to compare their wages. For god's sake, why not use a source of tension rising naturally from the production instead of relying on the far-fetched idea that even the dimmest PA would somehow photocopy the payroll and give it out to the crew.
In the end, Moving Wallpaper fails from a lack of nerve, what could have been a genuinely interesting and funny send up of the making of tv programmes (why are there no scenes of the shooting of the soap itself; imagine the jokes that could result from trying to film steamy love scenes between two actors who hate each other) falls short because the producers did not seem to think we could cope without broad comedy and instead falls for a sort of poor photocopy of Extras.
I take back everything I said about Ricky Gervais.
Unfortunately, on the basis of the first two episdoes; the potential of the set up is totally wasted. Take, for example Echo Beach. What is it meant to be? Pastiche, parody or actual genuine soap? If the former, then it is quite simply just not broad enough to show; there are no 'Acorn Antiques' style wobbly cameras or continuity fluffs to make its parody nature clear. If it is, god forbid, meant to be a real soap then this has some of the worst acting ever since the infamous El Dorado with Martine McCutcheon and Jason Donovan particularly shocking specimens of the 'smell the fart' school of acting. And the idea of young beautiful people having australian style beach parties on a Cornish beach seems ludicrous (and looks ludicrous on screen). Unless this is part of the joke.
Moving Wallpaper does nothing to clarify the spoof/real soap dilemma, partly because the whole programme is so clunking itself. Ben Miller as producer Jonathan Pope overracts terribly, partly because a) everyone else in the programme is so relentlessly dull and b) if you're giving the part of a tv producer who gives out parts to actresses in return for sexual favours and spends all the show budget on a chauffeur limousine then there's very little point of giving a subtle performance in the first place. The show attempts to build up Pope as a David Brent style villain, complete with self-incriminating bluster and border-line racism, but the whole set up is so forced that the genuine embarrasment factor that characterises Ricky Gervaise's work at its best is lost and becomes merely tedious. A lame blowjob/snow job joke is deconstructed here but for me, the far more embarrasing 'joke' was in the second episode when the production team managed to all get hold of copies of the payroll and were able to compare their wages. For god's sake, why not use a source of tension rising naturally from the production instead of relying on the far-fetched idea that even the dimmest PA would somehow photocopy the payroll and give it out to the crew.
In the end, Moving Wallpaper fails from a lack of nerve, what could have been a genuinely interesting and funny send up of the making of tv programmes (why are there no scenes of the shooting of the soap itself; imagine the jokes that could result from trying to film steamy love scenes between two actors who hate each other) falls short because the producers did not seem to think we could cope without broad comedy and instead falls for a sort of poor photocopy of Extras.
I take back everything I said about Ricky Gervais.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Quiz: What do all the following have in common?
1. Watching all of the box set of the complete Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes
2. Spending time with my beloved
3. Walking through town and staring intently at the back of bald headed people, in the hope they will freak out.
4. Reviewing every single Bond film in precise, meticulous and painful detail.
5. Eating too much
6. Drinking too much
7. Wishing Andrew Rilstone would hurry up and review The Golden Compass
8. Writing a novel
9. Recording an album
10. Making a film
11. Watching the dust play in the early morning sunlight
12. Watching Ricky Gervais vanish up his own fundament and wonder if he'll manage to escape and produce decent entertainment again
13. Skimming rocks
14. Going through all the various games, quizes and comparisons that my friends have invited me to do on Facebook.
15. Writing angry letters to the Daily Mail.
Answer; All thing's I'd much rather be doing than going back to work this week.
2. Spending time with my beloved
3. Walking through town and staring intently at the back of bald headed people, in the hope they will freak out.
4. Reviewing every single Bond film in precise, meticulous and painful detail.
5. Eating too much
6. Drinking too much
7. Wishing Andrew Rilstone would hurry up and review The Golden Compass
8. Writing a novel
9. Recording an album
10. Making a film
11. Watching the dust play in the early morning sunlight
12. Watching Ricky Gervais vanish up his own fundament and wonder if he'll manage to escape and produce decent entertainment again
13. Skimming rocks
14. Going through all the various games, quizes and comparisons that my friends have invited me to do on Facebook.
15. Writing angry letters to the Daily Mail.
Answer; All thing's I'd much rather be doing than going back to work this week.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Review: The Golden Compass
As an aside, I've often wondered how people who haven't read the book managed to cope with Peter Jackson's film trilogy of Lord of the Rings? Never mind following the plot, how did they manage without the joys of seeing Bilbo's petrified trolls in the Fellowship, of recognising Gimli's speech on Dwarf women from the appendix, of shouting "Oi! What the bloody hell are elves doing at Helm's Deep"
I was put into this situation myself with The Golden Compass, having not read the Philip Pullman novels, so I was unable to complain about how like they totally got Lyra's character wrong; how the speech said by Lee Scorsby in the film was originally said by a minor character cut out from the screenpla or how Iorek Byrnison was orignally an aardvark and not a polar bear or whatever. Which is a pity because without this potential pleasure, the Golden Compass managed to be one of the most tedious cinematic experiences this year.
