FILM

Curious to see what they'd have to say about Happy Go Lucky after watching this, Mike Leigh's new film.

This bird, laughing smiling, whole philosophy was about making people, making the world around her better. It was all very esoteric and boring, annoying even, the mindless giggling and chatter, I almost grew to hate this character until the freak driving instructor's massive outburst allowed her to reveal a human side which was more than one dimensional. Had other dimensions of the bird's character come out sooner, might not have had to have felt as though the first 45 minutes of the movie was an endurance contest.

anyway, here's what "they" say:

Poppy Cross is happy-go-lucky. At 30, she lives in Camden: cheeky, playful, frank while funny, and talkative to strangers. She's a conscientious and exuberant primary-school teacher, flatmates with Zoe, her long-time friend; she's close to one sister, and not so close to another. In this slice of life story, we watch her take driving lessons from Scott, a dour and tightly-wound instructor, take classes in flamenco dance from a fiery Spaniard, encounter a tramp in the night, and sort out a student's aggressive behavior with a social worker's help. Along the way, we wonder if her open attitude puts her at risk of misunderstanding or worse. What is the root of happiness?

Well, what is at the root of being one-dimensional?

In any event, here's the trailer, decide for yourself in 1 minute 47 seconds.

VILNIUS POKER




from Ričardas Gavelis

What they say:

Ričardas Gavelis wrote to intimidate and attack, and his novel Vilnius Poker, seldom subtle in its language, demands attention. It is a masterwork of bitterness and sarcasm, one that descends into the self-destructive impulses of those who, though they physically survived the privations inherent to Soviet Russia, were nonetheless emotionally traumatized. Part national rant, part passage into madness, Vilnius Poker is more than a product of the Cold War. It is a condemnation of everything Gavelis thought was wrong with Lithuania, and this first English translation, published twenty years after Poker was originally written, feels fresh.

Vilnius Poker is disorienting, as right from the start Gavelis offers Vytautas Vargalys, an extravagant, energetic narrator whose thoughts shift between the lucid and the figurative. The speaker for the first two-thirds of the book, Vargalys is a survivor of a Russian prison camp where he was physically beaten and emotionally destroyed. His once-brilliant future was ruined by the camps, and he now obsesses and rants about the failures of Lithuania; in fact, so thorough was his transformation that his survival of the camps seems almost futile. As with much of Vilnius Poker, Gavelis never says precisely how Vargalys survived; instead, the inhumanity of the camp haunts Vargalys as he suffers from post traumatic stress—induced flashbacks.

What HE says:

(page 31)

..."I began on The Way against my will. I had already settled down and forgotten all the quests for meaning. Even chest pains no longer upset me - it was just the first ones that were frightening. I no longer tormented myself if I didn't feel the slightest desire when I saw an ideally sexy woman. I was forty-three years old..."

(Page 43):

"Only those who have lost their spirit fear the monsters of the interior. Only those who have lost their balance pretend their insides are pure and refined. You can only become truly great by joining your heaven with your hell. All of the good in people is the same but the kingdom of evil is different in everyone."

(Page 54):

"That he could even have those kinds of feeling surprised me, but I quickly figured it out. He was afraid to be left forgotten and alone, to fail to attract others' attention for even a second. Every person who still has a thing or two left inside is able to be alone with himself. There was nothing inside this lumbering figure that could be relied on. He no longer had himself, so a secret fear constantly gnawed at him..."

(Page 77):

"It is the Vilnius Basilisk's gaze, piercing me every morning, a morning that begins with the overcrowded trollybus, the crush of figures, the jounrey from non-existence into none-existence: from the drabness of dreamless sleep to the unthinking work machine. It's only by Their will that the tired figures with puffy eyes cram into iron boxes with fly-covered windows and slowly creak towards their daily bondage. The day begins with smells: the stink of rancid sweat and cheap soap, the stench of last night's drinking, and a whiff of nightmares...."

And after that, just try and imagine what it was like all those years, winter, summer, good weather, shite weather, always under the gaze of communism, all lives for generations lived under that shadow. No matter what you're doing now, that was their reality then. Imagine that. Miserable yet still trying to live life, still trying to fart out a few joys...

