American Gangster

Today the British and USA political systems are on trial financial systems are on trial. Yesterday while the American political leaders awarded themselves a recess in which to try and re-establish their authority and integrity behind closed doors the British Conservative leader took a leaf out of the approach of the Republican party when concern over the potential impact of a second major hurricane upon the New Orleans forced them to change their Convention to formally elect their Presidential candidate by agreeing that his Shadow Chancellor should meet with the Chancellor, as was the Liberal Democrat Shadow spokesperson to try and reach a non partisan agreement about how to immediately proceed with the financial crisis and avoid it becoming a Party Political one. He made a short speech explaining the approach and then ordered those Ministers speaking to the rest of conference to amend their speech to take out any cheap jibes at the opposition and set about also adjusting his own keynote speech which he is to make this afternoon. He will seize the opportunity to convince the public that despite being a novice he is ready to become Prime Minister if given the opportunity. All three Political Leaders will return to the debate about how this present financial and consequential economic situation came about and attempt to hold those responsible to some form of account. Thus I do not expect the crisis to have major repercussions for the political system and structures in the UK.
This is not the situation in the USA where the perception of the USA general public is that its political as well as financial system requires fundamental change and many will not be bullied into accepting the chosen approach of their President and his administration because he is asking them to effectively deny that their God exists. One problem American politicians face is that they are continually being reminded in their popular entertainment that there are fundamental weaknesses in their judicial system and that many of their worst criminals get away with it or appear to get away with it time and time again.

I did not go to see Ridley Scott's American Gangster in theatre because I believed this was a film covering a well worn story, albeit with a twist in that an American Black Man had effectively outwitted and undercut the American Italian based Mafia in the distribution of heroine. However it seemed a good choice of film to view on DVD rather a Korean version. As soon as the film commenced I realised that I was aware if aspects of the true story which I subsequently researched further on the internet.

Frank Lucas was a murdering maniac who destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Americans who effectively got away with it by turning in everyone in his organisation and those with whom he was associated. The investigation led to three quarters of N.Y.P.D special drugs investigation unit going to prison for soliciting and accepting money from criminals, perverting the course of justice. I do not know if their executives were also punished in some form for negligent management as these men ran around the City in expensive cars and suits behaving no defiantly from those they were supposed to be policing.

Frank appears to have rewritten his background but what is known is that during the Vietnam War he made his way to a Rest and Recreation Bar in Bangkok where he met up with Leslie Ike Atkinson who was a major supplier of heroin into the USA. He established his operation during or after service as an Army Sergeant paying $4000 dollars a kilo which he resold to distributors for $100000 dollars a kilo. He used USA army planes to transport the drugs in teak furniture. He was caught out by accident. In 1975 the shipments were being sent to elderly women in North Carolina to be picked up by the army claiming the package had been misdirected. However in one instance the woman first called the police thinking it was a bomb and discovering its contents were able to establish a case and a successful prosecution. In the way that such men operate within the prison system, using their wealth and connections to threaten and to bribe he continued with his operation. However this also came to light and all together he served 32 years in prison released in 2007. When I was in prison in the early 1960's in the UK, tobacco and money was brought in on a similar kind of route sent in within newspaper and periodicals mailed to former inmates in wrappers which looked as if they were posted from the publishers. The post was rarely opened by prison officers who used prisoners to prepare correspondence to be read before distribution.

In Britain there were controls on what convicted prisoners could received by way of food, cigarettes and other improvements to daily living although there were less restrictions for those on remand or who were civil offenders, mainly debtors with the latter being able for example to wear their own clothes. When I elected to wear my suit on the last days of the sentence one prison officer thought it was a great idea to move me from my work in the wing library where books were issued directly to prisoners, and where we checked each book to ensure it was not marked or contained notes and the like, to scrubbing the floor of the recreational area and wing entrance floor. I sued to save my six pence a week, nay have risen to nine pence or even a few pence more and only drew out money for proper toothpaste and the occasional choky bar. Some of my comrades bought tobacco to buy from within the system proper underpants than the curiosity which was a kind of nappy which was then the basic issue. They had also become vegetarians which entitled them to specially prepared food and to sit together at meals. I took a different approach and fitted into the system as just another prisoner, accepting the authority of the prison officers and doing my time as other prisoners, treating them as equals who had broken the law. As a consequence throughout the six months I was only picked on two prison officers who hated the idea that I was "normal" accepted that I had put myself into system but that I could chose to leave whenever I wanted. Even the one who made points whenever he could, such as finding me with the bed down and sitting on it during day time making me put into the required position, changed when I joined in a one day hunger strike to protest against the news someone was to be executed. The sentence was commuted. Several officers said they had forgotten I was one six disarmers, as we were collectively known, and asked about why I had done it and was still there. Certainly in the main wind of this prison I was not aware off anyone leading a quality of life different from the rest or having special privileges unless they were red band trustees. My understanding of the system in the USA is that there is a prisoner hierarchy and those with wealth and connections can have a good quality of life.

I mention this because what happened to Frank Lucas raises more questions than have been answered. Until he established his operation Black Men were expected to buy drugs from the Italian run Mafia for reselling within their residential ghettos, thus reducing their personal profits. Lucas cut them out and became something of a folk hero among drug users because he sold a better quality heroin and a significantly reduced price to his then local community. However as a consequence of greed and in order to appease the Sicilian and Irish mobsters who had bought the Special Drugs squad and therefore became the monopoly supplier to the fashionable city centre, and a as consequence mixed with the highest , primarily black society. At the time of his capture he had over $50 million dollars saved in Cayman Island and other off shore banks and a stock alleged to have been worth $300 million brought in because with the ending of the War, it was expected that that his transport system would also end, Part of his success was the lengths he went to present himself as an ordinary low profile businessman using his large family of brothers and relatives to run legitimate businesses which were the local supply centres. I addition to his saving investments he bought property throughout the USA with apartments in Miami and Los Angeles and an office block in Detroit and in North Carolina a ranch of several thousand acres. He was married and all together had seven children.

For his crimes Lucas only served 5 years in prison with his sentence of 70 years commuted to lifetime parole, he claims to have been successfully stripped of all his wealth and it is said he bought the reduced sentence by providing information which led to 100 drug related convictions.. He was subsequently charged fro attempting to exchange one ounce of heroin for$13000 and served seven users for this discharged in 1991 and subsequently creating a legitimate business for himself. After separation from his wife after she had also served five year and returned to her home country Puerto Rico where he has also bought property, they reconciled. The only daughter of the marriage runs an internet site for the children of incarcerated parents.

So what did Ridley Scott make of all this? It is very curious as he appears to paint Frank Lucas as ruthless but noble, omitting his womanising and parenting, a good son to his mother, going to church with her every Sunday and distributing help to the poor. He paints the corrupt NYPD task force as greater villains with no redeeming features, He also introduced things which are debatable claiming that it was Frank who did a deal with a Chinese nationalist leader for drugs and claims that the drugs were brought back in the coffins off soldiers killed in the Vietnam war for which there is no evidence.

Perhaps the oddest aspect of the film is the way he presents the lead police investigator Richie Roberts played by Russell Crowe. In Real life Roberts went to school and college in New Jersey and after service in the Marines joined the prosecutors office as a detective while studying for the Bar which involved night class five days a week for four years. After qualifying he was appointed Assistant Prosecutor and head of a narcotics strike force under the F.B.I. Contrary to what Ridley Scott made up to make the story entertaining he and his force knew from outset that Frank Lucas was the drug boss behind the flood of cheap heroine the streets. Contrary to the film which has the big bang ending raiding all the distribution centres and arresting Lucas after church on Sunday, the arrests were more systematic and over a period of time tackling each distribution points and those involved. Lucas was the last to be arrested and proving the case was a challenge especially as it became known that a contract had been put on the life of the Prosecutor. It was only after conviction that Lucas corroborated. After the conviction Roberts remain Assistant Prosecutor and became disillusioned he was passed over for the top job. He then changed sides so to speak joining a firm of former of state prosecutors as a defence attorney. He then established his own firm. It is fact that he acted for Frank Lucas when charged from his first prison sentence and that he agreed to become Godfather to one of his sons.

