the Baader Meinhof Complex

Although the Badder Meinhoff Complex is a film it makes an important contribution into understanding the mind set of the international terrorist in the days before the arrival of the self sacrificing fanatic of the past decade. Ulrike Meinhoff and Andreas Badder were two principals in the Red Army Faction or the Red Brigade who carried out some 30 Terrorist atrocities, mainly in Germany but also Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium as well as Hijacking a plane in Majorca. It was odd seeing the initials R.A.F which in the UK continues to mean so much for those of us who experienced the Battle of Britain, albeit as children.

In its broadest terms the group was anti Fascist and pro socialist revolutionary activity from supporting the North Vietnamese, Chez Guevara and against all forms of “imperialism” taking the sides of the Arabs and Muslims against the Israeli State, receiving their training and weapons support in Jordan. The hierarchy opposed attacks which killed “workers” although most of the 34 deaths were “secondary” targets, chauffeurs and body guards. The lesser known Revolutionary Cells conducted 296 bomb attacks over the same period.

I am opposed to the use of violence as a way of settling differences and the worst kind is often that based on ideology, religion and racism because it is indiscriminate and merciless. Having said there are degrees of justification for violence by states when in the interests of the majority of people and by the people when they are enslaved by others. I like to believe that there are only exceptional circumstances when I would attempt to use violence against another human being and then only to protect the lives of others, rather than myself. However it is always difficult to predict how one will behave in a situation of which one has no or little experience.

In 1961 I was picked up and thrown into the air three times by the police when sitting peacefully with other on a landing stage close a Polaris Submarine supply ship moored in Holy Loch. This was the situation where I had resigned my position as a field officer of the Direct Action Committee and where the Principal Organisers had been arrested and I stepped in first to quell the changing mood of demonstrators against the actions of the police and when the service men were ordered to force their way through the demonstrators, and the following a message from Pat Arrowsmith to end the sit downs and for everyone to form into a march to the Police station in the nearest town Dunoon to protest at the arrests.

It is a standard tactic of authorities to find ways to remove the leadership of demonstration and protects movement or undermine their credibility and this then enables the demonstrations to be broken up, often by creating the very violence which then authorities then argue was the justification for them to use force to end. This was the approach adopted by the police, no doubt also communicated in advance or with some understanding of their political masters in central and local government. It is more difficult to do in a democracy than in a dictatorship but is nevertheless a standard tactic. As I shall explain it can also be used by those behind demonstrations to radicalise participants and this can include secret organisations within a country and as will be mentioned by other countries with different or their own agendas. That I had advised the authorities in advance of the action being within the spirit of Satyagraha, the Gandhian approach to non violent action and resistance, and took the action to stop a situation becoming negative with the demonstrators turning to violence was a major factor in which I was approved to hold a top local government office within local government a decade later.

Had I not be there that day the outcome could have been very different. Had someone intent on creating violence been present the situation could have changed dramatically and would have had longer term consequence. This is what happened before the decade ended when violence became a creature of the anti Vietnam war demonstrations. In the early sixties it was evident that while the Communist countries and their supporters world wide were supporting and funding the anti nuclear movements in Western democracies, they made a distinction between the worker’s and the capitalist bomb.

The event when I was given the insight to this was a conference of the Socialist Labour League then under the control of Gerry Healey. Pat Arrowsmith the field organiser for the Director Action Committee Against Nuclear war was invited to address the gathering held in central London. I was invited to manage a bookstall provide by Houseman’s the book and stationery provider which helped to fund Peace News, a weekly paper promoting non violent action and this provided the opportunity to first listen to what Pat had to say and then stay to hear the address by Gerry Healey which followed. He first explained why it was important to support the efforts undermine the British defence deterrent and that held by other capitalist states. However it was important for socialist countries to retain and develop their weapons without which the capitalist would seek to destroy communism. He then went on to explain the political tactic of enterism in which one entered industries and work places, fermented unrest and strikes which in turn would force employers to retaliate and help radicalise the workers. Their next object was to enter the machine tool industry and through this they would be able to exert greater influence on industry and manufacturing in general.

It was some two decades later that we experience a version of this approach by the Militant Tendency and their influence and to some extent control over NALGO the main managerial, administrative and Clerical workers Union in Local government, who along with the National Union of Public Employees represented the majority of staff in Social Services Departments.

Andreas Baader was a young man who appears to have enjoyed the excitement of being a violent criminal as he also gained from stealing and driving fast cars. A school drop he was the only one of the original leadership who did not go to university and appears to have had no intellectual basis for his subsequent terrorists activities. He appears to have been a psychopath.

The brains of the group was his lover, Gudrun Ensslin. and daughter of a German religious Pastor who it is claimed was a descendent of Hegel. She, like Andreas, were born in 1940 and her father was a conventional conservative who had written poetry approved by the Nazi Party. In 1958 she studied for a year in the United States and became at first socially minded and then drawn to the left wing causes of the 1960‘s, particularly the possession and potential use of nuclear weapons and the operation of American bases in Germany. She had a child by a lover.

A specific event tipped her into becoming a terrorist against the German state and its institution, During the visit of the Shah of Persia the Police and undercover security forces initiated violence in order to break up demonstrations by those opposed to the visit. Excessive forces was used and one demonstrator was shot by an undercover policeman in the back of the head. Although charged with manslaughter, the man was acquitted and Gudrun started to denounce West Germany as a Fascist State. In this there was considerable truth as under the American and British control former Nazis were given positions of political and administrative power at every level of government , in he police and armed services. However it was revealed after the fall of East Germany and unification with West Germany that the man was an East German agent who worked for the Stasi, the East Germany secret service.

