Forty Shades of Blue, Married Life, Spooks,

It has been an emotional twenty four hours and now I feel drained. It began when I least expected, which reminds of the security briefing for the visit of the Queen to open St Pancras: be prepared for expect what you least anticipate.

I could immediately remember why I had added Forty Shades of Blue (2005) to the Internet post DVD subscription until the film commenced and then I remembered: the main female character is a Russian young woman trying to adjust to life in a significantly different culture. During this year I have become interested in the phenomena of the number of young Russian women who have emigrated across the world to live with men and their families and friends.

This arose because I was contacted through Myspace by a beautiful young Russian woman looking for someone who could provide her with a different level of life and was not like the men she had been used to. At first she appeared genuine and honest admitting she had written to a number of possibilities and provided a convincing story but for the obvious reason of our disparity in ages I was very suspicious but curious to discover the truth. The amount of available information on the internet about trans cultural matchings is staggering. There is a shortage of two million husbands in Russia and there are concerns about the number of Russian men who use alcohol excessively and are violent as a consequence. And therefore women in their hundreds of thousands and are offering themselves in a fierce competition through many agencies who are also matched by bogus individuals and groups with criminal intent. There are some simple tests to establish the authenticity of an approach which in this instance were failed.

I was reminded of a situation in first period of professional employment where 400 young women had married service personnel from a major airbase and gone to live in the United States. There was a support organisation for the parents of these young women and while I cannot remember the proportions, and while the majority were successful, or did not result in a return home, a number did. One of my functions was to give support in situations where a woman became a single a parent and decided to bring up the child or children rather than seek adoption or a placement in care.

Other that this aspect to the film I had no prior knowledge about the actress playing the Russian woman or the film's Director. I therefore did not immediately tune into the level at which this film has been created, but as soon as I realised I was watching a little masterpiece of emotional intensity and relationship truth on the level of Ingmar Bergman, I returned to the beginning and gave my whole being. This is not the kind of film that can be enjoyed at different levels, which explains why some critics disliked and were bored while others shared my admiration. There is an integrity and a coherence about this film which is maintained throughout and is my film of 2007 although released over two years ago.

The performance of the actress Dina Korzun is outstanding and in the information attached to the DVD the Director explained that although there had been a script, he then adapted the story and his editing to the character and abilities of the actress. I suspect she will however find it difficult to find another major role outside that she is now known for.

The film has been compared with Lost In Translation and I shared the Director's viewpoint that the tourist experiences incorporated in Lost in Translation did not add to the film and he was right not to yields from his backers to include tourist features of the city of Memphis where he accumulated 10000 days of early experiences. Lost In Translation is an outstanding movie but the important scenes are the rooms and spaces inside the hotel or the views of the outside through its windows, because of the relationship development of two people in an alien culture but where the inside of the hotel is international, providing a womb like security.

In this film because of what I had researched and thought about, I was first gripped by the character of the Russian girl, who communicates that she does not know what she wants or who she is, except that that she did not want what she had before, her life in Russia, and that is why, as she explains although she is not someone who normally uses words to explain, that is why she accepts that the man she lives with sees her as he does, and does not attempt to see her as she is, or helps her to find the person she could be more content with. The are using each other, a solution to their present dissatisfactions.

She is a girl who tends to react to the moment, switching her feelings according to the moods and actions of others and who can make bad choices or choices which can lead her into danger and harm and early on the film she allows herself to her brought home after being picked up in bar, stood up by her partner who has responded to a new opportunity but rejects the man when he does not tune into her, although later in the film she has a casual encounter with another stranger. In between the film is about the development of a relationship with the son of the partner who is just as uncertain of who he is and what he wants and who funks the opportunity to begin a new life with the girl who is torn between the possibilities of a meaningful relationship and her feelings of duty and loyalty to a man who has provided her with a quality of life better than she had dreamt about and therefore she feels she has no right to complain about his behaviour.

But this is not a film about one woman where all the other characters revolve around her and her predicament. Each character has their own viewpoint and history. Her older partner is still well known as song writer (may have also been a performer ) and is now a producer of records but is also yesterday's man and comes fully alive when with those who appreciated his accomplishments and shared in his experience., which of course she has had no part of. He only comes to appreciate what he has with her when he senses he is losing her and although she accepts his public made proposal of marriage it is evident that this is too late and whatever their future relationship is to be it will never become a harmony of ongoing understanding, openness and truth.

This reflects the viewpoint of the Director, who appears to believe that only brief flashes of emotional and intellectual closeness is possible between human beings which is comprehensively open and truthful. He was born into sixties Memphis where sixty percent of the population were then black and admitted in the first film on the Queen at work, America was still overwhelmingly segregated. When she visited in the fifties. Within the white culture the Jewishness of Ira Sachs did not create for him the kind of internal problems which his stated going into the closet between thirteen and seventeen over his homosexuality. (I still do not understand why the term gay was created).