Ridley Scott counterpoints the noble side of Frank Lucas with Ritchie when his marriage was breaking up and he was fighting to have contact with his son. The film claims that his wide criticised for not being like other cops and on the take and for his life style which involved casual relationships with ladies of disrepute. The film seems to make the points that the dividing line between criminal and cop is a narrow one, a point which the average American may tends to accept more these days in terms of the behaviour of Wall Street and politicians on the Hill. Ritchie is said to defend his subsequent association with Lucas on the grounds that he became a changed and reformed character. The core of Christianity belief in atonement and redemption.

Mob Rule

This is the Day that members of the House of Representatives in the US failed their country and the rest of the world. They are now as much to blame for the outcome of the problems previously created on Wall Street, and before then by everyone who borrowed for the present beyond their means, hoping for a longer term improvement in their financial position to more than balance the books. It is possible to label them as true democrats for paying attention to the overwhelming views of their constituents. It is also possible to call them political cowards who failed to it act in the best interests of the constituents from fear of losing their own jobs in six week's time while putting in peril those of their constituents. Ford has announced a four day week in the UK

At first sight more of the blame can be laid upon Republican Members who failed to meet the commitment of their leadership that approximately half would vote in favour of the Bill. It is important to understand that the Leadership of both Parties, including the Presidential candidates agreed that whatever their personal political viewpoints and political position in the forthcoming national elections a Bill had to be agreed to steady the market and protect individual investors and savers, those with pension funds, those who had borrowed money for their homes. The argument is that if the lack of confidence remains, people we move out of holding shares in banks and other companies, into gold and other commodities, raising their prices with gold forecast to raise to $2000 dollars an ounce for example. This will make it more and more difficult for financial institutions Banks and Building Societies to loan money and in the UK mortgages fell by 95% last month. The consequence of this will be a loss of jobs and with the loss of jobs their will be an increasing failure of borrowers to repay loans. There will be less payment to government through taxes for services and increased pressure on socials security and other payments. The consequence of this is long term shrink economy, increasing unemployment, inability to improve and develop public services and greater dependence on financial and other benefits, and the implications of this is a rapid change in the relationship between Britain and other countries and increased dominance of China, resurgence of Russia, continued wealth accumulation of Arab Muslim countries and with only the Indian economy with whom we have relationships continuing to grow.

Many republicans are genuine in their belief that the success of American system is dependent upon the minimum of state intervention, It is also true that Wall Street, in the sense of the financial institutions contribute to political parties to gain protection from controlling legislation and inhibitors on the acquisition of personal and corporate wealth. It is one of less attractive aspects of the American Way of life that you can buy yourself into power and also buy yourself out of trouble. Republicans and Democrats alike were also responding to the feeling of the public that why should taxed be sued to bail out the fattest cats of them all outside of the mobland. As one Republican out it if a store on main street goes bust because of bad management decisions, they do not expect a government hand out, so why should the managers of the financial institutions.

The Democrats realised that they had everything to gain in the forthcoming elections if they put the blame for what had happened on the Republicans and therefore although they had a majority in the House they insisted on delivering only half. The record of the Democrats in relation to the failure of the big two Mortgage lending firms in the USA needs to be taken into consideration in relation to their defence of the bodies in the face of Republican criticism about the high risk way they were being run and the extent to which there were links between the firms and the funding of the Obama and Democratic campaign. No one is whiter than grey

This is what I think happened when it was evident early on that the vote could not be carried on Tuesday or if held over on Thursday when the House reassembled after two days without official business because of a Jewish religious event. The vote went ahead in the knowledge it would be lost and the markets would plunge around the world bring home the serious of the situation. This would give it for people to realise by opposing the package they would cut their own noses to save their face. The Democrats not only appeared to have made not last minute effort to persuade their 90 members from voting against, including several chairs of committee, but the Speaker, a Democratic nominee spoke just before the vote and instead of calling upon everyone to rally round in the national interest launched such an attack on the Republican administration that if I was a Republican in support of the measure I may well have changed my mind caught up in the emotion of such a blatant partisan speech. For Democrats to then to accuse the Republicans of having thin skin is hypocritical in what was an irresponsible speech from the Speaker unless it was planned as part of the deal to eventually sell the deal to her Democrats in the country that they had said where the blame was before bailing out the Republicans, in just the same way that the Republicans can show they voted against when first called upon and that they only voted differently when it was clear that not to do so would damage everyone and the future standing of the USA in the rest of the world

If a new measure is agreed early on Thursday morning there will be seen to be honour all round in biting the bullet and they can get on with slanging each other in the national elections. There is honour all round and this will bring the markets back up and restore confidence in the USA and around the world. However this will only help to prevent meltdown it will not resolve the problems which governments face with their economies. Financial assistance in terms of cash will need to be pumped into the system in order to make money available for new loans especially house buying loans. People will need to feel more confident about their ability to pay off loans and a reduction in interests will be required but without a turn to the borrowing more than you can afford to pay. One problem has been the amount of fund which were made available in the UK to buy property to rent out. Traditionally the policy would be able demonstrate that the income in would be greater than the interest being paid on the money but then with house prices rocketing the approach was to not to worry about income as any loss between payments going out and in would be offset by the increased value in the property. However this meant those borrowing in this way had to have the funds to meet any shortfalls when the property was not rented out or when expenditure on the property was required and to be confident of getting the money back when the sold and that the property could be sold. For this reason mortgage firms were offering loans of more than 100% sometimes as much as 125% where previously the lender would required an income of around 125% of the loan provide, the opposite situation that developed. Those lending the money were on bonuses for their business created on which greater profits were being booked although this as all illusory on the debts being repaid in full with the interest, and not defaulted.

Whatever the short term solutions adopted the crisis will impact on other aspects of government policy because the extent of tax payer's money being used in this this way will mean a limit on tax cutting and a limit on knew public expenditure. This will make it difficult for political parties on both sides of the Atlantic to offer tax cuts and new expenditure proposals as a means of winning over voters and taking power. This was the policy of Senator Obama who promises tax cuts for all and an effective national health service.

Here the Conservative party at its conference has been more cautious offering a freeze on local public taxes by saying that if local authorities limit their increases in budgets for two years to two and half percent they will meet the costs of this out of reductions in Government advertising and publicity budgets and by reducing the use of Management Consultants. Given that this situation is two years away the intention is to put pressure on the British Government to concentrate on keep new taxes down and achieving savings which do not impact on people in general in a damaging long turn way. This is a difficult balance to achieve because it is difficult to making government savings without having an effect on jobs and wages reduce dependency on management consultants and they will have to shed jobs to reflect the loss of business or accept reductions in profits and wages. Similarly cutting back on government sponsored building projects has its effects on the already depressed building industry. Watch this space
It was to have been a day of more than good intentions when I tackled my in tray but it was past midday and all I had done was to book in my 88000 mile travelled nine year old vehicle for its annual service and MOT. "I will send a cheque to the car insurance broker and sort out two queries on my credit card account of double payments before paying the bill and that will be enough for the day unless I find something as urgent. I have to do this before shaving and the rest and putting on a suit and finding my Durham cricket tie to attend the welcome home trophy presentation celebration the ground around 5pm which means setting off not later than 3.30 to get a parking place at the ground and opportunity see some old friends if I have any."

One reason for the inactivity is that I wanted to finish writing after watching the late night film Untouchable. I needed some games against the computer after getting up earlier than the body indicated in order to put the wheelie bun outside the back garage door for emptying alone with the environmental box of newspapers, cans and bottles. My inclination is to work on My Space sorting friends into categories, adding to match the same number as Blogs completed, finding out who has left either because of what I have said or their own reasons. This is slow because I get interested in the sites and their music and occasionally their writing. Requests to be added to Friend list of other is over 10 to 1 music and finding someone calling who inhabits the same dimensions is rare, but it happened to day and makes my day. Plus two others from this morning's examination there are three replacements to the provisional 101 list already. I wrote a cheque to my insurance broker and then hesitated sending.

