So a new story for all my loyal peeps who have been waiting so patiently for something new from me for so long.  I present to you...

THE DEADLIEST PREY

  “Man ...Is the deadliest prey,” began Colonel Clearly Von Turnbull.  Of corse he’d only been a Colonel in a mercenary army, sustaining the measly rank of Corporal in his enlisted duties.  Also his name wasn’t Clearly Von Turnbull, his real name was Oswald Swayles but no-one wanted to hunt their fellow man with someone called Corporal Oswald Swayles, whereas Colonel Von Turnbull was a fearless warrior who people would willingly traipse through the jungles of the world with.  “Today you will be hunting down someone who is armed only with wits and cunning.  In many ways these are the things that we should fear the most.”

  The gathered throng he was addressing were six billionaires who had each paid two million dollars in cold, hard, untraceable cash and had communicated with Oswald only via an untraceable mobile address that bounced off passing blue-tooth signals and gave no indication of Oswald’s origins.  They had been instructed to destroy all and any communications they had made with the Colonel and to come to the agreed location in a roundabout route.  Along with the billionaires stood Oswald’s personal guard of four highly trained marksmen to make sure that things didn’t get too far out of hand.  They stood there resolute, knowing in only thirty minutes to handle an environment whose shadows and light could trick the sharpest of minds.  The billionaires listened to Oswald’s rhetoric with an assortment of hero worships or arrogant indifference, some looked at him with puppy-dog eyes others with disdain while they picked their nose and looked on their discoveries with yet more disdain.  It did not put Oswald off.
  “It is important we stick together and we follow the rules.  One ...We don’t wander off.  Two ...We don’t point weaponry at each other and we will walk in formation to prevent that from happening and the last rule and for yourselves the most important ...Whichever one of you makes the winning shot gets their stake back,” Oswald said.  Behind Oswald a diesel engine chugged away and a forklift truck carrying a large wooden box flattened the undergrowth and trampled down the foliage making an industrial path through the jungle.  The billionaires attention now piqued; some with ambition others in fear.
  “There’s your prey, gentleman.  A homeless man from the outskirts of Paris, we don’t know his name but his temperament seems suitably animalistic,” said Oswald.  The forklift lowered the box to the ground and two of Oswald’s team opened the front and then stood back with the group, weapons raised.  A dirty, lean man, stubbly but otherwise seeming in good shape, emerged from the box.  For a minute they could see from his eyes that he considered charging the guards for a weapon but as they cocked their rifles he thought better of it.
  “You’ve got thirty minutes head-start!” Oswald said to the man.  “I suggest you use it!”
  At that the man was gone, darting into the deep Amazonian forests and disappearing like a ghost.
  “There is your prey, gentlemen.  In thirty minutes he will be your deadliest enemy.  Any questions?” Oswald asked.  One man raised his hand.  “Yes?”
  “Can I go for a wee, Colonel?” said the billionaire.  Oswald’s men shook their heads.
  “Billionaires!” spat Oswald under his breath.

