Guess who's back back back…

Morning everybody. The lamentations of my readers have driven me back to the keyboard after taking a couple of weeks off for the Olympics and to allow my bile levels to return - all that volunteering niceness takes a while to get out of my system.

The Shin Lam epée competition furore seems not to have died down: here's the Guardian's Lego recreation of the affair, and foul-mouthed, partisan animations can be found here and here.



In general, the Olympics appears to have been disastrous for British Fencing. Apart from the hysterical claims made of potential medals, the selection criteria controversy - gleefully leaked to the papers - and some terrible refereeing, this small, gossipy little sub-culture appears to be hell-bent on ripping itself apart. The CEO has announced his resignation, the President (a pompous and reactionary figure) has been voted out of his post representing British Fencing at the international referees' board, the one thing at which he was seriously good at and respected for, and the national coaching/performance directors are under attack. Even more laughably, ordinary fencers are being suspended from the sport for being rude about the directors on the Fencing Forum, setting off an I Am Spartacus moment… and annoying the regular commenters who assumed they'd been annoying enough to earn a ban. None of it is pretty, and it's all a bit depressing just as we should be preparing for the massive influx of new members which always follows the Games. Talk about being unprepared and unwilling to step up.

Anyway, time for a few of my favourite photos from the Olympic fencing - lots and lots more here. Click these examples to enlarge them. Funnily enough, a lot of the most dramatic shots are of the worst, wildest fencing. Oh, and hello, international fencers. Having sat next to a GBR fencer during one of the medal events, I now know that you spend your time Googling yourself.

Attack from Chida on Avola goes astray

Chida lands one on Avola

Chida v Avola

Baldini, Italy

Chida v Baldini

Chida (JPN) v Baldini (ITA)

Chida (JPN) v Avola (ITA)

Awaji lands a hit through Cassara's parry

Awaji lands a stop-hit on Cassara 

Bachmann (GER) v Imboden (USA) 

Bachmann v Imboden

Imboden appears to lack sympathy for Bachmann

Blaze (FRA) celebrates a hit on Nam Hyun (KOR)

The wanderer returns

Well, I'm not back in the Land of Pork Scratchings just yet - I'm still living in the Land of Polyester, where we breathe conditioned air and our skin takes on the same tones as the floodlights which bear down on us. It's a very weird place - the uniform makes us instantly approachable, and temporary friendships are made and dissolved at light speed. Last night a man told me how to solve the financial crisis (pay the FSA more than the bankers); an Australian said some racist and politically absurd things to me, and I've passed the time with cops, squaddies, doctors, panel beaters, programmers and many others.

The uniform makes us part of a hierarchical tyranny and an autonomous collective: to the blazers who boss us about, we're interchangeable drones, but we've discovered mutual respect between ourselves. It takes a bit of adjustment - for all my democratic principles, I'm used to being treated with a degree of respect thanks to my job, or for what I do in the fencing world. Suddenly being a drone again is both difficult and very very good for me. Here, I can't trade on past performance or a title: I'm again the same as everybody else, and it's a salutary lesson. That's not to say I don't get righteously furious when someone treats me or anyone else like an idiot, but most of the time we are hard to tell apart. Most of the time I'm having enormous fun. I like the tense atmosphere, the rumours, the minor crises, the awesome performances and the way we've all become institutionalised so quickly - we've all adapted to being at the Olympics and in the presence of greatness with some alacrity - perhaps too much. It's like refereeing a regional U-10's competition now!

There have been moments of glamour - Daley Thompson, Michael Crick and bloody Boris were in yesterday, and this evening Vladimir Putin, having a break from enabling Syrian massacres, dropped in to watch his women's foil team get as battered in the final as a democracy activist in Red Square. I'd bought a ticket for tonight, and was delighted to find myself sitting next to Sophie Troiano, one of Britain's foil team. They didn't do brilliantly today, but they were up against Italy, who had taken all three of the medals in the individual competition. Sophie was absolutely lovely - chatted away, signed autographs for people and generally impressed everyone.

