Wednesday 31 July 2013

Immigration, race and David Goodhart

I have let some time pass (about a week) to see if I would change my thoughts after a period of reflection - I didn't.

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On my travels, I saw a moderately interesting speaker called David Goodhart [@David_Goodhart]. David Goodhart is one of David Cameron's [@David_Cameron] favourite xenophobes as he somehow believes that he adds some legitimacy to his obvious racism. The reason for this legitimacy is that Mr Goodhart heads up a thinktank that has said it is of the left - Demos. I have a feeling that Cameron may like him for his views and his former school (guess - it is Eton, of course) - though not sure which is more important. Similar to all the (more vocal) people that cross the divide of left to right, he seems to have realised a little late that his "comrades" did not seem to believe in the divisiveness of singling people out for their place of birth/skin colour and attacks the apparently homogenised "left" with the zeal of a born-again evangelist. For some context, this is in the same week as #racistvan[1] stories were in the press and the continuing EDL campaign ran on.

He is touring (this could be rhymed with a leading "h" sound) his anti-immigrant/immigration book at the moment "The British Dream" (named with a deliberate allusion to the American Dream) which has had a mixed reception. The usual suspects have jumped on it as with any debate around immigration - those that are numerate have called it incoherent, those that are in the Right-Wing Press have called it a damning indictment of Labour's open door immigration policy. I sometimes worry at the apparent lack of Venn diagram intersection there sometimes.

This review [link] in the LRB by Jonathan Portes [@jdportes] could be good context. I had not read the book or the review at the point of the discussion. Interestingly many of those that disagreed with him in the last CIF piece I read of his [here] kept calling him Portas - a delightfully subtle way of showing that you had not read the piece or could not handle detail.

The talk was in London (Camden to be a little more precise) and the city, for all its faults, is a diverse place with plenty of differing people and ideas intermingling.

Or so I thought.
Apparently, it wasn't as it appeared and we live parallel lives where we pretend to all get along but actually it is all a façade - we are deeply divided on racial lines. He then used a load of statistics that may have been entirely accurate as data points but were not quite supportive of his points as he was using them as proxies to mean something else. And this is so common in immigration debates as you are often using these proxies to talk about people to other people that are ignorant of what they mean. I don't mean this pejoratively (maybe I could have used a better word, the fact I didn't may suggest something), but many people genuinely do not understand households outside of their immediate community. One that annoys me a lot is the use of "first language" or "mother tongue" statistics to point to an idea (and it always seems to be used for that) of a bulk of immigrants that cannot speak English competently, or at a native level. [link]

The statistic that often goes with it, to emphasize the sense of "other" and parallel lives, is households that do not predominantly speak English at home. Needless to say, I fall into both categories. I didn't speak English at home, my parents do not speak English with each other and so English is spoken in my family home only between myself and my sibling. My parents both had "professional" roles in their English-speaking workplaces and myself and my sister have both been through higher education in English-speaking environments - I have even been in gainful employment teaching it.

This writing here may not always be of the highest standard, it may sometimes be incoherent and there might be some problematic sentence structures, but it is clearly at a native level. Isn't it? Or am I labouring under some misapprehension that I can communicate (maybe not effectively, but less a linguistic issue, more communicative...)?

Interestingly, there is census data that captures whether people do not speak English[2] that could be used directly rather than trying to ascertain from other bits of information.

138,000 (note the UK population is approximately 60,000,000 - so about 0.2%) [link]

And then this "does not speak English" data is actually used as a proxy for something else anyway. But what does it even mean? Is someone who does not speak English now unintegrated and also impossible to integrate? The thrust of these articles is that there are "these people" who live here and don't understand and will not (try to) understand.

Census data is a snapshot in time - it does not show intention and future expectation. It is entirely unclear what happened to those 138,000:

Were they here temporarily and so never learnt English? Did they then learn English? Were they actually mute?

Another statistic, quoted by Goodhart, is about how many people now live in areas where they do not have "white-British" neighbours and this is used as evidence of ghettoization. Again, I do not have two sets of neighbours that are exclusively "white-British". As it happens, I believe one of my neighbouring flats has a couple with a white partner and non-white partner (not sure if they fulfil "white-British" criteria) which would be further "proof" of my ghettoization as I am now in a non-white-British part of town and we have separated ourselves from white people. Goodhart also uses the loaded term "white flight" with gay abandon and when questioned over this, he says that he writes his pieces for a more academic audience which will be aware of the meaning of this and it is not inflammatory as a result. I'm not sure if he genuinely believes that or if he is fully aware of the significance of these words.

