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panharmonium · 4 years ago

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some meandering bbc merlin thoughts that got too long for tags on this gifset.

normal disclaimers apply, which, given that i’m evaluating media, means that these are just my own thoughts and nobody else need agree with them; i don’t expect all of us to have the exact same impressions of tv shows. :)

now, without further ado:

i started to type a novel in the tags of that gifset, but it got too long, so i’m moving it over to an actual post. and what i wanted to say there is this: my thing about arthur isn’t that his story was badly written. it’s that it was incomplete.

it’s probably more common for folks to assign responsibility to the writing, and that’s totally fine; i definitely get it - there are places in this show where i think things could have been handled better as well. (i did write sixteen pages about how poorly executed the finale was, after all.) but for my own part, i personally don’t think most of the story was badly written. i think it was unfinished.

and what i mean by that is that i sincerely think that almost everything bbc merlin did could have been pulled together in a meaningful way after 5.11, and that if this had happened, then we would be evaluating the previous seasons differently, because things that seemed to not fit or be nonsensical or not be given enough attention would have been pursued all the way through to their natural conclusions.

i’m not sure if it’s because i watched the show so late, or because i watched it in a spoiler-phobic bubble isolated from fandom input, but my own assessment of this show seems to exist in kind of a weird limbo-place on the spectrum of fandom opinions, because i don’t like how it ended, but i also don’t dislike the writing, up to the point of the finale. are there things that could have been improved, or quibbles i have? definitely. i can list them for you. but overall? i still believed in the story at the 5.11 mark. there were things i sometimes thought ‘oh, i’m not sure about this,’ but i always gave the show the benefit of the doubt, because i truly did feel that things were going somewhere. anything the show did that gave me pause wasn’t something that couldn’t eventually have been made meaningful, if the show had actually...been finished.*

(*elyan’s death excepted. that’s one of the things on my list, and i think it might be the only thing besides the finale that doesn’t fall under the criteria i’ll discuss below. it was a bad decision, flat-out, and could not have been improved by finishing the story.)

so for example, morgana. if i were going to critique her development, yeah, i’d say that we don’t get enough of her internal conflict; she goes from the voice of moral authority to (apparently) delighting in wickedness very quickly, offscreen, and the constant smirking doesn’t show us what we know must be true - that she hasn’t become like this because she enjoys it; that she is wounded and her rage at arthur, gwen, merlin et al comes from a very real place of pain.

but, as i said above - even though her development was something i recognized as questionable while i was watching, it didn’t make me too nervous, because i really trusted that the story was eventually and slowly taking us to the place it needed to go. you could see her conflict, sometimes, in her confrontations with arthur, and that conflict finally took center stage in 5.09, when mordred confronted her and appealed to her humanity. they were getting there.

and evaluating her development solely from what we ended up getting, i agree: now the writing just looks Bad. but it wouldn’t have been bad, if it had been finished. i would have completely believed morgana closing herself off from regret/sadness/compassion/any feelings at all for her former friends; it would have been okay for her to be so smirky, cold, etc; because it wouldn’t have been the endpoint for her arc, but rather a front to protect herself from the true conflict she felt. we would have gotten more than that. the story would have taken her farther than that. but the story was incomplete, and so everything that came before it just looks like a mess that ran off a cliff.

this is how i feel about almost all of the “questionable” writing things on this show. it’s not that they were ‘bad’ decisions in and of themselves, but they look that way in the rearview mirror because they never had the chance to develop into what they were supposed to be.

take arthur, for another example. i honestly don’t have a problem with his arc in S4 and S5. i completely believe what a horrible and unadmirable mess he is for most of S4. i believe that he would absolutely revert to thinking about “what would my father do” as soon as the realities of kingship are thrust upon him. and i love how in S5 he’s moved past that and IS admirable in so many other ways, but then we start once again addressing the central conflict, which is that he’s still oppressing part of his population, and he starts to hit roadblocks again. 5.05 and 5.11 are the crisis points there, and honestly, i didn’t have a problem with how they unfolded (i mean, i did, but not in the sense of ‘this is bad writing and i hate it.’ rather in the sense of ‘this is fucking painful but i believe it’).

the problem for me was never that it took arthur too long to accept magic or that he backslid or anything like that, because quite frankly i found all of that to be believable, given the circumstances. the problem was that the show ended before he was ever allowed to progress past that. he never atoned for anything he did. he, like morgana, was never allowed to go where he was meant to go, because the show stopped before it was over. if he had, all of his previous missteps wouldn’t have felt so much like ‘bad writing,’ they would have just been natural steps on his long journey.

same thing goes for gwen. do i have a problem with her being sidelined towards the end of the show? abso-fucking-LUTELY. that’s on my list. did her relationship with morgana deserve a resolution? YES. but it still could have happened! if there had been more time, the show could have dealt with that. gwen’s enchantment by morgana could have meant something, could have prompted something bigger; gwen could have taken the reins and started pushing arthur, who has entrenched himself into old ways, to start thinking from a place of compassion, even though it’s risky and it scares her. or she could have broken with arthur’s decisions completely and made a move of her own. if they had been given the time, nothing that happened to gwen prior to 5.11 precluded her character from going somewhere important.

and merlin - merlin could have gotten what he deserved, which is a resolution to the question he’s been struggling with since literally day one: how do i justify serving a regime that oppresses me? how do i reconcile my responsibility to my people (and MYSELF) with an externally-imposed responsibility to protect arthur?

merlin never settles on an answer to that question. or rather, the answer he’s given is that he doesn’t need to be conflicted in the first place; protecting arthur was the right thing to do (even though it ultimately achieves nothing).

merlin deserved to have a chance to work out the answer to that question for himself, rather than having his core dilemma wiped aside. and, much like my opinion on everyone else’s arcs, i don’t think the writing on this show ever took merlin to a place where this problem couldn’t be addressed. i don’t find merlin’s arc questionable; i am fully convinced by the hole he’s dug for himself by 5.11. merlin’s descent into single-minded preservation of arthur’s life at the expense of his own welfare/moral compass is absolutely tragic, yet also absolutely believable, to me - merlin’s been told all along that saving arthur is the only way to save his people, and now he’s been presented with so much evidence to the contrary - and yet he doesn’t want to admit that it’s all been for nothing - it’s honestly…i honestly actually think it’s spectacularly crafted. that scene with finna in 5.10 is absolutely the most devastating thing i think i’ve ever witnessed on this show - when merlin’s on the verge of passing out and he murmurs, ‘it won’t always be like this. things will be better.’ and you can see he’s just telling himself a lie, over and over again, trying to believe. and then when he says ‘running…from arthur?’ because he knows, he knows it’s true that arthur is the real threat, arthur is the one with the sword at all their throats, but merlin has come to care about him so much -

truly, they hit a point there that was just - fucking amazing. that was the moment. that, leading into 5.11, was the axis point for merlin’s unavoidable moral crisis, and there was so much potential there and so many places for it to go, but then the show just ended. conflicts wiped away. no wrongs ever righted. merlin never comes into his own. he never finds his feet.

but he could have.

so again. what i’m saying here is that for me, for my particular experience with this show, i actually don’t dislike the writing, up until the very finale. i think the writing actually brought us to a place that was fairly exploding with possibility. but then the show just stopped, and that’s why it’s so easy to find places to critique the previous seasons, because of course it all looks poorly constructed now. it isn’t finished.

#the once and future slowburn #meta #long post #even if merlin wasn't cancelled (which i have my doubts about tbh; who announces that their show is ending four weeks before the finale?)#the ultimate effect is still that of a cancelled show #if you took away the last two episodes i would never have guessed we were that close to the 'end'#there was still so much to deal with!#but anyway #on the whole merlin is a show that for some reason went over extremely positively with me for almost its entire run #i see spots where i would tweak things too #but recognizing merlin as an unfinished story has kept me from feeling that too deeply #most of the things i would tweak are things i KNOW would have been okay #if only they had been given the space to develop fully #and come to a natural conclusion #so for me #i never felt like this show tanked #not until the finale #i was as deeply engaged in 5.11 as i was in 1.01 #and then they just - pulled the plug when the story wasn't anywhere near finished #THAT was the problem for me #not that what came before wasn't good; but that what was supposed to come after was never allowed to happen #(everybody's different and i know not everybody had the same experience as me; which is totally understandable)#(but that's where i'm at)#¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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deltaengineering · 5 years ago

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Fall Anime 2019 Part 4: also, he has a gun for a head

Beastars

So here’s the CG anime that everyone for some reason decided way in advance would be the best show of the season, more or less by default. I was very skeptical of this for a multitude of reasons. First of all, that is a bad name for a show and you can’t convince me otherwise. It’s actually even worse because you’re supposed to write it in all caps, but I refuse. Second, it has a terribly on the nose conceit in which all sorts of animals live together in a high school setting and it’s all metaphorical ‘n shit. The main character is a wolf but get this, he’s actually all sensitive and quiet! Yeah, this is definitely rated D for Deep. And finally it’s by Orange, the CG studio that got an inordinate amount of acclaim for making Houseki no Kuni, the show that everyone thinks looks great and finally made CG anime worthwhile (actual real fact: HnK does not look great most of the time and CG anime was worthwhile well before it).

But enough about my preconceptions since Beastars is... pretty good, actually. If you ignore the setting, which is indeed terribly on the nose. And there’s not much else to say about the story so far besides it. However, it looks significantly better than Houseki no Kuni because it actually has really good character animation throughout instead of a one-minute action scene with flashy spinny camera tricks every other episode. The directing’s strong too, even if the show conspicuously mainly consists of obvious manga panels. I’m still not too hot on the animal stuff but the general writing seems to be sufficiently competent it would work simply on a character level. So I don’t love it, but it seems solid enough to see if it goes somewhere with its “Zootopia but also Beverly Hills 90210 but also they eat each other sometimes″ plot.

Rifle is Beautiful

Remember the whole “anime about some assorted anime girls joining a club doing an oddly specific activity” thing? This is another one of those, and now it’s about air rifle sports shooting. Except it’s not about air rifle sports shooting because that’s apparently way too violent, so they use rifles that look like exactly like air rifles but are actually based on lasers or really bright flashlights (they can’t keep their bullshit straight between scenes, sorry) instead. I just don’t think “girls doing activities” anime should blatantly misrepresent their subject matter like that, you know? With the possible exception of idol anime that is, ain’t nobody who wants to hear about that shit. Apart from that it’s nothing special, so if you are really into air rifles and wish to watch an anime that’s not about those, knock yourself out. It goes through a whole “club needs 5 members” arc in the first half of the first episode, so I really can’t say where it goes next. Nowhere much, I would guess.

Oh right, there’s one more thing: They frequently render the bodies in CG and the heads in traditional drawings, and they do it every time when they’d actually have to draw a rifle otherwise. It’s a weird effect that I think I haven’t seen anywhere else before, and it’s not great but also not terrible. And it’s the most interesting thing about the entire show.

