Just Finished Reading: Why it’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere - The New Global Revolutions by Paul Mason (FP: 2012/2013)

No one saw it coming. No one. When what became known as ‘The Arab Spring’ swept across North Africa the world’s media and political commentators struggled to keep up with events. Journalist Paul Mason wanted to find out too – so he went to Egypt and interviewed people on the street and in the squares to find out exactly who these revolutionaries where and what they wanted. Before long Mason was back home in the UK covering protests across the country and off to mainland Europe in Athens, Madrid, Berlin, Paris and even Moscow. What surprised him, apart from meeting the same people more than once, was the common factors behind many of the protests and behind why such a diverse mix of protestors came onto the streets in ever growing numbers.

The common thread running through every protest and protest movement was youth. The backbone of many a cause was the students or young unemployed who would be the first generation since the 1970’s who would likely be worse off than their parents. To them the future was no future – of lower paid jobs, insecurity and debt. They felt, not without reason that they had been lied to. The anger they felt because of that was real, deep and lasting. The catalyst, more often than not, was the imposition of austerity measures designed, supposedly, to get economies back on their feet following the financial crisis of 2008. Being both educated and connected through social media they could see through such attempts at propaganda in a heartbeat. Of course, if it was just students rebelling against the incompetence of a system that had essentially screwed their future it would have likely, just as after 1968, fizzled out as the news cycle turned. But it didn’t because the base was far broader that that provided by students and recent ex-students. Across the globe the students were joined by the urban poor (the revolutions largely being an urban phenomena), the squeezed Middle class, industrial workers and, even across the Muslim world, educated and sophisticated women. To the surprise of everyone governments trembled and some of them fell. Something serious was happening, something new, something that might actually change things in a yet unpredictable ways. You could feel the excitement in the air intermingled with the faint whiff of teargas.

I was rather surprised by this book and more than a little impressed. Not only does Mason write very well indeed he was not one to try to understand these things from the side-lines. He was often there in the thick of the action, being teargassed with the protesters, avoiding baton chargers and putting himself at risk right alongside the protesters. No doubt this gave him considerable credibility and allowed him both to interview the protesters on the ground and to get truthful statements from them as to why they were there and what they wanted to achieve. But even more than the insights such privileged access gave him he also provides a narrative to explain why things kicked off, why they continued to kick off despite some pretty heavy opposition from governments and agencies across the world and why they ultimately seemed to achieve so few long term effects. Much was made of social media platforms – most especially Facebook and Twitter – and he had many interesting things to say about how this seemingly disconnected and disinterested group of ‘young people’ were in fact ‘hyper-connected’ tweeting the revolution as it happened whilst the slow-witted authorities scrambled to catch up.

I honestly learnt a lot from this book with different perspectives on things I was already aware of – the austerity measures in Greece for example – as well as windows into activities I was completely unaware of – protest movements by the urban poor in SE Asia. It gave me much to think about and many, oh so many, avenues to follow up on in the future. It’s also greatly increased the likelihood that I’ll be reading his other books sooner rather than later. I want to hear what else he has to say about the politics of the modern world. He is more than a little switched on to things and I want to take advantage of that ability to analyse things in order to come up with a rational narrative to put them in the right context. You’ll definitely see more of this author here. Highly recommended if you want to understand why it’s still kicking off everywhere!

Cartoon Time.

The *original* Fat Tony....

Just Finished Reading: How to Stage a Military Coup – From Planning to Execution by David Hebditch and Ken Connor (FP: 2009)

When I saw this on Amazon I honestly burst out laughing. I laughed even more when I discovered that it was neither a work of fiction nor a comedy. Written by a documentary film maker and an ex-serving member of the SAS this is actually a stage by stage exploration of military coups from around the world over the past 50 years or so (with the occasional deep history visit to the early 20th century) looking at what went wrong and, more importantly, what want right for each of them. Lessons are then learned and important aspects of each from each point in the process are noted for future reference. Not too surprisingly a copy of this very book was found amongst the belongings of a would-be coup leader on the brink of overthrowing an African dictator. As the authors gleefully pointed out the would-be military leader missed several important messages in the book which would have prevented their coup being discovered and foiled before it got off the ground.