It was not clear when be became aware that every adolescent goes into the closet about something although he admits to having had the evident experience of good psycho analysis, and it is also evident that he has reached that level of critical self awareness that enables a sympathetic, and empathetic understanding of the predicaments of everyone else. Moreover the objective way in which he discussed how his childhood and subsequent adult experiences govern what he wants to say and how he wants to say demonstrated someone who has found an inner being in harmony with his outer.

Whereas I could only find three references to Dina Korzun which were about this film and two other which I did not open because their state content appeared dodgy and possibly illegal, I was delighted to find from his own web suite that he has directed a second film with Hollywood A list stars of Pierce Brosnan and Rachel MacAdam in a film called Married Life due to be released next Spring. The significance of Ingmar Bergman is that he was in a constant struggle to find the finance to make the films which eh scripted and directed about subjects which interested him and at the level of truth which he developed early on and consistently maintained thereafter. I am hope the making of a film with big names, does not mean he has moved into Hollywood Big Time. He mentioned that there had been a great feeling when Fort Shades had won an award but the team had been deflated that afterwards there was anti climax because no one came up to talk and with insufficient food on hand they had gone off for a pizza asking, is this what there is which suggests that making a film which satisfied and achieved goals was not enough. We shall see.

I am also being unfair to the star of Forty Shades. Rip Torn had been in the business for 50 years and involved in over seventy five films. His other claim to fame is having successful sued Dennis Hooper and where the Judge double the award after the matter went to appeal. Given that I shall not mention other information on a site NNDB with the sub head Tracking the World (Solyent Communications) and where at the end is the question Do you know something that we don't!

A second cause for my emotionalism, was the advance episode of Spooks in which two of the main characters are faced with the possibility of having to kill each other as part of their work. I have written before that this season of Spooks failed to live up to the previous series because although there plots were contemporary and well crafted and the acting and interactions were of the previous quality, there was something missing, something which made me believe that the programme was about real people having real lives albeit, unique and specialist lives, and then in this episode, it came back, what had gripped and impressed me before, as beyond what was an exceptionally crafted plot of many twists, there was the truth of those trained to deceive, play roles, and if required to kill, where black and white is always a dirty kind of grey, where allies and enemies can become enemies or allies according to situations, and where it is impossible to have an ongoing relationship with anyone who is not in the same business and impossible to have an ongoing relationship with anyone who is not. There is a moment whose significance can only be appreciated within the context of the story where Adam says to there never is enough time is there? It was a very appropriate and meaningful statement for that programme but it also summoned up how my life has to be. I have always tried to live it as if there were seconds, perhaps minuets left than hours or days and the concept of weeks, months and years had little meaning. I can cope with this kind of beingness but not everyday existence without the intensity, the uncertainty and the pressure of having to achieve something within a fixed or limited period of time.

The last straw in terms of moving from a creatively emotional and cathartic state was having to make a fourth journey to the bank in an effort to gain release of my mothers funds to pay for her funeral without having to lose interest by drawing from savings or incur credit card charges. I was able to see the branch manager and hopefully I will receive a telephone call during the day to be advised that the funds in the account have been transferred. What with Northern Rock requiring billions to be saved and its shares dropping from pounds to pence and the government losing the highly confidential information on 25 million citizens my problem is insignificant but I find the what has happened frustrating and distressing.

However I was able to put the problem into perspective on hearing that the teacher held in the Sudan because she allowed the children in her class to call a teddy bear Mohamed and then wrote to their parents asking that each child looked after the Teddy Bear for a day and kept a diary about doing so. Last night on Newsnight there was a revealing exchange between a representative of the Ambassador and a member of the Muslim Council of Great Britain who castigated for the embarrassing and longer term implications of the woman being officially charged as well as kept in detention. The Foreign secretary is requesting an official explanation but the damage has been dome and there are many less moderate and objective than me who will see the development as reinforcing our fear and opposition to totalitarianism of this nature whether religious or political. The economic and political ramifications are horrendous, occurring on a day when the official representatives of Israel and the official Palestine government were content for the US President to announce agreement to have talks with a view to achieving a long settlement before the President laves office. Tony Blair obtained the title of unofficial Vice President of the USA and it is difficult to believe there is no connection between this development and the appointment of Tony as UN envoy to progress the peace process.

