Flocks of cyber-pigeons. That, apparently, is the rumoured new Russian super weapon. According to a report I heard on the radio this afternoon. A report, as ever, to be treated with caution as it originates with a Russian tech firm. But, for what it is worth, the Russians are allegedly putting brain implants into pigeons, so that their movements can be controlled. The idea being that, as they are pigeons, nobody will pay any attention to them until they explode, fly into aircraft jet intakes to cause crashes, or just crap en masse all over our cars. It all sounds more than a little fanciful, the sort of bollocks the Russians tend to come up with every so often to see what they can get the west to swallow. Yet it has just enough of a sliver of credibility - the Russians are known to have previously experimented with using animals in war, such as spy dolphins, for instance - that it is precisely the sort of thing that both some politicians and some in our intelligence services might grasp at and start running with, despite a lack of any hard evidence to back it up. Thus, precious resources will be wasted on trying to gather intelligence of these 'pigeons of death' and devising counter measures to protect against them. Indeed, don't be surprised if, sometime in the near future, we see mass culls of pigeons in the UK with little or no official explanation. It will mean that some crank in the intelligence services will have succeeded in spooking a government minister or two.
If nothing else, this story is somewhat insulting toward pigeons and birds in general, presuming that they are easily controlled by external forces due to their lack of intelligence. In my experience, (particularly my recent experiences with the local swan population), birds are anything but stupid, being remarkably observant and capable of some impressive feats of reasoning. (One of the young swans I regularly feed, who I've known since he was a bundle of grey feathers following his parents around the pond, not only seems to recognise me as an individual, but has correctly assessed me as a soft touch who will indulge his antics, has lately taken to going through my jacket pockets if I don't give him my full attention and instead feed other birds - he's observed that when I arrive at the pond, I carry the bag of seed in an outside jacket pocket, so now insists on checking whether I'm holding out by having a second secret stash hidden in my pockets). Besides, do we really think that Russian technology is up to producing a brain implant that can influence the behaviour of even birds? I've seen that recent video clip of the unveiling of Russia's latest humanoid robot, which staggers around and falls over like the average Geordie after two pints, (if only they could make it throw up as well, then the resemblance would be uncanny). But hey, if nothing else, this story opens up another front for the World War Three doomsayers of the UK tabloid press - doubtless they'll soon be running headlines about the risks posed by Russian robo-birds, warning of dive bombing killer gulls, expploding Christmas turkeys and the like. Accompanied by unhinged calls for the government to allow people to booby trap their bird feeders, so as to slaughter the little feathered bastards by the dozen as a precautionary measure.
The question is - just how far will the Trump administration's illegal sinking of small boats on the pretext that they are somehow involved in a 'war' being pursued against the US by foreign drug cartels actually reach? I mean, for now, they just seem to concentrating on the waters around Venezuela, (the fact that Venezuela is an oil rich country the US is currently trying to force regime change upon is purely co-incidental, of course), but will the continued need for headlines to bolster Trump's ego force them to cast their new wider? Will there come a point where US missiles start sinking small boats on the Serpentine, or pedalos in Blackpool, say? Because they too could be manned by drug smugglers, planning to sail to the US with huge cargoes of narcotics. A small non-ocean going pleasure craft would be the perfect disguise, wouldn't it? Who would suspect two guys pedalling a tiny craft shaped like a swan across the Atlantic of being top international drug smugglers? Plus, they'd have the perfect cover story if stopped by the US coastguard or Navy: they somehow took a wrong turning while on the boating lake in Llandudno and were convinced that they were heading back toward Colwyn Bay. Will canal narrowboats be safe from roaming US fighter jets? Will they try sending nuclear subs down the Trent and Mersey Canal to try and sink them before their deadly loads of drugs reach US shores? Right now, we're at the stage where nothing those fucking lunatics in Washington might do would surprise me.
Of course, here in the UK we have our own controversies surrounding 'small boats'. So far, the rabid right-wing morons have confined themselves to condemning the RNLI for doing their job and rescuing their occupants when they start to sink. Apparently, we should just let them all drown: women, children, the lot. But I'm more than slightly surprised that Nigel Farage, Mr Fascist Rent-a-Quote himself, hasn't been calling for the RAF or Royal Navy to sink them before they reach UK shores. Because, after all, they are 'invading' the UK, doubtless with a 'hostile takeover' of the country in mind, via being exploited as low paid illegal labour in those dodgy shops selling dodgy goods and acting as money laundering fronts. I'm even more surprised that, on one of his many trips to the US to grovel at his idol's feet, Farage hasn't tried to convince Trump that these small boats crossing the channel are, in fact, chock full of Islamic fundamentalist drug dealers merely using the UK as a stepping stone to peddle their wares in the US. Thereby giving the US a pretext for bombing rubber dinghies in the English Channel in the name of defending America. Because that's the sort of shitty thing he'd do - get somebody else to do the dirty work then claim credit himself for 'saving England' from the dusky skinned hordes of invaders at our gates. Perhaps if that succeeded he could move on to persuading Trump to bomb Birmingham on the grounds that it has been taken over by Jihadists planning to export their violent terror to the US. Anything seems possible these days.
Another day, another Bud Spencer/Terence Hill trailer. The Two Missionaries (1974) is an historical adventure, with the duo playing a pair of unconventional Catholic priests working as missionaries on an isolated Caribbean island. They're frequently having run-ins with the local slave-owning trader who runs most of the trading in the area as a racket, with their smuggling operations being used to finance their mission. Inevitably, their unorthodox approach - which involves actually helping the natives get proper medical attention and nutrition rather than just forcibly converting them - comes to the attention of the Vatican, which orders the local Monsignor to investigate them. With their arch-enemy the trader being a major financial supporter of the Monsignor's church, things don't look good for the pair. Consequently, many trademark slapstick fights and action sequences ensue before the situation is resolved.
The Two Missionaries clearly had a fairly large budget, with lots of location shooting and elaborate period sets and Robert Loggia playing the villain. Yet, in its English-language version at least, it has a curiously scrappy feel about it, with sometimes murky photography, poor pacing and a plot that never seems to progress particularly smoothly, resulting in a jumpiness to the film. Even the fight sequences seem to lack the sort of energy usually associated with the duo and often feel poorly choreographed. Indeed, the lacklustre feel extends to the whole film, with even the stars looking off the pace and somewhat uncomfortable with their roles. Perhaps this is down to the characters they play, with Spencer, unusually, playing the more dominant character who propels most of the plot and who is relatively restrained compared to his performances in their other films. For his part, Hill seems more like a secondary character, his usual trickery and joking for once not taking centre stage and his performance far more subdued than usual. Something of an atypical Hill and Spencer film as a consequence, but none of the deviations from the norm would matter if the film itself ever sparked properly into life, which it never does, resulting in a rare misfire for the pair.