I did this on learning that the nominated insurance company, one who I have been with for a number of years was part of the Belgium Banking House, Fortis had to be rescued by the French and Belgium governments. My car has done 88000 miles and it would be good to reach 101 thousand miles. I wonder how many miles I have motored since my first car as an eighteen year old, a Ford, then when I became a child care officer a Mini Estate and a Triumph Herald with an open top. Something like 40000 miles in those three years. Then a Vauxhall which was something of a disaster. Did the Datsun estate come before or after the Ford Transit? The pride in every sense was the gold executive what's you em call it vehicle with the air conditioning and what did I have before that? And what did I have after that and my present vehicle. I will have to create a list and other information as part of the project in in time.

Talking of 101 I came across a Friend who is a mental health counsellor who and 101 responses to a challenging Blog, which included her responses to the comments of others. I therefore decided to add comment 102 as follows. "

We are all clones of human beingness and everything is circular and connected. You cannot understand yourself or anyone else without first grasping the infinite nature of time and space. Hegel developed the concept of the dialectic where the juxtaposition of extremes produces the equilibrium through which each individual and the universe is able to evolve. The sub atomic particle smasher in Switzerland is a circular construction. No one is original or unique, in any meaningful sense, but repetitions, continuations and extensions and even creatives who sometimes make jumps which advance our knowledge and understanding or produce artistic perfection are themselves products of collective ancestry. Blessed are those who are able to heal the fractured mind and body."

I then set off for Durham having put on a suit and my Durham club tie. There was a reasonable number of spectators who had travelled from all over the county and I was pleased to se former Chairman Don Robson present with his family. There was a delay while Steve Harmison arrived and Captain dale Blenkenstein was relocated having been present and then disappeared. There were lots of media present and the golden trophy was put on display along with that awarded for the second team who also won their four day league competition. There was also a couple, three to be precise speeches, with one from the present Chairman and one from Geoff Cook in the form of an interview with reference to Don Robson who brought a prolonged round of applause followed by one from the captain who touched on the question of captaincy which suggested he was after a new contract. The event was a warm for the club dinner which was held in Newcastle, a Black tie affair at a major hotel where people could wine and dine and stay on overnight if they wished. It was a good end to the what had become a disappointing one having got so near to winning two other trophies.

Later in the evening I watch an awful film called Mob War released in 1989 in which a public relations man is hired against the advice of his wife and an investigative journalist friend by am ambitious Mobster. The problem is that Mobster is about to go it alone alienating the God Father and others and finds himself in the firing line, in part because of becoming high profile with TV interviews and public good works donations. The TV journalist is murdered when he causes too much trouble and the public relations man's wife is kidnapped to persuade him to continue working after he decided to pull try and pull out. This leads him to fighting for his own life and that of his wife and turning for help to Godfather and having to join the mob in gratitude. A sound warning for politicians and others who think they can benefit from Mob money without having to the price.

L'intouchable

A lazy kind of day digesting the previous week . It was the bright, not cold autumn day for a walk along the cost or into the countryside. I hated myself for not feeling up to it or wanting to. It is no good working hard at cutting out dairy products, increasing vegetables and oily fish, paying the higher cost for brown seed bread and the like and then overdoing the quantities and eating more meals a day because of working mentally 18 hour days with inadequate physical exercise.

For a brunch I enjoyed a chicken stir fry with a lemon sauce accompanied with a bottle Peroni beer and for the afternoon evening some sardines in tomato sauce on crackers, some soup and apple pie with custard, finishing off with a bowl of cornflakes and cold milk.

There was I fact only a matter of an hour between rising and deciding on the brunch while watching the first evening floodlit grand prix on a road circuit to rival that of Monaco. The event was declared by the media to be a great success although it was very very boring in that the cars were unable to overtake except for a couple of moments on each lap thus eliminating competition other than concentrating on avoiding hitting the sides of the track and the car malfunctioning. I learnt that the organisers are keen to arrange other similar events on traditional circuits. Louis Hamilton came third behind former team mate and rival the Spanish driver Alonzo, and in so doing increased his lead in the driver's championship as his nearest rival failed to register any points. With the forecasts that he could win two of the remaining three events the title could be his in only the second year of competing at this level.

In football Portsmouth recovered from their thrashing at Man City to beat Spurs 2.0 keeping them at the bottom below Newcastle and creating further problems for the future of their manager. The behaviour of the owner is almost as puzzling as Ashley at Newcastle. You sell your two best players, Berbatov and Keene for some £45 million and leave yourself insufficient time to find suitable replacements. The situation puts paid to their assistant coach Poyet coming to Newcastle as had been strongly rumoured. However Man City failed to repeat their magical performance of last week and lost 2.1 to Wigan in a frenetic match with considerable skill shown. The league has an odd look at the moment with Aston Villa third above Arsenal and Manchester United in Mid table and Spurs last. West Ham are fifth and Hull sixth. Alan Shearer denies that there has been any approach or suggestion that he will return to Newcastle in a Managerial capacity and other papers explain that although Kinnear is supposed to be in charged for only six matches he is banned from the touch line for three games because of an offence four years ago which makes his appointment even more ludicrous and someone is taking the proverbials with the customers. If there is no significant change confirmed by the end of October I forecast revolution in people staying away in their thousands having paid for their season tickets or not. The Newcastle folk are not as masochistic as that.

I quickly turned my attention to what the media had to say about the Durham winning the County Championship and was pleased that those writing about the development understood the significance, and gave appropriate recognition to all those who contributed to this development over the past sixteen years. This will help raise the finance to develop the ground into being able to hold major international events, weather permitting, Hopefully the development will also result in increasing support although the way the finances of the sport are presently structured the club can only balance the books through the revenue from international and the 20 20 format.

The main activity of the day was to search the My Space database for traditional jazz bands and artists, for historical literary and classical figure and classical composers. This was a slow process for two reasons. The music was all worth listening to, mostly familiar but of the kind that one can hear time and time again. I also experienced software problems.

There much playing of games the computer with having reached 90% wins at Spider Solitaire from the initial 75% and progressed Hearts to 42% from the low of 11% while good progress is being made at third level chess with overall 98 percents wins, five draws and one loss, achieved by consistently having winning runs of forty to fifty games.

Part of the ability to relax came from the news that agreement had been reached between the White House and Capital Hill over the terms of government intervention to prevent an economic meltdown along with total financial collapse. While one inclusion replicates what is happening in Britain to prevent the loss of homes another does not, at least at the moment, this is to limit the pay of some senior executives in the firms being rescued. This is a good development and I presume restricts the cap to those in post and responsible for what has happened but not to those who may be brought in to rebuild firms to function effectively and make appropriate profits thus limiting the longer term impact upon tax payers. Congress has rightly insisted on strict oversight. It is understood that both Presidential candidates are now in agreement with the proposed legislation. There is also to be a phased release of the money. It will be interesting to se how the markets react on Monday and if one negative side effect is an increase in the price of oil per barrel.

The day ended with a French film which had great significance to me. A Caucasian looking young French woman learns that her father was an Indian living in India (not the genuine American as opposed to the land grabbing ethnic cleansing murdering ancestors who stole the country and when they elect an a genuine Redskin President they really will have something to cheer about) and worse still from the viewpoint of sorting out her psyche he was regarded as an Untouchable, hence the title of the film, The untouchable. L'intouchable.

