I have a hard-disc recorder, and therefore a film collection approaching 500 films.
I have recently discovered that I can copy broadcast films recorded by me to my computer directly, and avoid keeping space consuming DVDs.
This also has the advantage of making all of my films available to me, and only leaves me with the problem of choice. Which is of course a considerable one.
Because I have a hard-disc recorder, I can also edit advertisements from my film collection, and watch films uninterrupted.
I almost said as they were intended, but in some respects of course this is to fail to recognize that films have always been a commodity, like almost everything else, and it has probably been true since the invention of the purpose built cinema that as much has been earned from the peripherals such as ice creams and popcorn as from the display of pictures.
I can just about remember the time when films were shown continuously in cinemas, so that you could pay your entry fee, and join the film at the point at which you arrived at the cinema, presumably staying as long as you are needed to catch the entire beginning.
This practice presumably came to an end as part of the process of cinemas becoming smarter places with more comfortable seats, and giving time between performances for the mess left by users to be cleaned up.
And possibly as part of the process of poverty being eradicated as a general component of everyday life.
I am sure that these open all day cinemas, just like public libraries, must have provided a useful place for the homeless to keep warm in a degree of comfort all day.
At a time when entry fees were considerably less than they are at present.
And thus cinema has developed as society has developed, and as I have become adept at removing adverts from my films, I have also begun to be aware of the way in which the length of films has developed over time.
Of course, broadcast films shown with adverts take up considerably more disc space and time duration than when edited.
Thus I would estimate that that the average film length is about two hours.
It used to be much less, perhaps in the days when we had much less time to spend watching them.
I would say that many of the older films that I have in my collection are as short as an hour and a half, and although this length is not by any means unusual in modern times, it is noticeable that average length has become around two hours.
I suspect that a film historian would be able to tell me that in earlier times, even shorter films were more common, and that this was the consequence of reel length, in the days when actual film was used as the means of displaying films.
Thus, films would be described as a six reeler or a four reeler, each reel containing about 10 minutes of film.
I suspect there are forgotten sociological reasons for film length, so that in the early days of film with an inexperienced audience, shorter films would have been what the audience could cope with.
As audiences became more sophisticated, and indeed as films became more sophisticated, longer films would have become more acceptable. And more saleable, because we must remember that film is a commodity, sold as much on its merits as much as its less obvious factors, such as the comfort of where they are shown.
And their duration must have been affected by the amount of time available to the audience.
I would imagine it would have been unthinkable to show something of the duration of the Lord Of The Rings to an audience from the 1950s, although I may well be wrong.
So for example the Wagner operas have been shown for many years and at the original theatre in Bayreuth, the seats for these five or six hour epic performances were famously hard on the bottom.
I have had the good fortune (as I consider it) to have been able to see Tristan And Isolde half a dozen times without having to pay, when I worked in the world of opera. Not as a singer, I hasten to add.
The intervals in such epic performances are of sufficient duration for the audience to eat a restaurant meal, often with associated restaurants. Such is the stamina required for such performances.
Interestingly, the average opera performance duration is about three hours, but for the operas of Puccini such as la Boehme it is closer to two hours.
And these were targeted in effect at a broader social audience, and represented as being more realistic in their context and style.
And perhaps shorter because the attention span of the intended audience was considered to be less than that for a three or four hour opera.
I suspect there may be commercial reasons for the subtle increase in length of the average film, such as the number of advertisement breaks when it is shown on commercial television.
But pay attention, we talk about our time being our own, but I sometimes wonder if we are not always being somehow manipulated in the way that we spend it.
And over time, as we spend money and time differently, business will always find ways of making us spend it to its advantage.
Tuesday 29 January 2013
Sunday 27 January 2013
The Product Of Our Forefathers
A few days ago I was asked an interesting question, which made me think long and hard. The question was a simple one, to name some of my favourite websites.
Perhaps like many apparently simple questions, this is one of those that can be very revealing, and much more interesting than at first glance.
And perhaps typically, I have only just realised that I omitted to include what I think of as a very important website.
Important for all sorts of reasons, but perhaps the key reason is one of those aspects of the Internet which make it so interesting and important.
Because this particular website, in my own case, is particularly helpful in understanding something of the origins and circumstances of family members, particularly from the Victorian period.
The website is William Booth's poverty map of the east end of London.
This map was put together by the man that went on to found the salvation army, and throughout his life he threw much attention on the issues caused by poverty in the east end of London in particular.
I was born and brought up in the east end of London, which I suppose in American terms might have been described as downtown London.
Throughout English history, the East end has been an important factor in the wealth of London, and has certainly played an important part in the wealth of what was once the British Empire.
This is perhaps for one particular reason, and that is the fact that it is the location for the London docks.
These docks were once at the heart of this trading nation, where ships from all over the world would bring their wealth and produce. And where there was always a willing workforce to undertake any aspect of those trades which contributed to the wealth of the united kingdom.
For it was always to the slums of the East end that immigrants to this thriving metropolis came perhaps for the first start in making a new life for themselves, in one of the largest cities in the world.
My father was a stevedore in those London docks, and I lived most of my early life within a stone's throw of where my father worked almost his entire working life.
In modern London, dockland is a place where much modern development has taken place, creating part of the new infrastructure from which the city makes much of its money.
Many gigantic multi-storey buildings have been constructed perhaps where once stood the dockside places that received and stored the produce of the world.
Many of those warehouses have been converted to loft apartments which are some of the most expensive places to live in London today, often boasting wonderful views of the River Thames and located centrally in what has been reborn from its grimy working past.
The poverty maps of London were created by a small army of Christian evangelists keen to do something to challenge the problems created by this poor and disadvantaged environment, in which so many people grew up.
So many communities of refugees have made this part of London their first home, such as Huguenots fleeing Catholic persecution in the 18th century from Holland, through to in more modern times Bengali and Indian immigrants from the former Empire.
Much of the east end was for many years the place where Jewish communities, so often persecuted even in England, found sufficient toleration for a thriving cloth and tailoring community to be founded, along with so much of the cultural associations of that diverse community.
The importance of the poverty maps is the way in which it can give an extraordinary insight into the living conditions of relatives that in my case so often grew up in the heart of this community. Shoreditch is where so many of my ancestors grew up, and as I have researched my family tree, like so many people these days with the help of the Internet and online databases that can give access to Census information which in this country is available from 1841, which so often provides an address.
The poverty maps can provide an extraordinary insight into the wealth or otherwise of individual streets, and a clear indication of the social status of the people living in particular houses in particular streets.
In most cases, my family roots lie in the middle strata of the poorer classes living and working in London in the 19th century, rather than the criminally poor whose location is identified so clearly in the poverty maps.
So often the trade pursued by parents stretches back to their parents and so forth, so that my stevedore father had as a father a merchant seaman.
Genealogy is perhaps one of the luxuries that we can appreciate in the modern world where we have more leisure to spend than most of our predecessors.
It is though one of those most valuable of pursuits, which can give some sense of perspective on the modern lives that we lead.
It is unfortunate that I totally forgot this important website in my list of websites, as it really is an important insight into the person that I am, the person that I have become thanks to the innumerable antecedents on whose shoulders I stand.
Perhaps like many apparently simple questions, this is one of those that can be very revealing, and much more interesting than at first glance.
And perhaps typically, I have only just realised that I omitted to include what I think of as a very important website.
Important for all sorts of reasons, but perhaps the key reason is one of those aspects of the Internet which make it so interesting and important.
Because this particular website, in my own case, is particularly helpful in understanding something of the origins and circumstances of family members, particularly from the Victorian period.
The website is William Booth's poverty map of the east end of London.
This map was put together by the man that went on to found the salvation army, and throughout his life he threw much attention on the issues caused by poverty in the east end of London in particular.
I was born and brought up in the east end of London, which I suppose in American terms might have been described as downtown London.
Throughout English history, the East end has been an important factor in the wealth of London, and has certainly played an important part in the wealth of what was once the British Empire.
