Author: Ann

Google’s currently showing 14,900 hits for the above phrase (explained below). A minor internet phenomenon. Most of these seem to be on blogs, picked up AFTER PeriodOne’s audacious scoop. No hat tips though. I seriously need to get some more readership going, especially as the British press has been dominated over the Easter weekend by a mega sleaze scandal in which bloggers of various political hues were involved, chiefly this Guy. 10,000 hits a day are not to be sniffed at. But PeriodOne seems to be very much a blog of the old-school (‘old’ being in this case a relative term). Whimsical and gently meandering. Or, to paraphrase the author of Catchgraph: ‘longwinded’. I’m not sure whether there’s room for such low-impact writing on the relentlessly high-impact internet. Ah well. I suppose it won’t surprise readers to learn that my world has today been rocked by the fact that my windowbox lettuces have germinated. I was going to post a video, but the resultant media frenzy would have been simply too much …

I’m feeling better. And one of the serendipitous side-effects of being bed-bound and in possession of a laptop and wifi is the possibility of stumbling across breaking internet phenomena at source, rather than finding out about them only to be told by, say, your Mum that she is already on Twitter / has an avatar / has been Rickrolled etc. Of course, the downside is that a genuinely fresh trend will in all likelihood fail to blossom to glorious ubiquity, but that’s the risk the avid internet pioneer faces.

David Mitchell, a British comedian and writer of wholly unparalleled genius (I wish he was my friend, but he has inexplicably yet to get in contact), has built a substantial broadcasting career on an uncanny ability to explicate the irritations and frustrations of being alive. He isn’t the first and won’t be the last to entertain in this fashion, but, at the moment, he’s certainly the best.

In a recent column for the Observer, Mitchell discusses the nature of posted comments on the ‘net, a favourite grindstone with which Mitchell fans will be intimately acquainted. Therefore, the gist is fairly obvious: Web 2.0’s capacity to give voice to the opinions of all and sundry, whilst being ‘democratising’, simultaneously offers a far-too-public platform for the deranged, frustrated and enthusiastically impolite. A wonderful, lovingly compiled collection of these kinds of comments (the majority of which, tragically enough, come from my erudite countrymen and women in the UK) can be found at ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com. This brilliant, brilliant blog collects its material exclusively from the BBC’s Have Your Say user comments section, and browsing for longer than a couple of minutes leaves one in that curious position of crying with both laughter and despair at the nature of humankind. Try doing THAT with a tummy bug.

Anyway, aware as I am that this very entry is beginning to take on the unstructured nature of many of the comments I am so roundly criticising, I’ll come to the point. Refusing to give in to the moronic onslaught, yet aware that posting intelligent, considered comments as a counter-balance is inefficient as it by its nature involves a degree of time and thought, Mitchell suggests a different strategy: we should stem the tide of idiocy by posting the most gentle, innocuous and universally applicable phrase wherever the opportunity presents itself (the comments section below is naturally a good place to start). And the phrase he advocates: ‘It just goes to show you can’t be too careful!’.

Several hundred people have posted this sentence at the bottom of the Mitchell’s column, and I was initially alerted to its significance when it kept cropping up on YouTube clips featuring the chap himself. However, this is still all very, very new: the article was only published a couple of days ago, hence my excitement that my debilitated condition had led to find something that is yet to ‘break’. But will it? A swift google of “It just goes to show you can’t be too careful!” suggests that so far only Metafilter has spotted the trend. But lots of people read that, and at least five people read this, so who knows? Maybe this is the start of something big …

Oh, by the way, one last thing (if you write properly, stop reading now). Please, please forgive my unforgivably teacherly tone here – but it is very important to get the sentence right … there’s an apostrophe in the word ‘can’t’ and the letter ‘o’ is required twice in ‘too’. I know that the majority equate a preference for elegant punctuation and correct spelling with a crime against humanity, but in this case it’s pretty important in order to avoid undermining the whole enterprise. You can’t be too careful …

Oh God, I’m ill. I’m sitting in bed and the only vague entertainment is waiting for the moments of bliss when my stomach stops cramping and the nausea lifts for five minutes. You know you’re ill when the mere sensation of air wafting against bare skin – normally gently refreshing – makes you feel so weak and vulnerable that you feel you might just collapse on the spot. Every trip to the toilet – and there have been a few – is a grotesque battle between the urgent needs of my crippled digestive system and the desperate messages from my brain telling me that if I move I will certainly definitely die. Thankfully I live alone; no-one must bare witness to the injured-puppy whimpers and moans of a 29 year old limping five metres to the bathroom.