I had anticipated there would be no information on the internet except for the Elliot Ness films and TV series the Untouchables, but found two reviews as the film had been screened as part of the 2006 Venice film festival. I which had drawn a blank because one reviewer made the very point I had made at the time of viewing that it seems essential for any French film about a young woman to shed her clothes at very opportunity although in this instance it was immediately evident body doubles were being used. There was no justification or relevance for this or for much of the way the film was made, but I believe, because of my own experience, I understood what the film was trying to show. This was someone who discovered that their origins, their identity was very different from what they had been led to believe. In her case an Untouchable from the Indian Sub Continent and in my mine a dodgy member of the Catholic Hierarchy from Malta based in Gibraltar . She had somehow managed to overcome the basic insecurity, feeling of being an outsider, an illegitimate child, by becoming an actress and being will to engage in anything and everything to further her career, from having sex to flaunting her body on the screen. She goes to India in search of her father among 400 million as soon as she can get the money together and this second part of the film attempts to show something of contemporary Indian society although I was not sure what. She dresses up as an India girl, accompanies a gay stranger met at a hotel pool where she is not staying to visit his former friend who is has become a nun which is introduced to make the point about life choices and that solutions to the answered questions and issues of meaning and purpose and who has found her place in the universe by shutting herself away in a convent praying. For who she is asked, for everyone, she answers. Having satisfied something of her curiosity she return to France and her former way of life. It is possible she has seen her father according to one sources but given this opportunity she makes no attempt to establish one way or the other. It is a slight film of wasted opportunity and will only be of interest and significance for others the likes of me, unless seeing young French actress take off their clothes is your thing. For me I am left pondering what I should and should not do next.

The Assassination and the Assassination of Jessie James by Coard Robert Ford

It was perhaps unintentionally significant that the film watched over the past two days has the word assassination in its title, The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford. Later in the day I watched the assassination of a football club, Not significant in terms of the damage caused by the speculations of the money lenders although the self destruction of uncontrolled market capitalism may be some compensation of all those lives ruined.

First the film . This is a long and at times incoherent , mostly boring film, based on historical material and artistic licence. Sometimes I find that I live in a different dimension to the critics who hated Mama Mia and adored this film.

I can understand that in prison and among the criminal fraternity there is a hierarchy where those who use physical violence are held in greater esteem than those who do not and that even among the prison officer population there are those who hold criminals in esteem and give them preferential treatment over others because of the violent power which some men hold over others. I can also understand why there is more interest, sometimes obsessive interest with those who become violent killers who are high born or come from educated and cultured backgrounds.

Jessie James was the son of financially successful Baptist Minister who was also a hemp farmer and who helped found the Liberty College of Liberty Missouri. He travelled to California during the Gold rush and died when Jesse was three years old laving his widow with an older son and a younger daughter. Jesse's mother back in Missouri remarried, twice, secondly to a doctor with whom she had four other children and she brought up all seven on the family estate which was assisted by six slaves which became seven for the tobacco crop produced on the farm. They lived in a area where there was strong division of opinion and open conflict over the question of racist slave owning and it is said that it was in the neighbouring Kansas territory that the greatest conflicts boiled up over the issue leading to the American Civil war. Hollywood has tended to divide its portrayal of these times between films about the conventional army forces who had some sense of discipline, codes of behaviour and respect for the enemy who were after all fellow Americans, and the militia who behaved a ruthlessly as any other such group in the history of the world murdering, with the pro slavers establishing a reputation for murdering Unionist sympathisers, including scalping the dead, while the Unionist militia's are said to have held summary executions and imposing banishment with both sides take properties, burnings and some raping. Frank James joined in on the side of the separatists and at one point Unionist torture their step father buy a partial hanging. Legend has it that this was turning point in the life of Jesse. Who is said to have joined the Quantril Raiders although there is no evidence that this was so. However it is correct that Jesse and older brother Frank did join in the civil war gangs, including one led by Bloody Bill Anderson and they were involved with the massacre of 22 unarmed Unionist troops one point, dismembering the dead. Jesse was also show in the chest at one point, The penalty for this horror was to be exiled from their home state.

The ending of the civil war left Missouri in shambles and three continuing opposed factions and interesting given the present impression that the Republicans are the conservative party of the right and the Democrats, the political party of the left, it was the pro slavery conservative Unionists who founded the Democratic party (Mr Obama to note) and the anti Slavery radical unionists who founded the Republicans and the secessionists. In Britain there is still a totalitarian right wing conservative force within the British Labour party and some trade union leaders, and a Liberal Libertarian force within the Conservative Party.

Jesse, still no more than a boy, bedridden with his chest was cared for by a first cousin as his mother had been exiled to Nebraska, and he married the young woman nine years later. The militia gang which Frank and Jesse had been members then set on various robberies which also involved killings but which were also sectarian and political motivated, situations which are all too familiar here in post world war Europe, including in recent times in Ireland and the Balkans. There is no evidence however that Jesse and James were involved. It was not until 1867 when Jesse was 22 that he and his brother became involved with a robbery and the killing of a man, the cashier who it was said they mistakenly believed had shot their original militia gang leader, Bloody Bill. Newspaper publicity resulted in Jesse quickly becoming the most famous of the former Guerrillas turned outlaw. I was fascinated to learn from the interview with John Le Carre, the other day that there is a code which means that former agents remain silent on the names and activities of former comrades who turn traitors or become common killers and robbers, and I continue assume that this is so for the CIA as well as Special Forces personnel on both sides of the Atlantic. Some state made killers live the rest of their lives quietly in guilt and regret, some continue what they have been trained but for their own interests and those of their families o just to settle old scores. Few I suspect can live ordinary, respectable lives as if their former lives never happened.

It was at this point after the first publicity that the James brothers joined up with the Youngers and after a series of successful robberies from Iowa to Texas and |Kansas to West Virginia, they turned to trains and it was with trains that they began to be popular because on the while they restricted their robberies to the train safe rather than robbing the passengers, although they did this now and again.
It was at this point that the feud commenced between the James and Youngers and the Pinkerton Detective agency. This led to the Pinkertons who were just as ruthless and lawless murders as the James Youngers to raiding the family home, murdering a half brother and blowing off the arm of the Frank and Jesse's mother. This changed public opinion and led to a Bill offering them boys amnesty being narrowly defeated in the state legislature. Jesse married and led a normal family life with one of his sons growing up to become a respected lawyer. Two years later there was a politically and sectarian motivated bank robbery at Northfield's Minnesota which led to the killing of everyone in the gang except Frank and Jesse although the extent to which the James brother participated in this robbery, if all is in question. Frank is said to have settled down in the Nashville area after they escaped but for Jesse settling down never appears to have been a option. During he day I also watched the Bonnie Parker story were it is alleged that her downfall came because the thrill, the fear, the get away with it became an addiction and she could not stop and this resulted in an informant alerting the authorities and an ambush and to her death.

The film, the Assassination, concentrates on this period in the life of Jesse when he recruited new gang members who did not have the experience or the trust as former guerrillas, so he became suspicious, introverted and cautious. If you enjoy a couple of hours watching his and nothing much else then this is the film for you.. The film lasts in total two hours and fort minutes. It ends as he takes in the two Ford brothers into his home so he can keep an eye on them, and on a hot day removes his guns leaving one who as done a financial deal with the state governor to shoot him in the back of the head. The brothers were charged and convicted of murder but given a pardon. The general; belief is that the Governor knew they would kill rather than capture. They and law enforcement officers involved received the bounty and the killer brothers fled with their loot to Missouri. One of the brothers committed suicide and the other was himself shot and the killer sentenced to death and then had the sentence commuted. The mother of Jesse and the following inscription placed on he tomb. In loving memory of my beloved son Murdered by the traitor and Coward whose name is not worthy to appear here.

After the death it was rumoured that the he had not died and the killing of someone else was an elaborate state plot. Such were the continuing rumours that in 1995 the body was exhumed fro DNA tests which were reported to be consistent with those other members of his family. His wife died in poverty

Films were made in 1921(2) ,1927, 1939 (2) 1941, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1957, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1980,, 1986,, 1994, 1999,, 2001., 2005 (2), 2007. There have been TV films and references, books and music which have helped create the legend.