Kabukicho Sherlock

“Let’s take a bunch of public domain characters and put them into a hip modern setting” seems to be its own genre at the moment, and not only because the BBC did that with S. Holmes, Esq. already. Obviously this show is influenced by that (besides other public domain namedroppers like Bungou Stray Dogs), mostly in Watson and his relationship with Sherlock, but Sherlock-san is rather different here; he’s neither the classic Victorian bohemian nor the abrasive sociopath of the BBC version, and tends more towards a bumbling 90s pop culture version of autism and/or general wackiness here. These two are surrounded by a bunch of campy transvestites for some reason, and I’m not quite sure whether I’m supposed to find this particular stereotype offensive or empowering this week, but it sure is annoying. And it has the same character designer as Joker Game, so if you like chiseled, angular anime men, you’re in for a treat here - even if they tend to wear a lot of makeup and dresses sometimes. I don’t know man, it seems sort of okay-ish for the most part but it’s neither as funny as they think, nor as weird as they think, nor is the murder of the week intriguing at all. Oh yeah, he’s hunting noted public domain character Jack the Ripper. Because of course he is.

Shin Chuuka Ichiban!

I am told this is the sequel to episode 19 of a 52-episode anime TV show from 1997. Okay. I am also told to not dare watch this without the important setup therein, which makes me think I should pay less attention to what I’m told because understanding Shin Chuuka Ichiban and its backstory is not hard at all. Kid is superawesome cooking champion in ancient China and goes around clowning on lesser cooks, got it. It’s not a complicated setup and it’s not a complicated genre either: This seems to be mostly about sick shounen cooking duels. Besides the setting, the main difference between this and Shokugeki no Soma seems to be that SnS goes for ridiculous and Chuuka Ichiban goes for epic - which is to say that it fancies itself emotional as well. Apart from that it’s what you’d expect from a cooking shounen, big moves, big reactions, huge twists and so on. One notable thing is that this show looks really, really nice. Production I.G seems to be establishing a sideline in taking stuff from the 90s and updating it with smoother animation and shinier lighting, while keeping the overall look intact; They did it for Mahoujin Guru Guru, and this looks much the same. Still, I’m just fundamentally not really interested in what appears to be a very straightforward cooking shounen from the 90s.

Assassins Pride

Straight from the Department of Chuuni, we have this light novel masterpiece about a cool as fuck teenage assassin who teleports behind u and nothin personells fools all day. He then meets a princess he’s supposed to off but just kinda decides not to, probably because she seems to be smitten by his m’lady act. Now he has to use his sick skillz to keep them both alive. It’s awful and terrible and no good and also kind of adorable. This truly is the most 13 AND A HALF MOM years old anime in a while, and it’s not even isekai! The writing’s just so amateurish and corny you can’t help but smile when princesses exposit their backstory for no reason while being accosted by pumpkin monsters (without knowing that Awessassin McCooldude happens to be listening in, which is certainly convenient). Or when the episode ends with the man just reading the synopsis of the show out again, in case you were too fascinated by this plot to pay attention to what it’s about. Yeah I’m not going to watch this in a thousand years, but it sure made me chuckle. Your mileage may vary.

Mugen no Juunin - Immortal

Speaking of 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔢𝔡𝔤𝔢, another anime adaptation of Blade of the Immortal appeared! You know, the manga for the cultured and historically minded guro fan. The first episode of Blade of the Immortal runs with this and is an arthouse production that someone most definitely directed the shit out of. I don’t think I’ve seen this much directing since, well, Sarazanmai, but “Ikuhara amounts of directing” is pretty much the idea here. And most of the time it even works! The quickly edited, disorienting style gives episode 1 a feeling closer to horror than to a cool swordmen action show, and that really brings out the best in the material, which is grotesque splatter bordering on the comical - It’s somehow a better Junji Ito anime than the actual Junji Ito anime. I think it tries too hard in a few places, but at least it does try.

But then I watched the second episode and that one’s a fairly conventional splatter-comedy swordin’ anime. I am not at all pleased with this development. The third episode was better again and seemed to split the difference between 1 and 2, even if it mostly uses the tricky editing to save on effort in the action – I would much prefer actually readable fights and the wacky mannerisms in the more psychological stuff, thank you very much. Based on episode 1 I thought we might have something special here, but as of episode 3 I’d already merely call it pretty decent. I guess I’ll still stick with it but man, that’s a real bummer.

No Guns Life

No Guns Life is a neo-noir thriller about a guy who has a gun for a head. That’s fuckin rad and exactly the kind of silliness I am totally down for. He also has a gun for a hand, and there’s also some battle nun’s who carry revolvers with two cylinders, so in short I think the title is false advertising. This sounds very wacky (and it is), but it also takes its noir very seriously, down to details more wannabe neo-noirs tend to neglect (like being set right after a big war). The look and feel is pretty excellent, with sharp design and high-contrast artwork, and the music goes all in on the moody saxophone as you’d expect. And there’s some really adorable “look mom, I’m writing” stuff about how Man With Gun For A Head really “needs someone to pull his trigger” and so on (which is, as the astute reader might remember, at the back of his head). It feels like a throwback but then I can’t really think of many 80s/90s shows like this, so it’s actually more like the sort of faux-retro idea Trigger/Imaishi would come up with on a lark. Trigger/Imaishi would, of course, make a far worse anime out of it, so it’s all good. Well, it has some pacing problems and as always it’s a fine line between amusingly camp and not so amusingly camp anymore, but No Guns Life seems to have enough real qualities that it can probably stand on its own even when its conceptual gimmick eventually doesn’t suffice anymore. I give it a two gun’s up.

Hoshiai no Sora / Stars Align

And finally, here’s an anime about middle schooler softboys playing a tennis just as soft as themselves, while being henpecked by the elites on the girl’s team. This is not an “actual” sports anime though: for starters, it’s not based on some shounen manga and is an anime original with quite some staff pedigree instead. It’s also more of a character drama that already goes to some surprisingly real places by the end of episode 1, reminiscent of the recent and quite good Run with the Wind. Furthermore, it looks delicious, with minimalist but distinctive and varied character designs and animation that’s both extremely detailed for a TV anime and also not trying to shove that fact into your face with flashy stunt cuts. In short, this show seems very simple at first glance but every aspect of it just oozes quality. If nothing else, it’s already worth watching just for the excellent ending sequence where the characters show off their “best” dance moves and the chunky student council president dunks on everyone. This one caught me by surprise and it’s an easy pick for most promising show of the season.

#anime #impressions #Beastars #Rifle is Beautiful #Kabukicho Sherlock #Shin Chuuka Ichiban!#Assassins Pride #Mugen no Juunin - Immortal #No Guns Life #Hoshiai no Sora #stars align

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storylocke · 7 years ago

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Honey GLITched: The Rodent’s Revenge

[It only started when she was half-way up the abandoned Power Plant. This static, this crit-crit-criting noise like when a radio started to lose it’s signal. Her head was pounding, her face felt hot, and the Voices chattered in confusion about what started it. Was it the Porygon her partner accidentally broke? Was the paint fumes from the graffiti artists getting to her? Was it the elevation? While she’d been in the building a few times that afternoon, she’d never made it this far in. Stupid Gym Leader Sparky closing the gym so he could run off to this place. After the day she’d been having, all she wanted to do was get her first badge so she’d have something to show her parents when she got home. … If she didn’t “slip” again.

The encounter with Luke had been worrisome, and weighed on her mind heavily. At least this cringeworthy, agonizing charge to the air made it hard to think of anything, even about him. She stepped into the top floor where she stopped short upon seeing a Pikachu with a long red scarf.]

Honey:

[Just stares at it.] … Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.

???:

[Looks back at the new voice with a start] Whoa! Who are you? Can’t you see it’s dangerous in here? [Before she can answer his question, the young man turns to point out the Pikachu.] See that Pikachu? It’s managed to activate the Power Plant’s turbines and seems to be absorbing the electricity!

Honey:

[While she knows this particular Pikachu has gotten hostile before, at the moment it just looks like it’s dancing on a sugar high. … Or maybe her headache was making her too loopy to fully comprehend things. She blinks at the bundled up blond.] I’ve heard that wild Pikachu like to eat electricity from power lines and stuff. If the Power Plant doesn’t go to the city anymore, what’s so bad about that?

???:

Are you kidding? There’s a bunch of punk kids running around here, if the Power Plant is activated, everyone downstairs could accidentally get fried!

Honey:

… … … [Okay NOW she’s taking this more seriously as she hadn’t thought about that.] Yikes, that IS bad! We need to find the gym leader too. I heard he should be around here somewhere looking into the noise.

Spark:

Huh? Oh, you must have come here looking for me. I’m sorry about the gym, but this is really important. The name’s Spark, but everyone likes to call me SPARKY. Listen, I’ll give you a gym match if you’ll help me out. We need to find a way to shut down the power. Why don’t you go fight that Pikachu while I’ll see if I can find a switch?

Honey:

[As annoyed as she’d been about the rest of the day, she actually brightens up at the offer. Honestly, he didn’t have to promise her anything, the situation seemed dangerous enough he should only have to ask. Not to mention, that Pikachu wasn’t just any ordinary Pikachu. Shakes his hand.] Deal. You go left, I’ll go right.

[As there are several switches around the room, Honey and Spark carefully move around the electric field the Scarfed Pikachu has formed around itself to check for a way to turn it off. Surprisingly, Honey stumbles across the right one, causing the lights to immediately dim, and the Pikachu gives a loud cry of dismay to see the energy cut off.]

Honey:

[Has a hand hovering over her belt just in case as she slowly approaches him.] Easy there…. What are you up to, little guy?

Pikachu:

[Nudging one of the turbines furiously as if it’ll somehow come back on. The comment seems to infuriate him further as he glares up at her.] You? Damn it! I should have known it’d be you to cut off the power! You, who ruined my life, who kicked me out of my home!

Honey:

[Honestly taken aback by that.] Wh-what?! How could I have ruined your life? I only met you this morning!

Pikachu:

What?! You… [eyes her cautiously] You can hear me?

Honey:

Oh, um... yeah? I got a new device that allows me to talk to Pokemon. [brings her hands up to her chest, somewhat hopefully] I know you’re very angry right now, but can we please just talk about this?

Pikachu:

[Bitterly as his eyes narrow] Well aren’t you special? Then hear this! I’ve been absorbing this electricity so I could level up. And now, it’s payback time!

Honey:

[Was afraid of that. As the sparks start to fly, she immediately calls out her Grotle.] Quick, help!

Pikachu:

[Bit of a dark chuckle as he looks at the turtle.] Ooooh, so you’ve grown up now?

Grotle:

[A bit cocky] More than I can say for you.

Pikachu:

Tch, well I ain’t losing to a couple of saps. I don’t NEED to evolve to take you down!

Grotle:

Then shut up and see if you can hit me~!

[That most definitely pushed the Pikachu over the edge and the two clash in the narrow flooring as Honey tries to step back. This was bad. Her poor little starter was injured going into this and was in no condition to be fighting like this. She really didn’t want to fight the Pikachu in the first place.]

Honey:

BBC, get him out of there! [As the Poochyena takes to the field, she flinches in taking the hit aimed for the Grotle. Honey gives a high pitched gasp to see how hurt she is.] BBC, are you alright?

BBC:

He’s far too strong for us! We need to get to safety!

Pikachu:

Too chicken to fight me then? Heh, all the better for me. I’LL CRUSH YOU!

Honey:

[Goes to recall her poor terrified pooch, but the Pikachu is too fast! BBC gives a sharp yelp of pain as she goes down to the next Quick Attack.] Ooooooh you’re in for it now, you little rat! [Nevermind her earlier concern, she’s bringing back her powerhouse.]