  Light streamed through the canopy of leaves and strained through the trees, the animals in the tree added a symphony of sound that was exotic in the movies but an unwanted distraction when hunting a deadly enemy.  The hunting party was armed, had water, food was travelling through the undergrowth by Jeep.  Their advantage was substantial.  Oswald watched the trees looking for any sense of movement.  The forest was a deceptive beast and beneath its shades and undergrowth were unseen dangers, but in this heat the biggest danger was panic.  Running at full speed through this uneven landscape took energy and that sapped the body of liquid and strength.  To some degree adrenalin compensated but nowhere near enough and after half an hour most people would be close to exhaustion in this weather.  
  “That’s the thing about the half-hour start,” Oswald told his clients.  “This isn’t for our prey’s advantage ...It’s actually for ours!”
  Oswald sat in the front jeep, the Cartwright semi-automatic rifle slung, care-free on his lap, his hand pressing the beauty firmly against his leg.  He wasn’t worried about the target and although some might see his laid-back stance in the front vehicle as being foolhardy he  knew exactly what he was doing.  Oswald’s jeep moved ever forward making light-work of the ground beneath, Oswald wondered just how long it would take before they found...
  BANG, BANG, PSHHH!
 “CLATTER, CLATTER, CLATTER, CLATTER!” the guns spat out from behind him as his jeep came to a stop.
  “CEASE FIRE!  CEASE FIRE!” Oswald shouted as he left his jeep.  The two front tyres were flat, a row of hidden spikes had pierced the protective sheath and drained them of air.  It was clever, it was VERY clever.  Oswald’s second in command, Jerry Spratchett came over, all the while staring out at the trees that seemed to stand in silent conspiracy against the hunters.
  “What happened, Boss?” Jerry asked.
  “Tyres spiked,” said Oswald, deep in thought.
  “Bad luck?” asked Jerry, fearing the more likely answer.
  “Sabotage,” Oswald replied, grimly.
  “Damn!” said Jerry as he scanned the defiant trees, the birdsong and animal calls feeling more like mocking laughter now.  “How long will it take to change the...”
  PFFT!
  “URGH!” said Jerry holding his neck.  Oswald looked around.  Jerry removed his hand and in his palm was a blow dart.  Jerry looked in fear as he felt at his throat.  The side of his neck was red and swelling up more every second.  Jerry fell to the floor a hoarse fading rasping sound coming from him as he sat back against the jeep.
  “Jerry?  JERRY!” said Oswald as his friend closed his eyes and slid to the floor.
  “Well he wasn’t very useful was he?” asked one of the more arrogant billionaires.  No sooner had the words left his lips than a whoosh through the air was replaced by a stifled gurgle as the billionaire looked down to see an arrow sticking out of his throat.  Oswald got up, grabbed his rifle and turned in the direction of the arrow traversed from.  A shadow moved across the trees and Oswald opened fire, more bullets quickly being spat from other rifles behind him before Oswald raised his hand to get his fellow hunters to cease fire.  Leaving the jeeps behind and their fellow dead hunters they marched forward, in only a matter of minutes they found the mysterious vagabond’s perch and saw the tiniest sliver of blood against the tree trunk.
  “If you can bleed then we can kill you, you son of a bitch!” said Oswald as he gripped the rifle, tight, all pretence at calm gone.  Behind him he could hear the five remaining billionaires chatting and whimpering in fear as their party of eleven hunters had been all too quickly whittled down to nine.
  “Now listen up.  Fear will get you dead so I don’t want any more of this lily-livered nonsense or I will shoot you myself!  Now due to this unforeseen turn of events I have decided to increase the stakes to four million for whoever makes the winning shot!  Clive and Steve, you’re at the rear, myself and Reece here will be at the front with yourselves well protected in the middle.  Now, let’s move out!
  They all headed forward into the forest, all a little bit slower now, as the distance and time got drawn out to breaking point.  For ten minutes all that could be heard was the crunching of foliage under boot and the heavy, nervous breathing of the wealthy patrons, until a SWISH and a WHOOSH broke the silence as Reece found himself hauled thirty foot into the air in a trap, then suffering the indignity of an arrow to the chest turning him into what looked like a leaky, human shaped fruit-juice dispenser.  Oswald and his team got off several shots but hit nothing.  
  It was to be the tragic pattern of the rest of the day.
  One-by-one they fell and one-by-one Oswald got increasingly frazzled by their enemy’s apparent ease of finding them wanting both tactically and physically.  Oswald’s men and the billionaires found their numbers diminishing and their odds quickly reducing, eventually only one billionaire was left standing with the usually unflappable Oswald at his back.
  “As long as there are two of us there’s a chance,” said Oswald.  “Just remember...” 
  “Just remember what, Colonel?” asked the billionaire as his eyes darted all over the trees, every movement sending him sick with worry and fear.  “Colonel?”
  The billionaire turned slowly, there, a spear in his gut keeping him upright was the man the Billionaire viewed as his best hope of survival.  The dead eyes told the man all he needed to know about his chances of escape.  Tears began to stream down his face and as he did so he began to unload the automatic into the dense woodland, the remaining bullets in his gun being chewed up by thick bark to be buried alive in the wood forever as the trees would slowly seal themselves around the metal fragments.  As his gun clicked empty the billionaire let it drop and started to half-run, half-tumble over the ground, his forty pounds of extra weight from living the good life, feeling anything but good now as it slowed his movements to a virtual crawl.  Eventually he fell into the dirt and, reaching for a branch, grabbed something softer, somehow less woody and more cotton-covered fleshy.  The billionaire looked up and there, in front of him, was the prey, the unarmed man they wanted to hunt down with rifles, the man whose head they wanted to turn into a private wall ornament, standing before him with a spear in hand.  The businessman clutched at his chest as his heart creaked to the point of fearful exhaustion and somewhere inside a ventricle burst, spewing its precious cargo exactly where it did not want to go.
  “Please,” he begged as his face went from plush to pale as the blood emptied inside his body and drained from his veins.  “Please...” he managed to beg one more time till his heart stopped beating and his froze, forever in fear.  The victim who had so easily turned the tables on those hunting him let the spear fall to the ground as he wallowed in his triumph.
  “Jesus!  What a bunch of arseholes!” he said.
  “I know.  It’s amazing how stupid they are,” interjected Oswald before raising his walky-talky.  “Jerry, you there?  Over.”
  “Loud and clear, boss.  You want us to pick you up?  Over,” Jerry replied. 
  “Yeah do.  Usual point.  How’s your neck?  Over,” Oswald asked.
  “The usual.  A smear of peanut and the outside enflames like crazy, other than that as good as new.  Over,” said Jerry followed by a small smattering of static.  Oswald and Patrice looked down at the latest billionaire to fall foul of their ruse far away from prying eyes deep within the Amazon rainforest.
  “Do you think they’ll ever catch on?” Patrice asked.  Oswald looked at the fear-frozen face of the former baby-food magnate in front of him.
  “No.  Stupidity knows no boundaries.  Thankfully the wealthy, separated from reality, are probably more susceptible than most,” Oswald replied as he let his mind wander to what he would spend his share of the money on this time.  “Come on.  Let’s get rd of the corpses.” he said as they disposed of the evidence and already started to look forward to the next hunt six months from now.