There was a different kind of association later in the evening

19.00 Sky show the Newcastle Tottenham Carling cup game. Will the focus be the game, the size of the crowd, protests, the manager? Can it get any worse? And what of Tottenham with Jonathan Wood gate. John Beresford played some 200 games under Kevin Keegan. Latest rumour is Terry Venerable as temporary manager to steady the club until everything is sorted out.

19.05 Having had four anchovies halves on plain crackers with a glass of wine, a some pasta with cheese sauce I eat farmed sea bass which sounds a contradiction.

19.15 The programme presenter Simon Bates reads our sad human interest stories in agony aunt format and Sky borrowed him this evening to tell the recently Newcastle story

19.25 a small apple pie and a mince and custard end the meal with coffee to follow at the interval is a subdued and sombre and desolate St James Park about a third full I would guess.


20.30 It is a boring game with few opportunities given to either side to score. John Beresford says her expects to comment on game goals and excitement but there is nothing the pace of the game is unbelievable slow as if being played in slow motion, such is the fear and lack of confidence among the players of both teams. Never experienced a ground that in such eerily silent.

20.30-21.30 Newcastle had one good and one commendable attempt to score a goal before Spurs score first and then again after an atrocious defending mistake and woe piles up upon woe. It was a very sad night. It could be argued that the owner, Managing Director and Director of Football will go down as the assassins of the club unless there is a dramatic change in fortunes.

I then watched a disgraceful exchange on Newsnight with Jeremy I can play the bastard Paxman. It is evident to anyone with half a brain that that the Republican candidate was playing a political game in suggesting that the role of both Presidential candidate should be to mix it back on the Hill appearing to sort out the national financial crisis rather than hold a TV debate on the issues before the electorate on their governor ship. The Republican face an uphill battle to convince the hard core of their supporters that adopting socialist anti free market measures is the only way to prevent the whole system collapsing and western capitalist democracies and their allies being propelled into a financial and stock market collapse worse than 1929. While the Democrats are in favour in principle they want strings, especially to punish those responsible.. Obama's agent was asked why he had refused to stop campaigning and cancel the debate returning to work as a Senator. He pointed out that as President elect he was keeping in close contact with his political colleagues to ensure the nation was saved and the maximum political advantage was obtained. It was evident to those with the other half of the rest of the brain that the Republicans were in a panic given the polls and the decision they were forced to take and wanted a halt to the election campaign in order to try and salvage something of their position. Paxman and his editorial staff appeared to be pro Republican and ant Obama by the stance they took thus making fools of themselves and destroying whatever credibility this bankrupt format and personality still clings. The same applied to the Politics show, the Tonight Programme and other media analysts and commentators as they desperately tried to undermine the great speech and conference management of the Prime Minister, Who leaked that the Transport Minister and former Education Secretary was leaving in the reshuffle so she could start to give time to her children and husband after 15 years in politics and nearly a decade in government. Why she did not take the opportunity of going with Tony Blair and goes now or at the next election is extraordinary and no amount of spin will; convince that there is more to it than anyone in Government is saying. It just shows the gulf between the world in which the politicians and top civil servants, international finance and business operators now live and the rest of us has widened beyond bridging. It is no different to that which has developed between football supporters and their club owners and managements. The lesson which I hope the supporters at Newcastle have sent out lighting a torch which others will take into eve very aspect of life, is that if you are going to continue to treat us as you have, then even if we cannot reverse we will bring you down with us and make you pay for the rest of your lives. The assassination of people's hopes and dreams can have as lasting consequence as the assassination of a life. When politicians understand that they begin to have a chance and realise that clever speeches, expresses of regret, admittance of mistakes is only the beginning and the period of probation and community service will need to be long before there is forgiveness and redemption.

Scenes of a sexual nature

A variety of scenes from one day is a title inspired by the late evening film on DVD Scenes of a sexual nature, which stared Ewan McGregor. Catherine Tate, Gina Mckee, Hugh Bonnerville, Eileen Atkins, Adrian Lester and Holly Aird among, a non erotic epic low budget independent film shot over two weeks on Hampstead Heath and Kenwood and self distributed although the DVD was distributed by Sony. More on the film and how it was made later.

The first interesting and enjoyable experience of the day was to hear John le Carre, his pen name of course, speaking about his real life, on the day his latest book is published. I have enjoyed his books and the films and TV dramas made from them as they possess that rare quality of a believable story, believable character, and understanding of politics and international relations as mostly a dirty or hazy grey. I have six of his books, the latest The Mission Song and the Constant gardener, the latter made into a film and the former about someone with a priest missionary as a father. I also have two of Smiley Books Smiley's People and Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. And also the Russia House and the Honourable Schoolboy. The Smiley TV Dramas were brilliant starring Alec Guinness and the Tailor of Panama which I thought was Graham Greene until checking an realised it was inspired by Greene's Our Man in Havana. I also know or at least I think l I know A small Town in Germany and the Looking Glass war but will need to confirm this another day
David John Moore Cornwall grew up in difficult but prosperous circumstances being sent to established boarding schools, St Andrews Preparatory and Sherburne, Lincoln College Oxford and Berne after which he entered the British Foreign Service and was recruited by MI5, whose cover was first blown to the Russians by Philby and then by MI5 after his the success of his third book, the Spy who came in from the Cold, which also made into a great film staring Richard Burton. His father was constant resident of Her Majesty's institutions and his mother walked out of the marriage early on and he had no contact with her until the age of 21. He spoke movingly of the great hope for the world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disillusionment since which ahs lead to an angry tone to his latter writing.
It was also day when International Relations was a major concern at the Labour Part Conference. While the main focus of Chancellor Alistair Darling was the impact of the global financial crisis, the rise in energy costs and in food on the domestic economy and those the worst affected.. His contribution was a sombre explanation rather than a Political Party rallying call. Designed to bring stability and confidence to the markets. Confirming that the British economy was soundly based and that the Prime Minister was the right person to engage in taking measures to resolve the problems internationally while also adopting measures at home to stop the worst aspects of the financial free for all unleashed by Margaret Thatcher and taken up with some enthusiasm by New Labour (the latter he forgot to mention). I hope the conference will demand a windfall tax on the energy companies tomorrow although the government will argue that the billion obtained from them for measures such as insulation is more constructive as it reduces consumption. The argument of companies is that the profits are required for investment but as Frank Field pointed out there is no evidence that this money has been used for this purpose as the company i.e. financial investment by borrowing. Everyone borrows and pays the interests (The great boom in buying property to rent was because the rent paid for the interests and property upkeep and he profit came as the property value increased) However Frank was believe that the Chancellor was proposing to stop the worst excesses although how anyone can now control the bonuses being paid.

In early afternoon it was the turn of South Shields Member of Parliament David Miliband. Few can quarrel with his overview of British action internationally, supported by the Minister for Overseas Development and the Minister for defence as part of the debate on the Party Document Britain in the World. There are two discussion going on at Conference the united behind Gordon brown, lets not overlook our achievement and apologise for our mistakes unit but you can trust and rely on us rather than the conservative devil that you know argument, and the who will replace Gordon brown when he goes, not his week, but likely if the by election loses or there is no improvement in polls as a consequence of the two main Party conference. The Approach of David Miliband was to express loyalty and praise the role of the Prime Minister but also to give the kind of speech which said I am here and ready to be your leader if the need arises. I was more impressed than expected but still feel he lacks the charisma and background to convince the rank and file fop the party as well as the country in general. I also strong believe the next leader should be female.

Here are my notes for the early part of the day.

08.29 Why does the Microsoft Works Word Processor open towards the end of the list of type faces?. 08.33 What is that continuous rolling noise outside?

08.15ish decide to get out of bed after lots of wakings and dreams since going up to bed and sleep after 0.2. Go to bathroom and question why there was need for a two steps before bathroom and it was not built on the one level? Make coffee and remember that both printers do not work. Why?