Just as bad is the unbearable state of the ill brain – a fever destroys the bits of it that make concentration, and hence pleasure, possible, but leaves the parts that coordinate boredom completely untouched. So the crushing, aching tedium (I’m not blessed with a massively long attention span at the best of times) is all-enveloping. Unable to swim to the surface by reading a book or watching a film, the brain drowns in awful, sickly grey nothingness. Urgh.

We all TRY to appreciate our health when we have it. But it’s like asking yourself to be happy you haven’t got hangover, or give praise that you’re not currently stuck in a traffic jam. Even if you do it, it’s never really genuine. It probably can’t be. And yet every now and again, and with increasing frequency as we age, we find ourselves so angry at this healthy nonchalance. I was feeling fine two days ago. I’d give just about anything to feel that way now. Asked at the time, I wouldn’t have even acknowledged the ecstasy that is being healthy. And I know, or I can imagine, that should I in the future succumb to a genuinely serious illness – which will eventually happen, we all die and not that many of us peacefully in our sleep – I’ll think back to bed-bound-blogging with a weird tummy and swirly-whirly-head-feeling and beg and hope and pray that I could be back here. Which does make me feel a bit better.

But sod it, I’m ill and I’m on my own and I’m not in the mood for existential, long-term positivity nonsense. This is horrible and I want it to stop and that’s that. And I’m annoyed that my addled brain keeps telling me to put an apostrophe in the word ‘ill’. Like that makes sense: ‘Oh God, I’m I’ll’. Urgh, again.

I wouldn’t say The Economist is given to alarmist journalism, but this week’s front page and main leader are, if not alarming, then certainly disquieting. Especially so for Europeans; possibly even more so for those Europeans, like PeriodOne, that live in Germany.

Few begrudged the former Communist states of eastern Europe the economic success they enjoyed and their subsequent entry into the EU. Yes, the Polish plumbers ruffled feathers (though not British ones; we were just glad that SOMEONE could repair stuff properly). Yes, Nokia destroyed its standing in Germany when it pocketed German subsidies then shifted production to Romania and Hungary. But the states themselves were implicated in these factors, not the single causes. And most people had at least a vague awareness that the fact they could afford better computers and phones was not just a result of Chinese manufacture, but also of cheap labour closer to home.

The problem is, this growth was fueled to a large extent with easy credit. And as The Economist points out, it is entirely conceivable that one of these states will default on its debt and require the kind of bail-out that we’ve become used to seeing doled out to banks and industrial sectors by governments. But this happening to an actual country? That’s something different, not least because the country’s government obviously can’t do it: that’s the point. So what happens? There are various institutions which preside over funds which could theoretically be used to prop an entire national economy – the World Band and the IMF for example. But for the new EU members – well, it’s going to be the EU. And when it comes to money, the EU mainly means Germany.

All of which isn’t that alarming, until one considers Germany’s position. During the boom years, Germans were the model of self-restraint, and had to watch Londoners and New Yorkers rake in the cash while they battled with stagnation, high-umemployment and the associated general social malaise. Despite what must have been immense temptation, successive governments resisted the urge to encourage borrowing or lean on banks to offer easier credit. Either that, or the German people simply weren’t interested in living beyond their means with quite the same alacrity as their British neighbours. In any case, reforms were pushed through – and they were painful – and it seemed as though the country might be on the mend, about to ultimately recover from the long-term trauma of already integrating a failed economy in the 90s.

So now you can understand the concern that the German people will not stand for pumping money into economies yet again. The Economist states that not to do so would be even worse (a phrase we’ve all heard a lot in recent months), and it is undoubtedly right. It just seems very unfair, and, historically-speaking, sets a precedent that encourages a ‘can’t beat them, join them’ attitude in governments whose prudent policy leaves them no better off in a crash than the cash-happy states whose lax regulation caused it.

It all adds up to a field day for populist and national political parties who offer a voice to those with a raging sense of injustice. There are, sadly, no shortage of those in Germany, and an EU state default would play right into their hands.