1974 was a busy year for Peter Cushing who, at this point in his career, was showing no signs of slowing down his prolific output, appearing in no less than seven films that year. With three films apiece for Hammer and Amicus, it might have seemed that Britain's horror movies - and consequently Cushing's future in the genre - were in robust health. But it was his seventh film that year, Tender Dracula (1974), which more accurately points to the future, with the rapid collapse of UK film production increasingly forcing Cushing into taking roles in European productions, often of dubious quality and patchy distribution. An obscure French production - to English speaking audiences, at least - this bizarre and often ramshackle feeling concoction is a curious beast: a would-be horror comedy that, at times, crosses over into sex comedy territory. Its basic idea is promising enough: Cushing is a horror star renowned for playing monsters who has just declared that he wants to turn his back on the genre and focus on romantic leads, instead. His understandably upset producer summons a pair of hapless writers who are currently behind a top-rated romantic TV series and orders them to kill off their current lead, replace him with Cushing and re-jig the show to have a more horrific slant. (It is entirely possible that the script has in mind the US daytime soap Dark Shadows which, after Dan Curtis took over as producer, rapidly shifted from Gothic romance to full on Gothic horror, with vampires, werewolves and witches turning up). They are dispatched, along with a pair of actresses, to Cushing's home - a remote castle - for the weekend, where they are to try and sell the idea to him.
Naturally, Cushing's home turns out to be a typically gloomy and crumbling Gothic pile, complete with the requisite hulking and largely mute manservant and their host's apparently deranged wife. The wife, it is explained was previously married to the manservant, until he had a nasty accident with his axe while chopping wood - 'A terrible blow to his manhood', confides Cushing to his guests. After which she divorced the handyman and married Cushing. A series of bizarre experiences for the four guests ensue, some of which are obviously faked (at least one by one of the writers, while others may, or may not, be of supernatural origin, with the implication that Cushing might not just be an actor who plays vampires, but possibly a vampire who works as an actor. Some of the strange goings on are amusing, others disturbing and macabre - Alfred, one of the writers, being pursued by the disembodied lower half of one of the girls is particularly disconcerting. All of this is punctuated by various episodes of bed-hopping as the writers try to get off with the girls, all of which involve copious amounts of nudity, in the style of a sex farce. At the same time, Cushing's character is busy lecturing anyone who will listen about his concepts of romance and why it is now the only path for him, occasionally shouting to make his point heard.
It's a strange combination of elements that never quite gel, with the film's denouement giving the impression that the writers ultimately had no idea where to go with it: the handyman goes berserk and apparently kills one of the girls with an axe, the other girl and one of the writers are trapped by Cushing and his wife in the dungeon and threatened with torture, before Cushing apparently dies, then comes back to life. During all of this a group of 'ghosts' clad in white sheets with eyeholes, who have been roaming the castle's corridors, are revealed to be the producer and a film crew, who proceed to get involved in and film an orgy instigated by the 'dead' girl who isn't dead, while the other girl and the writer are released by Cushing and get it on in the dungeon while Cushing waxes lyrical to his wife about his love for her. It's an absolute mess that barely makes any kind of sense. To be fair, there is some amusing dialogue (even in translation), with Cushing ecstatic when dungeon girl tells him she's a virgin, making her ideal to bear his children, asking her if she's sure, to which she replies that she's 'mostly a virgin', as she's always cast as an ingénue and, in film, they are always virgins. Some of the production design is also very effective, particularly the main dining hall in the castle, with its giant sculptures and the castle location used to stage various sequences is deployed to good, atmospheric effect, with good use of lighting and camera shots. The film's biggest strength lies in its cast, headed by Cushing, in a role that one might have thought better suited to Vincent Price. But he gives a very engaging performance, characteristically charming, with sudden turns into menace. His delivery of the gags he is given is excellent and his final scenes with his wife, as he lays bare his inner most feelings of love for her are, well, tender. Indeed, I can't help but feel that the emotions did come straight from the heart for Cushing, with him channelling the grief and love he had felt for his own late wife, who had died only a few years previously.
The rest of the cast contains a number of familiar faces from European film, with Italian actress Alida Valli as Cushing's wife, her characterisation evolving from a mildly demented crone early on to a full on vengeful banshee later on then, finally, loving wife in the face of Cushing's overwhelming romance. All the while, her appearance subtly changes to match this evolution. Alfred is played by Bernard Menez, a familiar face from French comedy films, and is suitably hapless and confused in the role. Most interestingly, the part-time virgin Marie is played by the lovely Miou-Miou, seemingly an obligatory fixture in French films of every genre during the seventies and eighties - often playing an ingénue. (She is very much the archetypal French movie 'type' when it comes to young female leads - waif-like and vulnerable-seeming, but actually quite uninhibited under the right circumstances). Overall, there was something about Tender Dracula that reminded me of one of Cushing's other 1974 films, the AIP/Amicus co-production Madhouse. Not in plot details, but in that both feature a lead character who has been defined and trapped by the horror characters they play and are desperate to escape them. (The idea of characters being trapped in roles they are no longer comfortable with is echoed throughout Tender Dracula,
in particular with one of the writers who is moved to return to his
former profession of a make-up artist, which he realises that he found
more fulfilling). In Madhouse, this is Vincent Price, who can seemingly never escape his character Dr Death - who was created for him by Peter Cushing's screenwriter (whose character has a seemingly weird and deranged wife). I thought that, perhaps, I was imagining the resemblance, but I've found that other reviewers have also noted it.
So, was Tender Dracula a worthwhile watch? I have to say that I could never classify it as a good film - it is far too much of a confusing mess for that, undisciplined and flying off at tangents at every turn. It is, however, a beguiling film, with the cast doing their best to rise above the messy script. Cushing, in particular, succeeds, against all odds, in delivering a warm and engaging performance which, alone, is worth sitting through the film for. I have to say, though, despite its short-comings, Tender Dracula has secured itself a place in my heart. If you are a Cushing completist, or you'd simply be intrigued to see a film that includes such scenes as Peter Cushing spanking Miou-Miou, or a castle blasting off into space, then Tender Dracula could be for you.