I'm not the most opinionated person, and I'm not the least but I could not completely ignore his disregard for the effects of anti-immigrant feeling that regularly spills into racial, and other forms of, discrimination as he spoke of Woolwich and how even though tensions had been raised by his friends in the press, there had been little to worry the Islamic community so I interjected:
"What about the ongoing bombing campaign taking place around the mosques of the country?"[link]
His callous disregard for the loss of life (in islamophobia attacks) and the genuine feeling of fear that people understandably have was remarkable. Given the opportunity to comment, he said something about it not being that bad... And played down the statistics of islamophobic attacks with other statistics. I didn't go back to him on that point but discussing with others later, I did mention that the effect of any terror campaign cannot be captured by the statistics he talks about as people are scared to leave their houses.

He also talked of being in a post-racism world where people of all races were not subject to large levels of racism and were not held back in a meaningful way. Most people disagreed but there was one man, needless to say another white man, who agreed and said that the link between immigration and racism had been broken. He pointed out, as if to prove it, that immigrants from different communities have differing outcomes and that, for example, the Chinese community had higher levels of income and attainment than the "white British". And then, to show his incoherence, as held them up as proof that immigrants themselves shoulder the blame for their difficult circumstances, he also pointed out that they do of course have lower levels of income when compared with those that have similar levels of education... He gave an example of a small business not employing people with different sounding names being entirely reasonable as a small business is like a family and you have to be aware of a cultural fit. It was incoherent, frankly - as it seems he had a conclusion and the facts did not need to get in the way.

As he wrapped up, questions were sought and dealt with in groups. Of course I had questions but I reiterated my point about the on-going bombing campaign (and islamophobic murder before Woolwich [link]) and also tried to explain how difficult it is when people talk of a post-racist world when you then suffer any form of discrimination.
When a lot of people tell you something does not exist and then it happens to you, it can be a tricky one to process. If racist abuse does not happen, then why did it happen? Is it something special about me?[3]

I asked about the statistical work he had done to control for the conclusions he was making. He spoke a lot about bogey-areas around London and levels of migration, immigration, employment engagement etc. in order to show how immigration had affected those areas. I simply asked him what he had done to control for the fact that urban areas will often be home to a younger, more mobile population and that in order to isolate the effects of one cause, you should isolate the others as much as possible. I wanted to know how much less integrated and successful were these immigrants than other people with the same level of income, savings, educational attainment etc etc. As he was an ex-journalist for the Financial Times, I did expect some level of numeracy and understanding of raw data.

As he dealt with the answers in groups, he ignored the substance of my question and spoke of other statistics. It was really frustrating.

I found the disregard for the difficulties that immigrants, and the children of immigrants faced to be quite disheartening actually, as if the fact that they were inconvenienced by having worse outcomes, suffering racist abuse and discrimination was not a problem.

To be fair to him, he took more questions than he had to (extending the time) and also came to the pub afterwards to talk (and even offered me a drink). In all honesty though, his viewpoint was fixed which is understandable as he has done the research and looked into it with the methodologies he believes in (I don't agree with the methodology but the raw data is fine).


What some people always say is "the public wants less immigration so it is not a party political point - democracy has spoken".

I think this is a little disingenuous.

Firstly, democracy is not the simple matter of counting votes and doing what more people want. This is the simplistic way that it is initially taught so that people can conceptually understand but democracy is also about enfranchising people - recognising them so that they can effectively be part of that democracy. That is why you have minority rights in democratic nations and those minorities are treated equally (to a greater or lesser extent) to allow them to be empowered and involved. Democracy only works if everyone is given a voice before the vote.

Secondly, what anyone wants is based on what they know - or more accurately, what they think are the facts on the ground. It is a simple (input - process - output) loop but if the inputs are false, it is difficult to see how you would get the right output (except by pure chance). What the population think is the case and what actually is the case can be vastly, vastly different to each other. [link] So they want less immigration than what they think is happening. Which is what we have right now -  significantly less immigration than they think is happening..

What does that mean? Should we ignore the concerns of people who see one thing happening which they associate with something else? I think this is the real question of democracy in the modern age actually.

I don't know how widely thought of the concept of "materiality" is but basically, deal with the big problems first. And don't guess at the problems, actually find out what they are.