Gudrun then met and became the lover of Andreas Baader and together with two others detonated two bombs in a departmental store in 1968. The were arrested within a few days, subsequently convicted and given three years in prison but released on bail under Appeal. When this was turned down they attempted to flee but Andreas was apprehended and taken back to prison. It is not unusual for some conventionally brought up upper and middle class young girls to be attracted to DH Lawrence types, which can include the violent criminal psychopath. I observed direct experience of this during the period of my involvement in the peace movement 1959 1961 and during my period at Ruskin College and the Department of Extra Mural Studies at Oxford University. I have written about this period separately and in the future from different perspectives and contexts. Sexual liberation is often the precipitating factor.

Gudrun became determined to break her lover out of prison and the opportunity came when he was allowed to study at a research institute outside the prison and without handcuffs.

According to the film Urika Meinhof arranged to interview him at the institute and once inside arranged for Gudrun and another girl to enter and release Andreas together with masked and unknown individual who had a gun with bullets. The intention was for Urike to remain and express surprise and shock at what happened, However the masked individual used the gun severely wounding the Librarian. Ulrike fled with the rest and became the most wanted individuals in West Germany and became known as the Baader, Meinhoff gang. Her father was an established art historian and ran the Oldenburg Museum who died early on in the war when she was six and her mother also died when she was a teenager. She nevertheless went to university and studied philosophy and sociology and pedagogy and German studies becoming involved in reform movements in the later 1950’s and then was significantly influenced by a Spanish Marxist who later translated some of her writings. She then married the founder of the Marxist left monthly journal Konkret, having become a secret member of the banned German Communist party and in a situation where the journal was financed by the East German Government. She became the writer for the group as well as participating in its activities, bearing twin children who became part of a tussle with her husband when she left the country and went underground and they divorced. She made one attempt to kidnap the children so they could educated in Palestine but this failed and they were returned to the care of their father.

After establishing links with Palestinian and Middle east revolutionaries and terrorists, the group attended a Fatah training camp in Jordan but were asked to leave in part because of their attitude to sex and nudity but also according to the film because they wanted to be trained to rob banks while Fatah was concerned with operations in desert conditions. They however retained links and the group obtained weapons and other assistance.

It was after their return to Germany they engaged in banks robberies and bombings of buildings with several leading to deaths. The three were arrested separately in 1972 and their trial took several year to commence and also lasted a long time with refusals to appear, with exclusions because of their behaviour from the court and various activities of other members of the group who became known as the second generation of the R.A.F. They went on hunger strike over being kept in isolation and because their confinement conditions. Concessions were made and they were able to communicate with each other in terms of the trial.

The film follows the activities of the second generation of the RAF activists. The members along with other revolutionary groups in Germany and in various countries of Europe were trained on the West Bank and Gaza with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and they operated cell structures applying the revolutionary ideas of Che Guevara to city and urban areas. They attacked US Military Facilities, German Police Stations and buildings belonging to the Axel Springer media empire.

It was while the Principals were in prison that the second generation commenced to kidnap in order to try and secure the release of those inside. In 1975 a candidate for a mayor was kidnapped and the authorities did agree to release those not accused of murder in exchange. Then later that year the German Embassy in Stockholm was raised and hostage taken, two of whom were killed but this time the demands were not met. A Federal prosecutor was gunned down. The Head of the Dresdner Bank was murdered in a failed kidnap attempt. The President of German Employers Association was kidnapped in another raid and subsequently executed after over a month as a prisoner. Then supporters of the Palestinian cause kidnapped a German holiday jet from Majorca to Frankfurt demanding the release of the Principals who had now been convicted and sentenced. The three Principals were said to have committed suicide following a pact after the hostages were released from the plane. There are those who believe that the three were executed by the state to prevent further attempts to free them and according to the Wikipedia there are legitimate questions about the deaths. This would not be surprising

The R.A.F continued its terrorist activities into the 1990’s despite the collapse of the soviet union but these are not covered in the film, The group stated that it was disbanded on 20th April 199 and since then the German government has accepted requests for pardons by some of those still in prison.

The Wikipedia article is excellent because it attempts to set the socio political scene in which the Red Brigade and other similar groups flourished in Germany in particular. Those involved were born during or immediately after World War 2 and the defeat of Nazism and the exposure of its genocide against the Jews, the disabled, other ethnic minorities such as gypsies and Nazi dissenters. They lived in a divided country with the Communists police state in one half and a right wing government full of former Nazi’s on the other. Berlin was full of spies and double agents for half the countries in the world.

Britain had initiated mass protests with the Suez debacle in 1956 and hen with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Direction Action Committee against Nuclear War in the early 1960’s. There was the student revolts in Paris and France and in the USA and hen the anti Vietnam War protests. There were hundreds of thousands of idealistic young people who rejected the mass army and weaponry development of both sides in the cold and not so cold war and saw both camps engaged in imperialist activities to harm of the poor and the worker classes across the globe. There was a belief that things would only change through world wide revolution and a violent one. There was a philosophic school in Germany with Habernas, Marcuse and Negt with Marxian philosophers and political theorists. They made the mistake of forgetting that in general people are not prepared to volunteer their lives in mortal combat unless they are starving, the bread riots before the French Revolution or the effects of invasion and war losses as with the success of Communism in Germany and Fascism in post First World War Germany. People do not revolt for secular ideologies as they will do not in defence of their religion.