Spark:

[Is watching from the sidelines completely dumbfounded as he continues to only hear one side of the conversation in the domination that follows. The girl definitely has spunk though as the Pikachu builds it’s speed up faster and faster to dodge her attacks.] Huh… Why do I get the feeling this is a personal affair?

Honey:

Absorb! [Caught up in the moment, she’d completely forgotten about him.] Oh, um… … …

Pikachu:

[Gasping for air, totally drained of it’s built up energy from before] Kno… Knock it off! [As she looks back at him, on the ground panting, he can only growl in his humiliation] I’m so… freakin’ tired of you… ruining my dreams! Believe me, I will have my revenge!

Honey:

Wait, you still haven’t-! [But he somehow seemed to muster up the speed to dash away before anyone could catch him] … What did I do wrong?

Grotle:

He’s just bitter, Honey, I don’t think you did anything. [A bit more cheerfully] Besides us utterly crushing that battle. Call me a “sap,” I sapped him alright~!

Honey:

[Giggles] Well… you are a sap though. I got you as a sapling, at least. Maybe we should just call you Sap.

Sap:

… But he used it as an insult.

Spark:

I dunno, it’s kind of cute. [Grins at them both giving him a look.] That’s a weird little device you got there. It’s like a Pokemon translator or something?

Honey:

Oh, right! You couldn’t understand any of that earlier, could you? [Slides the cord over her head to hand it to him.] It’s called a PokeComm. I got it for helping the INVENTOR.

Spark:

[Genuinely intrigued as he looks it over.] Cool! Looks pretty new too. I wonder if he’d let me have one. You know, for science. [Grins as he kneels down in front of the Grotle.] Anything you want to say, Sap?

Sap:

… … … [Sorry, he’s not used to talking to anyone besides Honey, he wouldn’t know what to say to him anyway. Looks up at Honey.] How are you feeling?

Honey:

Be nice. [She’s almost embarrassed by her Pokemon’s total dismissal of a Gym Leader of all people.] I’m doing much better now. I’m almost wondering if the turbines were making me ill.

Spark:

That’s... great? Boy, you must be one heck of a competitor if you went through all this while sick. I don’t suppose you’ll ever tell me what that was all about with the Pikachu though, huh?

Honey:

Oh, well… it’s a bit of a long story. Or, not really, it just attacked my family and now thinks it needs to destroy me for being stronger than it. Or something, since nothing it said back there made any sense. I suppose being an electric-type specialist, you really wanted to catch that, didn’t you?

Spark:

Probably better if I don’t. [Just kind of shrugs at them and rises up to give Honey back her device.] But! Deal’s a deal. The power’s off and the Pikachu is gone, so I’ll see you back at the gym. I’ve only had easy challengers recently, so you better not disappoint me. [Gives her a wink as he turns to leave.]

Honey:

... … … [Slight blush.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

abiyoru: “It does seem funny to me that Honey got the Poké translator when a lot of TPP lore already has the hosts able to understand their Mon. Bit of a wasted effort there.”

Ah yes, but then we'd miss out on this ~glorious~ bit of dialogue from the bitter and edgy Pikachu. Seriously though, this thing is hilarious in how menacing it tries to be.

Meanwhile, Spark~! 8D

I actually didn't do any of the gym leaders / battles because I wanted to stay close to the cutscenes that mostly sets Glazed apart from other games. So this is probably the only time we'll be seeing him.

Previous Chapters Here

#twitch plays pokemon #blazed glazed #ahuni gg #Honey Glitched #honey

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horriblegif · 8 years ago

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LEVEL DRAMA 50

It’s not usually our style to respond to artworld dramas in any medium longer than a few tweets. They’re never particular exciting beyond the unholy fascination akin to watching some rats fight over a headless cockroach on the floor of a Subway. Moreover, they’re usually confined to a pattern - think of a writer publishing some text on something which upsets people by association and then using his/her social media to promote that text, thusly charging the gravitational pull of indignation and buying space for a pop-up arena of combative discourse below. An example of this would be Art in America’s 2014 piece ‘The Perils of Post-Internet Art’ by Brian Droitcour, itself a wavering diet-summation of a genre that seemed to evolve out of increasing access to technological means of image making and also began to historicise itself simultaneously. Weird right!!? Predictably, arguments followed on social media with responses from implicated parties and sideliners, running the gamut of indignant whiny rebuttal to carefully oriented endorsement. There’s a lot of wiggle room for staking out narratives, personalising them, claiming them or discrediting others, in other words a divine gift to every editorial intern for glossy art magazines that are half full of adverts for luxurious things and half full of tiny texts about arts beginning and ending with the authors name. Qualitative judgement and criticism in the Greenbergian sense is even more obsolete, obsolete accelerated, block-chained and stacked. The modern critique exercise garners no adhesion to the contemporary artscape even as an arse-aching literary nostalgia throwback. Old platforms haven’t all died and new platforms are not always replacing them, but reflective mediations serve commonplace delight regardless of the impossibility to predict.

Brexit and Trump, among many other unkind reminders given up to cultural onlookers, prove that despite our illusions of a slogging but mobile transition towards rectifying centuries of inherent vices within civilisation, there are still a lot of racists around. Not all supporters of Trump might have been racist, but nevertheless they did support one. Not all supporters of Brexit might have been racist, but the rise of hate crime against foreigners post-referendum says enough. Life goes on, whatever post-rationalised narrative you believe is the causation of this crisis in the west and until we’re in a full-blown totalitarian regime we have choices to resist without putting our lives at stake. These resistances can be boycotts, mild political integration or volunteering, adding to body count at protests, whatever.

The slightly shit TV adaptation of The Man In High Castle, which roughly follows a similar format to the Phillip K. Dick source material, does one thing quite well. It shows how many people can adapt or exist quite easily to life under fascism. Obviously the people that do are within regime-defined parameters of acceptable, something that Trump/May and the ukip scum keep trying to define with immigrants (first them, then us all). Most of the denizens of the art scene will not cease to exist, despite the general idea that fascist government wasn’t great for most art/artists. Over half of us fit into those parameters already! Futurism had a pretty big old boner for violence! But we think, given the tragedies within industrialised memory and after the late 60s that art is predominantly a progressive, liberal thing. Okay it has structural problems with insane gender and race bias, but that’s work in progress. As a concept, art galleries or institutions are not seen as part of a mechanism of state-sanctioned harm. Something like that, right? It’s the artists we turn to in dark times to offer cultural reflection and symbology for resistance. Yeah m9, not really so much. Post-vetements overstyled white art males of the curatoriat continue to offer smug “everything is shit” commentary in which they can never be proved wrong. Declining to offer any meaningful critique of tories/republicans but always ready with a hatchet for liberals when they fail. Staying aloof, hand wringing and never forced to contemplate more than jokes about self-employed artist tax returns or some hot take post-potato. Other artists who proclaim radical actions and aesthetics go on to exhibit at art fairs, work with commercial galleries and operate easily within a cultural exchange network built on un-unionised work and cheap labour. An independent project space goes commercial, takes money for anyone, talks about feminism but hangs out with Anita Zabludowicz on her Venice Biennale yacht. Curator does interview and talks about the nature of rigorous critique, but freaks out when it is suggested that putting only their mates in an arts council funded exhibition might be something that is twatty. Pointing out hypocrisy and bad art practices become anti-art, hatin’, jealousy or some kind of trolling without good faith (what trolling with good faith is, please tell us on a postcard addressed to BBC FOUR, PO BOX 80085, Arsequake Kingdom). Artists are not only often creepily “libertarian” but, in the case of LD50 Gallery, sometimes outright mini-fascists.

At this juncture we finally arrive at the point of this longform rant. LD50, a small project space in dalston junction, had some exhibitions of questionable taste and arrangement in recent months. The alt-right exhibit it staged using scavenged parts of the aesthetic and philosophical matter online wasn’t immediately partisan on the surface. It could have been bad satire, it could have been one of those things many adult-child digital artists do where they incorporate the very thing they critique. Obviously the depraved chasm which 4chan and allotments of reddit are located in is morbidly fascinating, to someone who feels they’re on an important media archaeology tip even moreso. Despite the Hitler quotes coupled with anime motifs and other bizarre conflations of alt-right imagery, the show itself didn’t offer a concrete position. This is a commonplace exhibition model that allows “racy” subject matter to be presented with critical immunity, because the art moves to within a viewers praxis. More often this is used with cultural appropriation, where a white artist will extract reference points and framing devices from culture they do not belong to and situate the art itself on the intersection of their gaze, etc etc. So the art is about the white gaze on other culture, that way it removes itself from, at best, being accused of ignoring postcolonial theory or, at worst, just being mildly racist. Very meta though, and you can extract 2000 words from meta quite easily. With the benefit of hindsight plus a screenshot of a private fb conversation, it became obvious the curiosity with the alt-right wasn’t coolly detached in the LD50 show. Given the social media output of LD50 runs along moaning lines about the apolitical nature of net artists and glib rejoinders to political/social occurances, strangely they might have found the blazing political net art they were looking for… just the bad kind of politics. HEY, bad is a construct in art that is irrelevant after postmodernism and pop art, so who is to say it is bad? It’s just neo-reactionary. Sounds like the working title of a group of Final Fantasy rebels. These dodgy politics weren’t always so clear, even in that classic uncertain/ironic way, so it’s possible it was a slippery slope slodden down.

As said in the beginning of this longform rant, the social media microdramas of the art cottage industry aren’t very interesting in themselves beyond the sorry online appearances of calculated hostility and contrived artjoke acumen. But with artist Sophie Jung posting in a public way a ‘call-out’ to a curator of a gallery holding quite dodgy fascist views, the fallout is more interesting than the usual bruised/inflated egos or comment flame wars. The gallery itself has responded by “archiving” the post and all the comments on the main page, as doxing (a strategy of online shaming perfected by the alt-right) bait to sentient pepe memes and twitter eggs. It’s an obfuscatory and aloof reaction, one that shows particular acumen to online psychological skirmishing. Take away the veneer of irony and you see only a few slimy individuals toying with repugnant ideas that most good artists would give no merit, even as illusory discourse.

Is it right to call out someone by posting private convos? Well, check the gallery events and talks - they were pretty public (albeit small and within purposely obfuscating platforms) call outs to those neon genesis authoritarians. A lighter discourse than “is it ok to punch a nazi?” but no less annoying. Of course the answer is yes. Do you argue the inverse that the alt-right should be given platforms? Do you agree with the BBC giving airtime to UKIP but not the Green Party, who have existed for longer/have more members/more elected MPs/have actually run a fucking area of the country? Logic has associations, and while you can spin them away, we fucking see you. The alt-right would legislate for the structural, hidden bureaucratic violence against non-white/foreign people but it is not OK to punch them? They’d happily punch you. It can be so easy if it doesn’t affect you, or to think it wouldn’t, to think that exposing their bullshit is better. Hindenburg thought Hitler wouldn’t be as evil when he finally was given power, the tories seemed to think appeasing the UKIP types was the best way to keep themselves in power. Fuck m9, punch tories AND nazis if you can get away with it. Yeah, if you can back it up, calling people out on something as basic as nazi sympathies is OK. Why did it take so long to be called out on? The alt-right are super zeitgeisty right now and net art dorks are into that because it can be processed into smug “political” diatribe and gestural academica. Things within the art gallery mechanica are afforded un-anchored critical protection at least until the management are revealed to think the muslim ban is fine.