I think that the only way to understand the Daily Telegraph's war against the BBC is to bear in mind that it is currently desperately auditioning for potential new owners, with various suitors having already been blocked because they would involve foreign ownership of a British newspaper. (Which never seemed to worry anyone when Australian turned American Rupert Murdoch was allowed to own the Sun, News of the World and later The Times and Sunday Times). So, bearing in mind that these days newspapers and non-public service media are only owned by billionaire extreme right-wingers or billionaires who seek to cravenly pander to extreme right-wing politicians in order to further their other business interests, it is only natural that the Telegraph should seek to establish its extremist credentials by trying to trash the UK's main public service broadcaster. Because, by any standards, its recent campaign against the BBC has been truly extraordinary, culminating with the perverse situation of a UK based newspaper effectively encouraging a fascist-lite dictator masquerading as the US president, to sue the UK's flagship, publically funded, broadcaster. Particularly bearing in mind Trump's antipathy to all media, print or broadcast, that refuse to act as propagandists for his demented regime. You'd think that any newspaper which would want to cling to some vestige of integrity and quality in its reporting would be steadfastly anti-Trump. Unless, that is, it is looking for a new sugar daddy who is likely to be steadfastly pro-Trump. In which case ethics go out of the window.
Now, it isn't as if the Telegraph has ever been a hot bed of liberalism, but I'm old enough to remember a time when it was simply a right-of-centre broadsheet which reported the news with a degree of objectivity, albeit always retaining a broadly conservative perspective. As such, it was a well-respected heavyweight on Britain's newsstands. But nowadays, it feels like a parody of its former self, with screaming headlines that seem to be trying to compete with the Daily Mail and Daily Express to see who can come up with the most unhinged and hateful takes on the news. When it isn't attacking the BBC, the Telegraph is pursuing some of the most frothing at the mouth reactionary takes on Labour policies, trying to paint the current government as a manifestation of the Anti-Christ. It's really quite embarrassing. It also doesn't seem to be doing much for sales. I often buy a newspaper late in the day and what I've noticed is that while I often find it difficult to get a copy of The Guardian, having to visit multiple newsagents and supermarkets to find one that hasn't sold out, all of them still seem to have stacks of unsold editions of the Telegraph (and Daily Mail). Now, I know that this isn't a particularly scientific study and you have to take into account that The Guardian has a much smaller daily print run than even the Telegraph, plus bear in mind that Crapchester may well not be representative of overall UK newspaper reading habits, but nonetheless, it makes you think. Overall print sales of newspapers may well be in decline in the UK, but my unscientific survey would seem to suggest that it is right-wing titles which seem to be suffering most. Perhaps this down to the fact that those inclined to read such things can now get their daily dose of hate and misinformation in more convenient and easily digestible form via the web or the proliferation of right-wing broadcast options, or it could be an indication that the sort of hateful bile they peddle is nowhere near as popular as they'd like us to believe.
On the subject of 'It starts earlier every year', last weekend I heard some TV presenter or other saying something along the lines of 'if you've just been putting up the tree..' Jesus, I thought, who the hell puts up Christmas decorations this early? It's still only the middle of November, for God's sake! Well, a stroll down my street on Monday answered that question - I'd forgotten that there are a couple of houses that always put up their decorations early. Already, you can see the Christmas lights in their living rooms blazing away through their windows. One of them even has 'Happy Christmas' spelt out in letters stuck to their front window. Mind you, only the week before it had said 'Happy Halloween' as they hadn't taken down their Halloween decorations, so they just kept the 'Happy' bit and swapped 'Halloween' for 'Christmas'. I suspect that come the New Year it will change again, this time to 'Happy Easter'. Still, to be fair, they were only following the precedent of the municipal decorations, which had appeared in the town centre that same weekend. But municipal decorations follow different rules - obviously they have to go up in November to make their presence worthwhile and to be able to properly promote local retailers' seasonal sales campaigns. As ever, they made a big production of them being set up, with the town centre being clogged up with 'Festive Friday' that day - basically a large collection of market stalls selling overpriced seasonal tat and people dressed as polar bears wandering around.
'You can take your 'Festive Friday' and stick it up your arse', I muttered as I struggled through the crowds milling around these dubious attractions, thereby exercising one of my Christmas traditions: being curmudgeonly. It's a long tradition - I started off being a young curmudgeon, then grew into a middle aged curmudgeon and am now, apparently, an old curmudgeon. Personally, I always mark the beginning of Crapchester's Christmas season from the moment that the German sausage stall appears opposite Tesco Metro. It's there every year from early November until well into the New Year. The smell of those sausages being fried in a big pan is the harbinger of the festive season, as far as I'm concerned. That and the appearance of Nigel Farage and his Reform UK cronies rocking up and shouting 'Noooo! Brexit means Brexit! We didn't leave the EU just to be invaded by foreign meat products! British bangers only!' Of course, he sneaks back several hours later, clad in lederhosen, an alpine hat and sporting a false moustache, to buy his favourite knockwurst. 'Nein, nein,' he protests as people accuse him of hypocrisy. 'You are mistaken! I am not this Farage person you speak of - Ich bein Nikolas Frattenfarger from Munich!' Because there's nothing he likes better than getting his lips around one of those huge German sausages, incognito. Then he goes home and puts that illuminated swastika up on top of his Christmas tree. Anyway, getting back to the original point, I still maintain that household Christmas decorations shouldn't go up before December. Do it in November then, by the time the actual festive period rolls around, they will have lost their novelty value. Personally, I always used the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year as a guide - it used to air on the last Sunday before Christmas, so that's when I'd put those decorations up. But they've moved it to an earlier, mid-week, slot in recent years. So now I just stick the decorations up when I remember to.
I think I mentioned earlier that I'd spent a couple of weeks around Halloween re-watching some of my DVD collection of giallo movies. Well, here's half a dozen of the titles I revisited, dominated by a quartet of Dario Argento films. Cat O'Nine Tails is probably the first giallo I remember seeing, catching the English dubbed version on a late Saturday night showing on BBC1 more than thirty years go. Although, in many ways, an atypical example of the genre, focussing more upon the thriller elements of the story than the bizarre, it intrigued me enough to want to watch more Italian movies of the type and more Argento movies. Watching Profondo Rosso/Deep Red again confirmed it, in my mind, as the probable high point of the genre and certainly the high point of Argento's career, (I know that many people favour Suspiria, which is also a great movie, but I just feel that in the earlier film not only does Argento demonstrate the full range of his directorial techniques to excellent effect, but that he better balances the outlandish and realistic elements of the plot into a near perfect blend). Again, this was a film that I'd first encountered on TV decades ago, catching the last few minutes of a late night showing of the english dub on ITV. Fascinated by what I'd witnessed, I waited in vain for it to be repeated. In the event, I had to wait until I obtained it on DVD many, many years later to enjoy it in its full glory, in its longer, English sub-titled, Italian edit. Of the non Argento titles, Who Saw Her Die is an excellent Venice-set giallo starring George Lazenby that I've written about at length before. It also features in a major role young Nicoletta Elmi, that slightly weird little red haired girl who seemed to be in every other Italian horror movie in the seventies (she also playsa smaller, but nonetheless significant, role in Profondo Rosso). The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is almost a generic giallo in that incorporates just about all of the tropes you'sd expect from the genre. It is also, in its costume design, decor, music, milieu and colour scheme, pretty much 'peak' seventies - it encapsulates completely what most people today seem to think the seventies looked, felt and sounded like.