FIN

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FORGOTTEN FILMS THAT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED ...I’VE FORGOTTEN THE NUMBER BUT ENOUGH TO NOT BE OCCASIONAL ANY MORE!

After reading about the film this piece of amazing Pencils by the legendary Jack Kirby seemed like a great place to start for this one.

So after the whole Jeff Bridges train of thought I was inclined to perform the same exercise again recently with Bruce Willis after seeking the immensely enjoyable “LOOPER” and it was this train of thought that got my train of thought to this station which is one of Bruce’s less well remembered films.  I was going through the list that included “DIE HARD”, “PULP FICTION”, “12 MONKEYS” (Gilliam’s master-piece) and “THE SIXTH SENSE” but I then forgot about this underrated and understated drama of a man who is not what he seems featuring Willis’ second on-screen pairing with Samuel L Jackson (Ignoring LOADED WEAPON 1 and PULP FICTION as they share virtually no screen time).  This film has split fans and critics alike but to my mind it is one of Willis’ best film.  Its almost mundane pace masks the incredibleness of the premise and the films homage to its artistic origins is present throughout the film but only visible to those who know the genre.  Ladies and gentlemen I present the case for...

UNBREAKABLE (2000)

Willis plays David Dunn, a security guard going through the death throes of a loveless marriage, whose taking a train journey to an interview he will never make.  The train crashes killing everyone on board except for the unremarkable Mister Dunn himself leaving him (and us) with many questions but darn few answers until he meets the comic-book afficionado, Elijah Price, a man who believes that David Dunn may be the man he has searched for his entire life after undertaking the bizarre undertaking to find a man who is his exact and equal opposite.

To the unknowing ye this to many people is the inferior follow-up to the nerve-jangling “THE SIXTH SENSE”, but to my mind this is by far its superior.  The film has a number of wonderful nods to the world of comic-book art that aren’t even noticeable on first viewing, for one, the use of black as a colour with an unusual amount of shots showing characters in silhouette.  The villains before the films showcase ending all stand out from the backgrounds in primary colours while everything else fades to grey.  The stationary camera while characters approach turning it into a long drawn out close-up is employed to great use with this being a technique taken from film into comic-book and then back to film again (great example of the technique from Frank Miller’s Daredevil masterpiece “BORN AGAIN”) 

And in its final nod to the genre in “UNBREAKABLE” the main character’s name is an illiteration (“Reed Richards” “Peter Parker” “Bruce Banner”).  The film itself always manages to have a constant sense of menace in spite of the stillness, something that the best comic-book artists have been doing for the last fifty years.

The performances are all grounded in reality to make the decidedly fantastical premise feel anything but that.  The music from the composer of “THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION” is a real treat also adding to a sense of menace and foreboding and the direction throughout has a feeling of seeing the truth as if peering round curtains, seeing only part of the picture until the eventual big reveal.

Divisive and ...Not controversial but unusual this is probably Bruce Willis’ most under-rated film that puts us truly in the shoes of extraordinary and asks the question ...In the same circumstances what would you do?

Understated excellence.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_f1uCWKZQs

YET ANOTHER OF THE FORGOTTEN FILMS THAT DESERVE TO BE REMEMBERED 

So we haven’t had one of these for ages then two come along at once, this first film was one that I had long forgotten about myself till I ran through a list in my head of Jeff Bridges best films (And best roles) and quite a lot of obvious ones came up “TRUE GRIT”, “IRON MAN”, “SEABISCUIT” etc, but then I remembered a couple of films that seem to have been scattered to the out-take bin of time, which included the excellent “JAGGED EDGE” (Which could well make the list in future) as well as today’s choice.  NOW the Jeff Bridges film we have today features of stellar performance, one of which was deemed Oscar-worthy.  The film is about second chances and parallels can be drawn with the film’s director who was also in major need of a second chance after his previous film was a critical and commercial disaster but like the Bridges film “SEABISCUIT” it’s ultimately one of those Oscar films that people watch, enjoy, garner critical praise, and a few awards then disappears so lets make it reappear right now.  Ladies and gentlemen I present the case for...

THE FISHER KING (1991)

The Fisher King is the story of shock-jock, Jack Lucas, radio DJ on the verge of TV big time until the night his rant against yuppies sends one of his listeners on a killing spree which is the kind of publicity few people can recover from.  Jack spirals downward clutching for any sort of normality he can hold onto and falls into the arms of Anne (Mercedes Rheul) a video store owner, he seeks to lick his wounds and stay out of sight like a slug under a rock until he encounters Parry a homeless man who believes he is on a quest to find the holy grail and, as part of that quest battle against the machinations of the red knight.

Now by the time you’ve got to the last few lines of that paragraph you’re probably thinking “What the fish?” and you’d be right as this is one of those films that, to put it simply, is what it is.  It defies pigeon-holing, it’s dramatic, dark, comedic, tragic and romantic.  It’s not really a drama or a tragedy or a romantic-comedy and I think that this lack of “Definition” is possibly one of the reasons it has gotten pushed out of people’s consciousness because conceivably there is no other reason for it to be so forgotten.