It’s creepy that artist who have exhibited there previously, such as the fantastic Joey Holder and John Russell, weren’t aware of the dodgy politics. Some probably were, such as the Brad Troemel replica dubiously created by AMC network Deanna Havas. Some, like confused net art bro who makes net art that is a bit fash Daniel Keller coyly sits on the fence, crashing a nice-guy routine who isn’t allowed to be sexist. Sad! Other obsessive high grade opinion-merchants like Daniel Rourke attempt to turn everything into irony, glib spectator drama etc. In our limited capacity of visiting LD50 a couple of times for exhibitions and being involved in an event unrelated to the programming, it never was apparent to us there was batshit mental “eugenics isn’t such a bad idea” mind thematic brewing. We have to get used to being surprised in 2016 and 17, though complicit white men wriggling to force jokes out of “paleoconservatism” or something has stopped being surprising since 2007.

So all in all, it’s weird that Lucia Diego and by extension her gallery LD50 are so hot on nazi sympathisers or validating bigots. It’s less weird that a number of friends and collaborators gained before this right turn are just enjoying the spectacle as another performative event. Writer and curator Morgan Quaintance has written about the apolitical nature of the post-internet artist flotilla, the retreat into speculative reality depletes the apparatus to draw ethical lines and instead propels the artist/writer/whatever to pursue “gaming” the system instead. The autumn programming should be a public shame in itself, but the convo screenshot blew away clouds of doubt by direct admittance. But many white women still voted for Trump despite the “grab ‘em by the pussy” recording. Such is the dark art of spin. However, beyond LD50, this isn’t the first art gallery or curator with extreme ring wing views, no fucking shit. You’re aware the Zabludowicz Collection was built with arms dealing money, donates money to the tories and donates money to pro-israel lobby groups, right? To quote artist Patrick Goddard:

“Its been happening for some time and unfortunately artists and their work continue to be instrumentalized by ‘philanthropists’ with darker purposes and dirtier-than-usual money.

The Zabludowicz Collection is an artwashing operation designed to legitimate Israel’s systematic refusal of rights to Palestinians. (along with the BICOM lobbying group – also set up and funded by Zabludowicz money)

Zabludowicz’s strategy is part of a global shift to the right, and very much anticipates the US and UK state assault on arts funding, forcing culture increasingly to function as a vehicle of the right. Furthermore Poju Zabludowicz gives significant donations to the conservative party and a select few pro-Israeli Labour candidates. (Ruth Smeeth being a notable recipient of BICOM money – who kicked off the anti-Corbyn claims of anti-Semitism last year)”

The director of ZC doesn’t espouse any political opinion though, just a disturbingly banal desire to be press-shotted with artists and to fly around the world looking at arts. Their programming does not reflect the mechanism that the foundation operates, which apparently complicates the issue for artists enough that any mea culpa is fine. It looks like until some outright admission of fascist tendencies is made from the primary source, everything is up in the air conceptually. Another question is a worrying route into a sort of McCarthyism, where everyone who works with a place of dodgy politics is “besmirched” by association and the trend of the left attacking their own allies is further proof to right-wing nutcases like LD50 that post-internet art is trash. We can assume some people had suspicions of this gallery at the beginning, but no confirmation appeared in the absolute until the alt-right lovefest. Fair enough, net art people are often very weird anyway (which is fine!). Do you think the ZC doesn’t do similar things with Zionist interests, but without a programme of talks and some art to accompany it? Heather Phillipson, in a Nov 2016 interview with Adrian Searle says, and we quote ‘My next work will be furious. Fascism is on my doorstep’. Heather Phillipson has frequently worked with ZC beyond just exhibiting some work there. We really are at a loss to understand this kind of blindspot, how endemic it is among white artists in western cities. But without any provocation of fascist rhetoric it is unfair to start singling out artists and mudslinging - though we welcome all explanations as to how Heather Phillipson can be angry about fascism but be uncritical of an organisation that… ugh, just re-read what Patrick Goddard wrote. Research it, it’s not fucking secret. The mucus membrane between act and operation, is it that hard to see through? Is it really a massive, Trumpian stone wall? Would artists be ready to form a picket line outside LD50 if Richard Spencer was invited to speak? Even more neoliberal art apologists might refute that method of protest. Imagine the local community of Dalston Junction will hate artists in general even more if they notice white supremacist conferencing being held in a gallery. As if gentrification wasn’t enough! Do we all want to be associated with this kind of thing? Jake and Dinos Chapman are big fans of Nick Land and have shown work at LD50. The Chapmans are standard conservative reactionary britart hangover troll fossils. It’s embarrasing.The Guardian Newspaper employs a similar coterie of journalists that soften the dangerous ideologies of May/Trump et al. by zoning in and selectively extrapolating miniature nuggets of “leftism” (such as Trump’s opposition to TTIP) all the while crowing “he’s a monster he’s a monster but….” and looking at their political games with the detachment of an old cunt with a southwest london mansion who enjoys playing chess on their Gateway 2000 PC, their only brush with anything “liberal” being time spent in a minor theatre company during youth.

If you’re an artist doing some part-time teaching at art schools, tell your students about this! Make sure they don’t enter into the post BA/MA world as apolitical vessels thirsty for a myth-made-real version of ideologically dubious expression, based on a default assumption that artists are sympathetic to labour. If you don’t teach, perhaps consider it a good way to pay for those easyJet flights to European museums or Rat Basel Miami, unless you are too busy arguing about how Adam Curtis is the anti-christ while Theresa May closes our borders to the refugees of wars our state was implicit in funding or operating in. Understand that complications arise when the main financial sponsor of Frieze Art Fair is also the bank of choice for the Trump family. Maybe you avoid the Deutschebank events if you’re exhibiting there, because wouldn’t that compromise your ideology? If you’re in a union, make sure you vote for a union director who isn’t pro-trident. Write to your MP, don’t just screenshot your ‘delete my uber’ account dissertation. It’s OK to criticise your peers, hold them to account for some kind of progressive standard of ethics but piling hate onto an old lefty is not productive when you’re both just trying to unpick capitalist lineage to better understand power and it’s movements. JJ Charlesworth, a writer of ArtReview is a essentially a lobbyist for Tory interests, negging on cultural boycotts or protests against hate-speech! Evidence is in his dodgy slightly-closed-closet-door bigot attitudes, I’m sure lots of people have screenshots of a trans bashing comment or something that betrays a concience. But he might review your shows, has a family, so let him have his tory views in peace, right and don’t forget the afterparty invite. Manick Govinda, an Ayn Rand lovin’ brexiter working in an artists development studio?? What the fuck do you think will happen down the line? Because when they face criticism they complain that their comments receive criticism as a result of the “left” being the “real” threat to “free speech” it should worry you, despite the trenchant desire within your loins to be knighted by their credible notice, or whatever pressure boost your economy-of-prestige fueled trajectory needs for the sake of yr neuroses.

Now LD50 is out of the bag as too right-wing for the art world to swallow without criticism, but people still will fight over how it is bad to post private convos and publicly ‘out’ people even if a few months before they had a fucking anti-semite skyping in. And that will still be spun with tailored words.

Because a lot of us in the London art scene are white and generally not on the breadline of poverty we’re kind of unaffected by LD50s fascism, there is a reluctance to stake out a vocal position because we’re taught to court ambiguity as successful methodology, or something like that. The non-position position, the entrepreneurial cloak, logic mazes eating themselves as the apex form to attitude. The gallery have since changed their trading name to TIVERSE LTD but their prognosis can’t be long-term survival, unless their instagram weirdness really galvanises the turncoats and creeps or finds some very rich David Ike fanboy to invest. Ignoring bad smells is never a great idea, our whole biological purpose of smell to detect invisible malaise and thus act upon removing the harm it can do to our bodies. Not the most high-brow parallel, can we get a point across without retweeting our twitter bot making garbled Bifo and Deleuze references?

What is the fear that forces us to hold back on committing to our views… views that SHOULD by default be progressive, inclusive and reformative? It’s not fucking Serpico, it’s art, but the stakes aren’t wildly different. Beyond art, a place in Dalston has offered those with academic fascist sympathies a place to organise. How is that anything but awful?

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lovehardenemycollector · 4 years ago

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KARACHI—The battle raged for hours between two nuclear powers on Monday, fought in a contested valley high in the legendary Karakoram mountain range. But the weapons used were as primitive as they were brutal: iron rods wrapped in barbed wire, bare fists, and anything that came to hand. When it was over, India counted 20 of its soldiers dead, some of them forced into a river. China acknowledged the clash, but gave no casualty count or details.JFK Stopped a China-India War. Can Trump? The Nuclear Stakes Are Much Higher NowThe incident marked a grave escalation in a decades-old high-altitude stand-off that had been intensifying in recent weeks, and suggests a Chinese strategy for which neither India nor the United States have a good answer: one of provocation, and incremental pushes, constantly testing resolve.India at first said three of its troops were killed, but in a statement issued later on Tuesday the Indian Army said that 17 more critically injured succumbed to their injuries. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Indian troops "crossed the border line twice... provoking and attacking Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical confrontation between border forces on the two sides.”As the BBC reported, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said China tried to erect a structure inside Indian territory, while China's Wang Yi said Indian troops attacked first. But in a phone call both men promised not to escalate the situation. It was the first deadly clash at the disputed border for at least 45 years.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared his soldiers’ deaths "will not be in vain.”"India wants peace but when provoked, India is capable of giving a fitting reply, be it any kind of situation," Modi said in a televised address on Wednesday.U.S. President Donald Trump offered to mediate, but both Beijing and New Delhi quickly rejected that possibility, as diplomats knew they would. And the American position—or lack of it—suggests just how weak the Trump administration’s position really is in this part of the world. THE BUILD-UPTensions along the China-India border started escalating early last month when Chinese soldiers, ignoring verbal warnings from India, entered the disputed territory of Ladakh and erected tents and guard posts. Since then, thousands of soldiers from the two countries have been facing off just a few hundred meters from each other in the valley of the Galwan River more than two miles above sea level. The proximate cause of the flare-up is believed by observers to be New Delhi's plan to build infrastructure projects along the edge of Chinese-claimed territory. India's construction of roads and air strips along the 4,056 kilometer poorly demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) eventually established decades after the 1962 Sino-Indian War raised eyebrows, and ire, in Beijing.While China claims some 90,000 square kilometers of territory in India's northeast, including the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh with its traditionally Buddhist population, India blames China for occupying 38,000 square kilometers of its territory in the Aksai Chin Plateau in the western Himalayas, including part of the Ladakh region. A major reason behind strained Sino-India relations has been the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama, who fled his homeland in 1959 during an aborted uprising against Chinese rule. India hosted the Dalai Lama, who established a self-declared government-in-exile in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala, where thousands of Tibetans have settled.The blame game over trespassing along the disputed border is played out through media on both sides. At present the most contentious issue is the strategic bridge being built by India near Daulat Beg Oldi, the last military post south of the Karakoram Pass. The bridge is the part of Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi road, which will enhance India's strategic advance and access in the disputed region bordering China. Beijing's rapid military mobilization is aimed at deterring India's planned strategic access along LAC in Ladakh region.In the current Sino-India border standoff, Beijing looks offensive and aggressive; New Delhi seems defensive and restrained, and the United States appears to be eyeing the developing situation as a silent spectator. A FULL-BLOWN WAR?India wants to complete the infrastructure projects for its rapid military mobilization and strategic advance in the Ladakh region. China is increasing maximum pressure to force India to stop the construction activity. China has proved itself a dominant power by intruding several kilometers into the territory claimed by India along the LAC in the Ladakh region and by building bunkers there. Could the first clash lead to a full-fledged war between China and India?Experts believe that with the Monday clash a crisis that was well on its way to de-escalating did an abrupt about face and brought China and India closer to war than at any other time in quite a few years. But, the experts do not see the skirmish leading to a full-scale conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, and reports that despite the carnage no shots were fired suggests just how careful both sides are to avoid such a conflagration."A conflict is highly unlikely," Michael Kugelman, the deputy director and senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center in Washington told The Daily Beast."Neither side wants or can afford a war, and especially amid the coronavirus pandemic,” Kugelman said. “India, in particular, as the less powerful state won't want to risk a conflict. Eventually the two sides will deescalate. Still, there's no way that they will quickly climb down the ladder after a high-fatality incident like this one. Both sides will feel pressure to escalate, but both, and especially India, will need to be careful not to take measures that increase the possibility of miscalculation." THE COUNTERWEIGHT?Under President Barack Obama, the U.S projected India as a counterweight to China. But under the Trump administration, U.S policy witnessed a major shift vis-a-vis India. Last year, Donald Trump pushed New Delhi to the sidelines and initiated a peace process with the Afghan Taliban assigning Pakistan—India's arch rival—the key role facilitating U.S.-Taliban peace talks. And finally, Washington signed an exit deal with the Taliban on February 29. India was shut out of the whole two-year-long peace negotiations.Now Trump has eschewed what India might have expected to be his role as a strong ally."Typically in these crises the U.S. stays quiet,” says Kugelman. “I would imagine that we could see the U.S. scale up its intelligence support to India to better enable New Delhi to know the troop positions of Chinese soldiers along the border,” but “the U.S. lacks the bandwidth to do anything else. The Trump administration is completely consumed by the coronavirus and its reelection campaign.”Even so, says Kugelman, “I don't think we should underplay how significant this crisis is for Washington,” adding, "This is a case of Washington's top rival sparring with one of the biggest U.S. partners in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. government is sure to be paying close attention, and it can't afford to look away."Beijing has warned New Delhi to stay away from the U.S.-China rivalry. Beijing asked India to be careful not to include the U.S. factor in its handling of any problem in its relations with China, "otherwise it will only complicate the issue," China said in an article in the state-owned Global Times. "The offer of U.S. mediation is unnecessary and the last thing both sides could use. China and India have the ability to resolve their problems, and there is no need for any third-party intervention," said the article. "If in a new Cold War, India leans toward the U.S. or becomes a U.S. pawn attacking China, the economic and trade ties between the two Asian neighbors will suffer a devastating blow. And it would be too much for the Indian economy to take such a hit at the current stage."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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jeremyhodge2 · 5 years ago