Of course part of the fun of reading a book like this in public (well, at work in my case) in the funny looks you get from people. I had something similar some years ago when I read a book about European counter-terrorism called ‘Shoot the Women First’ on the train on my way into work. But I do enjoy the opportunity to add to my ‘reputation’. No doubt I’m on a watch list somewhere (again). But actually, although this book is about military coups and looks at some of them in considerable depth, the title is something of a misnomer. A more accurate title would have been ‘How NOT to Stage a Military Coup’ as the book spends a great deal of time showing how mistakes either during the planning or execution phase of the coup ended up getting people thrown into prison or shot for their trouble. Naturally lessons are learned from other people’s mistakes but only in a more general sense. Ideas for planning a successful coup are more hinted at than laid out for anyone to try out next time they fall out with the government of the day. If you wanted (or want) to learn how to overthrow your government you’d need to do a lot more reading than this! Luckily there’s a few good books mentioned in the notes section for anyone who fancies it to do some more background reading.

Generally I liked the style of the book very much. Knowledgeable and detailed with more than a hint of sarcasm and sometimes rather dark humour it was often a delight to read. Just about the only thing that irritated me throughout the book was the fact that each section – on the road from planning to execution – was prefaced by a short fictional account of a military coup in England. I actually think the odds of something like that happening are so long that it makes winning the lottery look like a dead cert. Unless something had gone very wrong with this country I doubt very much indeed if any significant numbers of military personnel would even consider overthrowing the government. It’s just silly. I think probably the only case of it ever happening here is at the end of the Civil War in the 17th century and calling it a coup might be stretching the point a bit. But even with this niggle (actually the fiction bits were rather well done!) this was still a fascinating read and will lead to more books on this and similar subjects – the Iranian coup which installed the Shah fostered by both the British and the Americans looks definitely worth more investigation. But if you are planning a coup in the near future you could do worse than start here. It’ll definitely point out some possible pitfalls you might then avoid before you end up in front of a firing squad. But if you are serious – keep on reading once you’ve turned he last page. One book on any subject is generally not enough – especially when your life might depend on it.

"Science promised us truth, or at least a knowledge of such relations as our intelligence can seize: it never promised us peace or happiness. Sovereignly indifferent to our feelings, it is deaf to our lamentations. It is for us to endeavour to live with science, since nothing can bring back the illusions it has destroyed."

Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 

Cartoon Time (click to enlarge).

Big harpoon is 'solution to space junk'

Jonathan Amos, BBC Science correspondent

15 March 2018

Airbus is testing a big harpoon to snare rogue or redundant satellites and pull them out of the sky. The 1m-long projectile would be attached, through a strong tether, to a chase spacecraft. Once the target was captured and under control, the chase vehicle would then drag its prey down into the atmosphere to burn to destruction. Airbus has been working on the concept for a number of years now, developing ever bigger systems. It is a response to the growing problem of orbital junk - old pieces of hardware that continue to circle the globe and which now pose a collision threat to operational satellites.

Something in the region of 20,000 items of 10cm or larger are currently being tracked. The latest Airbus harpoon is being designed with the capability to capture one of the biggest rogue items of the lot - Europe's defunct Envisat Earth observation platform. This 8-tonne behemoth died suddenly in orbit in 2012. "Envisat is the outlier," explained advanced project engineer Alastair Wayman. "If we can design a harpoon that can cope with Envisat, then it should be able to cope with all other types of spacecraft including the many rocket upper-stages that remain in orbit."

The testing at the aerospace company’s facility in Stevenage, UK, involves firing the harpoon, using compressed air, into a panel that is representative of the kinds of material used to build satellite structures. Typically, this takes the form of 3cm-thick, composite honeycomb panels that incorporate a lot of aluminium. "The harpoon goes through these panels like a hot knife through butter," said Mr Wayman. "Once the tip is inside, it has a set of barbs that open up and stop the harpoon from coming back out. We'd then de-tumble the satellite with a tether on the other end." This is where harpoons should come into their own, over other methods of capture such as nets and robotic arms. A harpoon is relatively simple. You line up the target and shoot. "Many of these targets will be tumbling and if you were to use a robotic arm, say, that involves a lot of quite complex motions to follow your target," Mr Wayman explained. "Whereas, with the harpoon, all you have to do is sit a distance away, wait for the target to rotate underneath you, and at the right moment fire your harpoon. And because it's a really quick event, it takes out a lot of the complexity."