Jeff Bridges is amazing as both the brash idiotic celeb and the crushed defeated shell in his place.  Mercedes Rheul is solid as the ...er ...solid and dependable Anne who takes in Jack, Amanda Plummer is excellent as the object of Parry’s new-found romantic interest but stealing all the plaudits in his quest for the grail and his battle with demons, real and imagined, is Robin Williams in perhaps his greatest ever role, straddling Pathos and madness with a combination of wonderful comic brilliance and skillful deft acting and this Oscar nod here is perhaps his most deserved ever.  The script is one where almost every line feels poured over and precise and with this film Gilliam, much in need of a hit, showed that he could do so much more than Python-esque surreality making fantasy fantastic rather than silly.  

For those people who don’t mind if their films don’t have people who were former pop-stars or models  then this is a worthwhile film to add to your must-see list.  Terry Gilliam’s forgotten masterpiece, and arguably his modern-day retelling of Don Quixote ...Judge for yourself.  

And to add food for thought I've added not the trailer but possibly the most stunning visual from the film, ENJOY!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lASPrnWf6cA

LOGIC, LOGIC, LOGIC: THE FOLLY OF THE WESTERN RAIL FRANCHISE DEBACLE.

So, it seemed like quite a nice way to start with the logical song there.  A song that bemoans the replacement of wonder and magic with logic and science.  Personally I have places in my heart for both.  I love imagination and creativity with a passion.  Songwriting, music and art are strange processes, when you start them you have an idea of what you want something to turn out like, you create them, put pen to paper, note to notebar, brush to canvas or whatever and when you get to the end you may be more or less happy with what you’ve got but cannot remember anything of what it took to get you there with individual moments of inspiration being lost within the creative whole.  It truly feels like a magical process.

As for logic.  In “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” Mr Spock describes logic as the beginning of wisdom not the end, and I agree, it is a great place to start in things such as engineering and electrics and such, anything that requires a timed, precise, synchronous system.  Which is why you have to start with logic when awarding a rail franchise.

NOW

There have been many words written that besmirch "First"’s name.  Personally I could tell you just as many bad stories about Stagecoach, the joint partners with Virgin for their bid, so this post is not about that, it’s about the lack of logical reasoning in the arguments for the award.  When Branson argues that there are serious holes in the fundamental bidding process, he may be worryingly right.  But what does he mean by that?  Well let’s take a look at the winning bid, the presumptions within it and the wider economic picture as it currently stands.

Well the winning bid bought the operating rights for the west-coast main line with a staggering bid of five billion pounds, a sum so eye-watering that rather than have the market jumping with delight had them quickly seeking their delete button as the share price tumbled upon them winning this prestigious government contract ...This is telling, but why, well, upon winning the contract First made a number of announcements seemingly to placate worried customers that this change would lead to more seats and lower prices and that the maths of this was based on them making a profit because upon them being awarded the franchise the passenger numbers would increase by ten per cent each year.

Hmmmm.

There are a number of problems with these arguments as I see them, firstly let’s have a look at the lower fares thing.  It was only on the fourteenth of August that we were told by both the rail industry and the Government that the burden of rail travel would fall less on taxpayers and more on commuters (Unless you are like most people a taxpaying commuter of course) with above inflation price increases for either the forseeable future or for years to come depending on which report you read, this in the face of wages either not increasing in-line with inflation and increased living costs on all other fronts.  So the idea that this will lead to any kind of price-cut in the next few years is frankily laughable which brings us to the next issue raised in the winning bids comments, more seats.

Now I wonder about this one because again, when we approach this logically as a businessman one would have to think, why would they?  One of the other companies who also operate on the North-West line is of course Northern-rail who offer this picturesque view of  rail travel.  

I imagine they decided to show the outside of the train as currently the interiors are looking like those Japanese trains where the guards have to physically push people onto the train and squash them on board.  Here is a typical picture of a rush-hour image from a Northern-rail train.  

For many people this is the reality of train travel, a no-seat, uncomfy journey into misery BUT presumably, in spite of this atrocious service Northern-rail, and maybe even because of it, do post a profit BUT if they did provide extra seats then likewise they would probably make less money and if there’s one thing private companies are as good as the public sector on, it’s under-estimating cost, dramatically (G4S underestimated the cost of  admin and uniforms on their bid to provide guards for the Olympics by 90 million pounds or nine hundred percent).

But finally let’s get to the guts of it, the extra passengers.  IN order that the service deliver the money promised then revenues on the railways would have to see passenger numbers increase by 10% year on year.  If this is 10% onto the 10% then this would effectively mean that passenger numbers would double in less than 8 years.  Let’s think about that for a minute shall we.   At a time when train fares are increasing at more than the rate of inflation and people have less money than ever, jobless numbers among the young soaring,  their parents cutting back all the time to keep up with living costs and the elderly having their old person’s allowances phased out this means that the chances of passengers increasing are probably as likely as a heatwave in December.  people do not want to spend money if they can avoid it and with the costs going though the roof, the railways are increasingly becoming a rich-man's toy.