The Contract and more

It is difficult to sit at the desk and work when the sky is perfect blue and temperatures warm to hot and very hot throughout the day and evening. My mind is back to days in Southern France and Northern Spain and Greece, Greece, The isle of Greece beckon along with Italy.

I ventured out in the afternoon to the post box and then down and along Ocean Road and across to Azda when I could not resist an offer on a whole pineapple for £1, some strawberries also at £1 a carton, coleslaw, a lemon and Milano salami at £1.07 100grams compared with the packed at £1.37. The best deal was with shell on prawns where there are 500g frozen packs for £2.14 compared with £1.24 for 200g and which works out at under 87 pence for the same quantity. I will divided into two 250g portions for £1.12.

On the return journey with the weight of the food I was tempted by the taxi bus from Market Square. However there was over half an hours wait so I made my way to the station lift which I hate using because it is fully enclosed, small and temperamental but it cuts out the first steep part of the hill now that the Azda escalators are no longer available. I was soon joined by four others who all had mobility problems and the delay suggested it was not working and then I heard an announcement that a cleaner was required to go to the South Shields lift. There were some Youths overlooking from the platform above as I made my way back to King Street to trek home but as I had not seen anything from the below I resisted the temptation to go up an challenge them. I walked slowly and eventually made it home but the walk back was not enjoyable.

Earlier I had another bonus when booking to take the car to Isle of Wight. The standards fare is £92, but there was on offer a reduced short stay fare of £65 for three nights which I had nearly booked before deciding to investigate changing the car. The delay was fortunate because of a new special offer which reduced the price to £45. I will travel over at 11.30 and return on the 10am as there is some distance and a visit before the overnight stop.

I made a mistake in believing that the World 20 20 competition started on Monday when what is happening is a number of warm up games. Sky TV are showing all four games with a choice of two from Lords and Nottingham. I enjoyed the last moments of Ireland against Holland. The scores tied and therefore what happens is called the golden Over in which both teams try and score the most runs without losing more than three wickets.

In the evening I watched an entertaining adventure as long as critical judgement was suspended. The Contract stars Morgan Freeman as a hardened contract killer who is now free lancing after years of service on behalf of the USA government. The plot requires considerable stretches of credulity. Morgan employs four ex army colleagues on his latest assignment which is to assassinate a reclusive figure who is for or against stem cell research, it does not matter which. For some reason the assassination involved killing the son in a fake accident and then killing his father when he attends the funeral of his son. This is the first stupid plot component

Unfortunately for everyone concerned Morgan has a car accident beforehand and goes to hospital which leads the authorities to finding that out who he is and being taken into custody by the local police who are asked to hand him over to National agents, one of whom appears to be a high level female part of Homeland security with her own agenda and comes across as just as ruthless as Morgan willing to sacrifice innocent civilians and go to any lengths to protect the fact that the government may be involved in the operation as she has contact within of the team and at one point orders the execution of Freeman. Still with me, For someone as skilled and successful as Morgan it is beyond belief that his cover story could so easily be penetrated and that under US law he could be taken into custody without having committed any offence

The four members of the hit team stage an elaborate fake roadside break down in order to free Morgan from the police but the rescue attempt goes wrong and the vehicles plunges down in to a river where Morgan survives although handcuffed after killing his captor. It is never clear why a team of five is needed for the kill plot and why the transfer of Morgan from the police to homeland security is undertaken so badly. Then story become ridiculous

A former policeman turned school sports coach is trying to cope with the loss of his wife three years before from cancer and an unhappy teenage son who blames him for promising that his mother would recover. The son is brought to father by the local cops after being caught smoking pot and in order to try and re-establish meaningful contact father takes his son on a camping trip and they are crossing a bridge at the start of their trip when they spot Morgan and the policeman in the water. So far this is credible but then Morgan gives the father good advice to let him go and for the father and son to continue on their way. The father played by John Cusak decides to take the man prisoner and walk to the highway to get a phone signal and call for help.

On reaching the highway the son is asked to go to ahead and contact a state vehicle seen on the road but before he does witness the killer’s support team gun the vehicle driver down. This is odd because the driver is heard to say that he has phoned through seeing the wrecked police car in the river. What is the point of the killing other than to warn the lad not to proceed to confirm that the group are ruthless killers.

The trio head then head off into the wilderness where fortunately the son has experience through a previous field trip and further long the river bank they encounter a young couple at the river side. The girl is the practical one who has hated the idea of the camping trip and the boyfriend is a panicky wet. Eventually he is persuaded to accompany the trio rather than continue in the direction of the Killers team.

The five survive torrential rain, getting down a cliff side and crossing a ravine on a dodgy bridge which they then destroy. Unbeknown to them the killer’s team have got hold of an official police helicopter. The police in these films are always stupid. The reason why the Killer’s team tried to rescue Morgan and out themselves in danger is because only he has access to the bank at which their fees will be paid. This makes them as stupid as the police for entering into the contract without ensuring payments especially in the event of their deaths. Such men never appear to have parents, brothers, sisters, wives, girl friends or children who need to be taken care of. This is an important component because they have to die without anyone in the audience caring about what happens to them and their families.