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Syria’s Cersei Lannister Is Back and Now She Wants Revenge

The Daily Beast: 11 May 2020

By Jeremy Hodge

GAZIANTEP, Turkey—Last February, at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in London, David Hockney’s iconic 1966 painting “The Splash” was sold to an unidentified buyer for a record-setting price of £23.1 million ($28.6 million). News quickly surfaced that the mystery buyer was billionaire entertainment magnate David Geffen, who decided to splurge shortly after selling his Beverly Hills mansion to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for $165 million. Geffen had owned the painting previously, but sold it in 1985 to another private buyer.

Why are we telling you this in a story about Syria?

Amid the chaos and carnage there, news of the secretive “Splash” purchase was used to fuel a wholly separate tale of intrigue among the ranks of a very different, and very sinister international elite. In this version of events, picked up throughout the region’s press outlets and social media, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad bought the painting as a gift for his British-born wife, Asma, once dubbed “The Desert Rose” by Vogue magazine, but now emerging more like the Cersei Lannister of her devastated country.

Whatever the truth of the Hockney sale, for many in the Middle East the notion that the Assads would make such a selfish purchase at a time when their country lies in ruins seemed perfectly believable.

When Asma was celebrated in Vogue nine years ago (the article has since been deleted), she and her husband were portrayed as a dynamic young couple (he was 46, she was 36) and potential reformers among the retrograde dictatorships and monarchies of the Arab world. She was attractive, well educated and comfortable in her well-cultivated, upper-middle-class London accent (more so than her local Arabic), and it was easy to imagine her capable of curbing her husband’s worst authoritarian tendencies while steering Syria toward greater openness. They had cute kids. She was espousing worthy causes and working with non-profit NGOs.

So, if she was known for spending lavishly on jewelry and clothes, nobody much cared outside the country’s borders, and for Vogue, so much the better.

But that was before Assad treated protests as rebellion, responded with savagery, and a civil war began that to date has killed some 500,000 people, even as half the country’s population is displaced internally or has fled to exile as refugees. The conflict spawned huge migration flows to Europe in 2015 that massively disrupted its politics, feeding into the hateful xenophobia of the far right. The chaos, and to some extent Bashar al-Assad’s cynical tactics, also helped nurture the rise of the barbarous little terror empire that called itself the Islamic State.

Inside Syria there had always been skepticism about the fawning international coverage of Asma, which even before the hard times served to strengthen the perception that despite her charitable enterprises, the First Lady lacked any real connection to ordinary citizens. It was clear to anyone who dared look that the regime her husband led was structured to serve a shrinking class of ever more wealthy elites, and Asma was no paradigm, she was a problem.

Certainly that’s the way her husband’s mother saw things.

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW

Anissa Makhlouf, wife of the dynasty’s founder, Hafez al-Assad, grew up in humble rural surroundings in a nation where members of the Alawite sect that she and her husband and his closest allies belonged to were regarded as heretical peasants, even after Hafez, an air force general, seized power in 1970. Following the death of Hafez in 2000, and the succession of Bashar, Anissa became very much a power in her own right. She did not trust her son’s London born wife, and she used her influence to marginalize Asma’s public role as well as Asma’s access within the regime.

But Mother Anissa died in February 2016 at the age of 86, and since then Asma, now only 44, has seen her star rise considerably, cultivating an independent power base for herself and her immediate family that challenges other more established members of the extended Assad clans.

Once upon a time, many in the West thought that Asma could help restrain Syria’s crony capitalism and brute backdoor dealings, but Bashar’s wife has proved herself highly skilled—indeed, among the most adept and potentially deadly—at navigating the country’s maze of rival cliques for her own benefit.

Anissa Makhlouf’s dislike for her daughter-in-law was a reflection of her concern about Bashar al-Assad’s own lack of popular support within the ruling family and the highest echelons of the regime. Known for being meek and underappreciated with a distinct inability to look people in the eye, prior to 1994 Bashar had never been considered for the role of President. His father had groomed his far more charismatic and handsome older brother, Bassel, as heir apparent. But Bassel died in a car crash in 1994.

Even then, Bashar kept a low profile in London, studying optometry in Britain, where he first met Asma, far from palace intrigues.

In the BBC documentary, A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad, a British tutor hired by the family to teach English to the late Bassel remembered his first experience with Bashar as an entirely unremarkable exchange. “I once met Bashar as he was coming into the home, and he didn't make eye contact with me,” the tutor said. “He just, kind of was looking down at my hand, and stuck out his own hand, and that was it. I remember thinking that the father certainly made a good choice in choosing Bassel as his successor.”

After Bassel’s death, Anissa pushed Hafez to select Bashar’s younger brother, Maher, to take Bassel’s place as the next President of Syria. But Hafez knew Maher’s reputation as a hothead prone to violence. Bashar’s other brother, Majid, was purportedly a heroin addict who suffered from a mental disability and could not be trusted to lead. This left Bashar, much to the chagrin of Anissa, the disapproving mother, to take the reins.

Following Hafez’s death in 2000 and Bashar’s appointment as President, Anissa used her influence to strengthen the position of her other relatives to become the true centers of power within Syria, operating around Bashar rather than through him.

Maher al-Assad, the favorite, was given control of key military units such as the Republican Guard and 42nd Tank Battalion, which oversaw and controlled profits from key oil wells in the country’s eastern Deir Ezzor province.

Anissa’s brother, Muhammad Makhlouf, and his sons, Hafez, Ayyad and Rami, already towering figures within the regime, significantly expanded their influence beginning in 2000, following Bashar’s appointment.

That year, Rami Makhlouf founded and became CEO of Syriatel, one of only two telecommunications companies in Syria that would go on to dominate 70 percent of the domestic market. Makhlouf and his father Muhammad eventually would build a massive business empire and net worth estimated to top $5 billion, while Hafez and Ayyad Makhlouf exerted increased dominance over state security apparatuses. Asma meanwhile, remained largely on the sidelines.

“Before the revolution, regime censors wouldn’t even let us journalists refer to Asma as ‘First Lady,’” according to Iyad Aissa, a Syrian opposition journalist who has written extensively about the inner workings of the Assad family, speaking on an Arabic language broadcast. “We were only allowed to describe Asma as ‘the President’s wife,’ unlike Anissa, Bashar’s mother, who was always known as ‘First Lady’ during the reign of the father, Hafez.”

Over the years, rivalries within rivalries developed. Maher al-Assad saw Muhammad Makhlouf, who chaired Syria’s Euphrates Oil Company, as a threat to his de facto control of petroleum resources in Deir Ezzor.

The Makhloufs would also develop increasingly close ties to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), a secular ultranationalist political party founded in 1932. Hafez al-Assad had built his power through the revolutionary Arab nationalist Baath party, which first seized power in 1963, and the SSNP over the years was seen sometimes as a rival, sometimes an ally. But it had a strong base of popular support, especially in the Alawite heartlands, including the Makhlouf’s hometown of Bustan Basha.

The vast majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims, many of whom eventually became sympathetic to the the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist groups. Secular parties like the SSNP and Baath became especially attractive for ambitious religious outsiders, including Christians as well as Alawites. Although the religious-ideological dynamic changed when the Islamic Republic of Iran forged a Shi’a-Alawite alliance with Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s, the party structures remained.

Throughout the 2000’s, Rami Makhlouf and other members of the family regularly drew on the SSNP to cultivate an independent source of support for themselves outside the scope of the ruling Baath, and before long the SSNP came to be called, only half jokingly, “Rami’s party.” After the popular uprising began in 2011, SSNP cadres would serve as the core of pro-regime militias specifically loyal to the Makhlouf clan.

In the first decade of Bashar al-Assad’s presidency, the British-born Asma, whose roots are among Sunni merchant families from Homs and Damascus, was not a significant player. Hacked emails published in 2012 quoted her saying, “I am the real dictator”. But after Anissa’s death, Asma would take the opportunity to involve herself and her relatives more directly in Syria’s politics and economy, going after her rivals in the Makhlouf clan, and in particular it’s leading mogul, Rami Makhlouf.

ASMA’S REVENGE

On May 4, 2020, Rami Makhlouf went missing.

Guernica37, an international law and human rights NGO based in the UK, issued a press release that day claiming Makhlouf fled to the United Arab Emirates, but it is unclear whether Makhlouf, sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department since 2008, is truly in the UAE or seeking refuge elsewhere. That same day, Syrian Republican Guard units seeking to arrest Makhlouf raided his villa on the outskirts of Damascus, failing to turn up evidence of his whereabouts.