This is the reason we are seeing so many long established companies falter and fail, because their entire sales projection teams are, in reality offering little more than guesses based seemingly on over-optimistic appraisal over who has money to spare and the appeal of their product.  If it's not food, heating, clothing or fuel everyone is trying to find ways to cut-back.  Not spend more. 

The markets think it cannot be done, the increasing costs of extra seats, carriages and services will probably show it can’t be done and in all likelihood the logic of the ever-faltering economy says it can’t be done thinking logically, but although the beginning of wisdom is logic it is still a step that some people are unwilling to make.

I’ve been Mister Chatable.  Thanks for listening.

PS - One more amendment.  Yesterday First's group Tim O Toole (Yes, just like Timmy O Toole from "The Simpson's") was speaking to the Commons select group on transport and gave this worrying statement...

Fare increases would "broadly follow inflation" if passenger numbers grew at the expected rate, added Mr O'Toole, but he could offer no commitment that fares would not increase at a higher rate than that if these projections proved wrong.

The promise of lower fare's all based on numbers doubling over 8 years with little chance of that occurring with the economy flat-lining.  I do so get tired of these peole.

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REALITY TV’S ONLY BLESSING.

Stupidity is everywhere.

About thirty, forty years ago the people in power liked to suggest that to be successful and to make money you have to be smart, with luck playing little part in such success.  For the longest time since I can remember that was the guff that was fed down from politicians and the media that if you are smart then you have a better shot at most at being successful.  People who challenged this idea were usually deemed conspiracy theory nuts, socialists or militant, left-wing, red-under-the-bed types of people, basically dangerous folk.

Then, thankfully, two things occurred over the last ten years that shattered that idea utterly.  First, was reality TV.  Now, reality TV over the last ten years showed something that to a large degree those at the top did not want everyone to see, that even if you were incredibly, let’s say, docile, you could still make an absolute fortune as long as those in the business of manipulation thought that you had marketability.  People could see that no longer where savvy and smart people earning fortunes who deserved it but lucky schmo’s with neither notable talent and in some cases even less personality.  That was the first thing that shattered the bubble of smarts at the top.

The next, of course, was the credit crunch.  

The fact that the world came to a juddering financial halt because investment banks, commercial banks and pretty much every financial institution on the planet had bought into a range of mortgages given to people with little or no means to pay showed the rest of humanity just how STUPID those at the top really where.  These were business-men and women (but basically men) who had sneered at the rest of the world as they had questioned whether they were indeed worth the gargantuan salaries that they commanded when the answer, really, was no.  

When the going was good it was all because they were super, they had brilliant business acumen and luck played no part, however, when the bad times came it was bad luck and everybody else’s fault and they should still keep all their money.

No-one went to jail for gross negligence

No-one went to jail for fraud.

The only man to admit any major wrong-doing at a bank was HSBC’s head of compliance David Bagley who resigned over compliance failures at the bank which allowed millions of drugs dollars to be laundered through the bank ...Charges have yet to brought.

So, why write about that now?  What has triggered this wave of reflection of the flaws at the top of the system?

Three things, one relates to the flaws of the financial markets, the others the failures of the media and the final relates to politics.  It has been five years since the crash when we were told lessons would be learned, not only have lessons not be learned but stupidity it seems is increasing.

The first thing that caught my eye recently was the share sale at Manchester United.  The floatation stated that the shares would be for 10% of the value of the club but the shares in voting issues would only be a 10th of the owners comparable shares meaning 10 of the “For-Sale” shares would only be worth 1 of those held by the Glaziers.  Or to put it another way, the remaining 90% stake are actually worth 98.901% control, therefore, IF, all shares have been sold, supposedly at a price of $233 million for the price of the 1.099% control of the club (And control ...Is everything) then Man United would be worth 21.203 TRILLION DOLLARS.  Yes that’s right, the stake that has been sold prices control of United at 21.203 trillion dollars, and yet, AND YET, people seemingly have still bought them.

That’s right, with only a 1.099 percent controlling stake in United investors have allegedly bought them shares, with no dividend, no real say in the running of the club and a controlling stake so small even a billionaire could afford to avoid their pitiful 10% stock, analysts have been falling over themselves NOT TO recommend this stock and yet people for some reason have decided that the ridiculous possibility that the Glazers will sell their cash-cow to some billionaire and buy up all the stock was reason to invest showing that even after the credit crunch there are still people out there with money to spare that believe in magic beans. 

Proving beyond doubt that the financial markets are as stupid as ever.

BUT, that’s just the first part, let’s look at the media’s undeniable stupidity.

In the not to distant past documentaries and more importantly political documentaries were hard-hitting, socially-aware and deliberately politically insensitive.  “World in Action” and “Panorama” led the charge to show the country exactly what was wrong with it, who in power my have been abusing it and exactly what special interests were in play to stop the movement of genuine democracy.  While they may not have won much and their victories may have been fleeting we knew through these shows, and later Channel 4’s excellent “Dispatches” what was going on and when it was bad who was to blame.