Given this it is not clear why they then agree to kill Morgan on the orders of the homeland security woman. The team then kill the boyfriend and the remaining four take refuge in a cabin where they are tracked down by surviving members the killer’s team and fortunately by the police after the father manages to overcome and force the helicopter to crash land. In the fracas Morgan takes the son hostage and somehow manages to get him into a motel and bound and gagged while he goes off to complete his assignment. The ultimate completer finisher which I understand only too well. The police however believe the target is the President who is addressing a rally nearby but only the father appreciate who the target is after watching a TV news bulletin about the funeral. He goes to find Morgan and his son and his intrusion enables Morgan to realise he has become the target. The kill is aborted and the son is found but is this not the end of the tale. Morgan, proves that he is really a nice guy as he catches up with the Homeland security woman who warns her to leave the son alone. Father and son attend a social barbecue back at home at which the widowed fiancée is also invited with the prospect of a relationship as the girl has the son’s approval. And would clearly make a great substitute mum. They listen to news where the death is announced of the original assassination target. Wow three cheers for the state assassin. The big bad world continues as before

I bet British politicians wish they were in now in a Hollywood film. They are going to get their comeuppance soon, especially the Labour Party ones.

Casino

In the evening, for the third time of asking I finished the three hour Martin Scorsese film Casino. I found the subject boring and the approach of Scorsese distinctly amoral in what appears to be is lifelong devotion and adoration of the homicidal gangster. So here are the bare bones of the story. The film is set in Los Vegas when the Casino’s were owned by gangsters with managers placed to front the enterprises and a team of people to ensure as much money was taken and then filtered to the mobs outside the required booking keeping and taxation requirements of the law. Everyone involved was on the take one way or the other and as were the large number of professional gambler, tricksters and fraudsters who attempted to take the money leaving only the American people and overseas visitors, the mugsters, to spend, spend, and more than they can afford to lose.

There are three outstanding actors in the film. Sharon Stone plays a drug and drinking tart who sleeps with anyone who will keep her in the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. Robert De Niro is sent by the New York Mob to be the unofficial boss of a Casino where he puts his years of skilled gambling to use in spotting those who attempt to beat the system, albeit a crooked one. His misfortune is to want Sharon Stone to be his wife and mother of his children, Unsurprisingly give her attractive body and calculated sexual skills De Nero wants her to love him and as an inducement trusts her with the keys and rights to a security bank box contained two million dollars and a similar value of jewels. He realises she is just a greedy drug and drunk who ties up their one only child when the baby sitter does not turn up and she wants to go out whoring with his best friend of thirty five years he tries to throw her out but she manages to get hold of the money which she then blows on low life scum and ends up dead from an over dose at the hands of one of them.

This brings us to scum of scum played by Joe Pesci, A ruthless gangster who enjoys torturing and killing anyone who comes in is way or required by his gang bosses. He is sent out to Vegas to watch the back of De Niro who is turning in such great profits that Pesci is able to mount his own local operation and still hand over more that the mobsters had received before the De Nero stewardship.

Then all goes wrong and the FBI begin to move in and mobsters get scared. One early victim is Pesci and his brother who are savagely beaten before beating buried alive in the desert. De Nero survives a car bomb because of ant bomb protection beneath the drivers seat. Wonder why the troops out in Iraq and Afghanistan did not get the same protection until recently! De Neo goes off somewhere and returns to his former gambling prowess to rebuild his life and wealth. Meanwhile the international corporations move to Vegas and demolish the told style Casino‘s and create new family holiday centres to ensure that the USA public and international visitors spend an even greater proportion of their new wealth in the 90’s and early millennium before it all came crashing down. Meanwhile the Party Politicians continue to try and fix their game.

Hildalgo and The Executioner

I saw two films over the past couple of days. Hidalgo pleased with two fine actors Viggo Mortinson, a cowboy and the army despatch rider who delivered the authority for the Wounded Knee massacre. His secret is that he had a native American mother. Omar Sharif replays his Lawrence of Arabia role, this time as an aging head of a race whose passion is breeding horses and winning with his entry in a 3000 miles across desert race to the ocean. Hearing about the boast that the Cowboy is best rider in the world he sends an emissary to invite him to be a competitor in the race. He meets two individuals who are to have a major influence on the outcome of his visit. The first is an Englishwoman who is also a competitor but in league with a relation and rival to the Sheik and who willing to do anything to win including killing the horses of leading rivals as well as their riders.

He also meets the daughter of the Sheik who wants to break with traditions and from a forced marriage for political reasons. She is kidnapped as a way to blackmail the Sheik to give up his horse and the secrets breeding such animals. The Cowboy who under threat because of being found in a misleading comprising situation with the daughter is sent to rescue her and he then triumphs over various obstacles to winning the race.

The film is beautiful photographed and with excellent acting progresses beyond the usual fare. The conversations between the cowboy and the daughter appear authentic about both trying to breakout from the social and traditional confines of their cultures. While is social intimacy and adult conversation about life there is no romance. Their destinies are different. He returns to the USA where following his ordeal in the desert he has accepted his native American background and culture. He releases his horse back to the remaining wilderness and the company of other wild horses..