This is perhaps for one particular reason, and that is the fact that it is the location for the London docks.
These docks were once at the heart of this trading nation, where ships from all over the world would bring their wealth and produce. And where there was always a willing workforce to undertake any aspect of those trades which contributed to the wealth of the united kingdom.
For it was always to the slums of the East end that immigrants to this thriving metropolis came perhaps for the first start in making a new life for themselves, in one of the largest cities in the world.
My father was a stevedore in those London docks, and I lived most of my early life within a stone's throw of where my father worked almost his entire working life.
In modern London, dockland is a place where much modern development has taken place, creating part of the new infrastructure from which the city makes much of its money.
Many gigantic multi-storey buildings have been constructed perhaps where once stood the dockside places that received and stored the produce of the world.
Many of those warehouses have been converted to loft apartments which are some of the most expensive places to live in London today, often boasting wonderful views of the River Thames and located centrally in what has been reborn from its grimy working past.
The poverty maps of London were created by a small army of Christian evangelists keen to do something to challenge the problems created by this poor and disadvantaged environment, in which so many people grew up.
So many communities of refugees have made this part of London their first home, such as Huguenots fleeing Catholic persecution in the 18th century from Holland, through to in more modern times Bengali and Indian immigrants from the former Empire.
Much of the east end was for many years the place where Jewish communities, so often persecuted even in England, found sufficient toleration for a thriving cloth and tailoring community to be founded, along with so much of the cultural associations of that diverse community.
The importance of the poverty maps is the way in which it can give an extraordinary insight into the living conditions of relatives that in my case so often grew up in the heart of this community. Shoreditch is where so many of my ancestors grew up, and as I have researched my family tree, like so many people these days with the help of the Internet and online databases that can give access to Census information which in this country is available from 1841, which so often provides an address.
The poverty maps can provide an extraordinary insight into the wealth or otherwise of individual streets, and a clear indication of the social status of the people living in particular houses in particular streets.
In most cases, my family roots lie in the middle strata of the poorer classes living and working in London in the 19th century, rather than the criminally poor whose location is identified so clearly in the poverty maps.
So often the trade pursued by parents stretches back to their parents and so forth, so that my stevedore father had as a father a merchant seaman.
Genealogy is perhaps one of the luxuries that we can appreciate in the modern world where we have more leisure to spend than most of our predecessors.
It is though one of those most valuable of pursuits, which can give some sense of perspective on the modern lives that we lead.
It is unfortunate that I totally forgot this important website in my list of websites, as it really is an important insight into the person that I am, the person that I have become thanks to the innumerable antecedents on whose shoulders I stand.
Monday 21 January 2013
Strange And Unexpected Connections
There is a strange and unexpected connection between my first novel plot and my second.
It is one of those subtle connections that I only discovered recently when I was researching the flight of Rudolf Hess to Scotland in 1941.
This was partly because I was looking into the background of Lord Halifax, for a blog article.
What I discovered was that Rudolf Hess commissioned a survey of all Ley lines in Germany, when he was Hitler's deputy and perhaps more ‘respectable’ than he became after his flight to Scotland.
These lines were first explored in Britain by Alfred Watkins in 1924, when he published first a short pamphlet, followed a couple of years later by a more developed book on the subject.
The Wikipedia article about Nazi interest in the occult does not have a citation as yet, but in the article about Rudolf Hess information is provided about his commissioning of a survey of all such lines in Nazi Germany.
This is interesting to me, since my second novel, as yet not completed, is very much based upon these "lines of power".
In my story, the first four chapters of which are published in my collection of short stories which can be read online, the exploration of a particular ‘line of power’ called the Dragon Line, is central to my plot.
What is unusual about this line is that it can be drawn very accurately on for example Google maps and it connects a whole series of sacred sites in the South of England.
Including Glastonbury, Avebury, and numerous others that fall precisely on the dragon line, or on one of its subsidiary lines which travel either side of the main line in much less direct fashion.
These are called the Michael line and the Mary line, one represented as the female line, and the other as the male.
There is a wonderful story about the way in which all three lines intersect in the nave of Bury St Edmunds Cathedral, and it is said that those that are sensitive to such lines can detect the way in which these lines "kiss" in the nave of that cathedral.
To be honest, the truth or otherwise of the existence of these "lines of power" and their purpose is of less importance to me then the simple fact that they are given some credence particularly by "new age" thinkers.
My novel is planned to be a a kind of riposte to Dan Brown's best selling conspiracy theory thrillers, in that my story it is partly about the credence given to these lines, and the obsessiveness with which one person in particular explores them in the late 60s, but it falls to his son to complete the work of the father, who dies mysteriously young, leaving behind a body of research that he expects his son to complete.
Given that the library of the father, absent from the household because of his demise, contains so many works that capture the interest of the growing young man, he studies anthropology at university, and when his studies are completed his father's bequest and request that he continue and complete what he had begun all those years before sets in train my story.
I won't reveal any more of the plot, but suffice to say that it involves a practical exploration of the Dragon line, and is I suppose a quest story. There are some strange true facts which might be considered surprising coincidences, so for example where the Dragon Line leaves the land at the extreme east of England, is exactly at the point where North Sea gas is piped into the mainland, just south of great Yarmouth.
There is much opportunity for false trails and conspiracy theories, but ultimately it is a human story, and one that like in any quest story, is more about the person undertaking the quest than what is being sought.
Since it has taken me more than 20 years to complete my first novel, I don't expect this one to take less time. But then I do have the help of modern technology like Google maps, which is just as well since my severe disability means I would not be able to walk the line myself.
I have also linked it with an unusual antiquarian book that I am fortunate to have a copy of, published in 1676, and containing the first ever representation in pictorial form of what the Druids looked like.
It contains a number of interesting engravings of fine quality, and what is remarkable is the way in which all images of Druids after this date, such as those presented by Stukeley who attributed the site at Avebury which he first surveyed in the 18th century, resemble in substantial detail those first images or from 1676.
And that first image remarkably resembles Gandalf the Grey from the Lord Of The Rings, so perhaps that series of films also involved someone looking at this volume, which any university library would be proud to own.
It is famous for being the least accurate history of Britain that exists from this period, and it also includes genealogies of the English kings, tracing many of them back to Noah.
In the style of the day, it has one of those titles that is quite lengthy, so that it is Britannia Antiqua Illustrata, a history of Britain from the Phoenicians to the present day, and its inaccuracy gives me great latitude to extrapolate and explore such seemingly unrelated things as the trade routes for Cornish tin across Europe and the known world, tin of course being the essential ingredient added to copper to make Bronze.
It is another unusual fact that there are a very limited number of sources for tin across the world, and so I suppose I like to think of my second novel as being a novel about the way the earth itself has guided human development. Perhaps the first Gaia novel. Or perhaps not......
It is one of those subtle connections that I only discovered recently when I was researching the flight of Rudolf Hess to Scotland in 1941.
This was partly because I was looking into the background of Lord Halifax, for a blog article.
What I discovered was that Rudolf Hess commissioned a survey of all Ley lines in Germany, when he was Hitler's deputy and perhaps more ‘respectable’ than he became after his flight to Scotland.
These lines were first explored in Britain by Alfred Watkins in 1924, when he published first a short pamphlet, followed a couple of years later by a more developed book on the subject.
The Wikipedia article about Nazi interest in the occult does not have a citation as yet, but in the article about Rudolf Hess information is provided about his commissioning of a survey of all such lines in Nazi Germany.
This is interesting to me, since my second novel, as yet not completed, is very much based upon these "lines of power".
In my story, the first four chapters of which are published in my collection of short stories which can be read online, the exploration of a particular ‘line of power’ called the Dragon Line, is central to my plot.
What is unusual about this line is that it can be drawn very accurately on for example Google maps and it connects a whole series of sacred sites in the South of England.
