The magnificent- but sadly underrated- Stockport supporters Club and their selfless services to the cause of romantic love.

As I was doing my daily stop-over at Facebook, I saw something that chilled me like the appearance of a long haired girl in a Japanese horror film. Facebook was advertising a 'Facebook status feed' which was basically a 'service' that would inform you of every change in your friends' facebook status.
The idea was so terrifying that I began to wonder whether I should even be on Facebook. The thought that minute after minute I would receive instant updates on everyone's mood and status was like some twisted vision of George Orwell's 1984- here instead of being under constant surveillance by others, you would be forced to constantly keep THEM under surveillance. I mean there are many people I like enough to want to know what they are up to most of the time, but the thought that this would apply to EVERYONE on my list? That I would receive a constant bombardment of every little detail of their life? Dear Lord. Deliver us from the status feed (and while you are at it, can we also have the removal of the 'Friends you might know' service? Thanks, much appreciated)
****
Now that we've come to the end of the Premier league season, I'd like to discuss one of the things that annoyed me most about the football coverage: the so-called 'mind games' and the importance that's been attached to them.
So what happens is that Sir Alex Ferguson or one of the top coaches comes out and says something like "I feel Chelsea will not be able to handle the pressure" and the media will go into a swoon. What a brilliant man Sir. Alex is! Just look at how cleverly he is manipulating his opponents! He becomes hailed as a genius for 'unsettling' his opponents and for using oh-so-clever psychological warfare. Infact this tactic is usually credited with helping Manchester United win the title in 1996 after one of his not-so-subtle comments caused Kevin Keegan to go on his infamous 'I would love it if we would beat them!'rant. Keegan's newcastle team which was more than ten points ahead of United duly imploded and lost the title to Ferguson's men.
I've got a lot of beef with this. When did 'mind games' take on such an important part of football coverage? Do journalists and fans actually believe that they work? Do they believe that results get influenced because Wenger or Ferguson said something manipulative? I think the effects of mind games is extremely overrated. For one thing, the fact that everyone now recognizes mind games and goes on abot them ad nauseum means that they cant have an effect. It's all a charade- a manager says something he thinks is going to destabilize his opposition and sits back very pleased with himself. The press go on and on about it and tell us a million times that this is typical psychological warfare from Sir Alex/Wenger/Rafa.
Now in light of all this, how stupid would you have to be as a coach-or indeed as a player- to become the slightest bit affected by those comments? He has done it a million times before, the press specifically points that out to everyone and- incase you need a graph or a flowchart- even lets you know the ultimate intention of the comments. How on earth could this whole thing create anything except entertainment? And if the press have realized the nature of these mind games, why dont they seem to realize that they cant possibly work? Either they drum this up for the entertainment value or they genuinely believe that 'mind games' actually affect matches. I hope to God its the former.
****
I'm fascinated by how people choose their heroes because I've noticed that this is usually based on some mythical version of what that person was really like. How else to explain how people like that murderous thug Che Guevara? or Mao? or Tupac? There's a cliche that everyone is flawed so you cant have a perfect hero, but that argument doesnt work. It's obvious that everyone is flawed but you wouldnt say that Mandela and Stalin are flawed in the same way.
I've already blogged about Mao and Che Guevara, but another person whose always set off my 'dodgy hero' alarm is Samora Machel who became Mozambique's first president and who usually strikes a chord with people looking for a symbol of Pan-Africanism. While looking for African heroes is an admirable entreprise, the choice of Machel is a terrible one. A recent article from Paul Bogdanor revealed just what Machel was really like. It starts off with a description of the way he killed off his rivals to take the presidency and then he quotes a 1977 article from The Economist:

Some 100,000 people are thought to be held in nearly 30 camps on suspicion of opposing Frelimo’s policies. The inmates, including many women and children, are made to work 12 hours a day. The effects of fever, exhaustion and disease are exacerbated by brutal treatment. Beatings and rape by the guards are commonplace in the camps, say the escapers.

A Washington Post report is also quoted:

Some had owned small businesses or farms; two had owned taxis. The government had simply taken these from them and thrown the owners into prison.

Most had been transferred from Machava Prison, where they had been tortured. They held up swollen and scarred hands to show where knives had been inserted between tied fingers and twisted, so that the knuckles were cut and prized apart. Some had been thrown into chin-deep water in a squatting position and had weights piled on their heads. Others had their faces held over spikes while guards danced on their shoulders – all this to find if they owned more property, or if and where they might have some money hidden.

Bogdanor adds:
Any minority that incurred Machel’s displeasure was a target. After Machel personally ordered the imprisonment of Mozambique’s 7,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses – men, women and children – the state media disclosed that many would be “crippled for life” as a result of torture. Even children who refused compulsory “training” in Castro’s Cuba were not spared. “We sent them to re-education camps, for forced labour,” boasted Machel. “Some of them have vanished from schools.”

According to a high-ranking official, “Frelimo had in 12 months of governance proportionally tortured and executed more people than the Portugese in 500 years of colonial rule.” Such criticisms could not go unanswered, so the official was put to death as well.

I dont think Machel was 'flawed'- I think he was a power-hungry psychopath. It is a pity that his legacy has been airbrushed beyond recognition and many people who idolize him will never know what he was like.
***
Mini-reviews of films I've seen lately:
Perfect Stranger: Starring Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, this is the kind of film that tries to set itself up as a smart, sexy horror but in reality is just complete crap. The twist at the end is so ridiculous that it is an insult to anyone's intelligence. Those are ninety minutes I'm never going to get back. Is Halle Berry performing the celluloid equivalent of a long, drawn out Hara kiri?