Cut to now, five years after the credit-crunch with nothing really changing for anyone at the bottom of the pile other than now there are benefit reductions, minimum wage reductions and regional pay all with the lower and middle classes (Both in and out of work) being squeezed for every penny, meanwhile journalists on TV news channels remained baffled as to why the market forces won’t rebalance after the crash, what could be causing this recession to become a depression, what is going wrong with our monetary system?  For them it is a complete mystery ...Oh and by the way in other news the world’s super-rich have squirreled away 21 trillion dollars over the last few years in non-taxable foreign bank accounts but back to the markets and the mystery of why they’re not rebalancing. 

Oh I’m sorry, what was that you just said?  

Yes, the super-rich according to a recent report, had stashed away 21 trillion dollars or to put it in a way that’s easy to understand about a third of the world’s annual wealth output (60 trillion dollars).  Now I have little doubt that the media back in the day would have seen these two little bits of info, the world still in recession and dire economic trouble and the hiding of 21 trillion and been able to put the pieces together but our current breed of investigative journo’s, well...  

In the past in the times of “Panorama” (In it’s heyday) and “World-in-Action” documentary makers for the small-screen were a bold and intrepid bunch.  This was the age were two journalists uncovered the WATERGATE scandal, it surprises me that the new breed can find their own garden gates.  To those with intuitive minds and an ability to see what is going on we can see that the inability to rebalance may well be caused by the removal of funds from the financial cycles by the super-rich, something that those in the media just cannot see.

AND FINALLY

The politicians, the very people who govern us who tell us they know how to get rid of our problems and make everything all better, like the financial world they delight in telling us everything going well is all their doing and everything going bad is someone else’s fault.  NOW recently Mitt Romney made the announcement of his running mate in the upcoming presidential election, the supposedly fiscal conservative Paul Ryan.  Now much has been made of his PATH TO PROSPERITY and how he plans to bring America back into balance.  Is this by finally paying off their ever increasing debts and building an America and even a world where the excesses of the world’s financial behemoths would finally be a thing of the past.

Of course not.

The big plan is to tackle those troublesome payments that legally they have to make like social security and pensions.  The plan is to privatise social security, replace pensions with food vouchers and “reform” the medical aid to the elderly and the poor, no doubt to promote what they always talk about as being trickle down economics where the wealth from the top trickles down through the rest of the economy. 

From what has been said I have no doubt that the Republicans have a buyer for the “Burden” of social security who state that they will do it cheaper and give less to these “Freeloaders” to get America working again (or should that be work harder for less?) 

Private businesses running social security ...Mmmm.

Lessons learned after the crash ...zero.

Let us imagine just how this will work in practicality, it will be a business running social security and not a charity therefore I would think that under the American work ethic this will mean bonuses not for the number of people who are served but for the number of people denied social security, if ever there was a good example of how a privatised social security system would work then that would be ...er ...Here ...In the UK.

PPI was devised as a way for the banks to protect themselves against the risk of unemployment for people who they were giving unsecured loans.  Problem was with them being banks and being businesses they wanted to do all they could to prevent themselves paying out.  This meant that said insurance was on various occasions useless, one time in my role as a debt counsellor I dealt with someone who had taken the insurance out to protect against unemployment and was denied payment because he was made redundant and not unemployed (?????) 

This is how I would wager America’s new social security working ALSO with payments operating as loans rather than benefits with interest added when people return to work (or if they do).

BUT, if America ever wanted a wake-up call to privatised care over public care it need only look of course at its very privatised health system.  Comparative to the systems of Japan, Canada, Germany and France, whose models are based on a system of care free for citizens at point of entry, the US health service falls short on life expectancy, INFANT MORTALITY (This one really annoys me!) cost per person and cost against GDP.  In short America pays way more for a service that is on average inferior to most of its competitors AND THIS is, no doubt, what will be brought to social security.

Tax cuts at the top and income cuts at the bottom will lead only to one thing ...recession.  Bad as the US’s debt problems are what every country across the globe has failed to figure is that economies tend to grow from the bottom up not the top down, politicians have to constantly balance out tough choices to make sure asset prices don’t out-strip income, they have to watch that the economy doesn’t overheat in-terms of wage inflation and most importantly of all they must have balance.  Gear to much to the bottom and wage-inflation causes the economy to stall, gear too much to the top and you guarantee bad things will happen as the bottom is what drives the economy.  

If people at the bottom cannot buy then people at the top cannot sell.  It is not trickle down it is growth from the bottom up.

Sadly we live in a world where these things are not only not discussed they are routinely ignored to present a world of trickle-down economics that not only doesn’t exist, but never existed, where the wealthy corporations pay party donations so they get what they want and through corporate advertising the media also turn their heads to what is actually happening?

I’ve been Mister Chatable.  Thanks for listening world.

THE TOP TEN SONGS THAT SHOULD HAVE GOT TO NUMBER ONE

I’m sure everyone at some stage in their lives, even those whose music tastes are, shall we see, eccentric, get seduced by a pop song, a piece of music so mainstream that they feel, perhaps, embarrassed for liking it, but then, BUT THEN, the unthinkable happens and said piece of music incredibly, perhaps unjustifiably, doesn’t make it to the top spot.  It seems almost unthinkable that this could happen but happen it does.  Sometimes the act in question sinks without trace unable to scale such heights again and other times they get a sympathy vote with their next single and make it to the top with what is largely an inferior song, whatever happens though it really can’t take away the injustice of a class or even a classic song getting to the top spot, SO, with that in mind here are my top ten classic songs that should have made number one but didn’t. 

ps.  Listen with headphones on to really appreciate.