Meanwhile back at Westminster the latest scandal to hit the government and the Premiership of Gordon Brown had the opposite effect on me of beginning to think he is the victim of the kind of in fighting which some of his supporters used against Tony Blair and which was not as exploited by the opposition until David Cameron became the great opportunist although he has become carried away sufficiently to leave himself open to counter charges although Gordon at his monthly press conference and at Question time began to show the qualities of statesmanship and leadership that had began to emerge during the summer months, and he talked of the national interests and of taking decision which indicated to me that he had decided to be his own man and if that meant alienating members of his own party then he would go down fighting as himself rather than as a servant of the political party. There is a frenzy developing which I find dangerous. There was the extraordinary business at the Oxford union where after the decision to invite two extremist one on the far right and the other on the far left to debate issues of free speech, after the matter was put to a democratic vote among members of the Student Union, not only did some students and other protestors barricade the entrances and some enter the debating chamber but were heard to shout in chorus Kill the union President. No doubt this was thought to be a clever challenge as having the freedom to say so but this is all just another indication of growing intolerance and a climate to further undermine freedoms from and to. I enjoyed as did most other fair minded folk the quip if the temporary leader of the Liberal Democrats who suggested that Gordon had moved from being Stalin to Mr Bean within a matter of days.

The Liquidator

In fact after feeling that I was falling behind my original schedule for the week, the situation progressed rapidly. Last night I made a mess of printing the photos for Wearmouth and then decided that the writing needed some changes and then noticed a minor spelling error on the previous writing of the wartime for the history sequence. Having sorted this out and completed the writings for Sunday and to-days postings, I completed a run of 11 level 2 games against the computer in two session and closed the programme and promised myself to resist any inclination to reopen before tomorrow, however good I feel about myself and feeling of alertness. This I managed to do and this morning I completed games 11-20, forgetting that the target was 21 and this has now been accomplished.

My main occupation overnight was review existing information and undertake further research for Rivera the South Shields riverside section. This was a frustrating as I could not find two pieces of information, he number of merchant seamen from the town killed during World War Two together with the percentage of these who were Muslims. The other was the number of vehicles which used to be transported across the Tyne by the ferries compared with those now using the road Tunnel, given that preliminary work for the second Tunnel has commenced. Deciding on the photographs was enjoyable and the selection governed the structure of the writing which spilled on to four pages which affected the subsequent layout. I will do those on rocks and inlets next.

I have also attended to some of the in tray remembering to cancel the Ancestry UK Family History account noting that it could not have been automatically renewed because the number on my credit card had changed when reissued. I hope to go back to Ancestry sometime in the future although this may not be until the 2010 and ten census is made available. The UK subscription is excellent value because in addition to having all the published census information and a wide range of other databases the whole of the National index of registered births marriages and deaths is available, all on searchable databases.

The change is credit numbers also affected the ability to log on which needed a phone call and a special e mail. I then ordered some vouchers for free cinema tickets divided between Cineworld, the majority and a couple for Vue which is the chain at Croydon High Street. This reminds to check if there has been any progress in a south London Cineworld which I could visit by taking a train or the Tube train, There is one at Wandsworth where the current schedule includes four Bollywood films although the rest of the schedule is the same as that at West India Quay in London Docklands which I continue to visit having used on my trips to London for a number of years and then stopped when I upgraded the monthly pass to cover the West End. The extra expenditure of £36 was more than offset by seeing two major international films on each visit and in fact the savings largely paid for the rest of subscription so that I was significant in profit compared to the cost of buy individual tickets. The position changed when I loved my mother north and I found that to spent the subscription gong to see films which were more entertainment than art or otherwise challenging. With the returning to live theatre and concerts there was less inclination to go to the cinema unless I was confident about the quality of the film, especially as the internet mail DVD subscription was proving such good value, enabling to see the work individuals directors such as Ingmar Bergman and Almodovar.

There was time to keep one eye on The Liquidator, a silly spy romp of a film with Rod Taylor with a host of good actors such as Trevor Howard, Wilfred Howard White, Eric Sykes John Le Mesurier. David Tomlinson and Derek Nimmo. This light heartedness was what I needed to prepare for yet another political bombshell, before settling down to be impressed with the first of a short series of programmes about the Queen at Work, which included her most recent state visit to the United States, where they appreciate leaders and ceremonial more than the average Britisher who has come to be adversely affected by the portrayal of the Royal family in the media as dysfunctional. Apart from the Queen who was outstanding throughout and Prince Philip, the Royal reporter of the Sun did his position no harm. Then there was the question of free speech and the Oxford Union, and the imprisonment of a British Teacher in Aden for allowing her children to call a toy Mohamed, all subjects I will talk more about tomorrow, or begin later this evening when other things have been attended although there is St Pancras part 5 and the latest Spooks and perhaps the film Forty Shades of Blue

Octane, The Big Sky Desperadoes and Cranford

My notes for Monday about the weekend and today are going to be even more rushed and half baked because I am behind a schedule which has become important to follow before my pre Christmas visit to London. I need to clear my in-tray and attend to some more jobs around the house. I was successful in replacing the bathroom toilet seat, although I wasted several minutes before working out how the bolt fixing system worked, although removing the old seat took longer than the replacement. In the spectrum of kitchen sink, or bathroom toilet drama and polite social behaviour personified by the good ladies of Cranford, I have moved with aging more towards Cranford than Arnold Wesker.