Including Glastonbury, Avebury, and numerous others that fall precisely on the dragon line, or on one of its subsidiary lines which travel either side of the main line in much less direct fashion.
These are called the Michael line and the Mary line, one represented as the female line, and the other as the male.
There is a wonderful story about the way in which all three lines intersect in the nave of Bury St Edmunds Cathedral, and it is said that those that are sensitive to such lines can detect the way in which these lines "kiss" in the nave of that cathedral.
To be honest, the truth or otherwise of the existence of these "lines of power" and their purpose is of less importance to me then the simple fact that they are given some credence particularly by "new age" thinkers.
My novel is planned to be a a kind of riposte to Dan Brown's best selling conspiracy theory thrillers, in that my story it is partly about the credence given to these lines, and the obsessiveness with which one person in particular explores them in the late 60s, but it falls to his son to complete the work of the father, who dies mysteriously young, leaving behind a body of research that he expects his son to complete.
Given that the library of the father, absent from the household because of his demise, contains so many works that capture the interest of the growing young man, he studies anthropology at university, and when his studies are completed his father's bequest and request that he continue and complete what he had begun all those years before sets in train my story.
I won't reveal any more of the plot, but suffice to say that it involves a practical exploration of the Dragon line, and is I suppose a quest story. There are some strange true facts which might be considered surprising coincidences, so for example where the Dragon Line leaves the land at the extreme east of England, is exactly at the point where North Sea gas is piped into the mainland, just south of great Yarmouth.
There is much opportunity for false trails and conspiracy theories, but ultimately it is a human story, and one that like in any quest story, is more about the person undertaking the quest than what is being sought.
Since it has taken me more than 20 years to complete my first novel, I don't expect this one to take less time. But then I do have the help of modern technology like Google maps, which is just as well since my severe disability means I would not be able to walk the line myself.
I have also linked it with an unusual antiquarian book that I am fortunate to have a copy of, published in 1676, and containing the first ever representation in pictorial form of what the Druids looked like.
It contains a number of interesting engravings of fine quality, and what is remarkable is the way in which all images of Druids after this date, such as those presented by Stukeley who attributed the site at Avebury which he first surveyed in the 18th century, resemble in substantial detail those first images or from 1676.
And that first image remarkably resembles Gandalf the Grey from the Lord Of The Rings, so perhaps that series of films also involved someone looking at this volume, which any university library would be proud to own.
It is famous for being the least accurate history of Britain that exists from this period, and it also includes genealogies of the English kings, tracing many of them back to Noah.
In the style of the day, it has one of those titles that is quite lengthy, so that it is Britannia Antiqua Illustrata, a history of Britain from the Phoenicians to the present day, and its inaccuracy gives me great latitude to extrapolate and explore such seemingly unrelated things as the trade routes for Cornish tin across Europe and the known world, tin of course being the essential ingredient added to copper to make Bronze.
It is another unusual fact that there are a very limited number of sources for tin across the world, and so I suppose I like to think of my second novel as being a novel about the way the earth itself has guided human development. Perhaps the first Gaia novel. Or perhaps not......
Saturday 19 January 2013
Time Travel Is Almost A Reality
The quote is from Isaiah 39.2, that forms the title in effect of the painting by Rembrandt which has been lost since the 18th century.
Its subject is not difficult to imagine. It will be one of those pictures that has a strong moral message, simply because of the subject matter.
In my imagination, the fact that it has been lost to history is tied up inextricably with that moral message.
So for the purposes of my novel, I have imagined that the picture itself would have been considered a treasure worthy of appropriation by somebody powerful and barbaric, just as in the bible reference.
In full, my understanding of it is Hezekiah showing the treasures of the Temple to the King of the Babylonians.
The scene represented in the painting is described elsewhere in the Bible, in Kings two.
And no doubt potentially elsewhere, since the destruction of the First temple by the barbarian hordes is something well documented as an act of sacrilege and barbarism.
it is always tantalising to imagine that something as valuable as a Rembrandt painting might still exist somewhere in the world.
In my novel, I go so far as to describe the painting, when it is displayed in a small private gallery somewhere in London prior to its intended auction.
Such a sale would indeed attract international interest.
There have been many examples in the past, of works by the great masters being discovered and authenticated by experts who can use modern techniques to examine every aspect of a painting, even going so far as to perceive under painting which can shed light on the origins of a canvas, and link it with a particular artist or studio.
This potential lost masterwork came to my attention because of the PhD thesis of a friend of mine, who was attempting to establish which paintings were being displayed at Temple Newsome in the 18th century.
Such a task is by no means straightforward.
Suffice to say that my friend did obtain his PhD, and has been the curator of a fabulous country house in rural Yorkshire, looking after a varied collection that has been associated for many centuries with this relatively intact estate.
It is a sad fact of history that little remains of the lives of ordinary people, what survives in museums and archives are so often the stories and artefacts of the wealthy and well heeled.
Although increasingly in modern times there is a distinct bias towards trying to redress this imbalance by attempting to discover something of those people for whom personal possessions might have meant simply the clothes that they wore, and the simple utensils that enabled them to eat.
It is a sobering thought that so little remains of so many that have lived before us, and often indeed those that have been the people on whose shoulders we stand as the modern inheritors of the world that supports us.
I am reminded that some of the most moving museum exhibits are those that are most personal to someone that may have lived hundreds if not thousands of years ago.
Such as a pair of leather shoes excavated from somewhere close to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.
There is somehow an instant sense of connection with the person that the shoes fitted, and to stand before them in some sterile museum case, is to stand before someone real and tangible. History comes to life for a strange moment, tantalisingly bridging all of the years between us and another time.
Its subject is not difficult to imagine. It will be one of those pictures that has a strong moral message, simply because of the subject matter.
In my imagination, the fact that it has been lost to history is tied up inextricably with that moral message.
So for the purposes of my novel, I have imagined that the picture itself would have been considered a treasure worthy of appropriation by somebody powerful and barbaric, just as in the bible reference.
In full, my understanding of it is Hezekiah showing the treasures of the Temple to the King of the Babylonians.
The scene represented in the painting is described elsewhere in the Bible, in Kings two.
And no doubt potentially elsewhere, since the destruction of the First temple by the barbarian hordes is something well documented as an act of sacrilege and barbarism.
it is always tantalising to imagine that something as valuable as a Rembrandt painting might still exist somewhere in the world.
In my novel, I go so far as to describe the painting, when it is displayed in a small private gallery somewhere in London prior to its intended auction.
Such a sale would indeed attract international interest.
There have been many examples in the past, of works by the great masters being discovered and authenticated by experts who can use modern techniques to examine every aspect of a painting, even going so far as to perceive under painting which can shed light on the origins of a canvas, and link it with a particular artist or studio.
This potential lost masterwork came to my attention because of the PhD thesis of a friend of mine, who was attempting to establish which paintings were being displayed at Temple Newsome in the 18th century.
Such a task is by no means straightforward.
Suffice to say that my friend did obtain his PhD, and has been the curator of a fabulous country house in rural Yorkshire, looking after a varied collection that has been associated for many centuries with this relatively intact estate.
It is a sad fact of history that little remains of the lives of ordinary people, what survives in museums and archives are so often the stories and artefacts of the wealthy and well heeled.
Although increasingly in modern times there is a distinct bias towards trying to redress this imbalance by attempting to discover something of those people for whom personal possessions might have meant simply the clothes that they wore, and the simple utensils that enabled them to eat.
It is a sobering thought that so little remains of so many that have lived before us, and often indeed those that have been the people on whose shoulders we stand as the modern inheritors of the world that supports us.
I am reminded that some of the most moving museum exhibits are those that are most personal to someone that may have lived hundreds if not thousands of years ago.
Such as a pair of leather shoes excavated from somewhere close to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.
There is somehow an instant sense of connection with the person that the shoes fitted, and to stand before them in some sterile museum case, is to stand before someone real and tangible. History comes to life for a strange moment, tantalisingly bridging all of the years between us and another time.