You still have to bring the tumbling satellite under control using thrusters on the chase vehicle - but computer simulations show this should be possible. The European Space Agency, which is responsible for Envisat, is considering all options at the moment, and the demonstration missions that fly in the next few years will almost certainly go for easier, more cooperative targets first. Indeed, a miniature version of the Airbus harpoon is set to launch next month on a mission called RemoveDebris. This demonstrator satellite, developed at the Surrey Space Centre, will carry its own piece of junk which it will release and then attempt to retrieve. It will trial a net, but will perform a harpoon test as well to further knowledge about how such systems will behave in the weightless environment of space. For the big harpoon back in Stevenage, it is now ready to move to its next development stage. This will involve firing the projectile over a distance of 25m, the sort of separation over which the real flight model would have to work.

[What a BRILLIANTLY simple idea! Get close enough to the object, fire a harpoon into it (images of while whales again) and drag it out of orbit until it burns up in the atmosphere. Return and repeat as appropriate. Of course, over and above its use to get rid of some of the bigger space junk no doubt other agencies are thinking about its potential as a weapon. Send a harpoon enabled vehicle up and park it next to an ‘enemy’ satellite. Harpoon it and then send your vehicle into a deliberate dive into the atmosphere ‘killing’ both vehicles. The destroyed satellite might not even be able to report what killed it. It’s just go off-line and disappear. You’d have total deniability – so they’re probably doing it already!]

Just Finished Reading: Lucky at Cards by Lawrence Block (FP: 1964)

Billy Maynard is lucky to be alive and he knows it. Caught cheating at a high stakes card game in Chicago he was relived to get out with a damaged hand and a few chipped teeth. Heading for New York he pulls up in a small town to get his teeth fixed and rest his hand. There his dentist offers him a friendly game with his buddies. Whilst not exactly in his normal league Billy is in new of some folding money to pay his hotel bill and anyway needs a bit of practice for his damaged hand. Playing with people completely unaware of his skills is quite relaxing until the wife of one of the players drops a hint that she knows exactly what he’s up to. Oblivious to the hidden meaning of their conversation the players play on and Billy walks away with $30 and a problem. Mrs Murray Rogers, Joyce, knows what he is. The question is: What’s she going to do about it? The answer comes soon enough. She wants out of the marriage but she wants to keep her husband’s money. But that’s another problem. He’s a top lawyer in town and has tied up his marriage in legal knots. She can’t divorce him and can’t even kill him. But there are other ways to get Mr Rogers off the scene – like frame him for a murder he didn’t commit. But what if Murray gets wise to the deal and what if he’s smarter than Billy and Joyce combined?

I must admit that this was probably the best of the 10 Hard Case Crime novels I’ve just finished (one more to review). A nice simple story with a strong plot. A believable main character with history, depth and many likable qualities. A feme fatal with an equally convincing background which explains why she’s the way she is. A bunch of secondary characters that you could meet anywhere and probably recognise. The frame-up makes perfect sense and might even have worked but, as this is a 60’s crime novel just couldn’t could it. I think it’s the sign of a well-constructed novel when you actually feel for the protagonist – even when he’s ‘bad’ as in this case. A very enjoyable read. No great mystery as such as there isn’t really a crime to solve before the detective gets there but there’s still a great feel of oppressive dread especially towards the end. Recommended for all those lovers of crime without the blood or sex of much of today’s fare (although to be honest there is some sex in this one!).   

Cartoon Time.

Just Finished Reading: The Battle of Matapan by S W C Pack (FP: 1961)

March, 1941. With the arrival of HMS Formidable everything changed. The fast armoured deck carrier provided fighter cover to fend off enemy bombers, reconnaissance plans to find the enemy and a mix of dive bombers and torpedo planes to attack them. Easily capable of keeping up with the largely aging Eastern Mediterranean fleet it was the jewel in the crown that Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham had been waiting for. No longer blind and no longer keeping a wary eye set for enemy stuka’s he could at last do what he had longed for – to find, fix and destroy the Italian fleet at sea. But such a task was going to be far from easy. The Italians had some of the best ships afloat – new, fast and heavily armed. Meanwhile the British fleet dated from the previous war and, although impressive in themselves, had no hope of catching their much faster prey without air support and a fair dose of luck. But this time luck, for a change, was on the side of the Allies. Suspecting that the Italian fleet intended attacking British convoys between their Egyptian bases and landing fields on Crete and in Greece Admiral Cunningham decided to spring a trap.

