Doktor Livesy

The Old Way and the Wicked.

The Admiral Benbow.

A few years ago Disney famously bombed at the box office with a Sci-Fi version of 'Treasure Island'. There's nothing wrong with the Sci-Fi angle. You could do it as a crime thriller, a western... The problem was: they didn't understand the story. It isn't a cheering, coming-of-age tale. It's a fable of lost innocence, treachery and Jim-lad is not the hero. He is a moral failure - a typical Stevenson protagonist.

The big problem with Treasure Island for contemporary audiences is the lack of the feminine. Disney turned the Captain into a woman. Wrong character: only Long John Silver can be a woman in this story. Who does the cooking, the kindness, the manipulation... Let's a man do the driving [Israel Hands, the story's true existential hero.)
It's not a part for a babe and forget about the missing leg. I would cast Whoopi Golberg. Black women were pirates in the 18th.C. And who can - plausibly - vanish into the islands. Who can go home?

P.S. Anyone thinking.. Oh, like Pirates Of The Carribean? Much as I love to see Keira Knightly's fine young frame sheathed in leather and linen... No.

Christopher Hitchens

The bulldog head, the baleful eye... The Kurdish flag.
A fine example of the Englishman abroad.

Hitchens can be seen and heard from end to end on Youtube. Soon there'll be a movie too.

He's better to hear and see than to read - a bit like William Burroughs, who couldn't write but was wonderful to hear - reading what he'd tried to write.

It's hard to chose, but these are my 3 favourite Hitchens items on Youtube:
-With Robert Service, talking about Trotsky.
-Backstage after a debate with Douglas Wilson.
I would'nt have heard about Wilson if he wasn't going toe to toe with Hitch.
-Having it both ways on why women aren't funny... Or are they?

Religion and God?
Religion is membership... With an advance booking on the hereafter. If I should find myself at the pearly gates, I expect to be told my papers are not in order.
I think that religion as politics is Hitch's main target. Those who believe in the separation of Church and State should recognise that this is one of the non-negotiable principles of Western Civilisation and we should defend it. Even the members. As Max Roach once said: Members, don't get weary. Hitch is your champion too. And even if you damn him, he doesn't give a damn. He'll carry on firing on both barrels. He attacks God: in attacking God, he affirms God.

P.S. Apologies. Some of the links have got muddled. If you're sufficiently interested I'm sure you know how to find your way.

for the cat of man

Christopher Hitchens - one of our great contemporary troublemakers - has pointed out that if you feed a dog he'll think you're God, but if you feed a cat he'll think HE's God.
Check Hitch's remarks here on Obama getting the Nobel.

For a long time now I've had a visitor from the Isle of Mann. Who are you Manxmann?












The Repudiators will continue shortly...

مسحقونيا

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bang...

beatle bizness

A few months ago I was asked to contribute to a Beatles thingumajig in production at Passion Pictures.
Here are some of the concepts I did. You will notice that there's nothing here to be seen in the finished excellent montage directed by Pete Candeland.
This sequence evoking the trippy period is out - too irrational, too sexual, too 'dark'... Too little time.
The background designs in the finished piece are by two incomparable artists - Daniel Cacouault and Alberto Mielgo.
You can see Alberto's here.

Daniel is likely to keep his under his hat.

blood count 1

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The feminist as Scheherazade.






















A link: Ayaan at the Commonwealth Club.

Provence Alpes: a sentimental journey.

Digne, Senez, Barrême.

the fortunate traveller

alpen