A capacity for self-delusion

In the aftermath of a devastating British naval assault on an North Africa-bound Italian supply convoy on 9 November 1941, Italian commanders were desperate to put a good light on the disaster:

From North Africa, Rommel complained to Berlin that his supply line had been cut and that, of 60,000 troops promised, only 8,093 had arrived. In the aftermath of the action Mussolini was "depressed and indignant", [Admirals] Brivonesi and Bisciani lost their commands, and [Count Galeazzo] Ciano considered there would be "profound repercussions ... Under the circumstances we have no right to complain if Hitler sends Kesselring as commander in the South". The Italian high command had a capacity for self-delusion, "pulling out their usual inevitable and imaginary sinking of a British cruiser by an Italian torpedo plane; nobody believes it". Italian reconnaisance photographs taken after Force K had returned to Malta showed a cruiser moored near the dry-dock. This, insisted the Regia Aeronautica's chief of staff, Generale Pricolo, was evidence that one British cruiser had been hit. "This," commented Ciano despairingly, "is equivalent to declaring that a man is probably dead because he has gone to live near the cemetery. Clowns, tragic clowns..."

- Richard Woodman, Malta Convoys, London, 2000

Howling at the moon

The comments thread on this Amazon t-shirt sale page ascend to the apex of literary criticism, while at the same time ensuring that levels of awesomeness are never neglected. A small sample of the comments on the shirt, which depicts three wolves howling at a full moon:

Look closely at the moon. It is the face of Chuck Norris. One wolf would not be enough to pay him homage. It takes three. (Katherine, California)

- Amazon.com, via Threadless.com

Cultural differences

'I was filming around Bilbao and environs in Northern Spain some years ago. The cast of our film was invited to the San Sebastian Film Festival premiere of a new Polanski movie called The Ninth Gate, not one of dear Roman’s best, but perfectly enjoyable and always a pleasure to be in St. Sebastian, or ‘Donostia’ as the Basques call it. I won’t go into the plot of the film, perhaps you know it anyway: suffice to say Johnny Depp plays an art dealer who gets involved in some sort of satanic Hammer House of Horror brouhaha or other. The opening reel takes place in New York (not filmed there of course: Mr Polanski can’t go to America) and there is a scene where Johnny Depp’s character arrives at his apartment, goes to the fridge, takes a pizza box from the freezer section, removes a frozen pizza and pops it into the microwave. Cue howls of laughter from the audience. I am sitting one row behind Johnny Depp and can see that he is rather perplexed by these helpless gales of Hispanic merriment and I hear him whisper to the Festival Director next to him, “Why are they laughing?” to which the Spaniard replies, wiping tears from his own eyes, “Because they cannot believe that anyone would do that to their stomach!” Genuine perplexity on both sides. An American thinks: why would anyone find placing a frozen ready-made pizza inside a microwave amusing? – a Spaniard, especially a Basque, whose cuisine is exceptional, thinks: why would anyone, above all somebody cultured and prosperous, insult their digestion with such complete rubbish?'

- Stephen Fry, The Spectator Lecture, Royal Geographical Society, presented in London 30 April 2009

A perceptive analysis

'After the round of broadly favourable reviews a backlash was inevitable, and by the time the Outside tour arrived in Britain in November [1995], members of the music press were falling over one another to rubbish an album mistakenly praised by their colleagues. The NME's Simon Williams found the English language a sadly inadequate medium in which to launch his assault: "El Bowza's latest lurch away from reality is entitled Outside, which is kind of about 'outsiders' and involves all these strange neo-futuristic characters running around El Bowza's head and it's sort of a concept album blah blah bollocks blah blah ARSE!!!!!!!" A perceptive analysis'


- Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, 2000, summarising reviews on Bowie's 1995 album 1. Outside.

Jeff Goldblum

Jeff Goldblum provides a stirring eulogy... for Jeff Goldblum, after false news reports that he had fallen to his death in New Zealand.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

It should be noted that the NZ Police issued a clear denial of the hoax.

The days of amateur rugby

'Not since 1950 has Ranfurly Shield fever reached such fervour in Wairarapa. Then the local team captured the shield with a 3-0 drop-goal win over Canterbury.

[...]

However, Wairarapa's hold on the shield was shortlived. The youngest player at the time, Hori Thompson, said most players thought the season had ended so left the region for shearing work.