Sailing from Alexandria without a hint of suspicion making its way to the Italians or their German allies the Eastern Mediterranean fleet headed out into deeper water with cruisers racing ahead to make initial contact with the enemy. At dawn Formidable flew off her spotter planes and waited for reports coming back. Hours passed with no news and little to do except wait. Initial contact reports were dismissed as mistaken reports of their own cruisers and ignored. That was the first mistake and it was a big one – the ships were those of the enemy. When the mixed force of cruisers and destroyers finally made contact sometime later they turned back towards the fleets heavy units unaware that a much larger enemy force lay between them and the safety of the British main fleet. Unknown to anyone aboard the British cruisers they were about to come within rage of the Italian battleship Vittorio Vento.

Almost before anyone knew what was happening the British ships came under accurate fire from a much superior Italian cruiser force both faster and more heavily armed than its British counterparts. After brief close quarter exchanges of fire the British ships did the only logical thing – they tried to disengage and left the scene at high speed hoping that they would be under the protection of the British battleships approaching their position before the pursuing Italian cruisers can attack in force. As they pulled away with little confidence that they could escape for long their fears were realised in a rather abrupt manner when they started receiving heavy fire from ahead. They had stumbled into the main enemy force consisting of a battleship, cruisers and destroyers. Heavily outnumbered and seriously outgunned it looked very bad indeed for the British cruiser force. But the Italian commander was unaware that the British main fleet was approaching at top speed and that Formidable’s planes were already on their way. When the planes where first spotted by the Italians it was assumed that they were German bombers from coastal airfields. Only when they began their attack runs did the truth dawn on each Italian commander. The British must had an aircraft carrier close and if that was the case a battle fleet must be nearby. This was no longer an action to crush a few enemy cruisers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

With dive bombers and torpedo planes attacking in sequence and each enemy ship valiantly attempted to avoid destruction the British cruisers took the opportunity to make good their escape and return without loss to the main fleet. Meanwhile the Italians were doing less well against deadly air attack. Dropping both bombs and torpedoes from almost suicidal close range the British planes managed to score a number of hits none more deadly than on one of the heavy cruisers who pitched out of the battle line and stopped dead in the water unable to make any headway. Unaware of this calamity the Italian admiral, once the attacking planes had turned for home, ordered his force to return to base fully confident that his ships superior speed would get everyone safely out of the danger zone. Only sometime later did he realise that he had left a cruiser behind practically defenceless in hostile waters. It was here that he made the fateful decision to split his force with the battleship and her escorts continuing for home base and a force of cruisers and destroyers sent back to bring his damaged ship home. Without the advantage of radar – something the British had but the Italians had yet to employ – the commander of the cruiser force had no idea that he was being sent straight into the British main battle fleet.

As night closed in the British relied more and more on their often temperamental radar system and couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing on their screens. Ahead of them, barely three miles away was a large stationary blip originally thought to be the damaged Italian battleship. As they approached cautiously closer the surprise turned to shock as the Italian relief force passed ahead of them seemingly oblivious to the presence of the British force. Trained in night action and with radar to guide them the British ships opened fire on the unsuspecting Italians at point blank range. With scant seconds between the huge guns of the battle fleet opening fire and the shells arriving on target the Italian ships had no chance to avoid contact or fire back. They were caught in a deadly hail of shells which ripped ships in half and pummelled the wreckage before the burning hulks turned over and sank. Within minutes several enemy cruisers and destroyers were burning uncontrollably and their shocked crews were jumping over the side before they exploded. Oddly in the middle of the conflagration the original Italian cruiser remained untouched until stumbled upon by a British destroyer. Unwilling to attack a ship obviously incapable of defending itself the crew were taken off before torpedoes sent her to the bottom. For no losses and no casualties the British had just destroyed three cruisers and two destroyers, severally damaged the battleship and damaged a number of other ships in the Italian fleet. From then on the Italians would no longer pose a threat to British interests in the Mediterranean and, although it only became a British ‘lake’ much later in the war it was no longer an area under Italian control or domination.

Related by an officer actually based on HMS Formidable during this period this was a fascinating personal account of one of the major naval engagements of the Mediterranean conflict. It was a turning point in British domination of the Easter Mediterranean which they never lost subsequently. Because of that the British had control of the Suez Canal and could much more easily reinforce their forces in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. Without it the desert war, and the desert victory so important to the eventual invasion of Italy would have been much more difficult to achieve. An excellent read for anyone interested in this often overlooked theatre of war. This is the last in my naval triple read. After a short detour into other historical subjects I’ll finally be reading my Russia triple, followed by the RAF and China.