In Cranford the daughter of the new arrival paid he price of selfless devotion, giving up the chance of love and marriage to a dashing officer, first by caring for her mother and then her sister, and in this episode because she did not meant to leave her father on his own, only to find out that his father had taken a position with the railways company which would take him away from home. His reasons for taking the job were mixed, he was not a do it active man not ready for his pipe and slippers, but he genuinely felt he had to care for his daughter who was unlikely to marry and was struggling on his military retirement half pay. Unfortunately the daughter only packing because he wanted her to travel with him to India, his next posting. No was this a black and white situation because she had become comfortable in her role and understandably feared the change to being a wife. It was also evident that she feared the reality of passion preferring the romantic ideal, her distress was compounded on finding that her father had lost his friends and was likely to become ostracised as the railway was not only to cut through the estate of the local grandee but come through the town, thus enabling the lower classes to move about and bring all manner of change for the worse as well as for profit. The drama is covering many issues of the time and this day, the impact of rapid change on a small computer, the nature of a class ridden society, the belief of the upper and lower classes that general education was bad thing, which it is of course unless you need an educated population to survive because it leads to discontent among the masses and a little education as with a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

I awoke this morning to listen to the conundrum of it is right or wrong to try and stop someone who does not believe in free speech from speaking as members of the fascist based British National Party agreed to participate in an Oxford Union debate about free speech and some individuals were setting out on topping them which is a contraction of what is believed. I learnt this lesson painfully while at Russian College while joining in a protest against someone who supported the Franco Regime and effectively broke up the meeting with a series of planned interventions. I was rightly reprimanded for attending the event by a fellow student and knowing that he had been right about my motivation and reaction, but wrong about the decision to take action. As my writing earlier tried to say, sometimes trhere is no choice to fight in every sense of the word evil or what is simply but if you are going to be principled you have to be consistent in very respect, or at least take steps and work hard at being principled in every respect even if this means being harden on yourself than others.

I should for example have switched off the TV on Saturday evening and concentrated on writing but could not resist watching the rest of Octane just to see how it worked out, although it was pretentious rubbish. This is being unfair on the film and myself, but sometimes one has to be. The story is that of divorced woman collecting a daughter from a stay with her father and what happens between them and to them as they drive home, stopping at rest station which all look the same. The interest of the film was to learn if the woman was a paranoid schizophrenia, overtired from too much driving and suffering the effects of medication who starts to view other travellers, the police, an accident attendant and other road user as part of an evil, possibly alien, blood sucking, paedophile, kidnapping conspiracy in which her typical teenage daughter becomes caught up with growing up at the same time as the parental split, and who because of a huff when her mother tears up the father's birthday present of tickets for a Woodstock/Glastonbury type rock festival at the very time the predators are on the look out for a new victim. Had this been true then the film portrayed the feelings and perspective of the mother in a clever and authentic way. Unfortunately I came to believe that the Director wants us to take the story as cautionary take about what happens to young people if they do not respect and take heed of what their parents have o say and require of them.

On Sunday midday I watched the 1947 Howard Hawks movie, The Big Sky in which a young Kirk Douglas and friend join an expedition take a boat 2000 miles up river to trade with the Blackfoot tribe of Indians after the expedition leader gains as a hostage bargain maker the daughter of a chief who he has rescued from the Indians who have taken her prisoner. The essence of this long and beautifully shot black and white film is that both men to fancy, admire and love the Indian girl who gets away just as they are about to enter Blackfoot country after a perilous voyage , where over the last lap the boat becomes stuck and they attempt to man hauler along the last stages of the river. Fortunately the girl is full of gratitude for the help she has received and has sent her people to help bring the boat to their encampment, where she shows her gratitude to the friend of Kirk Douglas who is then surprised that he has become married, and can free himself to leave by paying an appropriate dowry to the chief, which he does. As the boat is setting off full of furs skins to escape the Winter, the friend changes his mind and decided to stay with his bride, and the moralI?

This was a highly appropriate film for the Antiques road show where a man produced work of his grandmother a Cree native reserve Indian from Canada, who husband had brought her two sons to be educated in England and had never returned. He had never mentioned his wife, nor had the son, and indeed the grandson had never been to Canada and appeared to have shared the family rejection of this part of their background. The same could not be said for a descendent of the Jane Austin Family who proudly presented memorabilia from her time. However the moving highlight of this programme was the meeting up of two families who shared twin pieces of furniture made by the wood craftsman from Yorkshire who signed his pieces with a wooden mouse. There had been two sets of twins and when one of the four all due to go to university at the time of Great War did not return the twice cabinets and side tables had been divided between the remaining twins. It was the son/grandson of one who brought the piece to the Road show and told the story from his knowledge and true the best of BBC TV they had traced the other descendent and brought them and the two pieces together.