08.36 Rolling noise stops and open games programme, selecting Spider Solitaire and play short game which ends quickly 433 of 489 at 88% close by mistake so move to Hearts

08.40 Open Hearts short game and need two rounds to win with 36 points closest is opponent is 53 game 548 win of 1364 and confirm last night's move to 40%, then concentrate rest of day on Spider and Chess.

08.45 Rumbling noise continues play Spider a still thinking about various things. Play another short version 434 of 490 and move on to standard game.

08.47 I have the feeling I need to try different moves and this game is not going to work out and it does not after one working back so I end and try again after putting the bin out.

08.59 Have put bin out the rumbling of a motor of some kind noise that of a moving vehicle though. Decide to keep half full supermarket bag of rubbish which I keep on hook by kitchen door rather than use new black waste bag, and decide to leave washing up, time for Football First on Sky and the Man City game with Portsmouth after their mid week their first games in Europe midweek. The new Chairman and the former owner in the Director's box., Portsmouth have the best of opening minutes in this extended recording. There are lots of empty seats which later realise are blue shorted spectators !

09.08 Robinho shoots well from around 25 five yards and goal keeper put ball round corner for penalty after three minutes.

09.09 Robinho and Wright Phillips working well together and appear to have been given freedom to play as they wish.

09.10 Portsmouth try long ball for fifth or sixth time and nearly created a scoring opportunity for first time. Fancy toast but delay.

09.12 Pompey chimes are heard. Robinho to Shaun Wright Phillips great vision and weight of pass and goal keeper has to save. Stadium has filled.

09.14 Wright Phillips with cross but no one to take.

09.15 Robinho passes to fellow Brazilian Jo who side steps advancing goal keeper and scores into the open net, They perform samba at side lines. 1.0 City.

09.16 Robinho magic footwork for first time after long ball and moves ball to centre for Jo but defence stops strike. Earlier shot of new Chairman pleased with goal

09.18 Corner and poor defence results in Richard Dunn scoring second goal on this 29th birthday. 2.0 City, No one on post and goal keeper reacts late. Harry Rednapp not pleased. City fans are in wonderland

09.20 Portsmouth have first good chance. And Portsmouth make change of players.

09.21 Robinho has long shot after Ireland in midfield creates situation.

09.22 Ireland to Shaun Wright Phillips passes and creates corner.

09.24 Great moves started by Ireland and Robinho shows his skill to win ball on by line and turn and shoot. 10-12 minute spell of holding situation at 2.0.

09.25 Portsmouth near score after commentators warning of dangers of show boating than scoring.

09.28 First half comes an end. Portsmouth still trying to get goal back.

09.36 second half begins Portsmouth has chance. Made toast will butter now and have sent early morn text confirmation I am here for another day

09.38 Ireland to Jo to Robinho unmarked and scores second goal in successive home games City 3.30 after Portsmouth opening efforts.

09.40 Ireland to Shaun Wright Phillips and he moved in from side and score across goal mouth Brilliant finish. 4.0 game over. First goal at stadium since 2005 and going to Chelsea. Quarter of game left. Portsmouth in panic. City fans in ecstasy

09.53 Shocking clearance by James and City nearly sore 5th.

09.44 Jo departs and replaced by young Evans. Ireland goes forward to try and score himself. Maintained level of performance throughout.

09.48 Passage where city shows they keep the ball with succession passes around midfield.

09.45 Standing ovation fro Steve Ireland

09.49 Manchester City decide to try and score another. O9.50 series of brilliant moves with back flips of Robinho and Shaun Wright Phillips . Evans scores for goal and City 5.0 ten minutes to go.

09.53 Portsmouth nearly give sixth goal.
09.55 Fernandez makes it six after pass from Shaun Wright Phillips and other passes. 83rd minute.

09.57 Portsmouth in disarray at back facing attack upon attack. Evans great strike.

09.59 Wright Phillips has four players trying to stop him and gets by at 89th minute. 3 mins extra time. City win free kick near penalty area. Over wall and over goal. Game ends City 6.0

10.02 Fantastic perfect day movement and drive. Harry never seen his team give away so many bad games Abysmal defending. Hughes set the standard today for the future if not better. Harry we will watch the video time and time again we cannot play like that again. Biggest win in forty years for city in the top flight.

10.06 Take dishes to kitchen, spread to fridge and then play chess while waiting for comments on game from Sky.
10.07 Short game takes wins to 93 from 97 96% and run of 21 at level three, best run 41 games so far.
10.08 Play standard game
1 PK4 P-QB4; 2 P-KB4 P-Q4; 3 P-K5 Kt-Q2; 4)P-QB3 5)P- KKt4; 6)P-Q3 Q-QB3; &) P-Q4 Q-QR4; 8)QB- Q2 P x P KB5; 90 B x P P x P: 10) Q-Q2 P x P ; 11) Kt X P KB-P3; 12) P xP PXP; 13) Kt -B3 Kt-K2; 14)P QR3 P-PQB4; 15) P-Kt4 ? ; 16) B-K3 P-Q5: 17) B x P Q QR3) 18) B X P Q K3 ch: 19) Q-K3 Q-B2; 20) PK3 P x kR4: 21) P-KR4 B-Kkt: 21)
10.38 Win game after computer makes bad move. Decide not to continue notation as lengthens play too long and nothing good about performance.
10.39 play Spider
10.47 win game 125 moves core 1118 play again
10.53 win game 116 moves play chess dislike opening response of black but make quick pawn gain which black should have cancelled but as consequence I am able to gain a knight and secure an attacking pawn position for later if required
11,00 Computer falls into trap and I am able to checkmate from high pawn position having exchanged queens. Time to complete yesterday writings after checking email.
1
1.47 Completed writing and uploaded as Blog 503 and then take in the start of the Politics Show at the Labour Party Conference 11.30. David Miliband at Conference fringe for pushing the cause of those aged 20 to 40.
12.00 Labour conference watch and continued before speech by Chancellor and play and win Hearts.
12.50 The Chancellors speech was one of explanation, confidence and proposed action to create stability and bring to an end the way the financial institutions had had unlimited and unfettered power since Thatcher which they have used not for the interests of the economy or the general public in the UK but to line their own pockets. There was also a discussion in studio on energy where Frank Field pushed the case for a windfall tax on energy companies because there is no evidence they have used their excessive profits on investments, borrowing money in the market to do this in order to maintain profit levels to shareholders and bonuses.
The second issue covered is Foreign affairs with David Miliband talking to conference this afternoon, which is likely to include covering the roles in Iraq and Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Georgia, peace Israeli Arab conflict.
15,00 I made and enjoyed a sit fry using a chopped red pepper, some already chopped runner beans, half a packet of small carrots chopped further, the rest of the packet of chopped onions, half the roast chicken from yesterday, some Thai noodles microwaved for two minutes and some Thai spicy sauce in packet. It was a wholesome portion with the consequence that I needed to rest and slept waking towards the end of the speech of the Foreign secretary. Time to for washing up and cup of tea, E mail announces that replacement cartridges are being posted. I looked out for the speech later in the day and listened to the evening repeat.
I then spent four mostly frustrating hours trying to sort out the printers to have one workable. I tried the Multi printer but it still would not take the IJT cartridges and then the one purchased on Saturday as part of the cheap set locally. However later on in desperation I swopped all six for the local ones and it still not work rejecting the black so I changed the black back and so far it has printed OK. I tried various things with the second 900 printer but could not correct the smudging denied realigning and various other moves. I have not found a solution to the changing lights on the other but think this means a service is required. Do I spent £25 to save £25 of cartridges? I must check out the free c42 or 45 which I got from IJT as it is useful to have a working standby
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And so to the film with a title that will put more people off than it will attract. This is Ed Blums first film venture which cost just over a quarter of a million pounds and obeyed the rules for the independent low budget film. having one location, Hampstead Health and Kenwood, asking he actors to attend for filming for just two or three days., organised the shoot over two weeks, paying basic equity rates but offering the investors 50% of any profits and the cast and crew /production team the remaining 50% by deciding to self distribute to some 40 selected cinema locations including Vue Odeon and Cineworld. In some way the film about the making of the film and the way the film was made and distribution is what gives it the edge over other similar low budget film projects, together with attracting some of the best British and familiar actors of the day. The trick was to have a brilliant and at times witty script always acute in its observations about human relationships and behaviour in a public place.
I have only had limited experience of Hampstead Health and Kenwood. Once after I had been to prison I had a female friend from the CND Committee of 100 world who lived in the most expensive area of Hampstead and we went for a walk on the health in the early 1960's and then in the late sixties I made a visit to Kenwood. I gained a sense of a vast and diverse area as is also the two major parks in central London, Hyde and Regents Park and which is something like I have gathered Central Park in New York. I can understand why people go to parks in the midst of cities of if they do not have gardens, or there are special facilities such as for children, but is one wants space and view than I have always liked something on the grander and wilder scale which makes living in the North East such as treat with the Lakes, the Scottish Borders, the vast countryside, forest Lake and coast of Northumberland, The Yorkshire Moors and the Durham countryside and Pennine approaches such a joy, as one can travel and walk within a day. The viewed of the park by Catherine Tate writer Aschin Ditta and Ed Blum is that he park is a place of drama, sexually charged, and full of people with agendas which are more than enjoying a sunny day. Given the summers of the past two years and the tight shooting schedule there was the amazing good fortune of two very warm and sunny days.