The second film was very different. A 1970 spy film with George Peppard and Joan Collins called the Executioner. The story has the makings of a good film such as “the Spy Who Came in from the Cold with Richard Burton and TV series Smiley’s People. The Spy suspects treachery when a ring he controls in a Russia state is killed or are missing and in particular he suspects a colleagues with whom he has a vendetta as the man steals his lover who becomes his wife. Although he still loves the woman, he has a new girlfriend who is able to gain access to closed records of previous situations which have caused concern and where the common denominator is the colleague who seduced his lover. When the spy is contacted by a friend who appears to confirm that the man is a traitor he kills him and with the help of the friend dumps the body in the channel from a light plane. When he is captured by the Russians they convince him that the friend was innocent. Later he learns that the man was a double agent and that his superiors knew and had been feeding him false or misleading information for years. They want to promote Peppard but he feels the whole basis of his beliefs and work has been undermined. They could have stopped the destruction of his colleagues and friends in the Russian state. My problem with the film is George Peppard and Joan Collins who are George Peppard and Joan Collins.

I enjoyed my roast chicken and tined vegetables so much on Sunday that I had a chicken salad for the evening meal after the match and a bottle of Peroni. There was strawberries and melon I enjoyed a sausage sandwich with Branson pickle out in the sunshine on Monday and a prawn salad in the evening with melon. There was smoked salmon on toast as treat at tea time. I also had a Pecan flake pastry twist in the sunshine.

Angels and Demons in and out of Parliament

Instead of going to the cricket I went to see the film which is a follow up to the Da Vince Code. I enjoyed the film and the book which I bought subsequently. The film had a very serious aspect. The film, Angels and Demons, was very disappointing. Tom Hanks is not credible in his role as a serious Academic turned detective and the religious historical component about the Illuminati proved to be a gigantic red herring. The new thing on which the story is based is not the Illuminati but the particle mover which has been built in Switzerland in the multi billion project to try and establish the scientific origin of the universe and confirmation of the big bang. The crucial aspect of the film is the stealing of a vial of anti matter from the Swiss project. The Illuminati were a society of progressive thinkers interest in science as well as religion to found themselves persecuted by the Catholic Church who feared their work would destroy the faith of those who took the bible literally. The premise of the film is that Illuminati has reformed in order to use the latest scientific knowledge destroy the Catholic Church once and for all. It is presented that they first kill the Pope in time to coincide with the successful experiment to create anti matter and then blow up the cardinals while they are in conclave. In addition for some reason inexplicable reason the four preferred cardinals under consideration to become Pope and kidnapped, branded and three are killed before the fourth is rescued. There is an elaborate plot which involves a history of the Illuminati, and tour of religious centres and churches in Rome. There are lots of explosions and killings before it is revealed that the Pope has been killed by his adopted son because he had considered the work undertaken in Switzerland to confirm rather than destroy the concept of God and the Illuminati conspiracy was a means to attack science and for the individual concerned instead of being prosecuted for conspiracy to murder and kill the Pope, a Cardinal, the Head of the Swiss Guard, the head of Vatican security and of anti terrorism in Rome, three Cardinals and a dozen members of the security forces and police, is about to be proclaimed Pope! Only the brilliance of non believer Hanks and a leading female scientist at the Swiss project prevent this from happening.

I attended an afternoon performance which was attended and for once I accepted the need for some of the audience to try and explain what was beings said to their friends or partners. James Berardinelli is always fair but even he had to admit that aspects are so preposterous that you are immediate aware as the films is being shown and you are tempted to laugh at out loud. I did a couple of times. The also admits the plot is convoluted with the whole effect dumb. Limp and lifeless. I did not have the impression that there were any real people in this film. His comment that it is a film aimed viewers who are half asleep, drugged, drunk, or simply uncaring also hits the target. In order to appease the Catholic Church who refused to agree to filming within the Vatican there is a little sermon about the need for faith and science to coexist. The Spirituality and Practice duo who like good Christians see good in everything and everyone fore they see the evil, liked the Tom Hank Performance and enjoyed the mini lectures and mini sermons. I wish I could be as charitable. This was a waste of money and time but I needed the break. At least it was cheaper where I had considered going first I found out I could have slept in the car if that way inclined well in theory at least because the car park ticket if endorsed when going to the cinema is valid for 24 hours which means free car parking to return and shop if you want to leave the car, take the bus home and back the following morning.

Batman Forever and Lost

For entertainment on Sunday I watched the 1995 Batman Forever, fifth feature film, which was the right way round because it was not until 2008 and the eighth film that we had explained why Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face wanted to kill Batman. In The Dark Knight, we learn that Two Face was originally a leading crusader against crime and corruption in a situation where Batman was given the choice to save his girl friend or his friend and failed in relation to the girl and his friend badly disfigured one side of his face and becoming torn between the good and bad sides of his character. In Batman Forever the main villain is The Riddler, played by Jim Carrey who worked for Batman and then went his own way discovering device which beams Television direct to an individual’s brain. It is not clear how this is different from actual TV viewing except that it also enabled the Riddler to read the minds of individual viewers and harness their collective knowledge and energy. There is the statutory Batman girlfriend, played by Nicole Kidman who is unconvincing as a psychiatrist specialising in people with divided personalities. The film also explains how Robin, played by Chris O’Donnell joins the team in which Michael Gough plays the faithful Butler father figure, although it is his lack of awareness which causes Batman, the girl and Robin all to be captured and only escape death after a series of great escapes. The film is full of divided souls in need of spiritual and psychological healing.

The most look forward to event of the day was the two end of season episodes of Lost which prepared viewers for the final season. The season had commenced ad the Oceanic Flight survivors returned to the USA, Jack, the former leader of and fugitive criminal Kate with the daughter of Claire which she is raising as her own, Sun, the wife of Jin from South Korea and her daughter, the disturbed Hurley, winner of the lottery using numbers which were of significance once reaching the island, and Sayid former Iraqi torturer, were faced with pressure to return to the island.