Previously, security forces stormed the offices of Syriatel, arresting 28 high-ranking officials, and arrested Wadah Abd al-Rabu, editor in chief of the al-Watan newspaper, one of Syria’s most prominent pro-regime media mouthpieces, which Makhlouf has owned since 2006.

As the showdown took shape, Rami Makhlouf issued a series of stunning rebukes to President Bashar al-Assad and his regime in two videos uploaded to his personal Facebook page on April 30 and May 3. “Can you believe it?” Makhlouf asked in the second video, “Security services have stormed the offices of Rami Makhlouf, their biggest funder and supporter, most faithful servant, and most prominent patron throughout the whole of the war… The pressure being put on us is intolerable, and inhumane.”

The crux of the dispute is control of Syriatel, a joint public-private partnership half owned by the state, which is entitled to roughly 50 percent of the company’s profits in addition to taxes and other state fees. On April 27, Syria’s Telecommunications and Post Regulatory Authority (TPRA) announced that Syriatel and the country’s only other telecommunication service, MTN, collectively owed $449.65 million to the country’s treasury in annual profits required to be shared with the state. MTN has announced that it intends to pay its $172.9 million share, but Makhlouf has remained defiant.

“The state has no right to this money, and it’s turning its back on previous agreements made years back,” Makhlouf declared. “I'll soon be releasing documents that I've already submitted to the relevant authorities clearly demonstrating why they have no right to this money,” he added.

In a state known for carrying out the wholesale slaughter of those who test its authority, Makhlouf’s audacity addressing the president like that sent shockwaves throughout the country. But it’s not surprising. This is the culmination of explicit efforts by Asma, Maher and Bashar al-Assad over the last year to strip Rami Makhlouf and his relatives of their power in Syria.

These maneuvering began last August, following Russian demands that the Syrian regime pay back between $2 billion and $3 billion in past due loans, at which point regime security forces put Rami Makhlouf under house arrest in an attempt to force the telecoms mogul to foot the bill.

By September, Asma and a cadre of loyal officials who previously worked in her network of NGOs launched a hostile takeover of the Bustan Cooperative, a charitable organization run by Makhlouf through which the salaries of SSNP and other militiamen loyal to Rami had been paid.

In October 2019, it was also announced that Asma would be establishing a third telecommunications company in Syria that aimed to seize market share from Syriatel. Lastly, Syria’s Ministry of Finance issued two separate orders on December 24 and March 17 to freeze assets owned by Rami Makhlouf’s Abar Petroleum Services company that were later used to plug budget deficits within the country’s General Customs Directorate.

The targeting of Makhlouf’s assets meanwhile comes as those belonging to a number of Asma’s Sunni relatives have grown significantly.

Beginning in 2016, shortly after the death of Anissa al-Makhlouf, members of Asma’s family reportedly took control over significant parts of the market for basic goods in Syria. This followed the introduction of a smart card program to purchase products including rice, gas, bread, tea, sugar and cooking oil.

The contract allegedly was given to Takamal, a company run by one of Asma’s brothers and Muhannad al-Dabagh, Asma’s cousin via her maternal aunt. Local media investigations of the company have alleged that a percentage of proceeds reaped from the purchase of goods using smart cards are re-deposited into accounts owned by Takamal’s governing board, run by Asma’s relatives.

In December 2019,while many of Rami Makhlouf’s assets were being frozen, those of Asma’s paternal uncle, Tarif al-Akhras, were being thawed. Syria’s Ministry of Finance had had them locked down for more than a year.

Al-Akhras, who owned a small trucking business in Homs prior to 2000, used his niece’s connection to the ruling family to expand his networks. He then began taking part in shipments of food and other goods that ran through Syria into Iraq as part of the Oil for Food Program prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion. Ever since, al-Akhras’ work has expanded into the maritime shipping, construction, real estate and meat packing sectors. Currently, he and other members of Asma’s inner circle stand to see their fortunes continue to improve.

Asma’s move into the economic sphere has coincided with her victory over a year long struggle with breast cancer. The First Lady formally announced her recovery in August, just before security services put Rami Makhlouf under house arrest. Since then, Syria’s Desert Rose has continued if not increased her prolific media appearances documenting her seemingly tireless charitable work across the country.

With her newfound economic foothold in place, Asma appears most focused on grooming her children to take their place in the 50 year Assad-Baath party dynasty, often bringing young Hafez, Zain and Karim al-Assad on frontline trips to visit wounded soldiers and inaugurate the opening of new facilities from children’s hospitals to newly built schools for the gifted.

As the war winds down, and Asma’s oldest, Hafez, begins his 18th year, talk has already emerged in pro-regime news outlets and on social media discussing his qualifications to succeed Bashar. Taking the lead himself, recently Hafez has begun conducting his own visits to sites across the country, following clearly in his mother’s footsteps.

The Russians who saved Bashar’s regime over the last five years, have grown weary of his corruption and wary of his Iranian allies. Maybe Asma imagines they would be open to new faces, albeit with the same name.

More than ever, since her recovery from cancer, Asma has been keen to re-cultivate the image of the savior queen that she held and then lost in 2011, one ready and poised to bring up the next generation of Syrians, a woman whose soft touch can heal the country’s wounds.

Some world leaders, having long ago succumbed to grim fatigue where Syria is concerned, may be willing to pay lip service at least to this charade. Following a near 10 year lapse, Syria’s Desert Rose could be looking to bloom once more.

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apexart-journal · 5 years ago

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Stephanie Lawal, Day #6

I see that I mislabeled my last post. Perhaps “dazed’ is more like it. I had originally thought that I would combine the two days, as I am way behind in posting my experiences, but still feel that nearly all have been poignant. Those of you who are telling me that you enjoy reading my posts, are not at all encouraging brevity. Ha!

On my sixth day in England, apexart gave to me...

The day started off with an Inequalities in Education class, where everyone was very patient at answering my questions, because as much as the British system and the US system face some similar challenges, they are different. At a really basic level, the terminologies we use are different. I referred to my having attended public schools, and at some point one of the other students realized the term “public” meant something different to me. Here is a little chart, as best as I understand:

United States England

“public” privately operated and elite

private private not elite

public “state”

charter academy

“college” high school

Okay, that is not the best chart, but I hope you get it. Also, both countries have religious schools which are privately run, but England may have some sort of mandate for religious affiliation for all schools - a concept I didn’t quite grasp. Apparently this is something declared by all, but often not practiced?

Anywho, for now I would like to just talk about the class itself, but not so much the content. I am finding a lot of free and low cost things available in Brighton. Some things are supported by the Brighton & Hove City Council, but not all. The class was held at the Learning Centre of the City Clean - Refuse and Recycling Centre. The space and equipment are made available by the trades union there, and I believe that they will be receiving an award next week, for the learning centre, which will be presented by one of the queen’s representatives. (Am I supposed to type “The Queen?” - For me, that’s the title of a movie where Helen Mirren is the star.) As for the school itself, it is FUB - Free University of Brighton. It is as the name implies, and not only offers courses (on Saturdays and evenings), but whole curricula. A couple of the students in my class were doing the “first year” series of courses. My class had two facilitators who are/were university professors. The demographics of the small class ranged in age, gender, income, and school experience which included those who already had advanced degrees, and those who did not have a specific subject desire after high school. Also, class material - from all classes, is made available to those registered on the school website. The two and a half hour class was conducted much like my grad classes at CUNY, where there were activities and student participation.

I then went to free day at the Brighton Museum, for Black History Month festivities. I’d been listening to the BBC’s Witness History broadcasts about Black History Month in October, so I was surprised that there would still be goings on in November. My understanding is that “the month” is October, but the celebrations continue in a way to say that this is history, period, and as such, is not regulated to a specific time period. This was a heartening thing to hear, and so very different from the U.S. Still, I didn’t know what to expect, and thought it might be hokey. This thought started to take hold a bit when I entered and saw black women wrapping white women’s heads in African headdress. I suppose I wouldn’t be so cynical if I thought they might wear the wraps some other time. Though, I suppose that could also be looked upon negatively. I was comforted with the aunties charging 5 pounds (I don’t think I have the symbol on my keyboard) for the experience. One woman, who did not appear to be one of the dressers but sat on the sidelines giving instructions, even turned to me to admit that she was clueless to technique, but was just advising on what seemed to work. I continued on to the room with the music and information tables. Here I was greeted with information on who all had performed at the Brighton Dome (where I saw Day #1 performance) over the decades, and I wondered why along with the blurb about Sister Rosetta Tharp, the caption mentioned the “Africans” who had arrived to perform in the 1964 American Folk Blues and Gospel Festival, but then I had to acknowledge that perhaps I was nitpicking about word usage. It did make me think about complaints I had heard during the World Cup in particular (this may have been the French team - I don’t recall) about players feeling that they were nationals when they did well, but when they disappointed, they were referred to as being of their (their parents) native ethnicities, no matter where they were born. It felt like that, but I didn’t see why England would have the need to deny anyone Americanness.

In any case, I moved on to an exhibit made by an artist and athlete, about champion, black, British cyclists, who had not gotten the recognition they deserved, and in fact he only had knowledge of after doing research to find any black men in the sport. He described for me his work, and the recognition this traveling exhibit had gotten for one of the cyclists. I felt comfortable asking him about racism as a black man in England, and the word he used was, “insidious.” Though I felt in some ways that I see more representation of people of color, and also Muslims on British television at least, and that in my short experience, Brits don’t seem to recognize racism as a color thing (YouTube tells me differently), he explained that the racism is often felt in micro-aggressions, and also with that glass ceiling (my words). The example he used in liberal Brighton, the university system (everyone is proud to mention the two universities in Brighton) that had an adjacent information table, did not have one black professor. These comments were all too familiar to me. The last part of this poignant experience was authors and poets reading from a compilation of non-white Brit stories. The one story that I heard, referred to Remembrance Day where Brits walk around with a red poppy representation on their clothing. There are also poppies and wreaths all around town to commemorate the war dead. This author spoke about observing a lesson taught to children, and realizing that there wasn’t a lick of representation of anyone who looked like her, who had fought in British wars. In this, her theme was - we remember what we care about - perhaps vice versa. Anyway, the message being that no one cared about her or any of the non-white children who had been taught this lesson - all of them, as the World Wars especially are part of the grade school curriculum. Afterwards I spoke with the woman who organized the event. Here’s to my choice ignorance - During the event, I was curious each time she used the term “we” to refer to the experiences of the non-white panel, along with herself. To my eyes, she was white. She told me a bit about the BAME (Black and minority ethnicity?) community in Brighton, and then when I asked, she told me that she was originally from TX. It immediately made sense when she said that here in England she passed, but back in the States, her Mexican ethnicity was apparent, and caused her problems. Bizarre how we label and treat each other based on nothing more than appearance.

#Stephanie Lawal #Outbound to Brighton

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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JAN MOIR: My heart sinks just a little at this BBC Girl Power

For the first time, a flagship BBC politics programme will be fronted by three women. Emily Maitlis, Kirsty Wark and Emma Barnett are the all-female presenting team on BBC2’s Newsnight.

‘Boom. Let’s do this,’ Emma said when the news was announced.

This gave the impression the plucky threesome were girding their loinettes for some kind of battle, when the truth is the war has already been won.