The other half of the draw includes an old favourite, in the form of Strip Nude For Your Killer, which I've written at length about before, but remains, quite possibly, the sleaziest giallo of all time, opening with an illegal backstreet abortion and ending with the slimy 'hero' trying to get his girlfriend to have anal sex with him, despite her protestations. Torso is another of those giallo movies which also counts as a proto-slasher movie, foreshadowing many elements of the later genre. Phantom of Death, which I wrote about recently, is another giallo/slasher hybrid and, as I noted in an earlier post, much better than I remembered it being. The same applies to Lucio Fulci's Lizard in a Woman's Skin, which has the added novelty of having been shot in London (the exteriors at least) and featuring a couple of well known British actors in the form of Stanley Baker and Leo Genn. It also has the advantage of a plot that, more or less, makes sense as it unfolds. Orgasmo, like Cat O'Nine Tails, is more straight psychological thriller than pure giallo, but is beautifully shot against some attractive locations, (including, in the final act, London). This restored version, including several sequences cut from the original English language release, also makes more sense, with those sequences imparting some vital plot information. Finally, The Bloodstained Shadow remains a somewhat understated classic of the genre. It's a slow burner plot-wise, but incredibly atmospheric with some great moody cinematography, although once it gets moving, the pace rapidly accelerates through a series of plot twists to a downbeat conclusion. Although stylistically and thematically quite different from Argento's Tenebrae, The Bloodstained Shadow shares with that film the central conceit of having two killers operating, one using the other as a cover. Bloodstained Shadow complicates the set-up by having both killers thinking each knows the other's deep dark secret, but with only one of them knowing the other's identity, with the second killer having to work through a series of targets to be sure of eliminating their rival.
So there you have it - my Halloween viewing: a dozen giallo movies, which I found that still enjoyed. Not that they constituted my entire giallo DVD collection - there are still a few more, which I'll probably now rewatch over Christmas - good festive viewing!
According to the Daily Hate (I can't remember whichspecific right-wing rag I read this in, so I'll generalise), social workers fail to properly investigate alleged child abuse when it occurs in non-white families, for fear of being seen as racist. The clear implication here is that we should be employing more overtly racist social workers, as that would undoubtedly get them further with their investigations. Indeed, I'm sure that having local authority officers kicking in doors and shouting 'Get your hands off that kiddie, you child-beating Paki bastard' will save countless children from harm. Doubtless, in defence of their proposals, those advocating the application of racism as an enforcement tool would point to the successes of Britain's police when being a racist bastard was a key core requirement for candidates applying to join. Back in the 'good old days' when coppers were allowed to conduct their investigations along the lines of pointing at the first non-white person they saw and bellowing 'It was that black bastard what done it! You are nicked Sambo!', then fitting them up with evidence as required, they cleared far more crimes than they do today. The fact is that we probably all need to be more racist - we've all gone too woke and spend far too much time being polite to each other. At least, that's undoubtedly what the average Nigel Farage or 'Tommy Robinson' supporter thinks - and practices. Think of all the times that someone has cut you up at the roundabout or traffic lights and you are about to launch a stream of invective at them, before seeing that they are, say, Chinese, so you bite your tongue and instead just smile and wave them on for fear of being seen as racist? Wasn't it all so much easier back in the day when you could just have shouted 'Are you blind, you slitty eyed chinky bastard!' at them?
Sadly, I remember those 'good old days'. Growing up in the seventies, there was still rampant racism in the UK - you saw it everywhere, it seemed to be hard baked into the culture, an unwelcome relic of Empire. Crude 'race' jokes were still stock-in-trade for the country's - predominantly white and working class - comedians, as was blackface. As a child, I laughed along at some of this stuff, after all, I told myself (along with everyone else) it's all just a bit of harmless fun, (just as we convinced ourselves that the rampant sexism and misogyny we saw on our TV screens was just a bit of harmless fun, also). But it wasn't. As I grew older and my extended family became ever more multicultural and we started to see the rise of National Front and their racist thuggery on our TV screens, it suddenly didn't seem so harmless, let alone fun. It started to become very personal. Luckily, where I lived, we didn't see much overt racism first hand - the local National Front seemed to be a couple of skinheads who hung around bus shelters drinking strong cider and scrawling graffiti on toilet walls, but we still saw it all unfold on the TV news. Certainly, we saw and heard enough to know that any return to those 'good old days' would most certainly not be a good thing. Sadly, though, the racists do seem emboldened by the rise of the likes of Trump and Farage and, disturbingly, I've been seeing the return of the open use of various hateful racist epithets, unchallenged, on certain social media platforms. The people doing this are, obviously, pushing the boundaries, to see what they can get away with - not so long ago they would have found themselves widely condemned and ostracised. Now, there's largely silence when they roll out the racial abuse.
But hey - we're all just too woke, too ready to get upset by silly words, is what they'd say in their defence. Except that they aren't just words, they are an encapsulation of irrational hate designed to dehumanise the target, their etymology inextricably tied up with imperialism and ideas of white supremacy. I remember when, not too long ago, these self same people were complaining about'political correctness gone mad' and how we couldn't risk offending anyone anymore, sound familiar? But, in reality, like 'woke', a lot of so called 'political correctness' was really about being polite to people, not dehumanising and degrading them by using offensive terms to describe them. So what these 'critics' are really complaining about is that they were no longer able to call non-white people things like 'darkies', 'wogs' and much, much worse. They wanted the right to vent that unreasoning hatred toward the 'other' that seems to seethe and bubble away inside of them. I've never understood such hatred and the burning need to offend and degrade that it seems to engender - hating requires so much energy, it's exhausting. Being polite and considerate, by contrast, is so much easier. (Which isn't to say that I don't still curse and gesticulate at idiots who cut me up out on the road - but I'm indiscriminate on racial, gender and cultural grounds as to the type and level of abuse and I don't hold on to it, one good swear and wanker sign and I'm done). As a brief digression, I feel that I have to make some defence of my younger self who laughed at those racist jokes - I didn't really understand a lot of them. Indeed, I was so naive back then that I had to have the old Christmas cracker joke of 'What time did the Chinaman go to the dentist? - Tooth hurtee!' - I had no idea that Chinese people were meant to speak that, the only Chinese people I knew were a pair of twins I went to school with whose father, originally from Hong Kong - then a British territory, owned a local dry cleaning business and who spoke impeccable English (not surprisingly, as they'd been born and brought up here).