I've been taking lots of photos, but won't be able to process them for a few days yet - there are 900+ so far. As a taster, here are a few I rather like. I took them at 1/640th or 1/800th of a second, f 5.6, ISO of 2500. Oh for a fast telephoto lens… Click them to enlarge.

Ruben Limardo Gascon celebrates winning Olympic gold for Venezuela. It's the mask that makes this shot

Two attempts at multiple exposure. 

Finally, I found out what really happened with the Shin controversy which led to a 90 minute stand-off and the belated offer or a consolation medal. It's not exactly anybody's fault but it has exposed technical failings. Shin twitched before the referee started play, and the timekeeper started the clock, which went from 1 second remaining to zero. The referee gave her a yellow card for moving early and ordered the clock reset. Because the scoring boxes don't give fractions of seconds, it was reset to 1 complete second remaining - and Shin's opponent scored. Shin only needed to keep the score level for that minute, having won the toss for priority, and she thought she'd managed it. Certainly she shouldn't have gone early, but similarly the clocks should be capable of keeping more precise time. 

All the rest of my photos -730 odd - are here.

Treat those impostors both the same

Lots of fun at the Olympic fencing this evening - I take one evening off and the whole competition falls apart… just like life. The sooner you people accept my (largely) benevolent dictatorship, the better. You have nothing to lose except your Top Gear DVDs, hipster glasses and elasticated trouser cuffs.

The excitement this evening came at the end of Shin v Heidemann women's epee semi-final. After a clearly rather defensive fight which went into extra time at 5-5 (you win by scoring 15 and have 9 minutes in which to do it), Shin needed to hold Heidemann off for one minute, having won the toss for priority. Whoever scored in that minute won: no score and the win goes to Shin. She thought she'd got it - but the clock was reset to 1 second left and Heidemann managed a hit. Shin then burst into tears and quite rightly stayed in the arena - under the gaze of 27 cameras and 8000 people - for nigh on an hour while her team appealed the decision, before going on to lose the bronze medal fight too.

Photo: Hannah Johnston

It all looks very dramatic, and it is. But I thought that I'd explain what the day is like for an Olympic fencer, as I'm backstage helping to look after them.

They turn up with their team mates, coaches and sparring partners. The first place they go is the training hall, where they've booked pistes by country for sparring and lessons: it's open 24 hours per day. Then it's into the pre-warm up room. This is where the tension really builds. It's a big room with a lot of metal pistes set out, and TV screens showing the action out on the field of play. Fencers from every country are there. Some take lessons, some obsessively practice a single move, some wander round chatting to their team-mates or to rivals - they're all on the World Cup circuit and know each other well. Which doesn't necessarily mean that they like each other. Nobody does anything complicated: a few minutes before an Olympic match is not the time to try a new move.

Everybody looks very cool. Despite the kit being essentially identical, they find ways to show off their muscles, to lope around looking invincible or relaxed. Like most top sports people, massive earphones are de rigeur at the moment. I can also exclusively reveal that under the fencing kit, the Brazilians wear bright yellow and green patriotic underpants (over their Brazilians, one might say): stripping down to your undercrackers either demonstrates how unconcerned or how ripped one is.

After the pre-warm up room, the athlete is escorted into the warm-up area. S/he's allowed a coach and one sparring partner with them - no team-mates, masseurs or anyone else. They're reunited with the weapons which have been checked for faults and legality (they even get x-rayed for microscopic flaws). The atmosphere is quiet and thoughtful - no whooping and shouting. There are attendants (people like me) in there to help but we're under orders no to speak to the fencers unless they address us - this is where they get into 'the zone'. After 20 minutes, it's into the Wireless room to be fitted with the (obviously) wireless scoring equipment which sends signals to the central computer and lights up the fencer's mask when s/he scores. After that, they're into the Call Room. This is where the terror sets in. The only people in there are the fencers - staring into each other's eyes - and a coach each. It's a small, very bare room and there's nowhere to hide and nothing else to do. When the teams are in there, the atmosphere is utterly electric. After a few minutes, they're escorted onto the piste, announced over the PA system and the world suddenly becomes a very, very lonely place. The winner faces a 2 or 4 hour break (after the drug test and media appearances) before the whole thing starts again: the loser is escorted out to face his or her coaches, team-mates and friends.