This is the film of scenes which are not connected other than the broad the film of issue and love and sex although it is more about being an observer perhaps sitting on a bench and speculating about the lives of those within ones vision or walking through, wondering why they are there, what kind of lives do they have and what will happen when you and they depart. It is the writer's perception before the era of reality TV and Internet when everyone is queuing up to be themselves, their most darkest and silliest of selves before anyone anywhere anytime who cares to watch. The Heath with its views across London provides a visual treat for those who not have the kind of views available here in the North East, in Ireland, Wales, Scotland or in other parts of the world to experience. There are some good lines which I wish I could remember Eileen Atkins, plays a widow, who has been sitting on the same bench once a week for some fifty years including throughout her long married life of forty three years. She came to remember what might have been had she been able to marry the young man she met on this spot as a teenager. Either she or the young man was already engaged. Eddie, also a widow, played by Benjamin Whitlow also comes to this bench on a different day to remember and celebrate the life with his wife. As a result of one making the mistake about he day and getting into conversation they realise that they were teenagers who met, became infatuated and subsequently speculated about what might have been during the difficult and everyday times of their respective relationships. However confronted with what has been a fantasy they realise that there was more to their respective marriages than previously appreciated. Eileen decides that she will spend her Wednesday in future visiting he graveside of her former husband. Eddie suggest that they meet again but his suggestion is half hearted. Perhaps they have nothing in common that the attractions and memory of a youthful infatuation even in the their respective lonely worlds. Perhaps there is a bond which will be of some comfort in the future.

Gina McKee is on a blind date at the age of (41) with Hugh Bonneville (43). She brings a rug and he the picnic basket with wine. There is also the clumsiness tension hope and uncertainty capture in their brief meeting and one moment they express their contentment at not having children and criticism of what their friends who are parents have become and the next they are both admitting they wish they had a child or two. However whereas Gina is interested in what she feels is last chance saloon, Hugh decides she is not for him and disappears as fast as his legs will carry him. The film begins with a married couple enjoying the sun. The wife is reading about multiple orgasms which the husband says is always made up. He notices a young woman should her knickers which are more like those of Bridget Jones than what the title of the film might lead one to expect. When the husband (Adrian Lincoln) takes a secretive interest and is noticed by his wife Holly Aird she not only lays into him but when he fabricates an account about the book the French girl is reading Camus' L'Etranger played by the vampish Eglantine Remabuville-Nicole, she creates a scene calling her husband a pervert and telling the girl to be more careful about showing off her underwear. When the wife goes off in a huff the girl offers to give the man another look.
Anna Sophie Atkins is a young disturbed woman prone to mood swings and rows with her boyfriend and then gets into conversation and then encounters another young man who tries to into conversation with a girl friend relationship in the fullness of time and is shocked when one minute she says she wants sex there and then and the next rushes off. His experience does form rebuff to another. Ewan McGregor plays the young gay in a 15 year relationship who cannot resist anything in trousers or in this instances shorts that takes his fancy in the Men only area of the Parkland. He then says he wants a child and his older partner Douglas Hodge to give up work to look after the child to create a normal sense of family life and stability

Catherine Tate with Adrian Lester were passionate lovers who made the mistake of marrying. They met with their seven year old daughter to mark the arrival of the divorce absolute after not seeing each other for sometime. Although they both claim to be happy in their separate lives it is evident they want each other physically as much as ever.

Mark Strong and Polly Walker met and discuss family affairs and a holiday but it becomes evident that the girl is an escort and that he pays for her time.

The fact that the stories are not linked ads to sense of truth and reality but it is not clear what is the purpose of the film other than t make the point that things are never what they appear to be especially in a park on a bright Summers day. I remember a BBC biography documentary about 24 hours in a London park which covered a lot of the same ground within an hour and was more effective.

Wall Street. Money Never Sleeps

It is 5.20 am and for the first time in two weeks I am on track again in my sleep cycle, rising in time to go to for a half a mile swim, albeit in a heated pool, but also wanting to stay and write for instant publication. I went to the pool and it has been a mixed week at the pool completing 50, 48, 68 and 50 lengths, thus achieving 22 lengths above the present 48 average, but only 4 times out of seven and one below my minimum of 5 days out of seven. However I have maintained the 5 days out of 7 average over the past 13 weeks, which includes 3 weeks maximum, two at six and one at 5.

I must also begin by declaring a financial and political interest. I was personally affected by the statement of the Chancellor on the economic and financial changes announced on Wednesday after Prime Minister’s Question Time. However I am one of the few who while believing that the financial and economic measures are not fair, they are necessary because they begin the process of Britain having a more responsible and ethically acceptable position in relation to other countries. However I am not saying that the Conservatives have the same agenda although the Liberal Democrats might.

It was evident from Prime Minister’s Question time that young Ed is going to adopt the soft approach in his first question and then bring out what he hopes will be if not disabling, at least a politically embarrassing second. The Prime Minister has quickly reassessed his approach and his adopting ridicule and generalization.

In terms of performances The Chancellor was excellent in his delivery, appearing to have substance and integrity. It was politically good too in that it included all the positives while adopting the Brown principle of leave as much unpleasantness as you can to the small print. I was also impressed by Alan Johnson for the Opposition who admits he knows nothing about economics.
I consider this to be an asset, and therefore adopted the effective approach, as indeed Labour did with greater justification against Thatcherism, by making the accusation of ideological motivation, especially in relation to the budget of the Welfare State, the Public Sector and public Sector pensions which the majority of people including most Labour Voters will agree with the former while trying to personally benefit from the latter.

So this is the truth. The Coalition is going faster in the cuts than they need to in terms of the present economic situation in the UK and they do run the risk of a making it more difficult to get out of a another slowing down generated by the Chinese as a positive response to the needs of the USA. Whatever they do the very rich and those who caused the banks to near fail will escape because they are the very rich. This means that the bulk of the measures will fall on everyone else with the exception of convicted criminals and the underclass generally.

The worst hit will be the bulk of the working and middle classes who play by the rules and live decent lives, that is always in the nature of things. Between half a million and million more people with lose their job than at present. Primarily these will be civil servants and local government workers. Many will not gain other work as this will go primarily to those in the new EEC who will work harder for less than their UK counterparts.

