trump state visit?

I am utterly APPALLED that Trump has been invited on a state visit to the UK in June…
You will probably be aware that a state visit is a formal visit by a head of state and is normally at the invitation of the Queen, who acts on advice from the government. Were we, the electorate, consulted? Of course not.
Frankly, it beggars belief.
When Trump visited the UK in July last year, he avoided coming to London (“he did not particularly want to come to the capital if he was going to face protests”!). Even so, the bill for policing Trump’s visit was £18million. State visits usually include a procession down the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace (where the Queen would normally host a banquet for around 150 guests “in Mr Trump’s honour”) and, if this were to happen, you can be sure that the police bill will be FAR MORE than £18million! I can only imagine what measures the US security people will insist on being adopted (armed forces? extensive/excessive kettling of crowds?).
It seems that the visit has been arranged to coincide with the 75^th anniversary of the D-day landings and number10 has indicated that the event would be “one of the greatest British military spectacles in recent history” and would include a flypast of 26 types of RAF aircraft and at least 11 Royal Navy ships in the Solent.
I, for one, don’t want to mark the occasion in such a blatant militaristic way.

At a time when the world is failing to come to terms with Climate Change and the UK is struggling with Brexit (not to mention dire funding issues in education, welfare, health and a host of other issues), it’s as if the UK government has decided that a visit from Trump will deflect our attention from such matters.

Ironically, given the state of UK politics at the present time, one is tempted to wonder who will actually be prime minister or in government by the time of Trump's visit!
I absolutely do NOT want to provide Trump with a centre-stage opportunity to share his bigoted, racist, narcissistic, ignorant, dangerous and fatuous opinions.  
It depresses me in the extreme.
This morning’s editorial in The Guardian got it absolutely right in my view:
"Rolling out the red carpet for a US president ought to be easier than this. Britain and America share a ‘special relationship’ which rests on a common language, histories and ideals. Yet Donald Trump makes building on this impossible. He is no friend of this country. The president has repeatedly attacked leading British politicians, singling out London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan. He retweets fascists. On the day news emerged that Mr Trump would be accorded a state visit to Britain, he was threatening to veto a UN resolution against the use of rape as a weapon of war. America has been taken over by a demagogue who sees Brexit as an opportunity for a rabble-rouser to rise here too. He is a dangerous liar whom racists and misogynists think of as one of their own. Mr Trump ought to be held at a distance, not invited for dinner with the Queen… Mr Trump is a media-savvy operator. He uses the world stage as a political advert for his brand of mendacious nationalism. Mr Trump did meet the Queen last year on a flying visit on the way to ceremonies in France to mark the 1918 armistice. Before he arrived, he had attacked Angela Merkel over the level of Germany’s defence spending at a Nato summit. On the day of his meeting with Theresa May he criticised her in an interview with the Sun while lavishing praise on her rival Boris Johnson. He then went to France and mocked the country for not fighting to the last man when under Nazi occupation. One shudders at the thought of headlines generated by a state visit which coincides with the 75th anniversary of D-day.
Mr Trump does not care what Britain, or any other US ally, thinks. He only wants them to know he does not care what they think. That is why Mrs May has failed to change Mr Trump’s mind on the Iran nuclear deal or the Paris agreement on climate change. It is why he rashly committed to withdrawing troops from Syria and Afghanistan without telling allies.
During his last visit, Mr Trump avoided central London due to the expected protests. He will have to endure them this time. John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, refused to offer Mr Trump an invitation to address parliament. He has previously said it was an ‘earned honour’ and not a right. Mr Trump has earned no such distinction. He engineered the most racially divisive US election in years, ranting about Mexican ‘rapists’ and promising a Muslim travel ban. In office his draconian border policy caged migrant children in isolation from their parents. Mr Trump gives the impression of destroying, not defending, democracy. Giving him a platform in Westminster won’t oil the springs of diplomacy. It will just allow another eruption from a fountain of dishonour”.
As I keep saying: “Not In My Name”.