If there is a problem with housing, it probably isn't immigration that is causing it (it might be a factor but you need to look into the causes), it is probably housing policy.

If there is a problem with education, it probably isn't immigration that is causing it (it might be a factor but you need to look into the causes), it is probably education policy.

If there is a problem with employment, it probably isn't immigration that is causing it (it might be a factor but you need to look into the causes), it is probably employment policy.

1. It may not have been racist had it been targeted in areas other than those with large brown-skinned communities exclusively. And had translation services for languages other than Indic ones. It was, and it didn't.

2. This type of census data is quite weak anyway (it may be higher than 138k - or lower) as it is self-assessment... The global economic situation should have taught you to be wary of self-assessment and self-regulation. When I lived abroad, I'd have said that I was unable to speak the language were I asked in a form - but they could have asked me that question in that language and I would have understood.

3. I have been fortunate about direct racial abuse and can only remember one instance in recent years in the UK that was directly at me and I was flabbergasted. But part of the reason for that is that you do not have a defence mechanism and it is all the more shocking for that. I have not been particularly affected by it and the vast majority of people are entirely liberal about it.

I don't know how successfully I have "integrated" into British society but I have tried and it is not made any easier by that feeling of anxiety and discomfort that some of this chat engenders in me. I'm not an idiot, I know I am treated a little differently but it is offensive to suggest otherwise, frankly. Victim-blaming is an all too common occurrence at the moment and it needs to be checked.

ワンダと巨像/Shadow of the Colossus

I recently replayed this in the PS3 HD Collection bundled with "Ico" and the thoughts are about the game now and how it also was when released in 2005 on the PS2. This is not a technical review with information about framerate drops etc, but a review on the basis of its overall effect on the player. Well, me.
***Very mild spoilers of the first half an hour***
Emotion is not usually one of the first things mentioned when talking about games - let's be honest, it is not one of the first things most people mention for any form of entertainment - it is, however, the first thing that comes to mind for this.

Shadow Of The Colossus is atypical in most respects but also very much of its time - its time actually being 2005. It is also full of contradictions.

From a gaming perspective, this is actually a game made up entirely of boss battles - there is no other part to the game and so could be considered retro in design. In 2005, as we moved on from the 80s and 90s gaming of levels and bosses into coherent worlds, constantly streamed, it was odd to play this. It was unashamedly a game structure that harked backwards with finite challenges and linear progression which appeals to me but not everyone. If you get stuck, you can't go and try something else, level 3 can only be started or seen when level 2 is done. You can't go around finding (particularly effective) power-ups or better weapons - it is you and me against the world now.
There is also something to be said about the camera - which is under your control but not perfectly ( a little like your horse in fact). The camera will move of its own accord and you can also move it but it will regularly override your input. I would say that tension, more than anything else (except maybe the pernicious influence of the Nintendo DS) is what has seen a divergence of Japanese game design from Western markets. Traditionally, I would say that Japanese game design veers much more towards the curated experience and the camera angles decided on by the development team are the ones you will see.

Other than those bosses there are 4 other "characters" :-
the protagonist ("Wanda");
the "love" (ambiguous, but called "mono" - which actually means "thing" in Japanese - not sure that is relevant) that lies there to be saved - she is unconscious;
the "transport"(a horse called "Agro");
the voice (gives orders for where to go next, and advice mid-battle - interestingly ungendered or dual-gendered).


Although it is all fairly ambiguous, the voice tells you that you must defeat the colossi in order to reanimate Mono. She lies within a grand looking building that looks suitably awe-inspiring and religious and is bathed in sweet sunlight. The lighting is very rich and spills into all the models throughout lending a dreamy quality that is unmistakably of team ico. And from that light, a voice tells you that there is a chance of saving her, a chance that will see you sacrifice something, but it is not clear what it is that you will lose. You are then directed to a colossus by an otherworldly light trail. The power of the sun is collected (the light haze is taken from the sky) and pointed to the "battleground".