Lemony Snicket's A series of Unfortunate Events: I liked this one- a fairly dark film based on a series of children's books. Jim Carrey mugs for the camera a bit too much, but the film is definitely worth watching.

Chicken Little: - I like cartoons- if the mood strikes me I could sit infront of the Television and watch The Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel all day. However this is a textbook case of how not to make a good cartoon- its soulless, not funny and the characters are run-of-the-mill. It doesnt say much about a film when the most interesting character is the one who never says a word- in this case Chicken Little's friend fish-out-of-water (yes some of the jokes are quite shameless) Our Fish friend is involved in the only funny scene in the film- recreating the end of King Kong using only discarded paper. A flash of comic genius in a very mediocre film.

Beowulf: This turned out to be a lot better than I thought and also inspired a very funny review from Roger Ebert ('Saying this film is over the top assumes you can see the top from here')Halfway through the film, the hero makes a truly grave but very human error- one which leads to an inevitable tragedy. It's nice to see the hero of a film completely fucking up and although he tries to make up for it later, you know there is not going to be the usual hollywood-style redemption because the damage has been done. Unusually complex and thought-provoking fare for a Hollywood blockbuster (although it is based on an old English poem)

30 Days of Night: Extremely violent and disturbing vampire film. If you like horror, this is for you because its a cut above the usual horror fare.

The Number 23: Like one of those bad dreams that make you wake up with a start sweating and unnerved and dying for a glass of water. Interesting premise and some great shots, but falls apart as it heads towards the end. Didn't deserve the critical thrashing it received though- I've seen worse films as recently as last week and they included Halle Berry.

Breach: Based on the true story about the most damaging spy in FBI history Robert Hanssen, this is a very unusual film because the pace is so unhurried. Some might find it boring because of this, but if you stick around you'll be rewarded. I love films like this that don't underestimate the intelligence of their public (see my mini-review of Zodiac below)It's also got an extremely creepy performance by Chris Cooper that should give you the kind of chills you normally get from horror films. The contradictions in Hanssen's character are fully explored making him the kind of three-dimensional bad guy you will rarely see on film.

Rush Hour 3: It has some funny moments but its painfully repetitive, obvious and generally about as funny as accidentally banging your toe against the furniture in the dark.

I'd like to recommend two films I saw many months ago that I completely forgot to blog about. One of them is Danny Boyle's sci-fi film Sunshine about a crew sent out to space to jumpstart our dying sun with a nuclear bomb. Like Breach, the pacing is very slow but the suspense builds up very nicely and the dilemmas the crew face are very realistic and eventually become flat-out terrifying. It has easily the most chilling moment I've seen in a film this year (Cillian Murphy quietly asking "Icarus- who is the fifth crew member?") If you like intelligent science fiction fare-heck, if you like intelligent films at all- this is definitely for you.
The other film is Zodiac which is based on the hunt for the Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco in the seventies. The film has tremendous balls in the way it dwells on all the tiny details of the investigation and also in its very unconventional ending. It requires a bit of patience but like Breach and Sunshine, it definitely pays off. It is directed by David Fincher who is clearly back to his best. Some of the scenes are genius in their sheer simplicity, especially the opening few minutes with a girl driving through a picture-perfect neighbourhood at night while Easy to be hard plays in the background.
****
Read an intriguing New York times story recently about the way the Easterlin paradox (developed countries have lower happiness rates)is being challenged. Easterlin argued that economic growth didnt necessarily lead to more satisfaction but there's a new paper that's challeged his theory. It argues that more money does tend to bring more happiness at least based on gallup polls done around the world. Money quote:

If anything, Ms. Stevenson and Mr. Wolfers say, absolute income seems to matter more than relative income. In the United States, about 90 percent of people in households making at least $250,000 a year called themselves “very happy” in a recent Gallup Poll. In households with income below $30,000, only 42 percent of people gave that answer. But the international polling data suggests that the under-$30,000 crowd might not be happier if they lived in a poorer country.

They note that even Easterlin's study on Japan was flawed:

Even the Japanese anomaly isn’t quite what it first seems to be. Ms. Stevenson and Mr. Wolfers dug into those old government surveys and discovered that the question had changed over the years.
In the late 1950s and early ’60s, the most positive answer the pollsters offered was, “Although I am not innumerably satisfied, I am generally satisfied with life now.” (Can you imagine an American poll offering that option?) But in 1964, the most positive answer became simply, “Completely satisfied.”
It is no wonder, then, that the percentage of people giving this answer fell. When you look only at the years in which the question remained the same, the share of people calling themselves “satisfied” or “completely satisfied” did rise.

I find the whole topic very fascinating. What really matters- relative income or absolute income? How strongly does income weigh into the happiness scale? (compared with say religion, love life, satisfaction at work..etc)The Guardian ran an article on Iceland the other day noting that it had come first in the world happiness rankings. Bizzarely enough, it also has the highest rate of divorce in Europe. How can this be? Maybe in the long run, the figures might change and we'll see the children of broken homes having a much more gloomy view than their parents. But- what if it has no effect? what if the happiness results and the high rate of divorce both remain constant decades down the line? What if we find ourself with the sustained paradox of a country consistently happier than others despite having such a divorce rate? Do the parents somehow impart other values that nullify the effects of growing up in a broken home? I'm really curious to see how this will turn out down the line.