Friday 18 January 2013
Lost In Time
I don't place much credence in conspiracy theories.
Any article of course which starts with these words will be touching upon exactly what it claims not to have anything to do with.
I have been fascinated for many years with Lord Halifax, who of course was the Foreign Secretary in Churchill's war cabinet, until he was moved to become the Ambassador in Washington. This is often considered to be one of the most important diplomatic posts that anyone can aspire to.
It seems highly likely that the Earl of Halifax, Viscount Halifax, an important peer of the realm, was moved from his post as Foreign Secretary because Churchill was uncomfortable with the role Halifax had played in supporting the policy of appeasement.
Much has been written over the years about the subject of potential discussions between Lord Halifax and senior officials from Germany, with a view to preventing the hostilities that Churchill played such an important part in directing in his role as Prime Minister of Britain from 1940.
My interests in Lord Halifax extends far beyond the simply political, but in this particular blog, I will concentrate for the moment on the role that Halifax played before he became Britain's Ambassador to Washington.
And perhaps in some respects this will lead to a much broader discussion of the way in which in more modern times this period of history has been reinterpreted as the archives of what were once Eastern European countries under the influence of communist Russia have become available to researchers in the West.
Perhaps at the heart of what I wish to discuss in the political realm is the flight to Scotland of Rudolf Hess in 1941, which resulted in his eventual imprisonment in Spandau prison until his death in 1987.
This is one of those controversial topics that historians are sometimes at a loss to fully explain.
Why did Hitler's Deputy suddenly fly solo to Scotland, and to what extent did he do so with the knowledge both of his German colleagues, and with the knowledge of those in Britain to whom he indicated that he wished to meet with.
Although tried alongside other leading Nazis at Nuremberg in 1945, on the cessation of hostilities, Hess did not suffer the same penalty that so many other senior Nazis received, in other words he was not sentenced to hang, but instead was sentenced to life imprisonment.
One or two other senior Nazis such as the architect Spier were given lengthy prison sentences, but thanks mainly to the insistence of the Russians, Hess was never released, and for the last part of his life, he was the only prisoner in Spandau prison in Berlin, and the reason for its remaining in use.
One of the many books about Hess is entitled The Loneliest Man In The World. And this perhaps summarises the Enigma that is Rudolf Hess, who was extensively examined by psychiatrists, and who was at different times said to be mentally ill if not entirely insane.
A simple description of his journey that ended in his parachuting into Scotland might seem quite sufficient to justify an assertion of his insanity.
But there is much more to this than first appears from a cursory description of what took place.
Perhaps the truth can never fully be appreciated of what took place in 1941, but there is certainly much that has been written, and continues to be written, as more comes to light from numerous sources to encourage a reinterpretation of events at the time.
As recently as in 2008, the Daily Telegraph published an article about the role that Halifax played in this mad scheme to potentially negotiate a treaty between Germany and Britain.
There are many reasons why questions might be raised about Germany’s reticence in treating Britain in the same way that Nazi Germany treated the rest of Europe.
There were certainly occasions during the second world war when it seems extraordinary that Hitler failed to act in the way that he had ruthlessly acted elsewhere in Europe.
For example, after Germany’s failure to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain the barge concentrations carefully accumulated in preparation for an invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion, were dispersed and plans for invasion eventually shelved.
In spite of the fact that it is highly likely that an invasion that followed on swiftly from the German successes in the defeat of France would have been successful.
And the failure to invade the island of Malta, strategically central to control of the Mediterranean, and weak enough to have fallen to a small force that could have been parachuted in from Germany’s ally Italy, might realistically be described as significant enough mistakes to have cost Hitler the war.
It is fortunate indeed that German aggression was finally overcome, and the threat of a second dark age finally averted.
Britain was undoubtedly weak and vulnerable at this critical time when it was fighting alone against German aggression.
Perhaps once America came into the war after Pearl Harbor defeat for Germany and Japan was inevitable, but it was hard won and at times things were very much in the balance.
And so an examination of the motives behind Rudolf Hess flying to Scotland might well throw some light on some of these difficult questions.
What was Hitler’s Deputy up to when he made this flight that eventually led to him becoming the last prisoner to have been held at the Tower of London?
There have been suggestions that even his death at the age of 93 was suspicious, and that he would not have had the strength to raise his hands above his head let alone hang himself from the electrical flex in his cell.
Every aspect of his case has been examined over and again, from interviews with his guards through to an examination in fine detail of his flight across Europe, seemingly managing to avoid detection by Britain’s aircraft defence Systems.
But still nothing is definitive.
Perhaps this is the nature of some questions, that they can never satisfactorily be explained.
Simply encouraging all kinds of conspiracy theories which endeavor to fill the vacuum left once all of the facts have been considered.
In some respects, my major interest in this matter is an artistic and creative one, so that Lord Halifax plays a crucial role in the background to my first novel.
And perhaps more can be appreciated of the role that he played in all of this by looking at how my interest in Lord Halifax has been raised, and which in some respects has given me a unique insight into this strange chapter in European history.
I lived and worked in Leeds in Yorkshire for 10 years from about 1982, after I had completed my degree at university College London.
I lived in Leeds at the Western extreme, quite close to a house that Lord Halifax inherited in about 1909.
Temple Newsome house has a long and rather extraordinarily interesting history, having been confiscated by the Crown, at least twice in its history, with its occupant being executed as a traitor.
Perhaps as its name suggests, it was once a property of the Knights Templar. Although of course when they were excommunicated by the Pope in 1307 it became available for more secular uses.
A grand house was built in the 15th century, which was described as the Hampton Court of the North.
This house substantially survives intact, and these days belongs to the City of Leeds where it serves as a home for some of the Museum of Leeds collection of fine furniture and other artworks.
The estate serves as the venue for an annual opera festival that takes place in the enormous grounds of the park surrounding the house.
It it is a fine place for the people of Leeds to spend leisure time, perhaps visiting the model farm where children can see all kinds of animals including sheep, cattle, and a wide variety of ducks and chickens.
The house and grounds were sold to the City of Leeds by Lord Halifax for a nominal sum, and since it was only one of several major houses owned by the Viscount, he was hardly put out for somewhere to live appropriate to his situation.
A friend of mine began studying a for a PhD in art history and Temple Newsome figured centrally to his doctoral thesis, and his doctoral thesis directly inspired the plot of my first novel, which I commenced in about 1989, and only finished completely this year.
A long time in the making, but hopefully worthwhile.
It is currently being edited by one of my carers, who is an avid reader and although not a professional editor, has the right kind of background for what after all will be a self published first novel.
Interestingly, I have already published the first four chapters of my second novel, Sacred Places, in a collection of short stories written by me during the 1990s and beyond.
There is no simple way to learn how to write a novel, it is my belief that you can only learn how to write one by doing so.
And once having written one, why stop there?
My friend obtained his PhD, and he currently works as the curator of a fine country house in rural Yorkshire.
His PhD thesis has probably been available in the libraries of Leeds where no doubt such theses are public domain items once they have been completed.
But I suppose I was fortunate to hear the details of my friends’ thesis from his own lips, and quite simply he was engaged in collating a catalogue of the pictures that had hung at Temple Newsome in the 18th century.
Most of the collection has been scattered over the centuries, but Davids’ work has collated a list of the paintings and drawings that existed in this fine house at the end of the 18th century.
Fine as an academic exercise, but what stimulated my interest particularly was the fact that David had seemed to have discovered an otherwise unknown Rembrandt painting, that has been lost to history.
The plot of my novel simply revolves around my supposition of what the fate of this painting might have been.
Clearly, a lost work by someone of Rembrandt’s stature would be worth millions, and there is no doubt that there are numerous other works of fiction that have taken a similar theme.
But my novel has now been completed, after having been in existence only as an incomplete manuscript for more than 20 years.