The first time you meet a colossus is when you realise that they are appropriately named and you attack it. I have chosen the sentence structure there - you attack it. Not defensively, not a counter-attack, not to rescue a distressed damsel, just because you were told to. The colossi do not all have the same character, some are aggressive, some docile but I guess they are all defensive as you seek them out to destroy them. The first one you meet is large enough that you need to climb it and stab it at appropriate places but the final spot is right in the skull. As you are actually on the beast, when it feels pain, it will try and shake you off so you have to hold on as it struggles - as you kill it you must hold on. This has the strange sensation of making you feel the pain yourself a little bit and really trying hard to hold on - the camera does its best to show you the pain as this creature writhes around in agony.
An agonising death.
An agonising death caused by you and for what?
After that death, which the camera and art direction show you in the right way, you end up back at the voice. There are some lovely, subtle touches added to the world upon each defeat that show the depth of thought put into the game. I particularly like the fact that you can travel back to see the fallen colossus and it becomes part of the landscape (this is not a subtle touch).

Between bosses (seems odd to call your only enemies this - but they are essentially controlling their space), you must travel to the bosses and this is usually just a case of traversing fairly large distances across varied terrain - it takes time but is very rarely a challenge. Generally, the large distances are ridden on horseback and you then take the colossus on alone (some are with Agro, but usually not). In between, there are some save points and the map clears but it is usually a wasteland. Although the battles are accompanied by music (and again, it is excellently put together with the right mix of hope, fear and desperation that the game needs) There is no music as you ride, just the sound of the elements and the emptiness of nature. A vast space and you are hemmed in by water on one side and mountains on the other so it is essentially "open-world" but there is not anything to *do* except ride around and soak it in. And why would you? Ride around a wasteland?

A desolate, sparse and richly detailed wasteland. It is never really clear what that detail is, a few bits of rock here and there, some strange abandoned buildings but it really shows the value of coherent art design - as the whole world does - and this is where the emotion comes in. The whole things is set up so ambiguously that you are never really sure that you are doing the right thing and prompts questioning and soul searching that was definitely atypical. There must have been some form of civilisation but where did it go?

And I think that is the beauty of the game - that feeling of being a little lost and confused within a world that you have no recollection of, but may be part of you. There are some unnecessary links to Ico but it is not actually connected (I think of the films "Prometheus" and "Alien").

I had never played a game like it at the time and have yet to play a game that feels as rich as this since though some have leaned towards it in terms of atmosphere - "Journey" especially. It is incredibly rare to play a game so coherently put together with a real vision of its purpose and for that then to be married with excellent game mechanics that this has to be one of my favourite games of all time. A real highlight of, not only the genre, but the whole concept of gaming.

Tuesday 23 July 2013

The World's End (2013)



[note: this is not a "review" in the critical sense - this is how I would explain the film to someone I know. Do not expect objectivity or a balance between positive and negatives. I can talk negatively about things I really love and disappointment is not equal to disapproval.]

I much prefer the name "blood and ice cream" for the trilogy but it is apparently now the "Cornetto" trilogy.
I first noticed Edgar Wright, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in Spaced (along with Jessica Stevenson - oft forgotten but part of the writing team) on Channel 4. Spaced started when I was in university and I remember watching it on VHS having recorded it a few times on Friday nights (though not sure why, I was not exactly a social butterfly). It had a great soundtrack and fun pop culture references embedded into it. It was stupid, fun but also quite different. Actually, and this could just be the time of my youthful exuberance more than anything else, but there was a fair bit of decent comedy around at the time. This and Alan Partridge (film version of that soon...) were the best of them for quite different reasons but both had a feeling of anarchy in them and delusion. I have also been (taken?) to the house itself which is in Tufnell Park - which I think may be, arguably, the geekiest I have ever felt in my life. Anyway, the films have a similar feel and have allowed Wright to do a bit more with a bit more budget.

I'll be honest, a few quirky British references and the incongruous nature of Hollywood in UK towns/villages is enough for me so not sure I can be that objective. I saw Shaun of the Dead whilst abroad at a friend's flat so it is likely that the loving recreation of suburbia helped a lot. Hot Fuzz was a blast of nonsense and I also liked all the well-known actors floating about. So, "The World's End" had a lot to live up to but I was predisposed to liking it at the same time:

The thing that can be a problem with series like this is that you are almost forced to do a comparison. I don't think I'm giving a huge amount to say that this is very much in the vein of the others - a swarm that has attached itself to a host town/village. The setup is pretty contrived (1990 pub crawl relived - with soundtrack) but I think the important thing with films is not realism but coherence and the film hangs together to make the unrealistic bits quite believable - a very willing sense of disbelief. It has a few of the tropes of Edgar Wright - you'll spot them! I thought I'd be tired of the Requiem for a Dream style drug taking cuts but they just about work. The kinetic fight scenes are really well handled with a genuine energy (though entirely unbelievable!) and well choreographed to show the skills of the cast - ie not much. The fact that the swarm are what they are allows some innovative use of limbs and some pretty funny moments. The dialogue is as expected, tight, British and a little bit arch. I liked it a lot and laughed a fair few times. I always bemoan the weakness of swearing in comedy, but profanity can be funny. Not Malcolm Tucker funny, but funny nonetheless.