10 - THE BEATLES - PLEASE PLEASE ME.  The ultimate boy-band’s second single and one of the big bees in my bonnet.  A metaphor for oral sex? ...You decide, but certainly one of the sexiest songs ever produced by a mainstream outfit at this time when one considers the lyrics.  This was their second release before they had a run of eleven consecutive number ones in a row, a number of them million sellers, but for me this is probably their smartest lyric from that time that reflected John Lennon’s love of clever lyrics and wordplay that would continue throughout his time with the Beatles.  

9 - ULTRAVOX - VIENNA.  Perhaps the most famous nearly a number one song ever made, held back from the top spot by Joe Dolce’s Musical Theatre with Shaddap you face.  Since then it’s been popularly bandied about on every nostalgic show ever since about how unjust it was.  To some degree I agree that it wasn’t necessarily proper that such a song held it from the top spot but I think their are other songs who deserve to be higher on the list.

8 - BEE GEES - HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE.  The Bee Gees biggest seller in the UK (recorded by them) but amazingly only got to number four in the chart.  It has since been at number one recorded by Take That and is probably most people’s favourite Bee Gees track.  The love song from the epic disco soundtrack that was “SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER” (Even I have a copy) and on a record that holds so many great songs this still manages to be one of the stand out tracks.  Making number eight and in a top ten this awesome is no mean feat in itself.

7 - QUEEN - WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS.  In the seventies and eighties Queen seemed to hit the number 2 spot with great songs so often that it wasn’t even funny.  This little doozy of a track that had been adopted by sports teams the world over and is one of those songs that is guaranteed to get a crowd singing along to the anthemic chorus the world over.  Stopped from getting to the number one spot by those Swedish songsters ABBA with “NAME OF THE GAME” it secures it’s place on my top ten of should-have-beens.  I always wished that, upon Freddie’s death, they had released it as part of an EP along with “BOHEMIAN” and “DAYS OF”.  Ah well.   

6 - TAKE THAT - THE FLOOD.  Standing, on the edge of forever, and sadly this will be standing at the edge of forever, forever as it never managed to hit the top spot.  While Progress dominated the album charts the single could only peak at number 2, being held off the top spot by Rihanna’s “ONLY GIRL IN THE WORLD” (I think now on reflection that probably seems stupid but we’re gonna meet a few more of those in the next paragraphs.)  An outstanding single that gets the heart-racing and even though the lyrics are utter nonsense will probably still have everyone singing along to it, rather than channel-hopping when Rihanna starts warbling out ONLY GIRL IN THE WORLD.  Whatever, Rihanna, whatever.

5 -  QUEEN - DON’T STOP ME NOW.  Perhaps the ultimate feel good song as so ably demonstrated by the UK’s medal winning team in the recent video, this was one of those songs that definitely classes as being unappreciated at the time, only managed to stumble up to number 9 in the UK charts (and number 86 in America) it has since become one of Queen’s most popular songs and one that like “WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS” has the ability to get everyone singing along.  No doubt helped by it’s positioning on Queens legendary “GREATEST HITS” album (It’s track 7 which seems to be many Albums high points ...Have a flick though your collection, check it out) it is finally regarded as the great song that it should be.  

4 - PHIL COLLINS - AGAINST ALL ODDS (TAKE A LOOK AT ME NOW).  Phil Collins?  You’re having a fucking giraffe aren’t you?  Hear me out though.  Around this time Collins was flying with Genesis after Peter Gabriel had left and was starting to make some serious headway as an solo artist, especially in the album charts with “FACE VALUE” and “HELLO, I MUST BE GOING” before eventually going massive with “NO JACKET REQUIRED” but in order to get to that stage he needed a big song, and this was it.  From the film AGAINST ALL ODDS which most people have never seen but this is what people remember, the song, sang with such passion and emotion that it drags you into the drama of it, but really it only getting to number 2 isn’t the big injustice.  No, it’s the fact that it has since gone to the top spot sung by WESTLIFE and MARIAH CAREY ...And when you hear that version you finally understand just how good the original version was.

3 - A-HA - TAKE ON ME - This for me is where this list all begins.  True I probably liked songs before that had failed to make it to the number one slot, but this is the first time I was really outraged by it.  A-Ha came out of nowhere in 1985 with a fast-paced synthi-pop style and a pop video that once seen was always remembered.  The song was one that I instantly fell in love with as a pubescent teenager and was popular with everyone I knew.  It was a song that was destined for number one and across the world it was grabbing and holding onto the number one spot with a vengeance, that is, everywhere except the UK.  Unfortunately the UK had fallen in the grip of a love of love affair with “THE POWER OF LOVE” by JENNIFER RUSH, a million-selling operatic monster that still to this day I cannot bear to listen to.  A song that seemed to be bought by Dad’s for Mum’s everywhere even though they couldn’t stand it themselves.  A truly awful song that stopped one of my favourite songs from making the deserved top spot.  For that I can never forgive "THE POWER OF LOVE" but still in spite of that obvious injustice it only makes it to number 3 on my list.    