back to berlin…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Catherine Lurie’s thoughtful, sobering documentary “Back In Berlin”. It follows eleven Jewish bikers travelling from Israel to Berlin for the Maccabiah Games (often referred to as the ‘Jewish Olympics’).
In 1930, a group of Jewish bikers travelled to all corners of Europe to find participants for the first Maccabiah Games. In 2015, to commemorate this heroic journey, 11 Jewish bikers set off from Israel once again to re-trace their ancestors' footsteps and carry the Maccabiah torch to the site of the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics for the first games held on German soil. Travelling 4500km across 7 countries in just 24 days, together they explore their dark genocidal past and discover how they or they families survived the Holocaust.
Given the populist movements from both the left and right rising again today, “Back to Berlin” provides an essential connection between the past and present. It’s a cautionary tale but also a story of defiance, survival and people overcoming the worst from others to restate our common humanity – and with the games themselves being a kind of redemption. Or, as the Guardian film critic, Peter Bradshaw, aptly describes it: “an Olympic flame of hope burning defiantly in the presence of moral darkness”.
It’s a beautiful, evocative and poignant documentary that reflects on anti-semitism in Europe and very much worth seeing.
PS: There were just me and five others in the audience, but I did strike up an interesting conversation with a fascinating, highly intelligent, 83 year-old man (a former nuclear scientist)… and, for some reason(!), we found ourselves talking about Trump and Brexit (he started it!!)(note: he was very much ‘a man after my own heart’!) and bemoaning how on earth we’d come to find ourselves in the current mess. At the end of the film, he turned to me, wiping tears from his eyes, and simply said: “an emotional journey”. He was absolutely right.

dunkirk…

I have, at last, seen Christopher Nolan’s film “Dunkirk”!
It’s everything that I’d anticipated – in terms of being made to feel as if ‘you were there’ in the stark, brutal, frightening reality of war. Nolan cleverly (and very effectively) does this through three separate narratives (the evacuation from the beach; the pleasure craft coming to the rescue; and the battles in the air), which play out over three different time periods (one week, one day and one hour respectively)... with everything converging at Dunkirk and with time itself being variously compressed and elongated.
It’s all brilliantly done… and really does give you a sense of being part of the action.
My one slight reservation is the ‘fictionalisation’ of it all. True, stories-within-stories probably do help to convey a sense of reality (ie. how something affects a person or a family member or a colleague), but there were certainly times during the film when I found myself wanting to see the ‘bigger picture’ and not to be caught up in a bit of made-up story! I’m a great admirer of Kenneth Branagh as an actor, but even I found his portrayal of ‘Commander Bolton’ like something out of a 1950’s war film (or even like his characterisation of Isambard Kingdom Brunel at the London Olympics opening ceremony!). But, hey, that’s probably just me…
Anyway, this is a film definitely worth seeing.
PS: I’m clearly not used to attending cinemas such as ‘Cinema De Lux’ (frankly, give me the Watershed every time!). Somewhat ridiculously (I think it’s the first time I’ve been to a cinema before noon), I attended the 11.50am showing – but COULD have attended any one of today’s FIFTEEN scheduled screenings(!). In the event, I was one of just FIVE people in the audience… in an auditorium that seated some 300!!
PPS: The adverts and trailers ran for a full THIRTY minutes (I looked at my watch)!  Not only that, but they were INCREDIBLY loud (and I mean incredibly)… it felt a bit like being in a 1970s disco where the DJ wanted to show off the volume of his machinery. Anyway, I found it utterly unbearable and, acknowledging that there just might be one or two loud explosions in the main feature film (something of an understatement!), I ended up stuffing tissue paper in both ears (yes, REALLY!) in anticipation… and I’m very glad that I did!

the imitation game

Moira and I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Morten Tyldum’s acclaimed “The Imitation Game” – the story of how the Nazis’ WW2 “unbreakable” Enigma machine codes were cracked at Bletchley Park. Actually, it’s the story of Alan Turing (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) – the brilliant, but troubled, fragile mathematician and cryptanalyst - who was credited for the success of what must have seemed, at times, like an impossible mission… and how, subsequently, his wartime achievements counted for nothing when his homosexuality came to light. You probably already know how the story pans out, but it’s probably best if I say no more…

I thought Cumberbatch was quite, quite magnificent. Simply stunning.
In my view, it will take an absolutely exceptional performance to prevent him from winning an Oscar.
Although I was familiar with the basic, fascinating story (and the outrageous and sad way in which the authorities in the UK used to treat homosexuals less than a generation ago), I thought the overall film was excellent too – high drama, humour and very good all round performances by all the cast (although I felt Keira Knightly was probably a bit too glamorous to play the part of Joan Clarke!).
So, accept no imitations (gosh, that’s clever isn’t it!).
As far as I’m concerned, you can forget Timothy Spall and “Mr Turner”, Benedict Cumberbatch and “The Imitation Game” is probably the best individual performance and best film I’ve seen this year!
PS: But, of course, what do I know? I’ve just checked out some reviews and they’re pretty mixed (except that there appears to be a general consensus that Cumberbatch was brilliant) – The Independent gave it 4 stars, while The Guardian and Telegraph both only gave it 3 stars.