Kipling's 'If…' tells us that 'If you meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those impostors just the same… Yours is the Earth and everything in it / And, which is more, you'll be a Man, my Son!'. It's an illiterate piece of doggerel, which epitomises an approach which is entirely antithetical to the kind of pressure these athletes are under. Shin's reaction was extreme, but entirely understandable. I don't know what happened with the timing reset, but to her, a potential gold medal in the sport's biggest event suddenly became fourth, which is basically nothing, whatever Kipling says. She had a (defensive) plan, it had paid off, and suddenly something outside her control had snatched it all away. I can't say I know how she feels: I always expect to lose so don't take it hard when I inevitably do (and obviously I've never approached these heights), but I do empathise. Or rather sympathise: sudden defeat is always exciting (I've taken plenty of evocative pictures such as this one, this one, and my favourite one), but most of us will never understand what a massive blow it is. I've never competed at this level because I don't have the ruthlessness and drive to push myself and destroy an opponent - but neither will I ever have to suffer the agonies of just - or unjust - defeat. It's bad enough when a ref can't spot my second-intention attacks at the Shropshire Closed: an Olympic defeat is beyond my emotional range. We'll forget about it after one day - but this 1 second might end, or at least damage, Shin's career. Not because she's done anything wrong, but because of the psychological blow inflicted by the sudden reversal of fortune.

Going for gold

Good evening, gentle readers. For this week-and-a-bit only, I'm blogging 'on location', namely my delightful cousins' delightful home while I do my bit at the Olympic fencing event. The cousins are hilarious, and very glamorous… clearly my side of the family got the end-of-season chromosomes. Most of my siblings have lived with them for extended periods… like Blitz kids being evacuated for feeding up and mental recovery. True to form I got back today and found my sister swigging Pimms in the back garden. Also in the garden is a flock of wild London parakeets, which are fascinating - gregarious, quarrelsome and flashy. Like my family, in fact.

As to the Olympics… It's a funny mix of incredible ceremony and familiarity: take away the uniforms, formality and security, and it's a fairly small competition - no more than 64 per day and no seeding rounds. In theory very little will go wrong. Though of course fencers wander off, technology fails, referees make wrong calls and coaches lose their tempers. Which is all part of the fun. Being backstage is brilliant - most of us officials know each other and a lot of the fencers, so there's a kind of village atmosphere, only with massive amounts of added tension. It's fantastic to wander through the pre-warm up area and see my fencing heroes getting lessons or having sparring fights. I'm certainly trying to memorise nifty little moves to practice at home.

Today was the women's individual foil competition. People moan about the women's game - they reckon the quality's not there, or the aggression, but I like it: it's slower but they put more thought into it. On today's evidence, we're both right: lots of matches ran out of time with low scores on the board, but there were loads of great strategic fights. For the UK fans: sadly two of the three British women fought each other in the first round, and the third lost at the same stage. The big news of the day was all-conquering Italian Valentina Vezzali only claiming bronze this time - beaten by two other Italians.

It's a cruel format. In previous years, fencers fought a seeding round, so they'd get a few fights before the direct elimination stage. These days, you get one 15 point fight, lasting up to 9 minutes (not often reached). Lose and your Olympics is over. In the case of the sabre, your Olympic career might last no more than a minute. No wonder it's tense out there.

All the things people moaned about actually worked out fine - transport (though admittedly I was up and out before 6 a.m.), the weather, security (hilarious hearing the army relentlessly teasing the G4S lot) and crowding. Still not impressed by the uniform mind. I keep expecting to be asked to mop up a spillage in Aisle 3. Some great photos from various sports here, including the fencing.

