Last week the news broke that the adultery website Ashley Madison had been hacked and its subscribers' details would be revealed unless certain demands were met. Large proportion of the population had little sympathy with the plight of those who were threatened with exposure. The revelations would be embarrassing to all concerned, and possible several marriages would fail. But for any woman who came from a more "conservative" background, such an outing may well be a death sentence. Should the clientele of Ashley Madison be afforded the same protection in law as anyone else?

In the Hanging, the same question is asked. But this time the stakes are higher. Now five men are found murdered, their mutilated bodies left hanging in a school hall. It transpires that these men were brutal paedophiles, and their murders were met with tacit approval of a large proportion of the Danish population and the near blanket approval of the press. Justice has been done. The police are not required.

Bit by bit, like the best of Scandinavian crime fiction, we are taken though the process of solving this case – in the face of public opposition. We are introduced to Konrad Simonsen who is in charge of the investigation. Simonsen is no pin up bow. He is overweight, diabetic, middle aged, smokes too much and there were times when I wondered if he would live to the end of the book. But he does. And he gets his man even if his methods are somewhat unusual.

It is a good read, but the reader needs to concentrate. There is a lot going on and the narrative can appear to be disjointed if your concentration falters.

Strange weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

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What a strange story. A story of the romance between a high school teacher and a former pupil. A story of the relationship between two drinking partners and their love of food. A story of how a friendship between two lonely single people blossoms into a very touching romance. And a story of our mortality. Forget about the vaporous flights of fancy of Bridget Jones. Tsukiko is a Japanese woman fast approaching 40. The Japanese career has consumed Tsukiko's life. Throughout the book, we do not meet any of her friends, the girlfriends that support single women. The closest thing to a friend that we are introduced to is the occasional boyfriend Kojima, a former classmate. Kojima loses out in the end to the old school teacher, Sensei.

The friendship between Sensei and Tsukiko begins when Sensei recognises Tsukiko in a bar. From that chance meeting, a friendship grows, laced with copious alcohol and plates of food. We learn a little about Sensei's life, and we also learn that despite his advanced years, Sensei is considerably fitter than Tsukiko.

At times, I found the reading uncomfortable, I do not want lengthy descriptions of an old man, but that is part of the story, the age difference between Tsukiko and Sensei. It is an interesting read, a beautifully crafted love story with a slow fuse, and an ending that is to be expected. Worth reading.

The Lost Girls of Rome by Donato Carrisi

Initially I bought this as an audio book because Audible ad a two for one offer. But I eventually succumbed to buying a Kindle version as well. As an audio book it was difficult to listen too, especially when driving. It starts off as two separate stories, completely unconnected, and then a third story is added later in the book. So now we have the story of Marcus, a man with no memory investigating the disappearance of Lara an architecture student, the story of Sandra, who is trying to find out why her husband died 6 months previously and the story of the hunter, a man with no name on the trail of "The Transformist", a mysterious serial killer. Some reviewers have likened the work to that of Dan Browne, but this does it a great injustice. OK, so there is a secret society, the Penitenzeri. Very Dan Browne. A society dedicated to documenting evil, and whose members are Roman Catholic priests. But this is a dying society, phased out by the modern Church. All that remains are a few individuals. Not very Dan Browne, for Mr Browne wants the Church to remain as a mythical superpower of evil.

"There is place in which the world of light meets the world of darkness. It is there that everything happens: in the land of shadows where everything is vague, confused, undefined.." The litany of the Penitenzeri. And some move from the world of light to the world of darkness. And therein lies the evil and the danger of the Penitenzeri.

The ending is unexpected. Lara is recued. Sandra discovers why her husband died. The hunter finds his quarry. But there is one loose end. The fate of Marcus.

I think I would recommend this as a book-read first before listening to it. And try not to drive when listening.

Father Brown

BBC1: Mon-Fri at 14:15 Series 3

Starring Mark Williams as Father Brown

Based on the Father Brown books by G K Chesterton

It is January. And the BBC, as it has done for the last two years, is showing Father Brown again. But why early afternoon? Fortunately there is iPlayer and I am sure most followers of the series watch it through iPlayer.

This series is an absolute joy to watch. Most of the episodes I can download on iPlayer to play back to my elderly mother.

OK so there are some historical inaccuracies. The major one is that the Roman Catholic Church is not the mainstream, established Church in England. The original Fr Brown was set after the First World War, this has been fast forwarded to the 1950's, after the Second World War. But what if lived in a world where the reformation did not take such a hold on England, that ancient parish churches were run by Roman Catholic priests. And then it falls into place.