The theme of the film (as far as I can tell) is about the spread of generic towns and I can empathise with that. The real thing about this, which is a recreation of a 1990 pub crawl in a small town is that these pubs would no longer exist. That bit of poetic licence aside, there are regular complaints of the sameness of the town (brilliantly in the second pub) and how dull it is. You can see why they all escape - and at the same time there is no reason to be surprised that so many of their old friends still seem to be there. That's the thing about smalltown, you are always the different one. You and your friends...

The last film I saw at the cinema was Pacific Rim and I mentioned the way it was obviously designed to be like a live action anime but this also had a little of the Japanese narrative style, though not sure it has been commented on (though not seen much commentary) with the way it flits between exposition and nonsense - the end (and if you've seen Akira, you'll know it is giving nothing away!) reminded me of a mix between Neon Genesis Evangelion and Akira. Quite a lot. Not in terms of the story, as such, but the texture. The scene at the end in a car seems to be lifted directly from Akira!

I think I'd recommend this film to most people, if you are reading it you'll probably want to watch it, and you'll probably like it. You can leave your brain behind but if you bring it along, it'll be happy.

Sunday 21 July 2013

Dubai/Singapore: musings on cities of modernity

Musings, or incoherent ramblings - the judgment is yours. This may be written in a slightly different style too, as a result.

NOTE: before you read this, you know I am critical about things, this does not mean I did not like it. I think that should be clear to those that actually know me, but I know it has often been misunderstood. :-) Not everyone appreciates a nuanced position! I tried to put the photo album posts in fairly plainly and without too much judged comment. Not sure I succeeded.

Naming it the "Beacons Of Democracy"[1] was a joke, clearly, but it is interesting that the two cities bookending my visit to Malaysia/Indonesia are major cities with a globalised outlook that seem to be more "developed"[2] than their neighbours in many ways.
I think there are some real questions as to why that is but that is not what I get/got asked upon my holiday being over. When I'm asked how was your holiday and what did you think of , the second one feels like a loaded[3] question - and it is only right to answer in a loaded manner.


What is Dubai famous for?
There is plenty of history and heritage in the Middle East and a lot of booming economies but that is not what is seen as special by those in power. A lack of a proper, democratic planning process (though, ironically, these places have well thought out plans - just not thought through properly) means destruction of cultures and communities for a homogenised "modernity". There are social reasons for this (aren't there always? ;-)).

There is a definite feeling of "we built this". They are much more statements of intent than anything else - and they show up the insecurity that some newer cities (understandably) can have. I think that is why the Burj Khalifa is so much larger than its competitors, it cannot be overtaken easily. I can understand it though - what else do you know about Dubai? It does make a name for it. Would anyone come to London for the Shard[4]? Will it have international named recall? If I remember correctly, it is the tallest in Europe, or was at least. It in no way defines anyone's London, whereas I think the Gherkin actually does to some degree. We are a little spoilt to have built up a city and a legacy over many centuries.
The Burj Khalifa is a little silly though. I think, at 829.8m, it is about 200m taller than the next but the observation deck is only a little more than about halfway up at 450m (which is 50% taller than the Shard in totality). It is great to be high up and looking down but then a part of me thinks - only if there is something to look down on[5]. Dubai has a coast of course (not that I really saw it in my day and a half this time) but I did not go up there so cannot comment on the view. 

Dubai, and Singapore, are the classic "new" vertical cities and work well as stopovers in my opinion as they are generally compact. They are not really anarchic enough to be interesting as holidays for me. I know that is quite a personal preference though. KL was a little like that too - and aiming to be more like that and the Petronas Towers were apparently a pointer in that direction.
When I went to Shanghai the second time (2007), I was struck by the skyline - it was awesome in the literal sense - in the style of shock and awe. And the comparison to military seemed appropriate, it really reminded me of those Russian military parades through Moscow.
Look upon our wonders and despair.
Someone asked me what I thought of Singapore and I said it reminded me of a charmless Hong Kong (and I found HK "island" to be relatively charmless at the time - it isn't really but that may be partly due to Sleeping Dogs). It sounds harsh - especially as I enjoyed my time in Singapore a lot, but there was a brashness to it that also came through. As cities built around commerce, and quite specifically ex-pat commerce, they do suffer a little from being international and a little benign. There is plenty of interest in Singapore, and those that live there seem to genuinely love it, so this may be a personal position.
The fundamental difference between the two cities (in my experience) there is a feeling of evolution there rather than big-bang. Singapore has that a little too, but nowhere near. But "new" cities do have their charms too - I think you would be able to still enjoy them but for a shorter period. You know, cathedrals to commerce and consumerism rather than religion. Both help the weak in their own way.