The third film was a classic Western Desperados in which a very young subsequent Hollywood star tamed up with the equally well known actor Sheriff both of whose names I did not note and now forget and subsequently failed to find even the briefest note on the Internet as it was not the 1969 Jack Palance movie or the earlier 1955 Western, the Last of the Desperados and certainly not the 1995 Banderas Tanantino movie Desperado or the earlier 1910 film, or the Mexican restaurant on Lake Placid and of course the tune Desperado keeps coming to my ear. And the film is a classical tale involving a corruptly run town including the bank owner and the leading rancher and I now remember the young actor was Glenn Ford who got in troubled many moons ago for the local Lady once a good time girl who he now turns because he has been framed for a bank job and needs her help because he is being forced to ply his trade by the baddies. Fortunately he has a history with the Sherriff whop I have now worked out is Randolph C Scott , as I decided to look up the flexography of Glenn Ford and discovered the spelling is the Desperadoes and not Desperados and discovered some information about this 1943 film, including info the former good time girl is known as Countess Maletta. Glenn whose role is called Cheyenne Rogers who is trying to live down his past under the name of Smith falls for the daughter of the Livery Stables whose single parent father is also one the baddie but tries to redeem himself for the sake of his daughter and the film has a happy ending and never takes itself seriously.

I am eating too much, enjoying on Sunday half a chicken breast with roast potatoes, stuffing and mini sausages, followed by two rolls filled to overflowing with salmon on a bed of lettuce, and two cans of Pepsi Coke, and a whole round of hard Turron . I still have yet to get into that grove of self control and determination reflected in the way am continuing to play computer chess having continue to draw games by going on for too long or two late. I restricting myself to 11 games today and then 10 a day unless I go back to eleven with the aim of reaching 101 second level before my pre Christmas London trip and 101 level three by Christmas New Year and level 10 before Christmas 2009, or 10!

So it looks as if my week will not begin properly until Tuesday.

Cass Football hooligan the film

I was moved by a film about gang and criminal violence. Cass is the latest in a series of films about the gang violence which affected British Football from the later 1970’s through to this day although it now exist only outside of major grounds because of the use of CCTV, memberships and seats.

Previous films have been The Firm 1988, Green Street 2005, and Rise of the Foot Soldier 2007, The Football Factory 2008, Cass 2008 and Elijah Wood is involved with the making of a new film 2009.

This is not the time to provide a detailed and comprehensive account of my unintentional encounters with the organised activities of these violent gangs, or the association some have with far right political, racists and homophobic groups, but for now I will mention that as a youngster and regular supporter of Crystal Palace I knew it was wise to take exceptional care when attending home games against Millwall because of the reputation of some of their fans for violence and when less than 1000 supporters of both teams attended games. The exception was games played over Christmas and Easter when rather like churches, the congregation swelled.

It was not until the late 1970’s while visiting Liverpool for a cup game against Everton that on the way home in a convoy of coaches we were attacked by children throwing clumps of earth and stones at the coaches, damaging some and where the local police were not in sight although I later learnt this was a regular occurrence as they route was a regular one and that there were hundreds of youngster involved.

However it not until the early eighties that I became aware of how the position had developed when encountering 100 young men in silence in groups of two and three in a side street as I left Chelsea football ground early and watched them form into a column when one man raised an umbrella and marched off in the direction of the sound of the away supporters as the match ended. Later still and further away from the ground as I thought I was walking to safety I encountered what appeared to be the same group on the run followed by police on horses and in cars and vans and even later still when at a station on the underground line over 100 young men and boys appeared on a platform and smashed their way into the train and started to fight individuals they had identified on the train and wrecking it to the extent it had to be taken out of service. In a subsequently visit to the capital I was on a train when men who I now assume were part of the group which was or became the West Ham Inter city firm smashed their way out of the train in which I was travelling in order to get onto a platform when the sound could be heard of another group battling with the police to get into the station and where a railway official told me as the train was taken out of service at the next station that the police was under siege from both groups at the station and had to call in for reinforcements.

During this period I also experienced two incidents of violence within grounds and one incident where the police were conducting a show for visiting officials and one young policeman lost his head.

As a consequence of these experiences and the correspondence, with the football authorities and government, and the official responses during the period I have been interested to watch the films which have all been created from the viewpoint of the gangs and individuals within them

They are all without exception dangerous recruitment propaganda for the gang culture. They also give the misleading impression that these groups only fought other like minded and behaving men and some boys. This is false as they organised or randomly attacked anyone they identified supporting other teams, did major damage to public property and were violent when confronted by the police. Their ability to travel around the UK and overseas also suggested funding from other sources, as well as less conspicuous organisations. The extent and nature of the problem was covered to some extent by the media but played down in order not to fuel the situation and to protect the interests and reputations of individual clubs and the sport in general.