These are classic Who Done It stories and main detective is a priest who rides a bicycle, aided and abetted by Mrs McCarthy (parish secretary) and Lady Felicia, together with Sid, Lady Felicia's chauffer. The stories are now departing from Chesterton's corpus of work, but some of the basic elements remain the same. Fr Brown is interested in the whole person, body and soul. The stories are set in a time when the death penalty was still in use, so to be convicted of murder could mean execution. Mark William's Fr Brown is a compassionate man, known to eat with sinners, he prays for the souls of the deceased, listens to the confessions of those in need and enjoys cricket and a bottle of good wine.

More information: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pmw4m

(The great thing about the BBC is no adverts. Just pure entertainment)

The Grand Budapest Hotel

This film is an absolute joy to watch. We saw it when it was first screened and I chose it as my Christmas DVD for watching over the Christmas period. What I enjoyed was its sheer theatricality. So often films concentrate on the long lingering shots so you can read the minds of the characters, or else, there is gut-wrenching reality. But here there was theatre. There was pathos, humanity in all its forms, from the noble to the greedy. Heroes and psychopaths. And a window onto a world that was about to disappear forever, the grand central Europe, where the fabulous Austro-Hungarian empire was about to be annihilated by Hitler, the final boot being put in by Stalin.

The central character is the hotel's concierge, Monsieur Gustave, played by Ralph Fiennes and the story is told through the eyes of his young protégé, Zero, played by Tony Revolori.

If you have not yet seen the film, do put it on your must-see list. You will not be disappointed.

Je Suis Charlie

So this week, after the terrible slaughter, apparently sanctioned by Al Qaeda, the stories in the press are still focused on the events in France.

Charlie Hebdo is back in production, with a record print run and cartoon of Mohammed on the cover.

The depiction of Muhammad is forbidden in Islam apparently – although this could change.

The original prohibition was to prevent idolatry, and to stop the prophet turning into a deified being.

Has this worked? Mohammad is a creature, just like us. The ban on images has had the opposite effect to what was intended. Muhammad is now a semi divine being and no longer human.

 

And now, prepare to be offended. Pictures of Mohammed, bare faced.

Prepare for the worst – riots in Karachi, bombings in London, extensive media speculation and the BBC will not show these images.

Or maybe not – for what is really offensive about these images?

 

Muhammad in Medina

"Muhammad 6". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muhammad_6.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Muhammad_6.jpg

 

Muhammad and the Angel Gabriel c. 1425

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojmal_al-tawarikh

 

And this is my favourite

depiction of Muhammad receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. From the manuscript Jami' al-tawarikh by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, 1307, Ilkhanate period.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad

 

And now for something more serious.

The mindless bullies of Islam will not like this one for they are the targets, and their pride will be pricked.

But out of respect for the Prophet, the face has been blanked out

 

The text is

Prophet: I am the prophet, arsehole

Jihadist: Die Infidel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White van man (or woman) and the Labour Party

I must admit I was totally at a loss when the White Van Man story broke during the Rochester bye-election. A photo of Dan Ware's family home got the political classes all a-twitter. Just what was so wrong about the picture tweeted by a Labour shadow minister Emily Thornberry? A house, a white van and a collection of England flags. And the message? Hmmm. That was the problem. The message is what people read into the picture. Labour is sneering at… whom? Ok, for a public figure, the tweet was misguided. It was a picture of a family home that was readily identified by the wider press, not really fair on the family. It was the picture of the home of a serious England football supporter.

Personally, I think that only people who should be hanging their heads in shame are those who run the Football Association for their incompetence. Mr Ware and all of us are consistently let down by the lack-lustre performance of England's football team. Come on, we have world class athletes because of world-class organisation. And the Football Association? Just as well they were not running the 2012 Olympic Games. We would still be waiting for the venues to be finished. And as for winning medals… If we as a nation are capable of fielding a world class athletics team, ought we not be capable of fielding a world class football team?

But that is enough of football. The story of Dan Ware and his white van has some serious lessons for all the political parties, especially the Labour Party. There is no evidence that Mr Ware is a political animal. It is extremely unlikely, that however much the political parties begged and pleaded and sucked up to Mr Ware, he would have voted at all in this bye-election. Mr Ware, like a sizeable proportion of the population, does not belong to the voting classes, and it is the voting classes who matter in any election.