"The coach turned up on a Thursday at work and said, 'You guys are playing this weekend'. Most of the lads had been drunk for two weeks since the win ... and no one had been training." Wairarapa went down 17-14 to South Canterbury in the first defence'

- Dominion Post, 2 July 2009

Singing songs while wearing clothes

The Guardian's Anna Pickard, on TV coverage of the Glastonbury festival:

'We cut back and forth to see what clothes Lady Gaga had chosen to wear at least four times. And, to be fair, she was wearing increasingly ridiculous outfits every time we did. She was also singing songs, of course, while wearing clothes, but the emphasis was definitely on the clothes.

It was an ever-present pressing question with the bands who dropped by the BBC3 sofas. "So what'll you be wearing on stage, then?" - though mainly this was related to the lady-bands. Lily Allen (with her single white glove and catsuit) the Ting Tings (catsuit) and so on. Of course, we would then cut to them singing, onstage, wearing what they'd just described - so, really, we could have just waited. And then seen their clothes. With our eyes.

But it could be argued that with Lady Gaga, it was not only part of the appeal, part of the package: it was the majority interest. Undeniably she cuts a fine figure, in increasingly bizarre outfits. First up, a glass-shard covered dress with a skirt seemingly designed with displaying her pert buttocks top of the priority list. With blonde hair mostly covering her face, from the neck up, she resembled nothing so much as a cross between Karen O and a blow up doll, while from the neck down, she was a 3D paper doll with detachable outfits. Including one with a bra that spouted fire. The crowd screamed approval, but you had to wonder how much of that had to do with the music. And isn't that the point? Or am I being outdated about all of this?'

- Guardian, 27 June 2009

The shouting auteur

New York Times movie reviewer Manohla Dargis gets stuck in to Michael Bay, the director of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen -

[...] And make no mistake: Mr. Bay is an auteur. His signature adorns every image in his movies, as conspicuously as that of Lars von Trier, and every single one is inscribed with a specific worldview and moral sensibility. Mr. Bay’s subject — overwhelming violent conquest — is as blatant and consistent as his cluttered mise-en-scène. His images, particularly during the frequent action sequences, can be difficult to visually track, but they are also consistently disjointed. (And proudly self-referential: the only director he overtly cites is himself, with a shot of the poster for his movie “Bad Boys II.”) The French filmmaker Jacques Rivette once described an auteur as someone who speaks in the first person. Mr. Bay prefers to shout.

- New York Times, 24 June 2009

Beauty is duty and duty beauty

Trademark nimble word-wrangling courtesy of Stephen Fry from 'A Bit Of Fry And Laurie':



[Via Mike Riversdale]

How to be content

'Read carefully the following list that I have compiled. It is the product of a lifetime of occasional study and comprises all the ambitions anyone should ever have in life.

1) Have a place for the Sellotape and wrapping paper. Giving presents is tedious enough without having to turn the house upside down every time you want to pretend you like someone enough to have remembered their birthday.

2) Find your dressing gown cord.

3) Find a job in a book or cake shop, depending on which you'd save first from your house if there were a fire.

4) Cook only meals that dirty just one pan.

5) Don't be afraid to eat out of the pan.

6) Get a cat. Not if you're bounded on all sides by dual carriageways, motorways and a shooting range, and are out 14 hours a day, obviously, but otherwise, get a cat.

7) Buy only every fifth thing you take a fancy to when out shopping.

8) Always take an umbrella.

9) And a mini A to Z.

10) And put the phone back on its thing.

11) Buy one of those plastic eggs that you put in a pan with real eggs that tells you how hard-boiled they have become. A life of perfectly boiled eggs is a life of true contentment.

12) Maybe the cat will even come and sit in your lap. You see how it all begins to tie in?

Have a bit of a tidy up and then a cup of tea.

13) If you are a woman who alternates between two favourite handbags, buy a second set of everything you habitually take with you - make-up, hairbrush, painkillers, cosh, hip flask, facsimile of the Holy Prepuce, or whatever else it is that helps you get through the day - so you don't have to keep decanting your support system from one to the other. This is not a waste of money - it has been estimated, by me, just now, that the average woman loses 406 years of her life shifting this stuff around, so what you are actually doing is buying yourself literally hundreds more hours a day. Do it.

14) If you are a man who alternates between two favourite handbags, I suspect you may have already engineered for yourself a lifestyle that can admit of no more happiness and I applaud you unreservedly.

15) Remember, unless she's actually in the room, your mother cannot see you. And even if she can still sense that you're doing something wrong, she'll never be able to prove it.

Upon fulfilment of these goals, perfect happiness, I assure you, will ensue'

- Lucy Mangan, Guardian, 23 May 2009