The position changed only after major incidents of violence and death occurred and British Clubs were banned from international competition. We were all being punished for the failure of government and the football authorities to act earlier.
My own view at the time was that special arenas should be created in which the groups could fight each other to their hearts content. The alternative was to draft caught and convicted individuals into the infantry and ensure they were the first to be sent out of the trenches. Their exceptional aggression should be put to socially good use. I did speculate on the kind of marriage partners and parents these individuals would make.

Unfortunately the films are not historical reminders of something eradicated or under firm control although incidents within grounds only involve individuals and have become unusual. Information on the number of individuals arrested within grounds or in their vicinity before or after games are not published or accumulated figures of arrests in our city and town centres at the weekends associated with drink and drugs. A comparison between the figures in terms of type of offences could prove enlightening. In terms of the situation now my impression is that the accumulated harm to others is insignificant compared to that achieved by British bankers and investors. It is understandable that the older middle and upper classes should continue to protect their own while appearing to be more indiscriminate towards the young generation in general and the lower classes. Thus it has always been so.

Having said this I am concerned at the number of these films and that further films are contemplated.

The film Cass is no exception although there are aspects which were of particular interest to me. The film is based on the life of Cass Pennant who for some reason was Christened Carol(e) and this name was accepted by Dr Barnardo’s, his white foster parents and the educational administrators. Not having read any of his books I do not know if he ever responded to enquires from his biological mother/parents about him and in the film the letters remain unopened. He may have be able to established the reason for the name giving.

We are not told the circumstances in which he was placed in care. Dr Barnardo’s were only one of the British and other Worldwide independent Child Care Organisations that developed well intentioned but disastrous child care policies during the first three quarters of the last century. Such policies were developed out of ignorance of human nature, genealogy and ancestry, and misguided notions that if you placed children in ordinary families with ordinary people who had not undergone in depth and prolonged training substitute families would work. There had been an understandable reaction against institutional care and understandable acceptance that the primary thing a child needed was love. Without genuine affection for an individual being cared for or being helped nothing will work or be effective, but affection without understanding and skill is also doomed in any situation where the individual has been rejected, abused or become disturbed. Most care workers and step parents were being recruited without an assessment of how they cope under constant pressure, prolonged periods of over work and stress and in crisis after crisis. The model of practice within social work training was a million miles from the reality.

The special features attached to the DVD includes Cass talking at length in his own words about being black, about being called Carole and going to prison. The films does not give enough attention to these issues which separates him from those who become submerged in the gang culture and never recover and the few who find a different kind of life for themselves because of an inner strength and drive.

Cass, a black ,boy was placed with an older white family in an all white neighbourhood and school environment. The evidence in the film is that Cass was genuinely treated by his foster mother, and foster father as their chid and they regarded him as their son despite his subsequent behaviour and imprisonment. Although they treated him no differently, they were unable to protect him from the harassment and bullying he received at school because he was black in an all white world, where prejudice flourished through all social and occupational classes. Worse still there was a major slip up later in his school life when a new master had not been briefed and insisted on the girl called Carol(e) identifying herself. The story is puzzling because for some reason the teacher did not work out that the number of girl’s in the class was one less than the number of pupils with girl’s names. While he is supposed to have realised his mistake, the damage was done and became life lasting.

I have understanding and sympathy with the predicament of Cass having been brought up by spinster aunts one of whom was revealed as my mother and only given a false cover story about my father when I was in my early teens. It was very difficult being illegitimate in the 1940’s but fortunately the negative aspect of feeling different and outside the norm lasted only until going to Ruskin and then taking child care social work training.

The film suggests being accepted by the West Ham group, regardless of his colour or background made Cass feel immediately at home and led to the involvement becoming his way of life. That he chose a violent outlet given the respectability and care provided by his substitute family is not fully explained. I say this because I suspect our basic personality make up is similar but in my instance it was the combination of being brought up by women who were devout Catholics which drew me towards peaceful protesting and the sense of being part of a movement and an alternative culture to that of my upbringing, but in which I felt I belonged, for a time. I was also fortunate to receive an education which promoted individuality, social and personal achievement.

There are also similarities in that my activities and those of others in the movement were also increasingly condemned in the media as we became an even greater threat to the exiting order of the state than the football mobs and heavy prison sentences began to be handed out leaders and public personalities to make examples and deter others. Going to prison became a badge of honour although he prison system was a shock but led to some recognition afterwards.