FOR THAT COLD AND RAINY FUTURE DAY:

The Three Acts I saw in Győr Last Weekend

Artem Chepkonakov



Omar Sosa Afreecanos Trio



Astillero

Fat People Will Pay More

The chieftains at Ryan Air could show the government a thing or two about raising revenues.

Look at this, democracy in action, letting people VOTE how to charge fat people more money to fly:

The Ryanair proposals are:

* Charge per kg over 130kg/20 stone (male) and 100kg/15 stone (females);

* Charge per inch for every waist inch over 45 inch (male) and 40 inch (female);

* Charge for every point in excess of 40 points on the Body Mass Index (+30 points is obese);

* Charge for a second seat if passengers’ waist touches both armrests simultaneously.

Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said: “With passengers voting overwhelmingly for a ‘fat tax’ we are now asking them to suggest which format the charge should take.

So why didn't Alistair Darling unveil in his Idiot's Guide To Losing Money Budget a new tax on fat people too? I mean look around you in England, people. There's positively billions that could be had making fat people pay more for existing.

Why stop at the rich and the pub crawlers and the fat people for that matter?

How about a poor tax?

It's a great idea. The way it works is that children borne to a mother with no job and on benefits or a family already unable to sustain itself, are sold, by the government, to the highest child labour bidder. Just think about it - with the birth rate among people on benefits being what it is Poor Kids And Cheap Labour could become England's new and fastest growing export industry.


"There is nothing worst than the person sitting next to you on the plane taking half your seat as well. It is only fair that these people pay for a double seat."
stan white, leeds, u/k, comments in the article about the Ryan Air fat tax.

Only fair? Why let them fly at all? Why not ground them for life? Should fat people be allowed to fly? It defies gravity. Not to mention the added risk to a plane flying with fat people on board.

I don't think there should be a new surcharge on fat people for flying Ryan Air.

Ryan Air should just be bold and make it a company policy: Hey Fat People, Fuck Off. We Don't Want Your Business.

*****

Here's the funny bit about the alleged bold fuck you to rich people entailed in Darling's new budget:

Firstly, he's going to raise the planned new top rate of tax on incomes over £150,000 from 45% to 50%.

Then, people with incomes over £150,000 will also see their pension tax relief restricted from 2011, while personal allowances will be scrapped for those on incomes over £100,000 from next April.

Bravo.

Or not.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned the hike would produce far less revenue than the Treasury hoped unless more stringent measures were brought in to crack down on tax avoidance.

Michael Wistow, head of tax at law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, said: "History shows that increasing tax rates rarely achieves the objective of increasing the tax take, individuals will now look to find other ways of earning money or reducing tax liabilities."

Greed. You gotta love it.

Dominic Lawson has more than a few realistic pokes at new Labour in Beware green jobs, the new sub-prime:

That remarkable prime ministerial pledge predated the recession; its motive was to demonstrate that Britain was “leading the world in the battle against climate change”. We aren’t, as a matter of fact; but under new Labour we have certainly led the world at claiming to do so. Mandelson expressed this almost satirically last week when he declared that “Britain has taken a world lead in setting ambitious targets for carbon reduction”.

As ever, new Labour confuses announcements and newspaper headlines with real action. Whenever it becomes obvious even to ministers that Britain will not meet its current carbon reduction target, they replace it with a yet tougher target, only with an extended deadline.

Listen to Uranus Bruyant:

...an overvitaminated version of a funk brass band, directly connected to James BROWN, Maceo PARKER, Georges CLINTON, an others such as DIRTY DOZEN Brass Band. The eight musicians spread an amazing groovy feeling throughout their original tracks, mixing jazz and funk, with powerful brass instruments and crazy beats.

A banjo, a tuba, a bass drum and a snare : the rhythm section turns you into dancing, you can't help it !

Two saxophones, a trumpet, a trombone : a line of blowers with various backgounds, who can put an audience on fire with their wild soli !