I suppose I should mention the opening ceremony, not that I can add anything to the superlatives offered by everybody else. I could have done with a little less militarism, but it had something to offer everybody. I loved the references to the industrial revolution, the suffragists and union movements and especially to the NHS. Very pleased that Danny Boyle took government money to put on an essentially anti-Tory pageant. Loved most of the music and cultural references (no Smiths or Dr Who though), and fantasised about Mark E Smith lighting the torch. Ah well - the whole thing was a triumph. I was particularly pleased by Shami Chakrabarti's role in carrying the flag. In a perfect world, she'd be dictator for life. The fact that the usual bunch of reactionaries hated it (Nazi-partying Aidan Burley, Toby Young, the Daily Mail) was simply proof that Danny Boyle (living proof of the quality of Bangor University's English degree) had pitched it just right. Slightly weird, warm-hearted and imaginative.

Right, time for bed - another very long day tomorrow, though hopefully easier now we know what to expect.

Au revoir, mes enfants, au revoir

Right, dear readers, it's time for me to shut down the computer and toddle off to That London to play my small part in the Olympics. If you meet a fat man dressed as a plum and being sarcastic, give the password (Plashing Vole) and you'll receive some exclusive Live Blogging.

I'll probably post something most days (Vole's Olympic Diary?) but opportunities will be limited. I'll miss you all terribly, of course.

As a parting gift, some musical treats from my vaults. We'll kick off with the 1983 classic 'If I Were Sebastian Coe' by Shay Healy.



As I'll be dependent on London Transport for the next few days, Flanders and Swann's 'A Transport of Delight' seems entirely appropriate. GNAC wrote one called 'Uncomfortable Modes of Transport' but it's instrumental and too relaxed for the subject. I'd also really like to post The Last Poets' 'Sport', but it's not online! Astonishing. Puts the Olympics into perspective.



Can't talk about winning and losing without Pavement's 'Winner of the':



Early 1980s Tom Paxton has something to say about the Olympics: 'Be A Sport, Afghanistan':



As do Orange Juice: 'Moscow Olympics':



More tenuously: Hole's 'Olympia' (named after the American town, not the Games):



I would have posted Monograph's 'Gallant Losers' for the GB fencing team but that's not on the internet either. Have Th' Faith Healers' 'My Loser' Instead:



Bye all!

With friends like these…

One of the problems with multinational online retailers' algorithms is that they've got no sense of humour. I use - when unavoidable - the most famous books-and-everything store. It remembers what I've looked at. So when friends (i.e. Emma) 'humorously' recommend things they know I'll hate, such as this:

then my browsing history of expensive camera lenses I can't afford, books like Cartwright's How I Killed Margaret Thatcher (a vole can dream) and odd SF suddenly gets filled with recommendations like this:

which really isn't my thing. Reminds me of the time a kind person sent me a copy of Katie Price's Perfect Ponies. (Review: horseshit, dogfood, to the knackers' yard with it).

Going for gold

Right, that's quite enough of the Mountain Lion dictation nonsense. I tried it with an academic book, with which it coped quite well except for the punctuation - it even managed to get 'proto-colonialist' right, but I still find I can type faster than I can speak in the patronising 'Englishman-to-foreign-Johnny' manner required to get it to comprehend me.

Plan for the day? Sort out some odds and ends at work, including some research and typing up notes from a Grievance meeting I attended yesterday as a union rep, pack some clothes, books and the office (Mac, HDD, camera, chargers, lenses, accessories) and high tail it down to That London ready to wear polyester and smile a lot at the Olympics. The eternal question of course is which books to bring. Will I be too tired to read Proper Academic Books? How many? I have a horror of running out of reading material. I seem to have acquired a lot of fun books this week: the new Adam Roberts, Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, Eoin Colfer, M. John Harrison etc. I've just finished David Peace's Nineteen Eighty Three, which was dark, disturbing, stylistically chewy and utterly horrific. So I either need something to contiue that mood or a complete palate cleanser. Perhaps a great big Trollope (and something to read afterwards. Boom). Any suggestions?