As ever, the UK's right-wing press has an unerring instinct for the irrelevant, regularly promoting the most trivial 'news' stories they can find, ignoring or downplaying the more significant issues of the day. Just look at what has been getting their knickers in a twist over the past few days: some dude who turned up to a Remembrance Day event in Wales dressed in a Rear Admiral's uniform that he probably wasn't entitled to wear. A major issue likely to shake British society to the foundations, I'll think you'll agree. Of course, this is a 'story' that addresses so many of the thing the right hold dear: their uniform fetishism, a worship of the armed forces and their past glories (not matched by any commitment to actually fund them in the present), Remembrance Day itself and its worship of all those fallen heroes, (again, without any commitment to actually caring for those who didn't die, instead living into a poverty-stricken old age - but don't worry, they were only enlisted men, not officers, so they don't count) and conspicuous patriotism. Their manufactured outrage over some fantasist in a fake uniform is second cousin to their annual poppy-wearing obsession - if you don't wear one, you are an unpatriotic commie who spits on the graves of the war dead. Likewise, wearing a uniform you aren't entitled to is a heinous dishonouring of the sacrifice of 'our brave boys'.
The Daily Torygraph, in particular, went into an amazing, if not obsessive, level of detail as to how you could tell this guy was wearing a fake uniform. Apparently, he was wearing the wrong style of shirt collar and the medals were all wrong - you can't wear certain medals if you hold another certain medal, etc - and various insignia were wrong. No doubt he was wearing non-regulation underpants as well. It's touching that they think that people actually care about this shit, but really, if only they put the same effort into checking the details of the other stories they print - particularly the ones denouncing the Labour government, the BBC or, indeed, any other public institution, not to mention climate change. (Look, I know that I'm obsessive about some things, as well - I can give you chapter and verse about the history of British model railway manufacturers, for instance, but I can't help but feel that this a rather healthier, not to say harmless, area of trivia). Perhaps I'm just an unpatriotic bastard, but with every year that goes by, the more frustrated I get by the right's fetishisation of Remembrance Day and the military as a whole and by extension, it's glorification of the whole idea of war and sacrifice. It just isn't healthy. But, as I say, war is a big obsession with these people - apparently a good war is what today's youth need in order to give them some discipline and self respect - which is probably why they spend so much time these days running scaremongering headlines about the alleged imminent outbreak of World War Three. The bottom line is that I simply can't work myself up into paroxysms of outrage over some sad bastard pretending to be a Rear Admiral. There really are more important things going on in the world today which should be taking up the headlines.
Donald Trump thinks that there's nothing he can do that will get him into heaven. No shit. But he's more recently tried to walk this back, claiming that he was actually joking, not trying to shame God, the Pope or whoever to give him a blanket pre-emptive pardon so as to get through those pearly gates when the time comes. The trouble is that his original comments sounded all too much like his laments over not being given the Nobel Peace Prize and you half expected him to follow up with a litany of all the good things he's done to improve people's lives. But that would have been an even taller order than coming up with a convincing list of fake wars he'd supposedly ended in order to justify that Nobel prize. Let's face it, this is the man that Jeffery Epstein - the world's most reviled sex offender - described as having 'not one decent cell in his body, so the chances of him getting into heaven, if it exists, would, indeed, seem to be very slim. But hey, let's turn things around and try to see them from Trump's perspective: maybe the real problem is that heaven is just too woke. Because that's the problem with modern religions - they're all so obsessed with setting impossibly high standards of morality that no normal person could hope to meet. They just discriminate against regular guys. Like Trump. After all, who hasn't sexually assaulted a woman or two, been friends with a sex trafficker specialising in teenaged girls, instigated an attempted insurrection or illegally ordered boats to be sunk in international waters? It could happen to anyone and the odd lapse surely shouldn't be taken as evidence of being an irredeemable sinner, should it?
Which is why, of course, that the right have never been too keen on religions - they always tend toward do-goodery, watering plants, being kind to furry animals, not raping your sister and such stuff. Bloody kill-joys intent upon taking all the fun out of life. Even worse, they say that you can't be rich and righteous. To get your place in heaven, you have to give all your money away to help the sick and the poor! Well, fuck that! Which is why they tend to prefer those 'other' versions of religion, particularly Christianity, which hark back to good old values like subjugating women, wealth being the mark of God's chosen, enslaving people of colour and basically saying that the poor and indolent should know their place. You know, the sort of stuff that the likes of Charlie Kirk peddled. 'Thou Shalt Not!' is their moral mantra - unless you are rich, of course, in which case you get a free pass in exchange for a generous donation to the church roof fund. Ironically, most of this hardline stuff actually comes from the Old Testament, which has very little to do with the Christian faith - the basic tenets of that are all laid out in the woke New Testament. The Old Testament is actually a Jewish text = something all those anti-semites in the Nazi wing of the right don't like to mention. It has always fascinated me that so many on the right claim to be religious, in particular Christian, yet don't seem to have a clue as to what the values they supposedly encompass actually are. I mean, if there really is a hereafter and it's Christian, then they're surely going to have a very rude awakening - they're all going to burn and Charlie Kirk and Rush Limbaugh will be thee to welcome them, so they should feel right at home.
I'm For the Hippopotamus! (1979) is a Bud Spencer/Terrence Hill movie that I hadn't seen for years before deciding to rewatch it recently. I was surprised by how little of it, beyond the beginning, a few fight sequences and the ending, that I actually remembered. Which probably has less to do with my memory than the formulaic nature of these films - after a while, once you've seen a lot of them, they all begin to feel interchangeable. Which isn't to say that they aren't well made or greatly entertaining, they were simply made to a strict, very successful, formula. All the elements of said formula are present here, with Hill and Spencer adopting their usual respective characterisations of the cunning, good natured, trickster (who is never quite as smart as he thinks he is), and the curmudgeonly, short fused bruiser who really has a heart of gold. As always, they start off sparring with each other, with Spencer, as always, rising to the bait of Hill's affectionate (yet still often cruel) tricks and teasing. Again, as if often the case, they are unlikely relatives - in this case, cousins. The plot also adheres to the usual formula, which sees them after their initial rivalry, teaming up to take on a local bad guy who is oppressing the locals - which involves various scams and schemes masterminded by Hill and lots of brawling, led by Spencer.