It may just be that I don't feel an emotional connection but they are not interesting in the same way as major European cities are. I think a large part of that for me is how walkable a place is. Dubai is not walkable (outdoors) at all and clearly revolves around car usage. I'm just not really a fan of car travel (as you may know) and it always makes me feel really insulated from the surroundings. I took the Dubai metro to the airport from my cousin's when I left and it seems in that journey (45mins), I had apparently used the metro more than all of the three couples/young families I knew in Dubai, combined. Singapore is a little better in this respect as the city is far more integrated with the infrastructure.

I have done a a little travel around Europe and, for some reason, think of a trip to the industrial city of Milan. Nobody calls it a beautiful city (although nearby Como is pretty lovely...), but I think that it kind of serves its purpose after all and it is still more charming than some megacities that are built recently. Thinking of Milan, for instance, the fact that the metro system reminded me of a grey prison train was part of the trip for me. And the fact it felt lived in, the cracks in the city were not cracks in a façade, but just ageing. There wasn't really a "behind the curtain" to it and I sometimes feel there is with other places. In Shanghai (in 2004 and 2007), the city felt very different when you strayed even marginally off the beaten path (by which I mean main roads).

Some of this is time and evolution of course, Europe's cities were also not exactly open before and would have been remarkably ostentatious in the past. I do think we have become more enlightened as to the purpose of cities (people!) but I do not think it is coincidence that the countries I visited were not exactly hotbeds of democracy. I guess fast developing countries rarely use democratic means to get there. I also do not think that it is just a coincidence that they were within the British Empire and have strong UK influences, historically.

It is totally true that the terrible conditions that workers are put through in Dubai et al have parallels with the historical growth of European cities. And some of the supposedly ludicrous things in Dubai also have parallels in our great European cities. Is an air-conditioned beach really worse than heated swimming pools? Is the Victoria Embankment a blight on the natural ecology of the Thames? How many died to bring sewage control or underground railways to London? How many displaced for the national rail network? That was the money men lording it over the little people too. Camden is essentially a town that housed workers and navvies whilst all this stuff was built.

The difference is timing - as this happened before in our case - and society is happy to compare when it suits.
There is one other difference too, and a major one - experience. The modern cities are not trailblazing in the way London (or Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam etc.) were, they are following and essentially making some incremental improvements. That means that they are also aware of the negative parts of expansion. Post-enlightenment, I don't think you can say "they did it too centuries ago". It is wilfully irresponsible now.
Dubai, like Las Vegas, is an irresponsible cityscape with few thoughts about sustainability - which is a shame as it could be so much more. And the problem with the infrastructure is that it is entirely dependent on "oil" or energy use. In Dubai's case that infrastructure is predicated on car use. I think a huge problem is that the kind of place it is, and the type of people it attracts, is that they do not believe that taxation is a thing. I believe that the natural way of things is a tax on things to pay for the problems that they cause. That means that, essentially, things that are untaxed are being subsidised. As it is, we do subsidise Dubai as they do not allow people to stay there - so when it comes to the point when they are no longer "economically active", they are booted back to their homes and must be supported (eg pensions, care infrastructure) by us. I think that is essentially what I have difficulty with (and there are parallels in history for similar things with the industrial revolution but that was with something other than human capital).

1. I called it this in jest as some people think of my trip to be a little incongruous with my character.
2. What developed means is open to debate of course.
3. This is possibly paranoia, but I know some people do like to set me off and watch me go.
4. I have been told that it is a new hotel, for the Olympics - and I doubt many longer term Londoners even know it has a hotel in there, not sure it was designed for that at all.
5. I'd fully imagine this to change over time of course - it is already impressive of course.