The connection with Lord Halifax and Temple Newsome is obvious, but there is something else which connects my novel story with that of Rudolf Hess.
Quite simply, I travelled to Portugal for a holiday when I was looking for ideas for an extended piece of writing.
I’m not very good at holidays, but I forced myself with the idea that I would use it as a research trip in which I would start to write my novel.
What came out of that holiday was quite extraordinary.
Truth as they say is stranger than fiction, and in this instance that is certainly the case.
For when I arrived at the airport in Faro, with no destination planned, I ended up renting an apartment from somebody I met at the airport.
It had been her mother’s apartment, and she had died leaving her daughter with an apartment full of her mother’s things, and as a friend of mine that is a tour guide in Portugal later told me, it is quite common in for the financial acumen of the Portuguese to be expressed just like I experienced, and so I found myself staying in a furnished apartment belonging to my hosts’ dead mother.
And what should I find on the bookshelves almost destined simply to inspire me, but a biography of Rudolf Hess.
And not just any biography. But the official Nazi biography of Rudolph Hess, which must have been published before Hitler’s Deputy flew to to Scotland, after which Hitler issued an edict that if he should ever be found in Germany he should be shot on sight.
Quite something to find in someone’s apartment. And no wonder it should lead me to construct a plot for a novel, once combined with my friends doctoral thesis.
And the rest, as they say, is history. or rather, the reinterpretation of it.
Any article of course which starts with these words will be touching upon exactly what it claims not to have anything to do with.
I have been fascinated for many years with Lord Halifax, who of course was the Foreign Secretary in Churchill's war cabinet, until he was moved to become the Ambassador in Washington. This is often considered to be one of the most important diplomatic posts that anyone can aspire to.
It seems highly likely that the Earl of Halifax, Viscount Halifax, an important peer of the realm, was moved from his post as Foreign Secretary because Churchill was uncomfortable with the role Halifax had played in supporting the policy of appeasement.
Much has been written over the years about the subject of potential discussions between Lord Halifax and senior officials from Germany, with a view to preventing the hostilities that Churchill played such an important part in directing in his role as Prime Minister of Britain from 1940.
My interests in Lord Halifax extends far beyond the simply political, but in this particular blog, I will concentrate for the moment on the role that Halifax played before he became Britain's Ambassador to Washington.
And perhaps in some respects this will lead to a much broader discussion of the way in which in more modern times this period of history has been reinterpreted as the archives of what were once Eastern European countries under the influence of communist Russia have become available to researchers in the West.
Perhaps at the heart of what I wish to discuss in the political realm is the flight to Scotland of Rudolf Hess in 1941, which resulted in his eventual imprisonment in Spandau prison until his death in 1987.
This is one of those controversial topics that historians are sometimes at a loss to fully explain.
Why did Hitler's Deputy suddenly fly solo to Scotland, and to what extent did he do so with the knowledge both of his German colleagues, and with the knowledge of those in Britain to whom he indicated that he wished to meet with.
Although tried alongside other leading Nazis at Nuremberg in 1945, on the cessation of hostilities, Hess did not suffer the same penalty that so many other senior Nazis received, in other words he was not sentenced to hang, but instead was sentenced to life imprisonment.
One or two other senior Nazis such as the architect Spier were given lengthy prison sentences, but thanks mainly to the insistence of the Russians, Hess was never released, and for the last part of his life, he was the only prisoner in Spandau prison in Berlin, and the reason for its remaining in use.
One of the many books about Hess is entitled The Loneliest Man In The World. And this perhaps summarises the Enigma that is Rudolf Hess, who was extensively examined by psychiatrists, and who was at different times said to be mentally ill if not entirely insane.
A simple description of his journey that ended in his parachuting into Scotland might seem quite sufficient to justify an assertion of his insanity.
But there is much more to this than first appears from a cursory description of what took place.
Perhaps the truth can never fully be appreciated of what took place in 1941, but there is certainly much that has been written, and continues to be written, as more comes to light from numerous sources to encourage a reinterpretation of events at the time.
As recently as in 2008, the Daily Telegraph published an article about the role that Halifax played in this mad scheme to potentially negotiate a treaty between Germany and Britain.
There are many reasons why questions might be raised about Germany’s reticence in treating Britain in the same way that Nazi Germany treated the rest of Europe.
There were certainly occasions during the second world war when it seems extraordinary that Hitler failed to act in the way that he had ruthlessly acted elsewhere in Europe.
For example, after Germany’s failure to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain the barge concentrations carefully accumulated in preparation for an invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion, were dispersed and plans for invasion eventually shelved.
In spite of the fact that it is highly likely that an invasion that followed on swiftly from the German successes in the defeat of France would have been successful.
And the failure to invade the island of Malta, strategically central to control of the Mediterranean, and weak enough to have fallen to a small force that could have been parachuted in from Germany’s ally Italy, might realistically be described as significant enough mistakes to have cost Hitler the war.
It is fortunate indeed that German aggression was finally overcome, and the threat of a second dark age finally averted.
Britain was undoubtedly weak and vulnerable at this critical time when it was fighting alone against German aggression.
Perhaps once America came into the war after Pearl Harbor defeat for Germany and Japan was inevitable, but it was hard won and at times things were very much in the balance.
And so an examination of the motives behind Rudolf Hess flying to Scotland might well throw some light on some of these difficult questions.
What was Hitler’s Deputy up to when he made this flight that eventually led to him becoming the last prisoner to have been held at the Tower of London?
There have been suggestions that even his death at the age of 93 was suspicious, and that he would not have had the strength to raise his hands above his head let alone hang himself from the electrical flex in his cell.
Every aspect of his case has been examined over and again, from interviews with his guards through to an examination in fine detail of his flight across Europe, seemingly managing to avoid detection by Britain’s aircraft defence Systems.
But still nothing is definitive.
Perhaps this is the nature of some questions, that they can never satisfactorily be explained.
Simply encouraging all kinds of conspiracy theories which endeavor to fill the vacuum left once all of the facts have been considered.
In some respects, my major interest in this matter is an artistic and creative one, so that Lord Halifax plays a crucial role in the background to my first novel.
And perhaps more can be appreciated of the role that he played in all of this by looking at how my interest in Lord Halifax has been raised, and which in some respects has given me a unique insight into this strange chapter in European history.
I lived and worked in Leeds in Yorkshire for 10 years from about 1982, after I had completed my degree at university College London.
I lived in Leeds at the Western extreme, quite close to a house that Lord Halifax inherited in about 1909.
Temple Newsome house has a long and rather extraordinarily interesting history, having been confiscated by the Crown, at least twice in its history, with its occupant being executed as a traitor.
Perhaps as its name suggests, it was once a property of the Knights Templar. Although of course when they were excommunicated by the Pope in 1307 it became available for more secular uses.
A grand house was built in the 15th century, which was described as the Hampton Court of the North.
This house substantially survives intact, and these days belongs to the City of Leeds where it serves as a home for some of the Museum of Leeds collection of fine furniture and other artworks.
The estate serves as the venue for an annual opera festival that takes place in the enormous grounds of the park surrounding the house.
It it is a fine place for the people of Leeds to spend leisure time, perhaps visiting the model farm where children can see all kinds of animals including sheep, cattle, and a wide variety of ducks and chickens.
The house and grounds were sold to the City of Leeds by Lord Halifax for a nominal sum, and since it was only one of several major houses owned by the Viscount, he was hardly put out for somewhere to live appropriate to his situation.
A friend of mine began studying a for a PhD in art history and Temple Newsome figured centrally to his doctoral thesis, and his doctoral thesis directly inspired the plot of my first novel, which I commenced in about 1989, and only finished completely this year.
A long time in the making, but hopefully worthwhile.
It is currently being edited by one of my carers, who is an avid reader and although not a professional editor, has the right kind of background for what after all will be a self published first novel.
Interestingly, I have already published the first four chapters of my second novel, Sacred Places, in a collection of short stories written by me during the 1990s and beyond.