Only the locations change. For I'm For the Hippoptamus! the setting, unsurprisingly, is Africa, with the villain being involved in running locals off of their land and rounding up the local wildlife to illicitly sell it to foreign zoos. Of course, he has the local authorities - police, courts and judiciary - in his pocket, so it is up to Terrance and Bud to sort things out. The villain is played, quite effectively, by former boxer Joe Bugner. Just to confuse things, in the English language version Spencer is dubbed by a voice actor with a South African accent, while his regular English language voice actor provides Bugner's voice (although Bugner, obviously, spoke English as a first language, but this sort of post-production redubbing was par forthe course in Italian movies of the period). As was usual from the mid-seventies onward, Hill provides his own English speaking voice, although he was dubbed by another actor for the Italian soundtrack (despite being Italian - his real name being Mario Girotto)! Both their buddy pictures, like this one, and their individual films (which generally followed similar formulae) were incredibly popular in their day, making Hill and Spencer into huge international stars. They weren't the first Italian comedy duo to enjoy success on the big screen, following in the footsteps of Franco and Ciccio, who enjoyed success in a long series of movies in the sixties, (usually directed by Lucio Fulci, before he found global fame with his zombie movies), but never broke into the international market like Hill and Spencer.
Overall, I'm For the Hippopotamus!, although offering nothing new, remains a typical - and typically entertaining - Hill and Spencer outing, packed full of visual gags and comedic violence. As ever, what carries the movie is the charisma of the two leads, who always succeed in coming over as enormously likeable, whatever trickery or acts of gross violence they engage in as the plot unfolds. There's nothing deep or intellectual about their humour, but it rarely fails to entertain for ninety minutes, or so.
The important thing to remember about Sweden: Heaven and Hell, Luigi Scattini's 1968 mondo movie, is that it is an extraordinarily reactionary film. An exercise in sheer hypocrisy, as are many films of this era claiming 'expose' various aspects of the 'new' permissive society. They combine a scalding, sceptical and dismissive tone in their commentary, while the images which accompany it happily focus on lots of bared breasts and bums jiggling around for the sole benefit of the very audience the commentary is telling should be disgusted by all this free sex and nudity. It's a trick still beloved of British tabloids, which like nothing better than to publish articles telling readers just how depraved, say, modern television is, whilst accompanying the article with plenty of stills from the object of their disgust, invariably showing naked women, lesbian sex and the like. Presumably the readers are meant to feel ashamed if even mildly aroused by what they have had shoved in front of them, (so ashamed and disgusted that they will doubtless flock to see the TV shows or films being condemned, just to check for themselves that they really are that depraved and disgusting). To get back to Sweden: Heaven and Hell, the film purports to be a documentary about the 'socialist paradise' that was late sixties Sweden, where liberal philosophies supposedly infused every aspect of life, from sexual mores to crime, from housing to education. But the film's narration, (provided by Edmund Purdom in the English version, using the usual supercilious tone he employed for such jobs), makes clear from the outset that it isn't here to praise modern Sweden, but rather to bury it and everything it stands for.
It's central thesis, (if we can apply such a grand term to a mondo movie), appears to be that despite the freedoms and prosperity of Swedish society, it is, in fact, dysfunctional and its citizens deeply unhappy with their lot. To prove this thesis, the film's makers, naturally, have to show us copious amounts of nudity and simulated and/or implied sex, mainly between young people, with their elders often looking on disapprovingly. Which ignores the fact that, far from being a recent phenomena, even in 1968 Swedish society already had long-established liberal attitudes toward sex and relationships. But why let the facts get in the way of a bit of sensationalism? This is a mondo movie, after all. But all this sex, it seems, encourages a higher incidence of rape, (you'd think the opposite would be true, particularly as, historically, the Swedish population has had more women than men, another factor encouraging a more relaxed attitude toward sexual relationships), which, apparently, turns the victims into lesbians, which is why there are so many lesbians in Sweden. The outrageous claims aren't confined to sexual liberation. According to Sweden: Heaven and Hell, the country's obsession with youth has resulted in all of their old people being herded into high-rise housing where they all die lonely deaths, neglected by both families and society. Which ignores the fact that throughout the post-war period, all across Europe, well-intentioned, but misguided, housing policies had focused upon eliminating slums and replacing them with modern tower blocks. Which, indeed, did leave many people feeling isolated. It wasn't a problem unique to Sweden, caused by its pursuit of its 'socialist' paradise based on sex and nudity.
Other outrageous claims include the 'fact' that in Sweden car theft wasn't a crime and that an owner stopping a youth from stealing their vehicle could be arrested, as stopping the thief would infringe their liberty to enjoy themselves! Not to forget the whole sequence on how child offenders were treated in Sweden - pretty humanely, to modern eyes, as they end up being placed in a community environment for their rehabilitation, with the idea that they can eventually be re-integrated into their families. While the narration concedes that such methods might work and that they are probably better than locking the kids up in juvenile detention centres, it can't help but question why they were offending in the first place, suggesting that the reason young girls ended up prostituting themselves and so on was down to the failings of that permissive Swedish society, which had left them depressed and feeling disconnected. But should we be surprised by a mondo movie taking such an approach? Obviously not. After all, the genre, from its instigation with Mondo Cane (1963), had, in large part, been about presenting 'primitive' rituals and behaviours (usually involving sex and nudity) to more 'sophisticated' audiences in the 'civilised' west as something to be laughed at, under cover of being a serious anthropological study. With those 'primitive' societies pretty much mined out by schockumentaries by the late sixties, it was natural for the makers of such films to for alternative subjects - the occult, sex and violence, swinging London, for instance - with the so-called 'permissive society' becoming a natural target. bearing in mind that these movies originated in Italy - still a socially conservative country with the Catholic church exerting enormous influence over politics and public morals in the late sixties - places such as Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries, must have seemed as exotic and outrageous as all those 'primitive' South Sea islanders who featured in the early mondo movies. With Italian audiences being the primary market, it is all too obvious just why Sweden: Heaven and Hell presents its subject in the way in which it does - it allows them to glimpse that 'forbidden fruit' of permissiveness, (that, in reality, many Italians, especially younger Italians, were already enjoying themselves), while simultaneously 'tut-tutting' and condemning such filth.