2..  COLDPLAY - SPEED OF SOUND.  How long before I get in, before it starts before I begin?  Well about now actually.  Coldplay are very much marmite of music, and no, not because their songs are about yeast extract but because you either like them or you don’t, myself, I obviously fit into the pro-marmite camp and after a number of top ten hits they came out with the album "X AND Y" (I don’t personally think it’s their best album and prefer "VIVA LA VIDA", myself) and the stand-out, or rather outstanding, first single “SPEED OF SOUND”.  It was a big song, brash bold, epic feeling and when it was released it was like it was the song they had always wanted to create to secure their first number one and it should have been if not for the same thing that had done in Ultravox years earlier ...The novelty anomaly.  CRAZY FROG “AXEL F” is so bad it makes “SHADDUP YOU FACE” seem like “BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY” such is its awfulness.  If you do your best work and are beaten there is no shame in it, but to be beaten by something as awful as CRAZY FROG is, well, just awful.

So, if COLDPLAY only made number 2 (again) then what could possibly have made number one?  Well it’s an all-time classic written in an inspired frame of mind.  It is the one and only...

1 - THE BEACH BOYS - GOD ONLY KNOWS.  I may not always love you, but long as there are stars above you.  Oh my God, where do you start singing the praises of this masterful amazing song that Paul McCartney himself hailed as the greatest song of all time?  From THE BEACH BOYS massive album PET SOUNDS written by Brian Wilson after he listened to THE BEATLES album RUBBER SOUL (Probably the best Beatles Album of the lot in my opinion) this was the second single which did dismally in the charts in the US but here in the UK peaked at number 2, how it only managed to get there I don’t know as the last sixty seconds of the record are some of the most divine in the history of recorded music and trust me that is no mean understatement.  For me, much as I love “SPEED OF SOUND”, there can be only one and it is THE BEACH BOYS who take the top spot for having recorded the greatest song never to make it to number one in the UK.

Thanks for listening

For those of you interested my next book DEATH OF CELEBRITY will be available soon, although it will probably be September/October time.  See you soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9_wP-Z0QAg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U-NHTW2-Ps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpqqjU7u5Yc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFfCKy0nKr0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCHg5r6rFoI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zJlvq1qJGw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TahH7B_aUZc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cczz--jFEo

WHAT YOU MAY HAVE MISSED IN THE AVENGERS: INTERESTING ...VERY INTERESTING!

(THERE BE SPOILERS HERE!!!)

So for those people who are living in a box and have somehow missed it “AVENGERS” or “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE” in the UK is the number one film around the globe.  No surprises there.  And many critics are falling over each other to discuss why it’s been a success, many people pointing out the excellent choice of director, the tight script, the four year build-up and of course the Hulk stealing the show.

What hasn’t been noticed much by the critics is the success of Loki as the villain.  Most critics either don’t give him much thought or are too busy watching explosions to consider that the man who was defeated by only Thor in the movie “THOR” would really be so much trouble to earth’s mightiest heroes in this movie, but, trouble them he does.

Now on first viewing I had to admit I was just as blown away by all the explosions, dynamic performances, exquisite slapstick and Robert Downey jnr’s endless one-liners but on second viewing something else took place.  I started to pay a lot more attention to Loki as played deliciously and devilishly by Tom Hiddleston.  At first as the movie started I was just watching everything exactly the same way I was the first time, but as the movie wore on I started to notice Loki ever more.  As a villain he seemed to be really dashing, infinitely at home in the museum in Germany and uber-graceful as he walked down the staircase, but then switching effortlessly to blatant violence as he reached the bottom of the steps.  As I watched him do that it occurred to me that he reminded me of someone, but at that stage I couldn’t think who?  As the movie wore on and he wound up caged and seemingly powerless, BUT, we all knew that he was actually far from that, again I was convinced he reminded me of another villain, but couldn’t figure who?

But it was the final scene with Loki where I figured it, seeing him in the face mask it all came flooding in, like a raging torrent down a mountain side, rendering a town to rubble ...It was Hannibal Lector, more specifically, Anthony Hopkins terrific Hannibal Lector from “SILENCE OF THE LAMBS” and “HANNIBAL”.

His grace and ease around culture, his ability to switch from grace and beauty to utter barbarism...

...his dialogue to others while in the cell, ESPECIALLY Black Widow is so reminiscent of Hannibal and Clarice in silence...

...and finally the face mask in order that his mouth does not get him out of trouble again.

But if there was ever any doubt I do believe that the pictures do not lie.  Loki may not be Odin’s son, but he is certainly heir apparent to another of Anthony Hopkins greatest screen creations.

As Stan Lee would say, nuff said!

And of course if you haven’t already check out my first novel FREE AT LAST: A NOVEL available on Amazon Kindle.  Many thanks

Mister Chatable.

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