Cartoon Time.

Poor rural Victorians 'had best diet'

From The BBC

9 March 2018

Poor, rural societies which ate high-quality foods bought locally had the best diet and health in mid-Victorian Britain, a new report has revealed. The healthiest regions, measured by low mortality rates, were often the most isolated. In those areas, people would have consumed plenty of locally-produced potatoes, whole grains, vegetables, fish and milk. There were also fewer deaths there from pulmonary tuberculosis. This suggests people had better diets, the researchers writing in JRSM Open suggest. They found the most nutritious diets were enjoyed in isolated, rural areas of England, the mainland and islands of Scotland and the west of Ireland - which was at that time part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Dr Peter Greaves, study author from the Leicester Cancer Research Centre, said: "The fact that these better-fed regions of Britain also showed lower mortality rates is entirely consistent with recent studies that have shown a decreased risk of death, following improvement towards a higher Mediterranean dietary standard. The rural diet was often better for the poor in more isolated areas because of payment in kind, notably in grain, potatoes, meat, milk or small patches of land to grow vegetables or to keep animals. Unfortunately, these societies were in the process of disappearing under the pressure of urbanisation, commercial farming and migration." Dr Greaves said these changes in Victorian society led to worse diets among poor, rural populations and resulted in locally-produced food becoming less diverse - something that has since occurred across the world.

In the middle of the 19th Century, fewer than half of the near 19 million people in England and Wales were living in large urban centres. Among the three million population of Scotland, only one million lived in town districts, while fewer than 30% of the 5.5 million population of Ireland was urban. For many poor people across Britain, white bread made from bolted wheat flour was the staple component of the diet. When they could afford it, people would supplement this with vegetables, fruit and animal-derived foods such as meat, fish, milk, cheese and eggs - a Mediterranean-style diet. Poor people living in wealthier farming districts who were usually paid in cash often had great difficulty getting these foods on a regular basis, but in more isolated areas of Britain milk and fish were more accessible. A good number of country dwellers lived to ripe old ages, the researchers said. In the poor rural districts of Connaught in the west of Ireland, for example, nearly 20% of people reached the age of 65 or more and some reached the age of 95 or even 100.

[I always suspected that civilisation and especially urbanisation was fundamentally a bad decision on someone’s part. Of course it’s also true that some of the best and healthiest diets we’ve had in the UK for quite some years was during the government rationing during WW2. With little to binge on and an enforced (except for the rich and powerful naturally) balanced diet people’s health actually improved during the war years rather than, as most expected, decline due to lack of imported produce. Plus of course in both cases of the Victorians and WW2 there was a significant lack of processed food. Basically if you want to live longer healthier lives stop eating crap.]

Just Finished Reading: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (FP: 2016)

At 36 Dr Kalanithi was on his way to becoming a top-flight neurosurgeon, a man at the top of a difficult field with his whole future ahead of him. He had a new wife, a bright future and a life-long dream of making a difference helping people. Then one morning he woke to crippling back pain. Not overly surprised or worried – he was after all standing up in an operating theatre and bending over patients for hours at a time – he took some painkillers and got on with his day. The pain subsided and he thought nothing more of it. Then weeks later it happened again only worse this time. Still thinking it was nothing he went to his own hospital and booked himself in for an MRI scan. Not expecting to find anything worse that a compressed vertebrae or other spinal related problems he was incredulous at the probable cause – cancer. After the initial shock wore off it was time for him and his wife – both experienced medical practitioners – to make decisions: chemo or radiation therapy, work or no work, what was important to keep and worth any risks they needed to take. Immediately he asked the question no doubt on everyone’s lips – how long? Not willing to put a date on it his doctor (an expert in the field) told him that the most important thing he could focus on was fighting the disease. Everything else would arrive in its own time. So fight they would. But they would also do one other thing – they would have a child now rather than leaving it to later in their careers. All of a sudden there was no ‘later’ without the risk of it being simply too late. Paul’s career could have gone one of two ways. Passionate about the written word from his earliest days he often imagined himself as an author. Equally passionate about medicine and about the brain in particular he wanted to use his skill to save people’s lives. With that option potentially closed to him Paul decided to spend whatever time he had left – 8 months it turned out – to write this book about his battle with cancer and his thoughts about what makes life worth living in the face of death.