The film touched on aspects of the induction process into prison which Cass then described at length in his interview, explaining his natural resistance to yielding to a process designed to make first timers feel as uncomfortable as possible to discouraging them from returning while accepting the reality of the professional criminal. Interestingly he also felt an outsider within the system, not being a professional criminal, being black but not regarded as black by other black prisoners. He was given the usual special treatment as a newcomer by prison officers until he learnt how to fit in. I used some of my income ( only a few pence a week I think), to buy tobacco in order to then exchange for better underpants from those officially issued and which were extraordinary. I cannot remember if an eighth or a quarter of an ounce was required. We were given a hard time by some officers because we could leave at any time and this continued until we refused food for one day following the announcement that the death penalty had been imposed on someone. For the first time individual officers asked about why I was there and what I hoped to achieve. We were also not punished for refusing South African oranges, even after the black inmates joined in.

I have no idea if Home Secretaries and other national politicians have ever woken up to the fact that Prison Governors manage the prison officers while self appointed criminals and official trustee run the prison. Failure to understand this difference in the past led to major outbreaks of violence including wrecking prisons and attempts to burn them down. In my day the currency of power was tobacco whereas today it is drugs.
Because he was the first of the football mob leaders to be made an example and because of the experience of prison, he knew his position had significantly changed after prison having become a target by other gangs, the media and officialdom.

He also was fortunate to find a girl who became his wife and together they had two children. He then provided a door security service for a well known local professional criminal. The film mentions that taking drugs had the effect of providing an alternative outlet for some young men who had become addicted to violence.

It is admitted in the film that he became involved in further acts of retaliatory violence and which led to his near execution one evening when calling to check on the security arrangements at a club. With the help of his employer a retaliatory execution was organised which included arriving at the pub where the intended victim was drinking with a fully escorted hearse. The film states that he withdrew at the last moment, an event which was the turning point in his life after which he commenced to write about his experiences again and seek publication. I say again because he had written a book when in prison which he was not allowed to bring out with him. The rule was that official permission had to be requested and was only granted if the work did not relate to the offences which had resulted in the imprisonment. I felt that his was not end yet story.

I watched the latest episode of 24 with an even more ludicrous storyline than before. It could back the cause of women in senior positions in government.
I enjoyed a piece of steak with a stir fry for the main meal and a small chicken hot pot as I need something more than a salad to cope with thee weather turning cold. It was only one degree when I got up and a day for staying in.

Dream Girls Alice Through the Looking Glass Solomon's Choice

Wintry weather was not ideal to go out to take some pictures required for the industrial section of the chapter on past times of the Northern Rivera and the feeling of negative omens about the day continued as I listened to the pre-match building of Newcastle playing Liverpool at home, waking that the game being shown live on Sky but having the feeling that all was not going to go well. The 50000 crowd could be heard to boo Stephen Gerrard the disgraced English team, a response of away fans to any English team players wherever they were playing. For decades I have berated fellow home fans for booing away players because it only winds them up and true to experience Gerrard unleashed an unstoppable free kick.

I switched on the TV back home but felt in the need for warm comfort food and made an omelette with prawns and olives and then settled to enjoy the rest of the game and I have not seen Newcastle play as woefully as this since the dark days of last year. Worse was to come and although the loss was 3.0 it should have been five or six. Well Sunderland would cheer me up, wouldn't they but this proved just as bad, perhaps more so giving away sloppy goals and showing no indication of changing the 3.0 disaster by half time, and then wow we score so it is 3.1

Yesterday was not a good working day, in part because I was affected by reviewing previous research about the number of those who had lost their lives in four of the five mines on or close to the coast between the rivers Tyne and the Wear, where information has been collated, over 100, of the 600 recorded deaths, about one fifth, were aged sixteen years or younger as low as 9, 10, 11 and 12. We are losing 6.1 at this point and the game is not over. My reaction yesterday was to watch films. I saw Dreamgirls in theatre and enjoyed the performance of Jennifer Hudson of American Idol, so added it to my mail order Internet list and although the musical has serious themes it brightened the evening. I also enjoyed the quirkiness of Alice Through the looking glass, a Daily Mail provided DVD which has an excellent cast going through the four main sequences of Jabberwocky. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, The Walrus and the Carpenter, and Humpty Dumpty. Before this I watched a made for TV movie with a title something like Solomon’s choice about an adolescent who needed bone marrow transplant which could be provided by her younger brother who has just recovered from life threatening illness himself and where his mother does not want to risk his life bring about marital disharmony and separation. Both children survive and there is the suggestion that the relationship of their parents revives, making a good example of well motivated risk taking producing a good outcome, so why did I forget to buy my Euro Lottery ticket, and I have yet checked to find out if I would have won or saved a couple of pounds.