It’s strange and wonderful how sometimes words come, and sometimes not. The most difficult, stressful and terrified moments can trigger a torrent of broadly coherent and essentially relevant sentences; yet for every one of these moments we spend another in twisted silence, willing words to arrive like a late bus we need to catch. So I sat lemon-like last night. And for that I spent all of today in oral exams which required constant improvised dialogue. No problem. But last night I just didn’t know what to say. It’s an interesting feeling, in my case accompanied by regular short intakes of breath, bizarre mini-shrugs and half-completed facial expressions repeated in various combinations until the poor soul trying to decipher my gyrations gets up in frustration to make a cup of tea. But as an inveterate talker (i.e. a teacher), I’m starting to realise the inherent value of shutting up – and let’s face it: at 29, it’s frankly about time. We’re always communicating, and sometimes moments of silence chime together, building to a wonderful moment of understanding. I’ve underestimated it for a long time, believing always that silence meant awkwardness: a lack, an emptiness, a broken connection. But the same balance exists in intimate verbal interaction that regulates everything else as beautiful – I’m listening to Sigur Ros right now, and the gaps are as enchanting as the bits you can hear; as a drama teacher I constantly encouraged kids to pause between lines, to savour and foster audience anticipation; my band’s obsession with creating awesome noise is increasingly tempered by a desire to frame this in silent moments of musical reflection. In other words: shut up Steve.

It’s actually a very solid film. Problem is, when portraying the Nazi regime, more than solidity is required. If anything, being solid is a disadvantage when a nuanced exploration of character, motivation and morality is what the subject matter and viewing audience demands. So adept is Bryan Singer at establishing suspense and – I believe the verb is ‘ratcheting’ – up tension, that Valkyrie comes off like Speed with swashikas and downbeat ending. But let’s make no mistake – Cruise is not Keanu Reeves, and his work as Stauffenberg is as solid as the film as a whole. But as Empire’s review has noted, we need more. Beyond an opening voiceover (which apparently in the US and UK features the unlikely prospect of Cruise speaking German, though this was oddly not the case in the continental European cut I watched in Berlin) and a brief sequence establishing his war injuries, we just get Maverick’s slightly older, more sensible brother. Again – historical accuracy aside – it’s solid: he’s a good guy, he has (extremely) legitimate doubts about Hitler. But why? Who can really tell. So you’re forced to watch the film as a thriller, not a moral exploration. Which is fine. But it would have been better to have the option, as one did with The Dark Knight (which I go on about at length below). If Singer wants to make a seriously good thriller, he should base it on a group of crooks manipulated to their own fate by a cunning criminal, and cast someone like Kevin Spacey. No, wait a minute …

The well-documented brilliance of the supporting cast is both a help and a hindrance. Exchanges between Kenneth Branagh and Cruise are distractingly imbalanced, while his cohorts in the superb HBO/BBC collaboration Conspiracy – Kevin McNally and Ian McNeice – bring depth and urgency. And if you’ve seen that film, imagine Cruise playing Branagh’s role … No, I don’t want to either. Yet in Valkyrie, that’s pretty much what’s happening. All of the Stauffenberg Plot’s protagonists knew what was at stake when they signed up – and this is very much evident in Bill Nighy’s infuriating indecisiveness and Eddie Izzard’s desperate double-dealing. But Cruise’s Jerry McGuire-esque recruitment tactics are out of synch – it’s not shown in the film, but hundreds of people were tortured and put to death in the aftermath of the failed assassinated – including friends, families and associates of all involved. If I had been appointed Staffenberg’s PA only to be told with a smirk that my first assignment was high treason against the Führer, I’d have been a lot less accommodating than Jamie Parker’s Lieutenant von Häften.

Watching the film in Germany adds yet more resonance at several levels. Since opening its provocatively ostentatious new office in Berlin, the Scientology movement have not received much love from the Germans, whose government is one of the few to deny it status as a legitimate religion. Every one of my German friends, when asked about Valkyrie, has spoken not about historical accuracy or similar, but about the fact they don’t like Tom Cruise because of his extra-curricular activities. Coupled with the studio’s inexplicable decision to market the film in Germany with huge posters of Cruise giving it his eye-patched, jaw-clenching best which omit every other member of the cast, ‘Walküre’ was never going to do that well round here. Even worse, in Berlin some enterprising group of (possibly right-wing, possibly anti-Scientology, possibly just idiot) vandals have taken to sticking black labels across Cruise’s top lip. Bizarre. And disturbing.

AP’s movie critic suggests that any of the supporting cast could have done a better job in the lead role, while Empire reckons that the film ought to have focussed on Thomas Kretschmann’s dryly weary officer. And given that actor’s brilliant showing in The Pianist, I can’t help but wonder what Valkyrie could have been if Singer hadn’t engaged Cruise control.