In Beeb Central, the Time of Men — the old order of broadcasting patriarchy — is going, going, gone; replaced with furious alacrity by an illustrious regiment of women.

Leading men across all spheres, from showbiz to politics, are falling like kneecapped dominoes.

Emily Maitlis (pictured), Kirsty Wark and Emma Barnett are the all-female presenting team on BBC2’s Newsnight

There is a female Doctor Who and a toothsome female duo presenting Strictly Come Dancing, the Beeb’s most popular light entertainment show. Female DJs have replaced Chris Evans and Simon Mayo on Radio 2, while the golden but entitled Age of the Dimblebys is crumbling into dust.

BBC1’s Question Time David has been replaced by Fiona Bruce, while the successor to Radio 4’s Any Questions Jonathan has yet to be announced, but the smart money is on A (for Any) Woman — quite possibly Woman’s Hour’s Jane Garvey, or Fi Glover of the station’s The Listening Project.

From now until for ever, it seems every high-profile onscreen appointment will be given to a her, not a him, in this brave new broadcasting She-domain.

My heart should sing at this display of raw female power yet, instead, it sinks. Just a little — a dip, not a plunge. But the trajectory is definitely downwards.

It’s not that I object to the promotion of this trio of talented Newsnight women, each at the top of her game in myriad brilliant ways.

No, it’s more that the BBC’s response to accusations of gender imbalance and its protracted gender pay-gap dispute has been so clumsy, so silly and, ironically, so devoid of fairness and equality.

For there is nothing positive about positive discrimination. All these well-meaning attempts to end discrimination simply end up with more discrimination.

Andrew Neil, by far the best political interviewer across the BBC network, will step down from his BBC1 This Week programme in July

At the BBC, a sometimes flawed meritocracy has been replaced by something far, far worse; blunderbuss gender politics in a workplace where white, middle-class males are treated like lepers.

Take Andrew Neil, by far the best political interviewer across the BBC network, who will step down from his BBC1 This Week programme in July — probably in exasperation at being continually shuffled off into a late-night ‘graveyard slot’.

BBC Director of News Fran Unsworth then cheerily said she would axe the show because ‘we couldn’t imagine it’ without Neil.

If she’s such a fan, why has the old bloodsucker been kept in his late-night coffin all these years?

Neil is still appearing in his lunchtime Politics Live show. Yesterday, he ticked off the voluble Remainer MP for Broxtowe, saying: ‘This is not the Anna Soubry Hour. I think you have had more than a fair say.’ Authoritative yet still polite, a first-class act in a second-class slot.

Elsewhere, a traineeship scheme for Radio 1’s Newsbeat is only to take black, Asian, mixed ethnicity or lower socio-economic applicants.

This means applications from ambitious middle-class white girls — and particularly boys — would go in the bin. Fair enough, you might think.

Perhaps it’s time for men to suffer and understand what it feels like to be marginalised, sidelined and overlooked just because of their sex.

Imagine how Emily Maitlis must have felt on discovering that fellow Newsnight presenter Evan Davis, a broadcaster not fit to clean her over-the-knee boots, was paid a third more for doing the same job.

Clearly there has been a gender pay imbalance at the BBC, just like the one in society. Maybe it is true that, for too long, power and equality were denied to women at the BBC. Yet certain kinds of privilege and bias still have their place.

For Emily, Kirsty and Emma are a certain kind of BBC woman. Shiny of hair and blue of stocking, they are all good middle-class gels who went to posh schools (two of them fee-paying), then good universities.

Most importantly, I’ll wager they are all Left-leaning liberals with Guardianista sensibilities running through them. And if any of the trio isn’t a dyed-in-the-cashmere-wool Remainer, I’ll join the Brexit Betrayal March myself.

Which suggests BBC bosses are keen on diversification in all its forms, but only in areas where it suits them.

It would be impossible to imagine a Right-leaning, Brexit-supporting female broadcaster — Julia Hartley-Brewer, for example — even being considered for a Newsnight job.

And when I interviewed Sky TV’s Kay Burley recently, she said that as a working-class girl from Wigan who left school after her O-levels, she ‘didn’t have the right accent or education to work at the BBC’.

Have things changed? In every way, but also in no way whatsoever.

The broadcasting regulator Ofcom is reviewing the BBC’s news and current affairs output to ensure it remains relevant and trusted in the capricious, polarised and challenging world of multi-sourced news.

The new Newsnight team will give them much to ponder over. But in the meantime, let me stop you right there, as Emily would say, and ask: is one woman’s equality another man’s injustice?

Ade, you lazy lump, congratulations! EuroMillions winner deserves all the happiness his huge windfall will bring

Middle-aged, overweight, sad owl face, lumbering dolt, usually Scottish. If it’s true that all lottery winners look like the same person and fit this particular profile, how come I haven’t won yet?

Despite ticking all the above boxes, yet again it’s not me, it’s him — Ade Goodchild, a singleton 58-year-old factory worker from Hereford.

No, Ade doesn’t hail from Scotland like most Lottery winners seem to. But in every other aspect, he seems to fit the stereotype perfectly.

He is corpulent, dazed, bears a slight resemblance to a giant thumb and, unusually, insists that his mega-win will change him.

According to one report, EuroMillions winner Ade Goodchild never lifted a finger to do any chores in the house or work in the garden

Twice-married Ade scooped £71 million on the EuroMillions this week, a fantastic sum. His two ex-wives have already said they don’t want a share of his money. Good for them.

His first wife said it ‘couldn’t have happened to a nicer man’, while the second insisted that she is ‘happier without him’. Still, it is prospective wife No 3, whoever she may be, who will reap the lottery windfall.

Ade seems like the kind of lazy, useless husband any woman would be well rid of. According to one report, he never lifted a finger to do any chores in the house or work in the garden. Even after they were divorced, his second wife said she still had to go round and walk the dogs.

Yet Ade is self-aware enough to joke that he’s no more attractive now he’s a winner than he was before, but that his wallet is getting more than a few admiring glances.

He says he will look after members of his family and is going to spend the money on wine and women, then waste the rest.

Can you find it in your heart to wish him well? I do, I do, I do.

Paul pogos to the bank: Court case reveals Clash punk rocker’s millions

Back in the 1970s, the Clash were sexy revolutionaries whose punk music was thick with Left-wing ideology.

The song White Riot urged alienated white youths to riot like their black counterparts; London Calling sent an apocalyptic message to strengthen the kids’ resolve before the onslaught of Thatcherism, boo.

Well, that was then. Now, Clash bassist Paul Simonon has won a £5 million legal fight with his second wife, who managed some of the band’s financial accounts.

She wanted to change the terms of their original divorce settlement and sell her share of Clash royalties to an investment firm, but the judge ruled against her.

In the initial settlement, they each kept a London home, while sharing the cost of their sons’ education fees. The couple’s legal bills for the new hearing were more than £60,000.

‘You think it’s funny, turning rebellion into money,’ they once sang, the old hypocrites.

Next, you’ll be telling me The Who’s Roger Daltrey is a Tory-supporting Brexiteer.

A rare black-and-white print of The Scream, by Edvard Munch, will soon go on display at the British Museum.

How very prescient, for the painting seems to sum up the national mood over Brexit precisely. Head in hands, hair torn out, mouth open in a soundless yell of despair from the very marrow of one’s being.

Of course, debate still swirls around the famous image. Is Munch’s figure emitting a scream or listening to a scream? And is that scream real or psychological?

Who knows, but altogether now . . . aaargggh.

TV presenter Lorraine Kelly has won a big case against the taxman by arguing that she appears on TV not as herself, but as an entertainer

Awww, that’s fantastic! TV presenter Lorraine Kelly has won a big case against the taxman by arguing that she appears on TV not as herself, but as an entertainer portraying a super-cheery, empathetic wee character who doesn’t actually exist.

‘I am a McFake,’ is what she appears to be saying, but didn’t we know that anyway? Ms Kelly (above) told the tax tribunal she was an entertainer because she played ‘a version’ of herself on her ITV show. So the Lorraine Kelly who appears as Lorraine Kelly on Lorraine is not the real Lorraine Kelly but a theatrical construct.

She won her appeal against a £900,000 tax bill and £300,000 National Insurance demand. That’s the real drama. Take a bow, Lorraine, whoever you are.

‘When is the real Prince Harry coming?’ a schoolboy asked the Duke of Sussex during a visit to a London primary school.

Indeed! Over the past few months, as Harry has chuntered on about living the dream, shining the light, all the blades of grass and the raindrops and your ‘own true north’, it is a question I have often asked myself. Hullo clouds, hullo sky? Really, Harry?

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#Entertainment News

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megadarkbouquettidalwavethings · 7 years ago

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El Clasico: Is this Gareth Bale’s last chance to save his Real Madrid career?

Bale has played 12 times for Real Madrid this season, scoring four goals

Real Madrid v Barcelona Venue: Santiago Bernabeu Date: Saturday, 23 December Kick-off: 12:00 GMT Coverage: Live text commentary via the BBC Sport website and app.

Real Madrid face a must-win Clasico on Saturday, and Gareth Bale is hoping to use the game as an opportunity to cement his long-term future at the club.

La Liga’s reigning champions are fourth in the table heading into the game, 11 points behind table-topping Barcelona – albeit with a game in hand – having dropped points in six of their 15 league games.

Bale has been absent for the majority of the campaign with a series of injuries, and those continual physical problems have led to speculation the club are willing to sell him.

Now he is back, and eager to earn another chance to show he deserves a place in Zinedine Zidane’s starting line-up. But it’s by no means certain he’ll be given that chance.

Patience running out?

Bale’s Real Madrid stats Season Appearances Goals 2017-18 12 4 2016-17 27 9 2015-16 31 19 2014-15 49 16 2013-14 40 22

This has been a frustrating year for Bale.

Though Real made history by claiming five trophies for the first time (La Liga, the Champions League, the Uefa and Spanish Super Cups and the Fifa Club World Cup), injury problems forced Bale into a peripheral role, and Spain international Isco has flourished as his replacement.

Thigh and calf injuries have restricted Bale to just five league appearances so far this season, while his total number of injuries since moving to Madrid has risen to 24.

During the autumn there was a growing sense that enough is enough, with all-powerful club president Florentino Perez – previously Bale’s biggest backer – reported to have run out of patience with the repeated unavailability of a player who was described in the media as being “made of glass”.

Amid rumours the Bernabeu hierarchy were preparing to sell Bale, there was an ominous note from Perez when he softened his support for the winger by appearing to compare him to former Real star Kaka, who Perez said was “never the same” after a serious knee injury.

Sensing the Wales international was being pushed out, most sections of the Spanish media adopted an aggressive tone. In October, for example, an article by Hector Martinez in sports daily AS stated Bale’s absence was “working in Zidane’s favour” and noted Real had won 10% more games without the former Tottenham man than with him.

There was particular irritation with the idea Bale is more committed to his country than his club, with another article in AS claiming “Madrid pays for him, Wales enjoy him”.

One of Bale’s biggest critics, Santi Segurola, wrote in broadsheet newspaper La Vanguardia: “His value is dissipating on the pitch and on the transfer market.”

For the first time, it seemed the odds of Bale staying in Spain were stacking up against him.

Proving his worth

Bale scored in the 81st minute to put Real into the Club World Cup final

But just when it started to appear Bale had no future in Madrid, his latest returns have served a timely reminder of his world-class talents.

