This is sort of like the cunning plan the hobbits follow in the Lord of the Rings – stroll into Mordor with the One Ring, walk right up to the Black Gate and up the side of Mount Doom and chuck it in.
It’s so obvious, and so fabulous stupid, the Enemy will never imagine anyone would try it.
I know, I know, it worked for Frodo and Sam.
No, you know what, it absolutely did not. It worked for Sam while Frodo whined and passed out and the whole rubbish plan would have gone appallingly wrong except that a degenerate slimelooney ate Frodo’s hand and fell into the volcano.
Now, I ask you, is that really the kind of thing you want to stake the survival of your world on?
NO.
Anyway…
I really enjoyed it. I thought they were all great, I though Bardem managed really well not to come across as sleazeball, and I thought Penelope Cruz was amazing. Which, you know, I absolutely already knew because I’ve seen Volver.
It’s a sweet, goofy movie about the various forms of love and the difficult path to happiness – and while I find the ending bourgeois and annoying, it is at least honest – it doesn’t offer any easy answers.
Do you see how I actually had the stones to call something bourgeois there? I’m so going to Hell.
See the movie. It will make you smile. Probably.
Elsewhere…
Can we all just raise our hands if we are in any way surprised by this?
NOW it’s official: genes from genetically modified corn have escaped into wild varieties in rural Mexico.
Well, duh. Of course they have. They’re genes. They’re ickle teenie floaty spore-like seeds and stuff. Once you plant them in a field somewhere, there is absolutely no way you are going to keep them from entering the world. This is actually like something from a movie where the bewildered scientist says:
We never imagined that crossing mutated flesh-eating bacteria with sharks and then melding the resulting monstrosity with a learning-algorithm nanobot culture to create supersmart replicating picoshark swarms to use in the fight against cancer could possibly ever turn out to be a process fraught with the possibility that Carmen Electra would wear a white t-shirt swimming and then get eaten alive!
And you just want to say: Dude, honestly. You are the only man on Earth who does not think that’s going to happen as soon as he reads what’s written on the door of your lab.
What is appallingly scary about it is that anyone ever imagined this would not happen. I’m a big fan of science, big and small, and I love talking to scientists because they genuinely know some amazingly cool stuff and they make me excited about the world and what we humans are. At the same time, I think it’s important to realise that
- Many very clever people could not find their own way out of a paper bag without a map, and
- Some problems are so obvious that they are completely invisible to smart people.
More seriously…
Binyam Mohamed – much abused British resident and client of Reprieve (the charity of which my wife is Exec Director) – may be coming home tomorrow. Pressure is mounting on David Miliband to release documents the British Government has which may show the UK was complicit in torture.
One person is so far notably absent from the discussion – Jack Straw, who was Foreign Secretary from 2001-2006 and whose name therefore presumably will be mentioned really quite soon.
One would hope.
When the Guardian and the Telegraph agree on something, you know it means trouble…
I won’t say “write to your MP” because frankly almost no one will. Although, actually, write to your MP. I will say: give anyone who tries to tell you this isn’t important a gentle yet educative smack.