The pressure came from Ben the former leader of the Islanders known as the Others, brought to the island as a child by his father as a Dharma Initiative worker. They are all persuaded, that they must return to the Island to put things right and much of the season was devoted to the their reluctance and eventual persuasion to do this.

At the conclusion of the previous season Locke had been instrumental in creating a time and space instability and moving the island and those on it. In order to resolve the movement Locke also leaves the island to persuade the others to return. Key figures in the present day are also Charles Widmore who we learn was responsible for the fake discovering of the plane with the bodies of everyone at the bottom of the ocean and the mother of the Mathematician who is part of the Widmore expedition which leads to the six escaping and the rest of the island being moved. During the series we learn that both Charles and the mother of mathematician were on the island some thirty years before as part of a cult group which became the Others. The Mathematician is their son. The mother becomes a key figure is getting the seven back to the Island.

However when go back and their second plane ride together crashes there are different outcomes for those on board. Jack Kate, Said and Hurley find themselves back on the Island in 1974 where they also find. These include James Sawyer who became the lover of Kate and Dr Juliet Burke. James has become a senior member of the security Team and Juliet his effective wife. There are also three members of the then expedition team sent on the freighter by Charles Widmore, including his son. The husband of Sun, Jin also survived the blowing up of the freighter and has became part of the 1974 era Dharma Initiative. They have been on the island in the new time for three years the same period as those who returned to the USA

There are also survivors of the new flight who do not return to 1974 but land on the Island or on an island close to the Island but fidn the situation different from went Sun, Ben and Locke left it. This includes the body of John Locke as well as his resurrected state

Locke was murdered Ben but Jack is told that it is essential that the body also returns with them. Ben is amazed that Locke is alive and tries to turn one of the others against Locke before Locke reveals what has happened. Sun has learnt her husband survived the explosion and wants to find him, prepared to leave her daughter to do so. There is humour over the existence of Locke who Ben previously. Ben full of angst because he witnessed the death of his daughter who he could have saved and he is required by Locke to visit the base of the smoke monster where his daughter appears to him and orders him to obey everything which John Locke tells him.

During the series we go back to have even earlier point in time the 1950’s where Richard Alpert is seen with Jacob who is the human face of the island. Throughout the series Jacob appears to have been the leader of the islanders, telling them what to do and this includes Ben who at the end of this season admits to Locke that he has never met the being. Locke persuades Ben that he is the one to kill the being Jacob in the final episode. Richard Alpert is also a major figure who has appeared in and out of the series, but always as an ageless individual and he takes Locke and Ben to where he knows Jacob resides. In the last two episodes we learn that Jacob has appeared to the Oceanic group in the USA to help them at key points in the period leading to their return.

There are three other potential key moments before the grand seasonal finale. The first is when the returnees and those who stayed on the island but were taken back to 1974 find a young Ben who is shot and they take him to the cult Others to be saved. The second is that the Mathematician Daniel Faraday is sent back in time to the island by his mother to explode the hydrogen bomb which was placed on the island for a test explosion but is then buried underground because of concern about leaking radioactivity.

In the earliest series we find that something happened on the island which caused a switch in polarity and that Desmond when he comes to the island is told that he has to press a computer button to ensure the polarities remain in balance and that without doing this not only will the island destroy itself but the whole world if not the universe. A way is found of stopping the need for the button to be pressed. The reason why all the surviving Oceanic flight victims have to return to be on the island in 1974 is because in that year a scientist on the Dharma Initiative is boring into the island’s core and strikes the force which creates the whole chain of events. Faraday is told by his mother (with the help of Charles Widmore) that if the bomb is exploded at the same time as the Island’s core is breached then everything will be different and Oceanic Flight 316 will not crash.

The third key aspect is that the scientist working on the project has a son. The son is part of he Widmore freighter team with psychic abilities. He has the unusual experience of seeing himself as a child and of identifying himself to his father. At one point the submarine which is able to visit the island crossing time leaves the island with all the children and most if not all the women folk and scientist see his wife and son depart and then is faced with his son in the present day who is killed in the fracas that follows.

I now come to the two finale climaxes to the season. Ben does kill Jacob at the behest of Locke while members of the second flight reveal to Sun and the flight captain the anomaly that the hold of the plane was the body of Locke while he has been claiming leadership of all the survivors of both flights in the present time. There are therefore two of Locke existing at the same time.

In the final finale the bomb does not detonate as planned as the core breached and the reversal of polarity begins and Juliet is swept into the bore shaft and crashes to the bottom where seriously injured she comes to her senses and manages to explode the bomb. Will this do what was believed could happen or did this act actual create the situation which subsequently happened in a circular event. The only reason that they are able to find the bomb and take it to the drilling site is because Faradays mother kills her son thinking he is one of the enemy. They persuade his mother to help them although she has no memory of her future. The proposition is that when the bomb explodes those who have recently died will be resurrected.

Kate has left Claire’s child with her grandmother and it is understood Claire will reappear in the final season. Desmond who was not on the flight but who was stranded on the island when his boat was forced there is reunited with Penny the daughter of Charles Widmore. They marry and have a child which stops Ben Killing Penny after he blames Charles for the death of his own daughter. Desmond is shot but survivors and their role in the final season is unclear. There are other original flight survivors who have been reintroduced in the fifth series or when it has been said will reappear in the final series when he reason for what has happened is expected to be revealed. I for one cannot wait.