There is no simple way to learn how to write a novel, it is my belief that you can only learn how to write one by doing so.
And once having written one, why stop there?
My friend obtained his PhD, and he currently works as the curator of a fine country house in rural Yorkshire.
His PhD thesis has probably been available in the libraries of Leeds where no doubt such theses are public domain items once they have been completed.
But I suppose I was fortunate to hear the details of my friends’ thesis from his own lips, and quite simply he was engaged in collating a catalogue of the pictures that had hung at Temple Newsome in the 18th century.
Most of the collection has been scattered over the centuries, but Davids’ work has collated a list of the paintings and drawings that existed in this fine house at the end of the 18th century.
Fine as an academic exercise, but what stimulated my interest particularly was the fact that David had seemed to have discovered an otherwise unknown Rembrandt painting, that has been lost to history.
The plot of my novel simply revolves around my supposition of what the fate of this painting might have been.
Clearly, a lost work by someone of Rembrandt’s stature would be worth millions, and there is no doubt that there are numerous other works of fiction that have taken a similar theme.
But my novel has now been completed, after having been in existence only as an incomplete manuscript for more than 20 years.
The connection with Lord Halifax and Temple Newsome is obvious, but there is something else which connects my novel story with that of Rudolf Hess.
Quite simply, I travelled to Portugal for a holiday when I was looking for ideas for an extended piece of writing.
I’m not very good at holidays, but I forced myself with the idea that I would use it as a research trip in which I would start to write my novel.
What came out of that holiday was quite extraordinary.
Truth as they say is stranger than fiction, and in this instance that is certainly the case.
For when I arrived at the airport in Faro, with no destination planned, I ended up renting an apartment from somebody I met at the airport.
It had been her mother’s apartment, and she had died leaving her daughter with an apartment full of her mother’s things, and as a friend of mine that is a tour guide in Portugal later told me, it is quite common in for the financial acumen of the Portuguese to be expressed just like I experienced, and so I found myself staying in a furnished apartment belonging to my hosts’ dead mother.
And what should I find on the bookshelves almost destined simply to inspire me, but a biography of Rudolf Hess.
And not just any biography. But the official Nazi biography of Rudolph Hess, which must have been published before Hitler’s Deputy flew to to Scotland, after which Hitler issued an edict that if he should ever be found in Germany he should be shot on sight.
Quite something to find in someone’s apartment. And no wonder it should lead me to construct a plot for a novel, once combined with my friends doctoral thesis.
And the rest, as they say, is history. or rather, the reinterpretation of it.
Tuesday 15 January 2013
Much Has Been Gained, Much Has Been Lost
It is always interesting to discover a new film that challenges preconceptions of the filmmakers behind it, and in this particular case, also challenges my preconceptions about films that are billed as Horror films.
The Village is just such a film.
If you don’t want to hear too much about the film before you have seen it for yourself, and made your own judgement, stop reading this now, as it will contain spoilers which will certainly affect your viewing of the film.
One of my particular interests could be broadly described as human anthropology, and in many respects this particular film is an interesting reflection of this subject matter.
To take a sideways introduction to the subject matter of this film, consider if you will human anthropology from a scientific or more specifically from an understanding of our own ancestors.
There was an interesting BBC documentary recently which looked at some of the closest known ancestorsm or close evolutionary relations to Homo Sapiens.
The most obvious of these is perhaps Neanderthal man, and during the 20 or so years that I have read everything I can about this subject, much has changed in terms of our understanding of this species of near human.
Most importantly, until fairly recently, it was received wisdom that there was no genetic link between modern humans and Neanderthals.
In more recent times, this has been transformed, perhaps with advances in an understanding of the genetic structure of the Neanderthal and as a species, and close comparison with the human gene map.
It seems that most of us contain between one and 4% Neanderthal genes within our own genes, demonstrating that to a greater or lesser extent there was indeed interbreeding between these two very different races of modern humans.
Interestingly, detailed analysis seems to suggest that only Neanderthal females produced offspring, so that perhaps as in the mating of other animals, sterility was a consequence of male Neanderthals attempting to procreate with human females.
I have already written in this blog on the question as to whether we are descended to some extent from Neanderthals, so I will not write further about this here.
Indeed, my point is more concerned with the likely date by which the great majority of Neanderthals might be considered to have become extinct.
Normally, this is suggested to have been about 10,000 years before the present.
Numerous theories have been suggested for the decline and extinction of what is generally described as a subspecies, and archaeology suggests that the last surviving populations lived somewhere to the extreme west of the European mainland, with the occupation of caves in Spain and Portugal as the last outposts of a dying breed.
Interestingly, more recently there has been archaeological evidence that of what has been described as a Hobbit like creature from the island of Flores in Indonesia, that survived it seems until about 12,000 years ago.
However, if one takes seriously the evidence gathered from talking directly to some of the tribes that have lived on this isolated island for thousands of years, it may well have been far more recently that the Hobbit like creature died out.
Similarly there appear to be some accounts of what are described as wild men in Europe as recently as in the 1930s in Russia.
It is also recalled that a wild man was brought before Napoleon, captured as a curiosity during that mans attempts at the conquest of Europe.
My point is simply that it is impossible to put a precise date on the ultimate end point for an extinct species. Human or otherwise.
In a strange sense, this is directly relevant to the plot of the film, The Village.
Since it centres around the survival of a group of humans, definitely modern humans, but living as if the progress of the 19th and 20th centuries had not in fact taken place.
In other words, continuing to live hidden within the wider civilization in this case of modern America, but choosing quite specifically to live without the so-called advances of modern society.
This is perhaps not such an extraordinarily unbelievable circumstance, as America is rich in land, and that it is quite conceivable that people could have chosen to live a less sophisticated lifestyle.
The film gives from the outset a sense of perhaps a Shaker community, so that there are numerous long lingering shots of handmade chairs on wooden balconies, and early on a group of girls play simply with their sweeping brushes. Simplicity gives the appearance that this is a 19th-century community.
But quite quickly it becomes apparent that this community lives in an uneasy relationship with creatures that live in the woods surrounding and separating this community from the wider world.
The elders of the community explain that they have made a truce with these creatures, so that they have agreed not to enter their woods.
We discover later that this has been a manufactured mythology, designed to prevent their young people from venturing out of what is in effect a gated community.
They have even created costumes that have ensured that the creatures have occasionally made an appearance, costumes designed to generate a sense of fear of those creatures, whom they even make presentations of meat to as some form of payment to protect their agreement not to interfere with each other.
Something happens, however, to make it necessary to seek medical help that the elders know will be available beyond the woods.
A blind girl that has expressed her desire and sought permission to enter into a relationship with one of the young men in the community volunteers to go through the woods and to seek the help that might save the life of her young man.
She is brave even though blind, and just before she sets out on her dangerous journey, one of the elders confesses to her privately that the creatures are the creation of the Elders themselves.
She believes this elder, and to a great extent this serves the purpose intended by the elder to give her the confidence to make her dangerous journey.
However, one of the young men in the community has discovered accidentally one of the creature costumes made by the elders, and he follows her into the woods, a place that he has wished to explore himself in any case.
It her encounter with the creature, she suspects that what she had been told about the fictitious nature of the creatures was simply a ruse to give her the confidence to make the journey.
So that after she nearly falls into a deep pit in the woods, she later tricks the creature into the same pit, and it is killed.
She makes it through the woods, and the shock is that she comes upon one of the park rangers that are employed to keep this preservation area protected.
We suddenly realize that in reality the elders have cut themselves off from 21st-century society, have preserved their way of life through their trickery over the threat of the creatures.
The Ranger provides her with the drugs she needs, which are kept in each of the many locations from where the Rangers patrol this conservation area.
In case of animal bites, the Ranger explains, but the blind girl had been given strict instructions not to reveal anything about their community.
She keeps her word, and manages to return to the isolated community from which she has found her way with the help simply of a stick.