Part of the problem is the casting of the child actress Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra - the archetypal Girl On Whom The Fate of the World Rests. Instead of bringing this across; Dakota seems more burdened by a much greater problem; that of trying to keep up her Oliver style cockernee street kid accent. Which unforunately left a gaping hole at the centre of the movie; at no point did I ever feel like any grave consequences ever rested on any of the actions of Lyra.
But the fault does not lie entirely with Dakota. Allegedly, the makers of the film removed much of the atheistic content of the novel; in doing so they seem to have removed most of the characterisation and the plot from the novel as well. Nicole Kidman goes round Acting for a bit but never reaches the chilling intensity of her roles in the Others and To Die For. Daniel Craig goes round Acting for a bit before realising that Bond 22 is likely to be a better bet for an Oscar and so buggers off for most of the film. At one point Nicole Kidman reveals that she is really Lyra's mother and Daniel Craig's character is really her father; a revelation which I'm sure meant a lot more in the book.
I'm certainly sure that the titular Golden Compass was a lot better used in the novel than the Deus Ex Machina it becomes in the film. A device which the Evil Magisterium wants to capture for their own ends allows Lyra to discover the answer to every question instantly (after a bit of 'follow your heart' type advice) which provides a convenient way of solving any difficulties along the way.
This perfunctory approach to plotting is at its worst at the end of the film with the Epic End Battle. Lyra leads a band of children away from the evil Magisterium only to be stopped by the baddies. Fortunately the giant polar bear turns up and helps them. Unfortunately the giant polar is tied up. Fortunately he is saved by a group of witches. Unfortunately the flying witches are shot at by the baddies. Fortunately a flying cowboy comes and rescues everyone. And it all ends happily ever after in about ten minutes. Come on, I know the Heroic Sacrifice is a bit cliche but I think we needed at least goodie to bite the dust to give some sense of jepardy to proceedings.
On the plus side, the film at least looked good; the demons being particularly well realised. And Ian McKellan once again, after the Da Vinci Code, shows his ability to the steal the scene. But New Line Cinema are showing that the return of Peter Jackson to direct their fantasy films could not be soon enough.
I was put into this situation myself with The Golden Compass, having not read the Philip Pullman novels, so I was unable to complain about how like they totally got Lyra's character wrong; how the speech said by Lee Scorsby in the film was originally said by a minor character cut out from the screenpla or how Iorek Byrnison was orignally an aardvark and not a polar bear or whatever. Which is a pity because without this potential pleasure, the Golden Compass managed to be one of the most tedious cinematic experiences this year.
Part of the problem is the casting of the child actress Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra - the archetypal Girl On Whom The Fate of the World Rests. Instead of bringing this across; Dakota seems more burdened by a much greater problem; that of trying to keep up her Oliver style cockernee street kid accent. Which unforunately left a gaping hole at the centre of the movie; at no point did I ever feel like any grave consequences ever rested on any of the actions of Lyra.
But the fault does not lie entirely with Dakota. Allegedly, the makers of the film removed much of the atheistic content of the novel; in doing so they seem to have removed most of the characterisation and the plot from the novel as well. Nicole Kidman goes round Acting for a bit but never reaches the chilling intensity of her roles in the Others and To Die For. Daniel Craig goes round Acting for a bit before realising that Bond 22 is likely to be a better bet for an Oscar and so buggers off for most of the film. At one point Nicole Kidman reveals that she is really Lyra's mother and Daniel Craig's character is really her father; a revelation which I'm sure meant a lot more in the book.
I'm certainly sure that the titular Golden Compass was a lot better used in the novel than the Deus Ex Machina it becomes in the film. A device which the Evil Magisterium wants to capture for their own ends allows Lyra to discover the answer to every question instantly (after a bit of 'follow your heart' type advice) which provides a convenient way of solving any difficulties along the way.
This perfunctory approach to plotting is at its worst at the end of the film with the Epic End Battle. Lyra leads a band of children away from the evil Magisterium only to be stopped by the baddies. Fortunately the giant polar bear turns up and helps them. Unfortunately the giant polar is tied up. Fortunately he is saved by a group of witches. Unfortunately the flying witches are shot at by the baddies. Fortunately a flying cowboy comes and rescues everyone. And it all ends happily ever after in about ten minutes. Come on, I know the Heroic Sacrifice is a bit cliche but I think we needed at least goodie to bite the dust to give some sense of jepardy to proceedings.
On the plus side, the film at least looked good; the demons being particularly well realised. And Ian McKellan once again, after the Da Vinci Code, shows his ability to the steal the scene. But New Line Cinema are showing that the return of Peter Jackson to direct their fantasy films could not be soon enough.