Von Ryan's Express, How to lose a guy in ten days ugh and Being There

December 31st was a day of shopping madness in the land of variable pricing but I had been in quite a state since rising at 3am bright as polished tunic button the previous day after a good but short sleep and feeling wide awake, I started to write and continued for several hours deciding that I would try to sleep again with the first hints of dawn. It was approaching 1 pm when I woke after a long vivid dream which I have continued to remember factual aspects as well as its feelings. This is unusual. Moreover the sleep had been uninterrupted. During the remainder of the day I completed sixty artman signature cards and tomorrow, New Years Eve, I will commence the completion of the otherwise finished sets followed by making the photographic record. This will take several days. I watched several films while I worked and remembered one I had not previously mentioned, inconsequential as it was.

This morning after going to bed at 1am I stayed in bed intentionally having read the opening chapters of a Christmas gift novel where the opening was set in the town of Perth which I have visited several times. It was 10.30 before woke again feeling a tiredness and lethargy which lasted until driving myself to get into the car going on a short trip to the new Lidl which had promised coloured A4 size ring binders from 79p the size I wanted would cost 99p. The roads and car parks were full of cars and everybody seemed to be on the move. The new Lidl was disappointing with none of the offers I wanted on display so I had a bright idea. I was convinced that there was another branch on the way to the home where my mother had been resident. I joined the route with a mini market in one of two directions and I opted for the one towards the Home rather than back to my home and bingo I had chosen correctly although I got the entrance to the car park wrong and had to reverse, encountering the continuing build up at one of those traffic lights where the lights alternate between every roadway, a wise municipal decision given the awkwardness of the junction and the amount of traffic at the best of time.

The decision proved a brilliant one as one of the first finds was a mountain of boxes each holding 18 Torta Spanish Almond cake better known as Turron. There was also the supply of ring binders eight of the size I wanted coloured red. There were also simple wood boxes containing 600 grams of smoked salmon for £4.40 alas the best eat date was January3rd and I had already acquired a 200 gram back on Saturday which with the smoked ham would see me well into the New Year. However I also bout a lettuce, some rolls and new high powered bottle opened which I thought was priced £12 but with a device which cut through foil however on the receipt it was under £8. It looks forbidding and it will be tomorrow when will I try it as I am drinking water today. I may also invest in a kit of replacement top for fizz drinks as well as wine as the one I use has served its time.

However the surprise bargain of he day and many others was small tubes of acrylic paint 12 colours and six of each colour 72 tubes for under £8 or 11 pence each.

I had not planned New Year's eve other than to be in and had noted a showing of the Girl with a Pearl earring, but as I have the DVD this ca be viewed on an otherwise blank day. It was not until just after 6.30 that I switched from an uninterrupted all music channel on Sky to the programme options and discovered that there was a showing of the last Tina Turner concert at the old Wembley. It has been my privilege to experience two of her live concerts placing her along with Bruce Springsteen three times, and also only the Live Aid appearance of Queen as the three great on stage exceptional value over 100% give all performers that make you thrilled excited drained and exhausted. The presentational aspect of the Wembley concert remains extraordinary. The Biography channels was trumps tonight because of Tina there was Queen at Budapest and then Live Aid concert remembered.

As planned my work of the day concentrated on adding the dried Artman signature cards to otherwise completed volumes and then photographing twice, each card individually and then as double spreads,. First were 10 sets in five volumes of My Space writings 5493. However it was only when I was adding the photos to the 200000-300000 listings with 262000 entered as this note is completed that I worked out that I had made the registration card 5493 5395 cards 131809 131856 twice and that a new card had to be created, and this was followed somewhat later various diversions by the seven sets about Mabel reaching 100 and her life.
Two days ago I provided another example of this being the land of variable pricing having paid £9 for a Travel Lodge double bedded room with TV and coffee and tea making facilities, with £15 and £19 for room which can be booked for £29, £39 and £49 outside the cities with the highest noted £105 shot notice booking in the centre of London at Covent Garden.

Sunday night I watched a celebration film introduced by Sir Richard Attenborough marking the three years in which Jose Murinho led Chelsea two Championship titles and in 2007 to winning the League Cup at the Millennium stadium Cardiff and the return of the FA Cup final to Wembley. Despite losing key players this achievement was not enough and early on in the present season Murinho parted company to return to his homeland. For the three seasons the majority of Chelsea supporters have lived in dreamland and for the rest of us the concern has been at the ability of one man to buy success through his bottomless cheque book. I have a history with Chelsea Football club in that in 1980's after two visits to the ground I experienced horrifying violence around me. On the first occasion on leaving the ground shortly before the final whistle in a drawn match I encountered about 100 men lounging in a nearby roadway in groups of two and three when suddenly with the noise of away supporters leaving the ground, an umbrella was raised and the men formed into ranks and moved off silently at the double in the direction of the departing away supporters.