I've spent the last couple of weeks going through my DVD collection of giallo movies, re-watching those I hadn't viewed in a while. There were some surprises - I could have sworn for instance, that my copies of Argento's Bird With the Crystal Plumage and Cat O'Nine Tails were the English dubbed versions, but both were in the original Italian with sub-titles, the false memory doubtless down to having seen them in English on streaming channels - with some titles turning out to be far better than I recalled. Chief amongst these being Ruggero Deodato's Phantom of Death (1988). As a latter day entry in the genre, the film obviously doesn't have the often stylised look of those entries made in their seventies heyday, instead focusing on a more realistic, hard-edged and location-shot look. Plot-wise, it also eschews the twisty plotting of the classic giallos, which constantly challenger audience expectation and continually shifted their perspectives on what they were seeing onscreen. I common with many later giallos, the plot instead veers toward a slasher-movie structure, focusing on the question of 'who's next' in terms of victims. The killer's motivations in Phantom of Death are also not derived from some past crime or buried secret, although the killer's past weighs heavily upon their actions. In the film's most novel aspect, the killings are triggered by a diagnosis of a rare and incurable medical disorder which causes the sufferer to age rapidly, the physical process accompanied by a rapid mental deterioration. The sufferer in this case being a concert pianist in the prime of his career, played by Michael York. Angered by the fact that his life and career are to be cut short in this way and with dementia setting in, he goes on a murderous rampage, the while taunting the investigating police detective, played by Donald Pleasance, with a series of phone calls using a disguised voice.
In this latter aspect, the film can be seen as a sort of second cousin to Lucio Fulci's New York Ripper (1982). The similarity is no coincidence, as the same writers were responsible for both films, but weren't happy with the rewriting and changes made to the script for Fulci's film, so continued to develop their original concept into Phantom of Death. Although still including a significant number of gory murders, Deodato's film feels far less violent and savage than Fulci's, making its killer into a tragic figure, rather than just another maniac. Indeed, York actually gives a pretty decent performance as the murderous pianist, his physical deterioration (via some excellent make-up effects) accompanied by his slipping further and further into a dementia that frequently leaves him barely comprehending his own actions and constantly bewildered by the fact that those he has known from childhood no longer recognise him. A bewilderment that frequently turns to rage, often resulting in more killings. He is matched by a hugely entertaining performance from Pleasance as his nemesis, characterising the detective as quietly spoken, restrained and intellectual, he too finally erupts into rage as the killer's taunting and threats take their toll. In one particularly memorable scene, after it becomes clear that the killer is calling from a cafe across the road from the police station, he runs into the street ranting and raging at his unseen foe, (to the bemusement of passers by who clearly didn't know that it was part of a film, presumably assuming that Pleasance was just some crazy Englishman).
While the film's central conceit of the ageing disease is certainly novel and is used both to define the killer and the investigation into the murders, (Pleasance suspects York from early on, but descriptions of the killer, as an older man and the voice he hears on the phone, don't match the version of the pianist he knows, derailing the investigation into a series of dead ends), it also ensures that York's threat declines as the film goes on. Inevitably, he starts becoming so decrepit that it is hard for the audience to see him presenting a threat to anyone, let alone the much younger characters he is targeting. Toward the climax, he has to rely on the fact that, looking like an elderly man, victims won't perceive him as a threat until it is too late. Ultimately, the ending feels muted and anticlimactic, as he has clearly become too feeble to hurt anyone. In spite of this, the film overall is very entertaining, with some great Venetian locations and two strong leading performances. Deodato's direction ensures that the film has a slick look. moving smoothly through its plot at a decent pace, full of interesting shots and compositions. As a metaphor the way in which society perceives age and frustrations this can engender in the aged, as it becomes increasingly obvious their inner perception of themselves aren't matched by the way others perceive their appearance, the film scores heavily. The question it ultimately poses is whether it is better to rage against ageing, as York's character does, seeing it as a handicap, a curse, or accept it gracefully, as Pleasance's character does, enjoying the benefits it brings, such as the professional respect of his colleagues. As I said, Phantom of Death turned out to be far better than I remembered it, both in terms of the production itself, but also the script and performances. Whilst far from being a giallo in the classic sense, it still has much to merit it and is well worth watching.
Are we getting near the end of the Prince (or whatever we're meant to call him now) Andrew saga? I certainly hope so, as I'm heartily sick of it. I hold no brief for the man, in fact, I don't even like him, having always thought him an utter arrogant and morally bankrupt knob, but this whole press campaign against him has been characterised by spite and vindictiveness. Whilst he might well be deserving of it all, the media coverage of the loss of his titles and privileges have been characterised by a barely disguised glee, with those reporting on it clearly seeing it as some kind of 'settling of scores' for past disputes and slights. Their relentless pursuit of him, not because they really think that he's done anything wrong, but simply because they don't like him, makes me feel uneasy. Not I think that he's a victim, but the real victims in this, the women he was allegedly involved in exploiting, are effectively still being used as pawns, this time in someone else's game of 'tit-for-tat'. Moreover, the whole scale of the UK coverage of this business has been completely out of proportion compared to ex-Prince Andrew's actual importance. Sure, you can argue, as the media does, that it undermines the integrity of the Royal Family, but they, in truth, are an archaic irrelevance as far as public life in the UK is concerned. His links to Epstein, whilst personally embarrassing for him and by extension his brother, the King, don't have the kind of political impact as, say, the President of the United States' alleged links to the disgraced and deceased financier and sex offender.
Worst of all, the reporting of this business have dominated the headlines in the UK to the exclusion of other, far more important, stories. Anyone would think that wasn't still a war going on in Ukraine, that the ceasefire in Gaza seems to be routinely being broken by Israel, that climate targets are being missed and so on. But, of course, that's the idea. It's been puffed up as a distraction from the stories that the press, particularly the right-wing press, don't want you to know about. For instance, I'm still waiting to hear more about those EU fraud allegations against Nigel Fartage's significant other. Not to mention the fact that we have no idea where she got the money to buy that house outright for Fartage to live in Clacton. Not that I'm saying there's a link, but come on, join the dots. But instead of pursuing that, journalists have instead spent their time gloating over some sad irrelevance's self-inflicted misfortunes. Look, it's not that I don't have any sympathy for the women abused by Epstein and his pals, but this sort of sideshow, ultimately, won't get them justice. The ex-Prince is just a sacrificial lamb, with all those wealthy Epstein cronies currently running multi-national companies or occupying senior government positions, hoping that throwing him to the wolves will assuage those looking for justice. Crucifying him doesn't implicate them or affect them materially. So under the bus he goes. To get back to the original point, hopefully the ex Prince Andrew stuff can now start fading from the headlines and the media forced to get back to reporting the important stuff again - like just why was 'Tommy Robinson' driving someone else's Bentley, stuffed with cash, to Spain, when stopped by the police?