Last month, after eight weeks out, Bale came off the bench with his team facing humiliation as they trailed at home against third-tier Fuenlabrada in the Copa del Rey. He promptly delivered a brilliant cross to create the equaliser for Borja Mayoral, then set up the young Spaniard for another goal.

After another – briefer – spell on the sidelines, his latest comeback came in similar circumstances, when Real were struggling in last week’s Club World Cup semi-final against Al Jazira. Bale came off the bench to score the winner.

The former Tottenham man also caught the eye as a substitute in the final against Gremio – he was only denied a spectacular goal by an excellent save – and those three brief cameos – his only appearances since September – have done his cause the power of good.

Real Madrid TV presenter Phil Kitromilides told BBC Sport: “I think it is very unfair to criticise any player for getting injured, and no-one will be more frustrated with the games he has missed than Bale.

“There have been flashes of excellence from Bale this season. His goal at Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League will be one of the best of the tournament, while he scored in both of the first two away games of the season.

“Bale has always been decisive and he showed that he’s still got that capacity in the semi-final of the Club World Cup, and when he came off the bench against Fuenlabrada and changed the game.”

With a crucial Clasico on the horizon, Bale could not have timed his return to fitness any better.

Will he start El Clasico?

Bale has had to get used to life on Real Madrid’s bench, starting only eight games this season

Bale’s chances of starting on Saturday are diminished by Zidane’s unshakeable faith in Karim Benzema, who has retained his place despite scoring in just four of his 19 appearances this season.

Zidane values Benzema for his ability to smoothly link midfield with attack, and said last week: “I will continue to defend him until the death.”

Unless the French coach has a radical rethink, that leaves Bale and a trio of Spain internationals – Isco, Marco Asensio and Lucas Vazquez – competing for just one remaining place in the starting line-up.

Counting against Bale is a recent change of formation, with Zidane largely abandoning the 4-3-3 formation in which the Welshman lined up alongside Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo in attack.

He now prefers a 4-4-2 containing a narrow midfield diamond, with Brazilian enforcer Casemiro flanked by playmakers Luka Modric and Toni Kroos, and Isco’s creative skills at the tip.

There’s no obvious place for Bale in that set-up, with his athletic abilities more suited to the bigger spaces available in the wide positions which are occupied by full-backs Dani Carvajal and Marcelo.

However, Kitromilides believes the change in formation was forced upon Zidane as a necessity, and a return to the so-called ‘BBC’ three-man frontline remains an option.

He said: “Zidane has not used a 4-3-3 recently because players have been injured. If Bale, Benzema and Cristiano are all fit, I’m sure we will see them play together again at some stage.”

This weekend, however, that approach is likely to be a Plan B rather than the starting strategy, and the fact it is even being debated shows how Bale – previously an unquestioned starter – has seen his status fall this year.

Zidane under pressure?

Zidane’s side have taken 11 points from their past five league games

This weekend’s Clasico is a game Real cannot afford to lose, and the consequences of defeat could be significant for Zidane just a week after his side became world champions – winning their eighth trophy in less than two years under him.

Zidane’s successes, and his background as a playing icon, have given him a fair amount of protection from Perez’s usual trigger-happy approach to hiring and firing managers.

Not many people could have survived the poor start to the season Real have endured, but surrendering a 14-point advantage to Barcelona before the midway point of the campaign could prove too much even for Zidane.

And it won’t be easy for Real to break down a Barcelona team that has gained new defensive solidity under the conservative approach of summer appointment Ernesto Valverde.

The league leaders have conceded just seven goals in 16 league games, with Germany goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen keeping 10 clean sheets.

And, although El Clasico is usually a goal-laden affair – with the last 10 meetings yielding 37 goals – that’s unlikely to be the case this time. It’s even tempting to suggest we may have the first goalless Clasico since 2002.

But if Bale can be the man to break the deadlock, even if it has to be from the bench, it could breathe fresh life into his Real career.

The post El Clasico: Is this Gareth Bale’s last chance to save his Real Madrid career? appeared first on Breaking News Top News & Latest News Headlines | Reuters.

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ellysdoespoems · 8 years ago

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camera

by Ellys Lawlor

There’s something primitively, instinctively thrilling about capturing and keeping things. Whether that’s to display as a point of pride or to privately reminisce over a token of time gone-by. Maybe I’m revealing too much about my tendency for excessive hoarding, but I think the same applies to most people. Pokémon built a whole all-consuming cult predicated on the compulsive need to ‘catch ‘em all’.

My parents spent much of my childhood capturing moments with a grey Polaroid instant camera. There were days dedicated to poring over photo-books, tomes stuffed to capacity with old friends, new friends, lost friends and family members before I’d known them. Each laminated rectangle carried a story that, more often than not, my mum would revel in recalling and my dad would sheepishly deny. I found out more about my parents those days sifting through their old memories than I ever did otherwise, a whole hedonistic late 90s lifestyle carefully compartmentalised across a series of innocuous looking folders.

The first camera of my own I remember having was a little orange disposable with a flimsy cardboard sleeve, bought from Boots down the road from where I lived. It’d be my travel buddy for a school trip to Castleton, my first weekend away from family at 9 years old. Unfortunately, I discovered on that trip that my tendency to hoard comes coupled with a certain overzealousness and it wasn’t the first evening of the trip before I’d spent all 20-so of my photographs on pictures I was convinced I’d needed. Of luggage, streams, the motorway, the school bus. We never bothered taking the camera to get the photos developed when I got home and it’s probably still sat in my cupboard somewhere now.

One Christmas my brother and I got a Panasonic MiniDV camcorder each. We’d moved house just outside the city we’d always lived in. I had just changed school and my brother hadn’t long started his first year of secondary school in a town a bus ride away. The camcorders were far out-dated then and we only had a tape each to record with but it didn’t make any difference to us then. My brother crafted Spielbegian epics featuring Godzilla hand puppets, whereas I ended up drafting all my siblings to help put together a series of crude stop motion animations based on the BBC Robin Hood TV show with a bunch of the action figures I’d gotten the same Christmas, fanfic I more or less invented on the fly. We got bored eventually and I didn’t want to over-write my tape but the mornings, afternoons and nights spent huddled together plotting the next opus in our auteurist catalogues kept the both of us sane through all the upheaval happening around us. My brother became my best friend in those intense brainstorming sessions. Like the disposable camera, those MiniDV tapes are probably in the same cupboard, the contents having never left tape land.

The months after I’d left college I was completely aimless. I had a bunch of GCSEs and some respectable A levels in my back pocket but I had no interest in pursuing anything. When university came up as a topic of conversation during college tutorials, I simply didn’t fill out any applications because I figured I wouldn’t make it to the end of college. Even if I did, what did it matter anyway? The last few years of school had soured me on education, where it seemed many of the teachers were coaching us to hit statistic targets they needed to cash their pay cheque month by month. Desperate, college became a last resort when I almost fell into abject complacency after the last year of school. I enjoyed my time there but I still didn’t have any sense of purpose. I convinced my parents that the year after college was a gap year and I’d figure out exactly what it was I was going to do in that time. My dad assured me that if I didn’t do anything with my time, and wasn’t either at university or in a stable job by the end of the year, I probably wouldn’t have a place to live.

I ended up interviewing for a voluntary position as a history guide at my local art gallery. It was looking over my credentials that the volunteering co-ordinator running the interviews thought I’d be better suited tagging along with the Media department they had on-site. I went along with it, not really knowing what working with the Media department would mean doing. It became apparent in the successive interview that they were best described as teachers rather than strictly a media-based team. In the latter years of school, as well as the sense of disillusionment, I ended up seeing an NHS-based counsellor who told me that I was suffering quite severe social anxiety and less apparent depressive tendencies. I didn’t really “get” what was going on in that regard and I hadn’t had many major events in the time since school but I knew sitting in that interview that there was frankly nothing I wanted to do less, and nothing I was less suited to, than helping teach people. That being said, I went along with it anyway.

Under the presumption that I knew what I was doing with a Photography AS on my record, I was invited to spend my first day with a group of students who were going to be undertaking a project photographing shopkeepers along a particular street in the city. True to any expectation I had of myself, I was excruciatingly awkward as I introduced myself to the small group of students, retreating to a corner of the room and remaining stiff throughout the rest of the session. The session ended with a trip to the row of shops the students would be investigating, an opportunity to test their skills with a camera at the beginning of the course. My boss thrust a kit lens Canon 600D into my hands. “Documentary.” he said, “Follow ‘em round and get ‘em while they’re working.” In a blind panic I flicked the wheel on top of the camera to Non-Flash (saves having to faff about with settings) and stuck to the first group that looked remotely okay with seeing me like a fly to honey.

The day was capped off with the staff looking over the photos everyone had taken, documentary included. I winced when I saw my offerings, hazy long shots of mistakable silhouettes fiddling with tripods and standing around with their hands in their pockets. They weren’t just technically bad photos; they were boring to look at. There was none of the exuberance I saw in many of the students as they tried to feel each other out, the complicated social workings as they started to relax around each other. I could tell the team were disappointed and I went home cursing myself for cocking up so badly. I was sick the next week when I tried to get up and help out with the session, largely at the thought of making an arse of myself again, but nevertheless after some time away I eventually returned. I improved a little over time but I could still never relax around the group, I hid behind the camera lens and used it as an excuse not to involve myself. You could see it in the final results, which often appeared more like blurry paparazzi shots.

In the store room taking equipment out a few sessions later, one of the members of the team handed me a 50mm Canon lens. “I was always told it’s the best lens to start with.” she said, “The focal length is just close enough to what our brain processes from our eyes. There’s no zoom on it either. If you want a close-up, you have to get up close.” This piece of advice ended up being my saving grace. With no zoom there was nowhere to hide, I had to be in the thick of it. Suddenly, standing next to them, it became far less daunting to be in the room. As I got to spend more time with the students, the pictures got better steadily too. They went from static portraits to displaying them in lively, dynamic form. To their credit, I soon figured out that many of the students had absolutely no inhibitions when it came to being photographed. Soon enough, I was asked to help out with a second group made up of young men aged 16-18 to help out with a similar project.

The year I spent with this group was one of the most fulfilling experiences I’ve ever had. They were loud, boisterous and a hell of an experience to stand in a room with. I wasted no time getting involved; the documenting became secondary to getting through the tasks each week. I started to look forward to coming in each week, all of them were characters, perfect to photograph and delightful to be around. One session had them recording the dialogue dubs for a music video they were putting together in the sound studio. I stood on the sidelines some paces away from the microphone, snapping away when I could. They loved the performance aspect of their project and these are some of the pictures I’m most proud of. On a hard-drive somewhere is a collection of melodramatic air-punches, arms outstretched like they’re reciting a Shakespearean monologue.

The end of the year for these guys came with the end of their course. An event was put on where they screened their music video project, the result of months of hard work (as well as a change in the main cast that had me dressed like an Anne Rice vampire in full stage make-up), along with a montage of all the documentary photos we’d kept over the year. It was a point of pride for me, not necessarily because I’d helped produce it, but more so in watching these young men see themselves grow over a sequence of still images. They hadn’t seen any of the photos I’d taken of them and suddenly they were seeing their story unfold. I couldn’t help but feel I’d finally come full circle, back to those days in front of a folder of photos as my parents related all their lost stories.

#essay #photography #memories #biographies & memoirs #writing #article

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