The death of the young man dressed as one of the creatures gives the elders another opportunity to reinforce their protective way of preserving their simple way of life, and at the end, we find out something of the events that led to their extreme choice.
The elders have suffered terrible experiences so common to the modern world. Their choice to protect and closet their children in this apparently 19th-century community, in which they listen to their parents and ask permission before they embark upon a potential relationship with another young person.
It is an extraordinary story, and whilst it is understandable that it is categorized as a horror story, it is not so much a horror story as a story of how fear itself is to be feared.
The director and writer M. Night Shyamalan
is becoming well known for his particular take on these mythologies.
Perhaps it is natural that he should have been influenced by the Shaker communities of Pennsylvania, since he himself was brought up by his immigrant parents, both doctors, in the wealthy Penn Valley area in Pennsylvania.
It is a film definitely worth seeing, and I feel I should apologize for all of my spoilers.
But truth as they say is stranger than fiction, and who can say with certainty that such a circumstance has not been realized somewhere in America, where ever since the time of the Shakers people have been drawn by the opportunities of the New World for a new start.
The Shaker communities originated from emigrants that left those dark satanic mills of Manchester to find a new and more spiritual life in the New World.
The auction prices for original Shaker furniture reflects their sense of attempting perfection, probably exceeding the prices reached for original Chippendale furniture in the UK.
It is said that the guiding principle of a Shaker craftsmen would be to make each object so that it might be suitable for an angel to sit upon.
Much has been gained in the progress that society has made over many decades, centuries even, but much too has been lost.
The Village is just such a film.
If you don’t want to hear too much about the film before you have seen it for yourself, and made your own judgement, stop reading this now, as it will contain spoilers which will certainly affect your viewing of the film.
One of my particular interests could be broadly described as human anthropology, and in many respects this particular film is an interesting reflection of this subject matter.
To take a sideways introduction to the subject matter of this film, consider if you will human anthropology from a scientific or more specifically from an understanding of our own ancestors.
There was an interesting BBC documentary recently which looked at some of the closest known ancestorsm or close evolutionary relations to Homo Sapiens.
The most obvious of these is perhaps Neanderthal man, and during the 20 or so years that I have read everything I can about this subject, much has changed in terms of our understanding of this species of near human.
Most importantly, until fairly recently, it was received wisdom that there was no genetic link between modern humans and Neanderthals.
In more recent times, this has been transformed, perhaps with advances in an understanding of the genetic structure of the Neanderthal and as a species, and close comparison with the human gene map.
It seems that most of us contain between one and 4% Neanderthal genes within our own genes, demonstrating that to a greater or lesser extent there was indeed interbreeding between these two very different races of modern humans.
Interestingly, detailed analysis seems to suggest that only Neanderthal females produced offspring, so that perhaps as in the mating of other animals, sterility was a consequence of male Neanderthals attempting to procreate with human females.
I have already written in this blog on the question as to whether we are descended to some extent from Neanderthals, so I will not write further about this here.
Indeed, my point is more concerned with the likely date by which the great majority of Neanderthals might be considered to have become extinct.
Normally, this is suggested to have been about 10,000 years before the present.
Numerous theories have been suggested for the decline and extinction of what is generally described as a subspecies, and archaeology suggests that the last surviving populations lived somewhere to the extreme west of the European mainland, with the occupation of caves in Spain and Portugal as the last outposts of a dying breed.
Interestingly, more recently there has been archaeological evidence that of what has been described as a Hobbit like creature from the island of Flores in Indonesia, that survived it seems until about 12,000 years ago.
However, if one takes seriously the evidence gathered from talking directly to some of the tribes that have lived on this isolated island for thousands of years, it may well have been far more recently that the Hobbit like creature died out.
Similarly there appear to be some accounts of what are described as wild men in Europe as recently as in the 1930s in Russia.
It is also recalled that a wild man was brought before Napoleon, captured as a curiosity during that mans attempts at the conquest of Europe.
My point is simply that it is impossible to put a precise date on the ultimate end point for an extinct species. Human or otherwise.
In a strange sense, this is directly relevant to the plot of the film, The Village.
Since it centres around the survival of a group of humans, definitely modern humans, but living as if the progress of the 19th and 20th centuries had not in fact taken place.
In other words, continuing to live hidden within the wider civilization in this case of modern America, but choosing quite specifically to live without the so-called advances of modern society.
This is perhaps not such an extraordinarily unbelievable circumstance, as America is rich in land, and that it is quite conceivable that people could have chosen to live a less sophisticated lifestyle.
The film gives from the outset a sense of perhaps a Shaker community, so that there are numerous long lingering shots of handmade chairs on wooden balconies, and early on a group of girls play simply with their sweeping brushes. Simplicity gives the appearance that this is a 19th-century community.
But quite quickly it becomes apparent that this community lives in an uneasy relationship with creatures that live in the woods surrounding and separating this community from the wider world.
The elders of the community explain that they have made a truce with these creatures, so that they have agreed not to enter their woods.
We discover later that this has been a manufactured mythology, designed to prevent their young people from venturing out of what is in effect a gated community.
They have even created costumes that have ensured that the creatures have occasionally made an appearance, costumes designed to generate a sense of fear of those creatures, whom they even make presentations of meat to as some form of payment to protect their agreement not to interfere with each other.
Something happens, however, to make it necessary to seek medical help that the elders know will be available beyond the woods.
A blind girl that has expressed her desire and sought permission to enter into a relationship with one of the young men in the community volunteers to go through the woods and to seek the help that might save the life of her young man.
She is brave even though blind, and just before she sets out on her dangerous journey, one of the elders confesses to her privately that the creatures are the creation of the Elders themselves.
She believes this elder, and to a great extent this serves the purpose intended by the elder to give her the confidence to make her dangerous journey.
However, one of the young men in the community has discovered accidentally one of the creature costumes made by the elders, and he follows her into the woods, a place that he has wished to explore himself in any case.
It her encounter with the creature, she suspects that what she had been told about the fictitious nature of the creatures was simply a ruse to give her the confidence to make the journey.
So that after she nearly falls into a deep pit in the woods, she later tricks the creature into the same pit, and it is killed.
She makes it through the woods, and the shock is that she comes upon one of the park rangers that are employed to keep this preservation area protected.
We suddenly realize that in reality the elders have cut themselves off from 21st-century society, have preserved their way of life through their trickery over the threat of the creatures.
The Ranger provides her with the drugs she needs, which are kept in each of the many locations from where the Rangers patrol this conservation area.
In case of animal bites, the Ranger explains, but the blind girl had been given strict instructions not to reveal anything about their community.
She keeps her word, and manages to return to the isolated community from which she has found her way with the help simply of a stick.
The death of the young man dressed as one of the creatures gives the elders another opportunity to reinforce their protective way of preserving their simple way of life, and at the end, we find out something of the events that led to their extreme choice.
The elders have suffered terrible experiences so common to the modern world. Their choice to protect and closet their children in this apparently 19th-century community, in which they listen to their parents and ask permission before they embark upon a potential relationship with another young person.
It is an extraordinary story, and whilst it is understandable that it is categorized as a horror story, it is not so much a horror story as a story of how fear itself is to be feared.
The director and writer M. Night Shyamalan
is becoming well known for his particular take on these mythologies.
Perhaps it is natural that he should have been influenced by the Shaker communities of Pennsylvania, since he himself was brought up by his immigrant parents, both doctors, in the wealthy Penn Valley area in Pennsylvania.
It is a film definitely worth seeing, and I feel I should apologize for all of my spoilers.
But truth as they say is stranger than fiction, and who can say with certainty that such a circumstance has not been realized somewhere in America, where ever since the time of the Shakers people have been drawn by the opportunities of the New World for a new start.
The Shaker communities originated from emigrants that left those dark satanic mills of Manchester to find a new and more spiritual life in the New World.