A few minutes later there was the sound of police cars and a group of men were running escorted by police on horseback. I kept out of the way in the entrance to a shop until the street quietened. Eventually about an hour after the match ended I found an underground station at which I was later told the London branch of the away supporters club were escorted by police on to the train where they merged with Saturday shoppers and those going into central London for the evening. At two stations before Earls Court the platform was crowded the length of the platform on the lookout for the very young men who boarded the train, and some managed to get on the train and a vicious fight broke out in the next compartment with the attackers armed with knuckle dusters and strong books. They used the leather holding loops to swing into opponents hitting and kicking some senseless. I managed to help some young men escape through the door separating compartments and they left the train at the next station, while others entered the compartment through the platform door to get into the adjacent compartment. I prevented one individual who appeared to me to be no more than a child barely an adolescent from joining the affray and when questioned he said with hate that he had to get at the fellow Londoners who supported a different football team. A couple of years later after a near riot within the ground because the away team I was supporting won the match, I had a similar experience, although in this instance, West Han supporters smashed their way out oft eh train, having been to a match at Wimbledon, in order to get into a fight with Chelsea supporters who were being prevented by the police from entering the station. Thus the police found themselves in the middle of a conflict between two groups of men whishing to try and kill each other. In both instances the trains were so badly damaged that they were taken out of service at Earls Court. My enquiries revealed that this was a regular occurrence within the capital.

These days the football authorities have made strenuous efforts to eliminate such violence within grounds and in the surrounding areas. The warring factions now arrange to do battle at different locations and fights are arranged according to tribal issues, and the territories are no longer a football club, owned by Russians, Americans or other foreigners, and where there players all come from different countries and continents, but an artificial geographical location such as a post code. On previous visits to Chelsea the extent of open recruiting by extreme right wing organisation outside the ground was evident. I once had an interesting correspondence with the then Chairman of Chelsea Football club Ken Bates about the subject and also with Sir Jimmy Hill. My previous experience has nothing to do with the present Chairman and Board, or the players and I have made several visits to the modernised ground without incident. It now costs an astronomical sum to be come a season ticket holders and even greater sums are required for those who have parking spaces and like to dine and wine friends and fly to similar facilities in clubs in other parts of Europe. For some supporting the club has become their way of life, The British game has been weakened by the departure of Mr Murinho and until, this season the Premier League was dominated by four Clubs, Manchester United and Liverpool from the North West and Arsenal and Chelsea in London. 2008 could be the first year in over three decades that I do not have a season ticket.

Travelling by train in the UK also has as great a variable pricing structure varying from £20.40 two singles usually booked two months in advance from Newcastle to London 300 miles to an open second class return of £269 and £379 for first class. Talking of trains!

Some weeks ago I remembered an occasion in Italy when I attended the gala evening of the Sorrento film festival and saw Von Ryan's Express or was it after a deluge at the coastal resort of Rimini after visiting Venice, but wherever ti was the film was in German with Italian sub titles. It was years later that I saw the American and English language version and it was only on Sunday night that I saw the film again and began to remember the story and its ending.

In the last days of Italian involvement in World War Two Frank Sinatra is shot down near a coast in southern Italy is taken prisoner becomes the de factor head of a P.O.W by reason of rank although it is full of a captured British regiment with the remaining senior officer, played by Trevor Howard. Given the stated information that they have bee incarcerated for two years I assume they had been ordered to surrender in North Africa for their aim has been to escape and continuing the fight with every man volunteer career soldiers. Sinatra is a 90 day wonder having been a commercial flyer the rank was gained on completion of training. A clash of attitudes is inevitable and Sinatra's decision to give up the latest tunnel in exchange for decent clothing, red cross parcels, hot water and delousing powder earns him the epithet Von to his surname of Ryan. This is reinforced when the men having left the camp after the Italian surrender are recaptured because of his decision not to execute the camp commander. The prisoner are put in a cattle truck train to Rome and on to Austria. However they manage to capture the train and devise a way to reach Italy. This is an escape adventure film in which many die and both leaders come to respect each other and their different approaches. It is of no consequence except that it was seen in Italy as part of an adventure travelling through Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France.

On New Years Evening Day I saw the last Peter Sellers film made in 1979 to be released before his death and which led to an Oscar nomination in 1979 and won several awards 1980/1981 in both the Uk and America.

Peter Sellers plays a middle aged man who has spent his adult life tending the garden at the home of a wealthy man without any outside contact except for what he gains from TV watching. When the Old Man dies he is forced to leave the home on a wintry night and while watch TV in a shop window steps back and his leg is injured by the vehicle of another very wealthy and influential man who is dying with a young wife played by Shirley McLaine. Sellers introduces himself as Chance the Gardener which is misunderstood as Chauncey Gardener when invited to recuperate at the home of the couple who are anticipating a visit from the President.

Being slow witted and his experience only that of the garden and what eh has seen on TV Chance talks slowly relating everything in simple fashion to the seasons of growth and decay and this is interpreted by the great and good and the great and not so good as profound especially after the President quotes something said to him on the private visit in major televised speech and over night Chance becomes a political and media sensation turning the fortunes of the President. When his new benefactor dies he is the choice of the board. The reality is recognised by the benefactor's doctor who keeps quiet because of the positive effect Chance has in the last days of his patient.

The charm and significance of the film is the way Chance is critically examined by the great and not so good. The CIA cannot find any record an conclude the cover up of the past could only have been achieved by a former agency, one of them and the FBI come to a similar conclusion but this time it is a former FBI agent. The President goes off Chance when he sees him as a threat, especially when the political elite conclude he would make a better prospect instead of a second term President, because all the opinion poll and media evidence is that the general public regard the man as brilliant. In the final scene Chance is seen as appearing to walk on water. Being There proved to be the oldie of the year

On the same day I saw The Good, the Bad and Ugly again remembering how much I had forgotten. And the Worst film of the year was undoubtedly How to Lose a guy in Ten days, although I enjoyed it. Got no taste, Got no class, Ain't got no.