I usually try to avoid fan productions. Their ambition inevitably exceeds their resources, which generally fall a long way below those available to even the most poverty stricken direct-to-video Z-movie. Although, to be absolutely fair, some of those direct-to-video efforts which manage to get some kind of distribution on streaming services are frequently little more than glorified home movies. But just lately I've found myself enjoying episodes of Star Trek Continues, a fan-produced series from a few years ago that turned out eleven or so episodes over a period of several years, which effectively continues and concludes the original Star Trek series. I've been pleasantly surprised by the production values and technical competence of this series. It is a loving recreation of the original series, not just in look, but style and tone as well, with amazingly accurate looking recreation of the original sets and props. Even the camera angles and lighting effects are faithfully recreated. The only thing upgraded are the special effects. To be sure, at first it is somewhat jarring to see different actors playing the main characters in an otherwise faithful recreation of the show, but they have at least cast professional actors, (many, apparently, are primarily voice actors), who know better than to attempt to impersonate the original actors. Their effectiveness varies, but their Kirk captures the essence of the character as played by William Shatner - all cockiness and machismo - while Scotty does look and sound like the original, mainly because he's played by James Doohan's son. My biggest reservations are with regard to their version of Spock - while a perfectly decent performance, which seeks to bring some nuance to the character, he lacks the sheer authoritativeness of Leonard Nimoy's version. The series also, interestingly, resurrects a character unseen since the second pilot episode, 'Where No Man Has Gone Before', in the form of Yeoman, now Lt, Smith, the character having been rather short-changed in the original series, being replaced by Yeoman Rand in the series proper, who also proved a short-lived character.
The scripts also do their best to evoke the spirit of the original series, with some even being sequels to original episodes. There's a particularly effective episode set in the 'Mirror Universe' which follows on directly from the original series episode 'Mirror, Mirror', for instance. Unfortunately, though, some of the scripts feel over-earnest, too talky and slightly preachy, something the original series, with its emphasis on action and conflict, tended to avoid. This is probably the continuation series greatest weakness. But the two-part finale more than makes up for such shortcomings, serving up an action-packed return to that second pilot episode to bring everything full-circle and wrap things up with the 'Enterprise' completing its five year mission and returning to earth. These episodes, featuring a group of ESPers who have enhanced their natural abilities by deliberately going into the energy barrier at the galaxy's edge discovered in the afore-mentioned original series episode, with the intent of using their 'superior' status to take over the Federation, have a distinct Wrath of Khan vibe. There's a face-off between the 'Enterprise' and a hijacked sister ship, several space battles, an uneasy alliance with a Romulan Warbird and its crew, the saucer section detaching from the drive unit of the 'Enterprise' and crises of confidence for both Kirk and Spock. To be frank, I enjoyed it a lot more than much of the recent 'official' Star Trek output, particularly those Godawful JJ Abrams' movies, mainly because it simply felt more like, well, Star Trek, in both execution and spirit than any of these latter incarnations. The makers, as fans themselves, clearly understood just what it is about the original series that people like me loved about it (and still love). If the original series had ever had a proper finale, then I'd have hoped it would have been something like these two episodes. It neatly brings everything to a satisfactory conclusion that, in its final scenes, sets everything up for what we subsequently see in Star Trek - The Motion Picture (1979). So there you have it - Doc Sleaze finally finds a fan production he likes! Shocking! But seriously, if you are a fan of the original series and haven't seen Star Trek Continues, then look it up - all of the episodes are available, free to view, online.
All aboard the 'Hate Express'! Social media increasingly seems to be full of people just waiting to be triggered so that they can pour out a deluge of irrational hate and bile. Oh, I know that there has always been such an element to social media, but it seems to have gotten worse since Elon Musk went full on Nazi on Twitter. This last weekend I made the mistake of looking at Twitter in the aftermath of that guy going nutzoid on a train and stabbing lots of people. I know that I shouldn't have looked. I should know better by now than to visit that cesspool of reactionary extremism, but I couldn't resist. Just one peek can't hurt, I thought, after all, it's now been established that the perpetrator wasn't an illegal immigrant, but a UK citizen, so just how Nazi can it get over there? Jeez, as it turned out, the psychos who hang out there these days can even find being proven wrong a source of extreme hate. It was quite amazing, these crypto-fascists were working themselves up into a frenzy over the fact that the bad guy hadn't met their expectations - 'How dare Keir Starmer allow someone who isn't an illegal immigrant, or at the very least, a Muslim, go berserk and stab white people?' seemed to be the predominant sentiment. Apart from the fact that Keir Starmer is apparently personally responsible for every criminal act perpetrated in the UK, my main takeaway from their demented bellowing was that, according to them, ordinary UK citizens simply don't suffer untreated mental health problems that might, with the right trigger, set them off on a violent rampage. I mean, this must be true because 'Tommy Robinson' says so, although, as far I'm aware, that short-arsed mortgage fraudster/violent football hooligan runt isn't qualified in the field of mental health.
But hey, I'm not qualified in this field either. My entire knowledge of homicidal psychopaths comes from watching giallo movies, (which makes me infinitely better qualified than the runt to comment on such matters). Which, obviously, present an entirely accurate portrayal of severe mental illness. So, despite what the cretins on Twitter might think, it is entirely possible for someone to live in the community for years, decades in fact, without murdering anyone. But given the right trigger - a particular painting, say, as in The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, or a specific piece of music, maybe, as in Profondo Rosso - they can have a psychotic episode and start murdering people left, right and centre, in the most bizarre ways imaginable. A bit like how certain words - 'immigrant', 'Muslim', 'woke' or 'ethnic' - can trigger these idiots on social media into enraged rants. In fact, I'm surprised that they don't topple over completely into violent psychoses and start murdering people who fit the stereotypes they associate with their trigger words. I suppose the fact that they are sat at their keyboards when triggered limits their scope for homicide. Instead, I imagine them working themselves up into an apoplectic fit, their faces turning puce coloured, strain etched into them, as their impotent rage builds up, with no proper outlet. Is it asking too much that this, in turn, triggers a few fatal coronaries? After all, most of them are doubtless overweight beer-guzzling, chain smoking slobs, who exist on a diet of greasy fast food. Whoops! My prejudices are showing there, aren't they? Anyway, at the very least, could we expect to see a few heads explode? I mean, such self-destructive rages would at least solve the problem of the far-right, in that their own knee-jerk anger will prove fatal, resulting in their extinction.