Mounting a Lion

This morning I'm trying to use the new Mac OSx dictation software. Any errors are therefore the responsibility of Apple Macintosh and the rotting ports of Steve jobs. I didn't say the rotting ports except the rotting ports know I said the boxing courts oh for gods sake this is getting ridiculous outcome I expected to bumped about the state of the world stoke city and lo-fi indie music is bloody piece of software cannot understand a simple clear distinct accent. You can't even understand me when I tried to say the word courts meaning the body of that body of Steve jobs. God knows how this machine would cope with the absence of my friends from Stoke Terry Limerick and all points west. Colts Colts Colts Colts. Dammit I'm trying to refer to the Cadabra of Steve Jones. No, the dead body of Steve jobs which deserves desecrating for this awful awful piece of software. What if I tried American accent? Clearly some improvement when I tried crystal from Dallas.

Computer says no.

A small prize to anyone who can decipher what I was actually trying to say in the above paragraph.

??? This is STILL OK?

Another post, another trip back in time.

I like Private Eye, though more for the investigative journalism than the rather tired jokes. They nailed the heart surgery scandal and numerous corporate tax evaders. But I'm struggling to find an interpretation of this which isn't just plain racist. Anyone?

Andy Coulson's lucky break

Got a letter today, dated 8th July 2012. Forwarded from the house I lived in four years ago.

Oh right. Interesting.

I phone the Jury Summoning Service. Very nice lady answers. 'Hello', I say. 'A couple of problems. Firstly, you used an old address. Don't you get jurors from the electoral roll?' 'Well', she said, 'we get them from the local authority, and they don't bother updating most lists. What's your juror number?'

I tell her. 

'Oh, she said. You're not on our system. In fact, your juror number is associated with a lady named Marilyn'. 

'OK then', say I. 'Next problem. You're calling me for jury service 9 years ago. I did do jury service in 2003, and don't want to go back'. 

'That's a printer error', she said. 

Eh? Really?

So I'm not down to do jury service. Which is a shame, as I was really looking forward to sitting in judgement on Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks or Jack Straw in his surely upcoming trial for war crimes. 

Still, top quality work from the HM Courts and Tribunals Service. 

Pop culture and politics

If you're a regular reader, you'll be familiar with my contention that Back to the Future is a left-liberal critique of Reagan's America, though it's let down by a very dubious racial politics (white kid goes back in time to teach black musicians rock and roll - really?).

I turn to another pop culture classic whenever I think about the media, bankers, capitalism and the economy - Gremlins II, The New Batch. The original Gremlins was of course a satire on adolescence, but the sequel is a whip smart take on Big Media, yuppies, venal politicians and New York in general. it could be modelled on Murdoch and Co.

Here's a rather delightful scene set in the New York Stock Exchange. As we learn today that the Tories have managed to shrink the economy yet again, it seems somehow appropriate.



Other than that, this is my favourite scene. How many kids' films manage to shoehorn in a reference to Susan Sontag?

Olympic shenanigans

Obviously I don't care a jot if one set of capitalist annoy another set of capitalists by infringing their stupid copyrights. But this attempt amused me. Send in your examples of Olympic nonsense and I'll post them too.

50 Shades… fewer words.

(Sorry about the formatting: Blogger seems to have broken).

Lots of people are pointing out that 50 Shades of Grey is utterly repetitive.

Here's a Wordle highlighting the word frequency. Note for porn fans: not much of the vocab you'd be after there. Looks like bog standard romance to me. 

Compare and contrast…

I've spent the last couple of days fantasising about inappropriate film remakes. Then Shackleford Hurtmore tells me that there's a Hollywood remake of School for Scoundrels.

As a way of proving Hollywood's artistic, political and cultural bankruptcy, here's the tennis match scene from the British original and the trailer for the modern American remake.





Let the bombing commence.

And because I can, here's the Cuban Boys' song sampling the original film's dialogue:

Börk börk börk

Where did it all go wrong for the inhabitants of the British Isles? It's tempting, of course, to blame the Romans. No Romans, no withdrawal, no Anglo-Saxons (to use an ahistorical term), no English, no Normans, no Christianity, no Reformation, no Counter-Reformation, no monarchy, no capitalism, no massacres in Ireland, no Troubles, no Partition, no Bonnie Langford. Though who's to say pan-Celticism wouldn't have been equally bloody and hierarchical? But at least we'd be sacrificing horses and painting ourselves blue and being an altar boy would have been a lot more fun and would have featured a lot less sexual abuse.