And just who are the voting classes? Some people have their favourite teams, just like Mr Ware, and they will vote consistently for their team. Switching allegiances to another team seldom happens. If your team disappoints, you just don't vote. But why the allegiance in the first place? Perhaps it is something to do with class, a great British preoccupation. It is more to do with people like me, and people who share my dreams and aspirations, and people who understand my fears. And then there is the consumerist aspect. I vote for the candidate/party who will do the most for me and my family, a secondary factor may well be who will do the best for my country. And also there is ideology. A shared vision, a shared vision – I vote for the party/candidate who shares my beliefs. Complex. All political parties are out to get your vote, and are determined to show that they are people like you and me.

For too long the Labour party has not looked at what s really happening out there in the constituencies. If a voter votes for a party who is "most like me", then it is even more so for membership of political parties. Imagine Mr Ware turning up at a constituency party meeting. Mr Ware is self-employed, with several business ventures. He is not anti-capitalist, he does not have great allegiance to the collective power of the trade unionists, and he is English working class of working age. All of which sort of excludes him from membership of the Labour party, and the Conservative party. Lib Dems? No. UKIP perhaps? A young party, with no clearly defined membership profile? If Mr Ware decided to join a political party, this is probably the party he would join.

This is the problem for the Labour Party, the roots of which are an alliance of the interests of the working classes in a bygone age and those who bought into an ideology which promoted a more equal and just society. The key is the bygone age. The lives of working class people has changed dramatically over the last few decades. Industry is not what it used to be. Employment is more fragmented. Collectivism only exists in a few places. And so the Labour Party has become the domain of public servants, health workers and some trade unionists. White Van man, the self employed tradesman does not fit into this picture at all.

Both Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher understood a fundamental truth of our democracy, that people have aspirations, that people want autonomy and the tools to be able to support themselves and their families. Unless the Labour Party looks again at the legacy of Tony Blair and his Mondeo Man, the Labour party will replace the Lib Dems as the rump third party in our democracy.

The Imitation Game

This is an extremely enjoyable film, even if the local cinema messed up the projection. There we were, just up to the point where Turing's Apspergers is obvious (a discussion on invitation to lunch) when the film stopped. And we had to endure 20 minutes of interruption while the manager/projectionist struggled to fix an incredibly minor fault in projection – something to do with an orange cast on the screen. But eventually the film was resumed and the enjoyment continued. OK – so the story had been simplified for screen consumption – but so what? This is a great story – a formidable mathematical genius who is able to circumvent norms of society in order to achieve the construction of the first digital computer to decrypt the enigma code.

Benedict Cumberbatch took the Sherlock Holmes character to a new level with his portrayal of Turing. That was to be expected from such a great actor. But Alex Lawther, the boy who played the young Turing at school in Sherbourne was a very convincing child version of the adult Turing.

Turing was a homosexual and we are bought face to face with the way that homosexuality was treated in this country until the 1960s. Turing's treatment by the hands of our establishment was shocking to the extreme. Throughout his life, Turing was subject to bullying, mainly because he was odd. He was bullied at school – do parents really spend vast sums of money so that their children can be bullied at public schools? If the treatment meted out to Turing by his peers had been handed out to my son, I would have been hammering at the gates of the school demanding justice for my son. Like so many people with Aspergers, Turing was lonely. In the film there are two friends, his first love, Christopher Morton, a school friend who died from TB and Joan Clarke (played by Keira Knightley) . Through the lens of both these, we find Turing a loyal and compassionate friend, but extremely vulnerable.

The film does raise important issues.

  1. A moral
    issue. If you know that X will kill Y, should you stop X from killing Y, even though this may result in X killing many more people. Or should you sacrifice Y and so save countless other lives. And who, in times of war should make that decision?
  2. How do we treat those who are not like us? Alan Turing was different from most people, and he was bullied because of it. In 1954, he was found dead, cause of death – cyanide poisoning. Suicide? Possibly. Look at the factors:
    1. He was conviction of indecency in 1952, and allowed himself to be subjected to hormonal therapy to cure the homosexuality
    2. The criminal conviction meant that he lost his security clearance
    3. People with Aspergers are often prone to depression, possibly bought on by social isolation.

    Against this is the fact that other causes of cyanide poisoning were not eliminated. Turing also had a great appetite to survive

Alan Turing was a remarkable mathematician and this film just celebrates one aspect of his work. Its weakness is that it does not celebrate the other contributions that Turing made post war to computing. The fact that I am typing this on a laptop, writing to be uploaded to a server is due to Turing's work in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Alan Turing is a hero of the modern age and he should be remembered for more that his work on decrypting Enigma and a conviction for homosexuality.