Letters from Iwo Jima and Moscow Mission

I skated over the two foreign films with sub titles watched earlier in the week Clint Eastward's Letters from Iwo Jima was not an enjoyable film to experience. While some characters are fictional the main battle and stories of the commanders is based on fact and two non fiction works. While the film was more commercially popular in Japan than the US although receiving awards and nominations it not without its critics for still being American perspective on Japanese culture and value at that time although marketed as the story of the battle from the Japanese viewpoint. It will be no consolation however to the thousands of families of those who died fighting for this iconic lump of sand and rock without freshwater.

The Russian adventure film I forgot to note but may be Moscow Mission, not to be confused with the 1943 Mission to Moscow was a conventional anti terrorist extortionist caper when the sub plot was the battle between the conventional security and police forces and a group of creatives who succeed with their inspirational and unconventional methods. It is the kind of group you disappear if things go wrong but take all their glory if they go well. While the Japanese film confirmed the Japanese solder as courageous, sometimes brutal but loyal to his superiors and the national cause, prepared to kill themselves than yield to the enemy, the Russian could have been Americans or Brits except for the language.

Today I visited a hardware store for a new toilet seat, as the existing was discovered broken at one of its hinges, a great mystery because it did not happen when I was using although it may have happened gradually through natural wear. The next task is to remove the old and fix the new.. I will leave this until I have completed the chapter of Northern Rivera on Times Past. This brings me to yesterdays completed work on the Arbeia Roman Fort.

Fairy Stories and the Snow Queen

I have never been happy with the suitability for young children of many Fairy Tales. Already streets and shops are preparing for the Victorian created fiction of Father Christmas and the giving of presents. Throughout the rest of the year large numbers of children are warned to be good or Father Christmas won't come to visit you and then after Christmas when children visit friends and go back to school there are boastful comparisons and showings off of present received. Parents and other relatives are put under great pressure to provide what their children say they want and to ensure that they do not lose face with their friends and other family members. What most children seek and value is parental time and personal recognition, and what most children will benefit from is a gift which will help them grow up and cope with adulthood.

I have no memory of being taken to pantomimes at Christmas which is something shared many other children born when the second world war commenced and therefore enjoyed them when the opportunity arose as an adult. However the storyline of most raises concerns depending on the age of the child and family circumstances. Too many adolescents are not equipped to follow the example of Dick Whittington and head off for London and for every Oliver Twist who found a good home the majority end up on streets and into crime to survive. Similarly it would be wise for most parents to prepare their daughters for the realities of marriage motherhood than to await the arrival of Prince Charming in Cinderella or debrief youngsters who have seen Aladdin about the actual odds of winning the main prize in the national lottery. While Jack and the Beanstalk probably has its origins in the Bible story of David and Goliath, parents would be wise to counsel their youngsters to tell them and their teachers about bullying rather than trying to take the law into their own hands.

I was thinking about such things while watched a two part made for TV film based on the Hans Christian Anderson story, the Snow Queen, more popular these days as a ballet.. The film begins with the death of a young mother by the Snow Queen and the grief of father and daughter and then follows the adventures of the girl when she becomes a young woman when she attempts to rescue her boyfriend who has come under the spell of the Snow Queen, and these include the potential perils of speed dating as prospective suitors whisk her around a ballroom floor, being eaten by a feminist robber, imprisoned by oppressive solicitousness and nearly frozen to death by the Snow Queen

I also watched a two part made for TV film about the life and work of Hans Christian Anderson which intermingled some true facts about his life, such as his romantic love for the Nightingale singer Jenny Lind and that he over stayed a welcome at the home of Charles Dickens with suggesting that many of his stores were based on real life experiences, notably the Snow Queen, represented by Jenny Lind and the ugly duckling represented by the disabled daughter of one of his early benefactors.

There was also time to enjoy a pre Christmas Victorian slice of Cheshire country town life with the adaptation of three of Elizabeth Gaskells novels with an impressive ensemble cast including Dame Judy Dench, Eileen Atkins, Michael Gabon, Francesca Annis, Julia McKenzie and Imelda Staunton.

However the highlight of the day was a confident and relaxed Tony Blair in the first of three programmes explaining how he set out and succeeded in changing Britain, although it became quickly evident that this was only on the basis of approval by Gordon Brown who clearly was the Cabinet enforcer, assisted by fixer John Prescott. In one programme the truth which backbenchers and political commentators tried to explain over a decade was fully revealed. This was as close to dictatorship by three men as one is likely to get in a democracy and it is also now evident that the scheduling of the programme along with the publication of the recent book were good reasons for the aborted attempt to get a new mandate from the electorate. However understandable the action from the personal viewpoint of the Prime Minister, from the Labour Party back benchers and the need for stable and strong government, it only further underlines the desperation of the decision and how out of touch those taking the decision have become with middle England. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was shown taking a photo opportunity with the Israeli Ambassador to give the thanks of the English Football nation for their win over Russia but a lot more similar miracles will be needed.

Meanwhile I have completed the writing of the Introduction to Northern Rivera and selected the nineteen accompanying photographs.