But to pick a more recent date, I'm going to plump for 1066. But not the 1066 you're thinking of. Not Harold's defeat of 14th October 1066. I'm no Anglo-Saxon cheerleader (not when my name's as Irish as Tarquin Twistleton-Twistleton-Smythe is English. In fact, British and Irish history took a terrible turn for the worse three weeks before, on 25th September 1066, in the ultimate Pyrrhic victory. It was Harold's fault yet again. He marched north to defeat the Viking, Harald Hardrada in a stunning feat of arms.

The bloody fool. OK, a Hardrada victory would have meant violently thinning the ranks of the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish aristocracy, but as the Monty Python peasants demonstrate, the identity of the oppressors means very little in daily life. The native and English languages may have died out - though the Normans didn't impose English on everyone: there weren't enough of them. Eating raw herring may have become popular - ugh. But in the long run, and setting aside the occasional human sacrifice and rollmop orgy, the British Viking Territories would have ended up as earthly paradises. We'd all be tall, slim, handsome, stylish bicycle riders. None of energies would have gone into invading other countries or resisting being invaded by the English. There'd be a Noma on every street corner, a sauna in every basement and a yacht each. our public services would be properly funded, Philip Green wouldn't have dared to show his face, cities would be pedestrian friendly, the streets would be free from vomit and government would be friendly, responsive and practical. No parading round the world waving nuclear missiles in people's faces, no scuttling off to do whatever Washington wanted - just calm, relaxed, thoughtful, slightly dull neutral democracy. We'd live in stylish, cool flats furnished with lovely minimalist furniture. We wouldn't have Hollyoaks and Police Camera Action: we'd have The Killing and Borgen and The Moomins on at prime-time. No Jamie Oliver: we'd have the Swedish Chef.

Look what we could have won

I've a good mind to dig up Harold and give him a well-deserved kicking. I'm starting a petition to ask Norway to annexe the UK and Ireland (we'll be nice - give them an option on Norn Iron). Who's with me?

Just call me St. Francis

I met this little chap outside my office just now, looking rather distressed by the unseasonable weather (yes, it is unseasonable to get blazing sun in a British July - we've abolished seasons). In this no-something-for-nothing culture, I made him a deal: a photo shoot in return for some water. He wasn't totally obliging but I'm fairly happy with these.

Hail Shining Morn!

Listing my desires for remakes yesterday, I entirely forgot to mention this one: Sunset Boulevard, starring Jordan and Russell Kane (if I'm thinking of the right one - blond, giggles on Mock the Weak a lot). Think of it: blowsy publicity hound desperate for the attention in a post-Leveson world hooks up with pushy naïf. Starts and ends with him face down in the pool while Jordan prepares for the role of her life… as the defendant on Judge Judy or Jeremy Kyle. It writes itself, and I reckon she's got the swimming pool (if not, she can borrow Barrymore's), the creepy ex-husband butler (Alex Reid) and the cash. Adds new meaning to the line 'I am big. It's the movies that got small').



Anyway, what a day. The sun's shining and the Tories are in trouble again. To divert attention from the various scandals befalling them (including their Trade Minister Lord Green being unmasked as the linchpin of the international drugs trade), they sent out David Gauke MP to attack people who pay tradesmen in cash. It's immoral, he said, because it's tax evasion.

Fair enough. But I bet it doesn't avoid as much tax as David Cameron's family business, which existed only to collect tax breaks, Jeremy Hunt's £100,000 tax evasion, Tory adviser Philip Green's £1.3 bn tax-free trick and all their other friends like Vodafone, which was let off an £8bn bill and then didn't pay a single penny of corporation tax last year.