The biggest problem will be to actually reform the welfare budget into one single system so that it always pays to work than live on benefits. One system will cost huge up front money because the old will have to continue until it is all incorporated into the new. That is why universal benefits are cheaper because one the simple basic eligibility test is met, you have a child, you are over 65, you have been assessed as on eligible for a tax credit. No large form of information is filled, no personal interview and no hours of verification with other agencies before making decision, which is then subject to appeal.

However what I can accept that that the Coalition is genuine in its intent and with Ian Duncan Smith in charge fo work and pensions there is someone who will have a serious go at doing so. What is likely to emerge is a better system, easier to operate for both applicant and government but it will not save money or reduce to the overall total, in part because more and more will have to be spent on the elderly. The key to success is getting more off the new better to work than be on benefit policy.

Every government and every Minister in charge of the system wants to crack down on benefit cheats and tax dodgers. However this is always impossible to achieve unless you are prepared to spend more money than you get back, especially if you do not want to put those caught and proven in jail.

This brings me nicely to Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps, In the 1987 first Michael Douglas Oliver Stone film Gordon Gekko played the star of Wall Street, taking over good companies and then asset stripping and using as much Insider information as he could buy. He was brought down mainly on the evidence of a colleague and rival and in order for the public to continue to buy the confidence goods and services, he is made an example of and has to serve more years in prison than the average murderer.

In the second episode of what could become a trilogy Michael leaves prison in 2001 and finds there is no one to greet him. Eight years go by and the film opens for proper in the bedroom shared by a Wall Street Whiz for a firm Keller Zabel, which like Lehman’s is about to be allowed to go bust putting 1500 employees out of work and loosing a few people a lot of money, and we soon learn, the estranged daughter of one Gordon Gekko. From the telly which she insists is turned off, because lover boy is rarely away from business news screens, when her father appears advertising his new book. He is now a renowned lecturer warning that bubble is about to burst because of the leveraging by the speculating financial institutions.

The reason for the estrangement is not the financial and business behaviour of her father as such or his serial infidelities because she had her brother agreed to being part of Trust in which daddy had secreted $100 million in a Swiss bank which they inherit at the age of 25 but on the understanding that a substantially proportion of the total is used to enable their father to re-establish himself. The reason for the estrangement is that her father was in prison when his son and her brother died from drug addiction. She is now running a not for profit web site revealing truths about this and that.

The relationship between these two is one many flaws in the film. Given the attitude and lifestyle of the girl and that of her lover it is difficult to accept that they would have met and having met that she would have been attracted to him given that to him her father remained a business hero. The day gets better for Jacob, Jake Moore, the young man, is given by his boss, a spot bonus to the value of $1.45 million for his good work and Jake’s confidence in the firm is such that he invests the greater part of the bonus in buying more shares on leverage, that is in Futures, the right to buy the shares in the future at the present price so if the price rises you can sell the futures at a profit. So if the shares are now trading at say £80 with the right to buy costing $8 $1million will buy you can buy 125000 shares instead of 12500 so if the prices rises $10 you make another £1.25million doubling you money instead of only 125000. You pay out more in dealing charges which is how individual dealers make their money and their bonuses.

This is legitimate practice. What would not be legal is to create false rumours to escalate or reduce the price.

This is what in fact one of the other controllers of finances/banks, Churchill Schwartz, does in relation to the rival firm and when the bank begins to crash and seeks help from the other banks and the US government it is allowed to fail, with the man who leaked the rumour leading the others against a bail out. The chief of Keller Zebal, Louis Zebal throws himself in front of a subway train having accepted a buy out of his shares in the company for $3 after an initial offer of $2. Meanwhile Jake has persuaded Gekko’s daughter to marry him and bought her a large rock of a ring which she persuades him to return so they have something to live on now he is out of work.

Jake then goes in search of Gekko to reunite with his daughter and Gekko agrees to help Jake find out who brought Keller Zebal down in exchange. It emerges that that the man whose evidence brought Gekko down, Bretton James, was also behind the failure of Jake’s bank, but in addition had made a fortune for himself and his separately for his bank from his actions which can bring charges of criminal conspiracy as well as breaking financial regulations and rules.

Jake uses the information to creates a similar bad rumour against Bretton, without making personal profit, costing Churchill Schwartz, the firm over $100 million dollars. This impresses the Chief Executive who hires Jake and is further impressed when Jake outwits the firm’s previous Whiz but hooking Chinese government investors in renewable energy research investments. When however his bosses persuades the Chinese to invest in a different approach to that recommended by Jake because it is less threatening to the firm’s interersts in oil. Jakes walks out and is jobless again.

All appears not to be lost because having reunited Gekko with his daughter, Gekko discloses the existence of the Trust fund and offers to get hold of the money and for his daughter to sue for the renewable energy project. This will avoid her being answerable for non disclosure of the interest liable for tax on the trust fund earnings over the years. That she or father did not know this is another of the many stretches of incredulity. Of course Gekko has no intention of doing what he says and uses to the money to re-establish himself as an operator in London, implying that the London financial people would allow him to set up and start new Hedge business which quickly amount over $1 billion.

Jake has lost Gekko’s daughter who is pregnant by him after he admits to her that he met Gekko behind her back when she had told him not to do so. This breaks her trust and confidence in him. In order to try and win her back and reunite daughter with father, Jake travels to London with a DVD showing the ultra sound of the grandson, but having made it again into the big time Gekko says no.

Meanwhile Jake has given the daughter the story of how his firm was brought down through the illegal activities of the Bretton James if the Bank said to resemble JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs as Wall Street is gripped with the collapse of capitalism as the various leverages, housing and insurance scams take their toll. The US government agrees its own form of bail out as the banks having previously let Keller Zabel go bust cling together. But they cannot afford any further cover up so when the story circulated by Gekko’s daughter through Internet site gains traction and leads to official investigations, the ranks close again, but this time against Church Stewart’s CEO, although at a preliminary hearing it is revealed that he is likely to get himself a better deal because of his previous cooperation which brought down Gekko.
The film is about to end with the daughter about to become a single mum, still unable to accept Jake’s sincere regrets and atonement measures and Gekko profiting from the near collapse. When the situation changes. Gekko has a change of heart, cashes in $100 million dollars which he invests in the renewable energy project and comes back to the States to beg forgiveness and help reunite his daughter with Jake. All this takes away from the main subject and Gekko’s latest slogan, the former was Greed is Good, the new one Money Never Sleeps.

The sub theme of the film is it was inevitable and is always inevitable that a system dependent on the use of capital will ensure that capital survives whatever the cost to the majority of the population because the rest of the population is dependent upon the continuation of capitalism.

And this brings me back to why we will all pay to ensure capitalism survives.

Did you know that the total amount we are borrowing at present is about the same as the total amount it will cost to replace the Trident nuclear defence system?

The boy in the stripped Pyjamas

This afternoon I saw the most important film ever made. It is called The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

The film is set in Nazi Germany and involves a Berlin based family whose soldier father becomes the head of an extermination concentration camp. The focus of the film is the relationship between the soldier's son and a boy of similar age who he discovers on the other side of the wire. If you are someone who is emotionally affected by dramas about past reality with present significance it is wise not to experience the film alone and arrange to view with someone of similar outlook and feelings

It is a film which everyone should see although I am not sure what the youngest age should be.

Some fifty years ago I read the official reports of the War Crimes Tribunal in relation to those prosecuted in relation to two extermination camps. It led me to half a decade or so later committing acts of non violent civil disobedience in protest against weapons of mass destruction and to also undertaking a spontaneous non violent protest outside of South Africa House because of apartheid and the Sharpsville shootings.

I had intended to spend the day at cricket but there was no play because the ground remained waterlogged so I went to the cinema instead. Afterwards I did a mixture of a shop, buying some essentials, including milk and bread, and three medium size whole chickens for £10. I then decided to stock up on inexpensive sauces for fish, [pasta and stir-fry as well as a six pack of premium Peroni beer, the most expensive beer on offer. I drank the first bottle before going to bed knowing it would cause me to rise during the rest of the night more frequently than usual