Thursday 18 July 2013

Revival

Clearly, I don't use this blog space very much but I have been reminded of it by an interesting tumblr1:


http://jiemusi-taifanna.tumblr.com/


In a circular way, I encouraged that one as I was trying to work out how to resurrect an old website I had ten years ago that formed the function of a blog. I had been asked by a few people to stay in touch but I felt a little uncomfortable about the push nature of e-mail so I thought I would set up a way for people to check in if they wanted. As it happens, very few people "wanted" to so it died a death. But it still forms a useful function and it is finding that again that reminds me of that function.

This is what it was:

https://googledrive.com/host/0B7CLvvuUo4JBUm9jWFZlS0JiLWc/

(it was hosted on geocities and lycos)

As it was a blog without a blogging platform, it was hand coded and actually that part was pretty time-consuming:

I updated links manually as I made new pages; photos required pages made with separate thumbnails; contact details were separated; the "design", such as it was, was not done with templates or style sheets.

I think it lends it a congruence with the time it is from but I find it very interesting that it was done just before it was about to be made much, much easier with popular platforms and "social media" allowing the simple spread of journals and photos.

I am going to go through and add the posts (timed to when they were written) to this blog so please comment on them if you can.
----update----
It starts here:
The flight and day 1 (25/05/03) & (26/05/03)

and eventually ends here:
Christmas/New Year in Japan (a mere 7 months later...)

With some nonsense in between, such as:
Is marriage confirmed?

which is all linked to the GeoWeb tag [link] from "GeoCities Website".
---end of update---

I am also considering whether to add this actual blog content to this too:

http://blog.so-net.ne.jp/swordwallet/
It was/is a Japanese language blog I was trying to do. I guess if I get pageviews, I might do.

1. Tumblr has just been bought by Yahoo. My original website was hosted on lycos and then geocities which was owned (and then disbanded) by Yahoo.

The author of the blog did not use the blogspot (owned by Google) account he had as that is blocked by The Great Chinese Firewall. My Geocities website was also blocked by the Chinese. I find the symmetry pleasing.

Pacific Rim (2013)

[note: this is not a "review" in the critical sense - this is how I would explain the film to someone I know. Do not expect objectivity or a balance between positive and negatives. I can talk negatively about things I really love and disappointment is not equal to disapproval.] 

As most films do, the hype and previews for this entirely passed me by. I saw the massive poster at (or, indeed, on) the BFI IMAX but it didn't mean much to me - I thought it was "Pacify Crime" for a while.


HIDEO_KOJIMA         @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN

Pacific Rim is the ultimate otaku film that all of us had always been waiting for. Who are you, if you are Japanese and won't watch this?


Then I saw the quote and was intrigued enough. Then I saw the poster by Yoji Shinakawa* and had to see it.


I read a little about it and so came away with an expectation of a live-action exploration of the anime world of mechs and monsters. It sounded a bit like "Neon Genesis Evangelion" actually - which I found quite dull by the end but had a genuinely mental (even by Japanese narrative standards) ending. And with the "support" of Kojima**, I was not expecting a necessarily coherent film....

And, upon watching it, I think those expectations were met. I wouldn't say I am necessarily an anime fan but I have seen more than most people - and am appreciative of a lot of them. This was a lot like the anime series that it had initially seemed like - a lot borrowed but animating things allows different things to happen to live action. It was, in an overarching way, like Neon Genesis Evangelion but not in terms of a lot of the themes - just the story.
And the story is not always what people go for with blockbusters so it will hit a lot of buttons. Essentially, there is a fissure in the earth from which monsters are coming out every so often to destroy cities. This is the story of the earth's defence force, discarded by the bureaucracy and forming a resistance using older tech after funding has been pulled.

For me, the real strength of anime over live action is in action scenes. I really like that staccato feel you get and the framing that draws from comic book (manga) heritage rather than other films. The action here was still quite shaky and didn't really have the juxtaposition that it could have had. To have the battles taking place, overwhelmingly, in poorly lit areas may have made sense from a narrative point of view, but it was a waste. And the final scenes start at in soft light and so seem set up for a battle bathed in the warm glow of a new dawn.

I enjoyed the film and it was definitely a ride. I would recommend it with caveats - not a life changer but fun and silly. To be honest, I think most people will know if they will like it or not without watching it.

*artist on Metal Gear Solid series - beautiful pencil and ink work


** The MGS series is famous for long cut-scenes, even longer codec/talking head expositions and stories that flit between serious and silly with no apparent regard for conventional narrative structure.