The auction prices for original Shaker furniture reflects their sense of attempting perfection, probably exceeding the prices reached for original Chippendale furniture in the UK.
It is said that the guiding principle of a Shaker craftsmen would be to make each object so that it might be suitable for an angel to sit upon.
Much has been gained in the progress that society has made over many decades, centuries even, but much too has been lost.
Friday 4 January 2013
The Beginning Of The New
I cannot believe that it is already far into the first week of the New Year, and yet I have not written about my thoughts for the passing of the old and the beginning of the new.
I can only account for this by virtue of the fact that I am not yet quite myself, though I do see signs all about me of small ways in which a health is returning gradually to me.
It seems that to have aspirations and ambitions is critical to living as full a life as is possible, and in some respects this has what has been most distressingly stripped from me by this devastating illness that has robbed me of so much.
But life is returning, and my thoughts are beginning to turn to a reflection of the year that has passed, and therefore perhaps naturally also to look forward to the year to come.
And what a year it has been, and not just for me personally.
I cannot remember a year in which so much that has been so positive has happened, including everything concerned with the celebrations of our Queen's reign, plus the successful hosting of both the Olympics and Paralympics.
Surely all of these things will have a lasting impact upon the psychology of the nation, as I am sure they will have upon me.
But at a personal level, this has been an extraordinary year for me.
In February, a short film that I originally made in 2004 was selected for exhibition at the International Festival of disability film in Calgary, Canada.
At that Festival event it was seen by representatives from the Moscow film Festival, and they wished to be able to show the same film in Moscow in November.
However, after they contacted me it proved not to be admissible because it had been made prior to 2007, and I therefore suggested that the show a different film that had been commissioned by West Sussex county council.
With just a few days to spare before the festival commenced, received notification that this film was indeed accepted for exhibition, and thus suddenly I can look back on 2012 as the year in which two of my films have been shown at international festivals.
In addition to which, I have taken the plunge and published five of my books in the new Kindle format, with another title to come, my first novel now finally completed thanks to my desire to see it produced in this format.
Whatever next!
And so it perhaps simply remains for me to regain my health as fully as possible, so that I can at least begin to try to take advantage of these new publications. All proceeds from which will be donated to the Queen Alexandra Hospital across the road from where I live.
Added to this, my personal blog has received over 1300 page views from around the world, from an extraordinarily broad selection of countries.
This continues to be an important outlet for my writing of prose, and although I have written much less poetry recently, there has been talk of my writing a number of poems that may be of benefit locally in the context of a festival linked to the community centre for which Trish does much fundraising and project work with young people and people of all ages.
Thus, this year already presents possibilities.
I can only account for this by virtue of the fact that I am not yet quite myself, though I do see signs all about me of small ways in which a health is returning gradually to me.
It seems that to have aspirations and ambitions is critical to living as full a life as is possible, and in some respects this has what has been most distressingly stripped from me by this devastating illness that has robbed me of so much.
But life is returning, and my thoughts are beginning to turn to a reflection of the year that has passed, and therefore perhaps naturally also to look forward to the year to come.
And what a year it has been, and not just for me personally.
I cannot remember a year in which so much that has been so positive has happened, including everything concerned with the celebrations of our Queen's reign, plus the successful hosting of both the Olympics and Paralympics.
Surely all of these things will have a lasting impact upon the psychology of the nation, as I am sure they will have upon me.
But at a personal level, this has been an extraordinary year for me.
In February, a short film that I originally made in 2004 was selected for exhibition at the International Festival of disability film in Calgary, Canada.
At that Festival event it was seen by representatives from the Moscow film Festival, and they wished to be able to show the same film in Moscow in November.
However, after they contacted me it proved not to be admissible because it had been made prior to 2007, and I therefore suggested that the show a different film that had been commissioned by West Sussex county council.
With just a few days to spare before the festival commenced, received notification that this film was indeed accepted for exhibition, and thus suddenly I can look back on 2012 as the year in which two of my films have been shown at international festivals.
In addition to which, I have taken the plunge and published five of my books in the new Kindle format, with another title to come, my first novel now finally completed thanks to my desire to see it produced in this format.
Whatever next!
And so it perhaps simply remains for me to regain my health as fully as possible, so that I can at least begin to try to take advantage of these new publications. All proceeds from which will be donated to the Queen Alexandra Hospital across the road from where I live.
Added to this, my personal blog has received over 1300 page views from around the world, from an extraordinarily broad selection of countries.
This continues to be an important outlet for my writing of prose, and although I have written much less poetry recently, there has been talk of my writing a number of poems that may be of benefit locally in the context of a festival linked to the community centre for which Trish does much fundraising and project work with young people and people of all ages.
Thus, this year already presents possibilities.
Tuesday 1 January 2013
The Butcher's Dog Hasn't Been Feeling So Good
Generally speaking, I am remarkably healthy, in spite of my severe disability thanks to multiple sclerosis.
I often describe myself as as fit as a butcher's dog.
That is until this week. From Boxing Day in fact, I have suffered one of those things that go around at this time of year, and I suppose because of why underlying condition, this has severely affected me.
So much so that one of my carers, that had the brunt of looking after me when I began my antibiotic course, said that perhaps the butchers dog is dead. She has really been quite concerned for me, and as she has two great hounds herself, I have no doubt she means no harm to the butcher’s dog.
It did make me smile at the time, and it is only now 10 days after starting my treatment that I am beginning to feel human again. I haven't felt quite so ill in a long time.
It is a reminder if one were needed of how much we take for granted when we can function well, and I suspect it will take another couple of weeks before I can function as well as I did before this dreadful bug.
It has been so strange not to even check my e-mails for a week, simply not feeling up to it. And I haven't wanted to watch films, certainly not until the last day or so. And how strangely powerful and moving they have seemed because of the newness of the experience.
And now, after another week during which I have only slowly surfaced as if from under a suffocating weight, I am still not able to function in the way that I did.
I am still taking the antibiotic, and liquid paracetamol. I suppose the only benefit has been the way in which the films I am able to watch still have a strangely moving effect, which is quite extraordinary. Though I do not watch many. Too tiring.
But I must work hard to recover what I can, and hopefully this will just become one of those memories, of a time of trial.
One of my carers has succumbed to something that sounds terribly similar, and as she is off work I can only hope that she will be able to read the manuscript of my first novel, and that I can therefore look forward to publishing it in Kindle format.
Goals. The essential means of moving to the future, whatever it holds.
I often describe myself as as fit as a butcher's dog.
That is until this week. From Boxing Day in fact, I have suffered one of those things that go around at this time of year, and I suppose because of why underlying condition, this has severely affected me.
So much so that one of my carers, that had the brunt of looking after me when I began my antibiotic course, said that perhaps the butchers dog is dead. She has really been quite concerned for me, and as she has two great hounds herself, I have no doubt she means no harm to the butcher’s dog.
It did make me smile at the time, and it is only now 10 days after starting my treatment that I am beginning to feel human again. I haven't felt quite so ill in a long time.
It is a reminder if one were needed of how much we take for granted when we can function well, and I suspect it will take another couple of weeks before I can function as well as I did before this dreadful bug.
It has been so strange not to even check my e-mails for a week, simply not feeling up to it. And I haven't wanted to watch films, certainly not until the last day or so. And how strangely powerful and moving they have seemed because of the newness of the experience.
And now, after another week during which I have only slowly surfaced as if from under a suffocating weight, I am still not able to function in the way that I did.
I am still taking the antibiotic, and liquid paracetamol. I suppose the only benefit has been the way in which the films I am able to watch still have a strangely moving effect, which is quite extraordinary. Though I do not watch many. Too tiring.
But I must work hard to recover what I can, and hopefully this will just become one of those memories, of a time of trial.
One of my carers has succumbed to something that sounds terribly similar, and as she is off work I can only hope that she will be able to read the manuscript of my first novel, and that I can therefore look forward to publishing it in Kindle format.
Goals. The essential means of moving to the future, whatever it holds.
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