After reading ‘Being Mortal – Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End’ by Atul Gawande I couldn’t help but compare these two similar works, similar as topic goes anyway. Paul’s book was, as you might expect, a far more personal narrative than ‘Being Mortal’. Oddly because of this I actually found this book surprisingly less satisfying than the previous foray into death and the meaning of life. Possibly because of the much narrower focus on Paul and his immediate family, possibly because ‘Being Mortal’ looked not only at death itself and how individuals coped (or didn’t) with its approach but how western society at large shied away from the reality of death and practically ignored it when it couldn’t hide from it. ‘Being Mortal’ was, I found, a much more cultural book than Paul’s well written emotional memoir and I liked it (although ‘like’ is probably not exactly the appropriate word her) more because of that. This is not to say that Paul’s book was poor because it certainly was not. It’s thoughtful, emotionally rich and deeply personal. It puts you right inside someone’s head when they are presented with a fact beyond argument that will change their life far from what they imagined it would be. Recommended.

Cartoon Time.

Just Finished Reading: Deadly Beloved by Max Allan Collins (FP: 2007)

It hardly gets more open and shut than this. A cheated on wife, a husband caught in the act with a hooker and a gun emptied into their joint bed killing both of them. But first impressions can be deceiving. Why was the wife ‘off her meds’? Who tipped her off that her husband was having an illicit affair and why did a known hooker, who didn’t exactly need to be persuaded to do her job, have the date-rape drug in her system? For female PI Ms Michael Tree (Ms Tree – Mystery, get it!) it’s a case her agency can hardly refuse especially when it’s brought to her by her previous boss on the police department and there seems to be a link to her own husband’s death just before their honeymoon. The conspiracy she begins to uncover has been in place for years dating from the conviction of a notorious crime lord and his daughter’s take-over and legitimisation of the ‘business’. The question is: Has the business rally gone legit and why do the families opponents keep dying in seemingly random accidents and acts of violence. Finding out could be the making of the detective agency or it could reunite Ms Tree with her husband – permanently.

Once you got over the somewhat contrived nature of the plot this turned out to be a really fun read. Michael Tree (confusingly both the husband’s & wife’s name!) was a great character, always really with a snappy come-back, a fist or a bullet and wasn’t afraid to take the bad-guy down even if she had then to explain her actions to the police (again). People did tend to die or get really messed up around her I can certainly say that – a bit like watching a female Dirty Harry at work! General characterisation was very good – and not just for the main characters. They all had their own unique backstories and motivations which made sense. The plot kept me guessing until about 2/3 of the way through when I clued into a fair chunk of the mystery so I wasn’t 100% surprised by the reveal but it was nice to figure at least some of the narrative before the author laid it out. That’s always a satisfying feeling. Unfortunately, to date, there hasn’t been any more Tree mysteries in novel form but there is, apparently, a whole comic book series out there which I was unaware of. There’s even talk of a movie at some point but nothing confirmed yet. I’d certainly read more of her books and give the movie a once over if the trailer was OK and they picked the right person for the role. I think I’ll also be checking out more crime novels by this author. MUCH better than the last Hard Case crime novel. Recommend for all crime buffs.   

Cartoon Time.

Twitter users mock Trump for linking video games to gun violence

By Tom Gerken for BBC Social News

2 March 2018

"Video game violence and glorification must be stopped - it is creating monsters!" Six years after Donald Trump tweeted his views on video game violence, it seems he is looking to take action. In a White House briefing following the Florida school shooting, when press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked about the president's policy on gun control she said Donald Trump will "be meeting with members of the video game industry to see what they can do on that front". Ms Sanders response has been widely discussed on social media, with some criticising the president for pointing the finger at fictional guns, rather than actual firearms.

Some people wondered if they had inadvertently stumbled into the past, as the relationship between video games and violent behaviour has long been debated in the media. One person asked why the White House was discussing video games, saying that Trump "has plenty of ideas for ending mass shootings, except gun control". While artist and director Rob Sheridan, known for his work with music group Nine Inch Nails, wondered if game industry executives might suggest similar measures. This was followed by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane pointing out that "other countries without America's gun problem also have video games". And one person tried to find the funny side of things, re-writing Australia's 1996 gun ban for comic effect. But some people praised Trump for taking action, with one person saying the president is "doing more and engaging more than Obama did", and another applauding Trump for addressing the "surrounding issues" of guns. Meanwhile, Twitter users have begun to question exactly who it is that Donald Trump intends on meeting. Video game journalist Jason Schreier tweeted that the Entertainment Software Association, whose members include many of the largest game publishers in the United States, says neither the ESA nor its members have been invited to a meeting. And if a meeting does happen, one person wondered how the meeting could go ahead without causing contention.

[Of course violent video games in particular have long been blamed for actually violence in real life (IRL). Yet study after study has shown no such link. Literally millions of people – including me – play violent computer games and have done for years without harming, never mind killing, another human being. Plus, as Seth McFarlane rightly points out, both computer games and violent movies are universal products sold across the world – except in a very few places where they are banned or heavily censored. Yet the gun violence problem is most acute, by a LONG way, in only one culture – America. So call me sceptical if you wish but how do you explain a clear lack of real violence caused by these items across the globe and yet, rather mysteriously, there is a link (which equally mysteriously cannot be pinned down) between violent games and actual violence in one rather unique culture. Surely, logically, this points in one direction only? That it is American culture, rather than violent games, that is producing the real violence. Of course any country that tries honestly looking at its own culture searching for faults will be rather reluctant to do so and even more reluctant to find them and make them public so I guess the blame game will continue a bit longer before people give up and American gun violence is seen as simply ‘inexplicable’.]

"Taking power implies taking it away from its holders, not by occupying their posts but by making it permanently impossible for them to keep their machinery of domination running. Revolution is first and foremost the irreversible destruction of this machinery. It implies a form of collective practice capable of bypassing and superseding it through the development of an alternative network of relations."

Andre Gorz, 1980.

Ever wondered if some people have too much time on their hands?

Just Finished Reading: Militant Modernism by Owen Hatherley (FP: 2008)

Some of you might be aware that I have a ‘bit of a thing’ about an architectural style called – not without reason – Brutalism. You’ll know the style even if you hadn’t up till that point know what to call it. A Brutalist building is something you see for the first time, stare at it in disbelief, try to wrap you head around how anyone could think of such a thing, never mind actually build it and, once you get over the shock walk away repeating under your breath…. WTF…. WTF…. WTF. Almost always made from completely non-fashioned bare concrete with towering flat surfaces and a no-nonsense feel to them they were designed to stand apart from the previous flow of design up to that point. Brutalism was a break with tradition, a rupture in the architectural culture purposefully designed to shock people out of their semi-conscious state and, in a real sense, wake them up to be receptive to new ideas and new ways of living. Depending how you view the movement the fact that precious few of the designs actually made it off the drawing board either fills you with delight or a nostalgia for a future we never actually had. That, the author maintains, is how we should see modernist architecture – not as something that happened in the past (generally from the 1920’s until the early 1970’s) – but something that still looks forward, still shocks and is still a break from design traditions. It should still have the power, even in its often dilapidated state to wake us up from the bland world where each city, each hotel, each airport, each house is interchangeable between Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Madrid or London. But the shock of the modern went far beyond concrete and glass. Modernism thrived in the theatre and the movie theatre. Russian and German playwrights and film directors used the modernist philosophy to produce works of art that have largely been forgotten by the ironically named modern world (obsessed as it is with nostalgia for things long dead). But some survive – especially the work of Bertoit Brecht whose plays are still performed and studied today. Modernism is alive and well, sometimes buried in rubble, sometimes buried in underground storage units and sometimes buried in criticism and university classrooms but it’s there – waiting and still so very modern.

This was a (short) book very much in three parts. The first part, which I enjoyed a great deal, was on Brutalist architecture and renewed my interest in that field (of which more later). The second part I found equally bizarre and difficult to get my head around – Soviet modernist cinema. As it was something very much outside my experience or knowledge I did find myself floundering a bit. The third part was an almost as strange (and difficult) discussion of modernist theatre again in the Soviet Union and 1920’s Germany. Which, again, was very far outside my comfort zone! But I must admit that, although much in this slim volume was knew (and very strange) to me I did manage to pick up enough to both keep reading and decide to investigate aspects of modernism further. I’m definitely getting the idea that this publishing house (Zero Books) excel in pushing the envelope of present day thought beyond the mundane and every-day. They’ve certainly stretched my mind more than once. Much more to come from them I assure you.

Well, after the roller-coaster that was Love & Relationships Month here @ SaLT welcome to Mad March (and it's pretty mad out there believe me!). So, upcoming is four weeks of the bizarre, the strange and the weird. Enjoy!!