And there's more: it turns out that Gauke's wife is a leading tax-avoidance lawyer. And that naughty David 'flipped' his main and secondary homes during the Parliamentary expenses scandal to… avoid paying stamp duty and tax. Presumably there's some clause that defines that as 'moral'. And - David himself worked for a leading firm of 'tax advisor' lawyers.

Poachers and gamekeepers?

And if that's not all - the CPS decided to charge a pile of scumbag News International (alleged) phone hackers: Coulson, Brooks, Mulcaire and several others for - among other charges - hacking the phone of dead teen Milly Dowler.

Obviously they're innocent until/if/when convicted. So the following Doonesbury cartoon from the Nixon era has no connection with their case at all. (Click to enlarge). The same cartoon certainly has no relevance to events in Ireland yesterday either: the Quinns found guilty of plotting to hide €500m from the state they owe €3bn to, with one in prison and another on the run, and Sean FitzPatrick and a couple of his cronies arrested too for running a massively indebted bank for the benefit of his social circle. Where will the joy end?

Nic, meet Steve. You won't be sharing a cell.

Nicolas Robinson is an idiot.


He was walking home from his girlfriend's house during last summer's riots, and opportunistically stole £3.50's worth of bottled water from a store which had been trashed. He was arrested and imprisoned for six months.


Baron Reverend Stephen Green of Hurstpierpoint is - as his titles imply - an important man. He is a member of the House of Lords. He is an ordained minister in the Church of England. He is a government minister for trade and business and he is a leading member of the Conservative Party. Here he is, plugging his book Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World.  

Turning to the current economic crisis, Green said that "the breakdown in public trust and confidence in business in general and banks in particular" had created the need for a new look at the fundamental values and objectives that motivate business. In his view, corporate social responsibility should be regarded as a core component, the "raison d'être" of a company, rather than as merely an adjunct to its "real business." 

 
In the subsequent audience Q&A, Green, an ordained minister in the Church of England, fielded a question about how he balanced his professional life with his personal beliefs. Green replied that while he did agree that "one cannot serve both God and mammon (money)," he didn't equate "working with money as worshipping or serving the money." When the topic veered towards Wall Street and the "demonization of bankers," Green mounted a spirited defense of the many decent and hardworking people he believes to be working in the financial sector.  

As plain Mr Green, he was the chairman and CEO of HSBC ('the world's local bank'), the banking and financial services conglomerate. Before that, he was the CEO of HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) S. A., one of the world's leading tax-evasion providers (very sadly, someone stole a CD listing all their clients, and the tax authorities arrested rather a large number of them), and a Director of HSBC (Mexico), very much his baby. Steve also bought the Bank of Bermuda for HSBC, a curious choice for a religious man: it only seems to trade in tax havens.


According to Senator Carl Levin, HSBC (Mexico) and the rest of the HSBC group was knowingly providing banking services to Mexican drug cartels, tyrannous dictatorships, fraudsters, smugglers and tax avoiders to the tune of several hundred billion dollars. HSBC staff knew all about it and decided to carry on. Some of them were even using armoured cars to smuggle drug money across international borders. This is a long way from the current HSBC ads depicting cute children from across the world saving their pocket money… unless the implication is that their lawn-mowing is actually the drug harvest.In one case, HSBC continued to accept cash from Sigue, which federal agents caught taking on transactions even after agents explicitly told them were the proceeds of the drug trade.

The bank moved billions of dollars in cash from its affiliate in Mexico to the US, more than any other Mexican bank, despite concerns raised by law enforcement agencies with HSBC that such sums could only involve the proceeds from dealings in illegal narcotics, the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations report said.

Some of the money that moved through HSBC was tied to Iran, the report said, which would violate U.S. prohibitions on transactions linked to it and other sanctioned countries. 

To conceal the transactions, HSBC affiliates used a method called "stripping", where references to Iran are deleted from records. HSBC affiliates also characterized the transactions as transfers between banks without disclosing the tie to Iran in what the Senate report called a "cover payment". 

Ordinarily, anyone caught processing money for drug dealers goes to prison for money laundering. HSBC was not the victim here: it made billions of dollars by knowingly moving drug and terror money from the black economy to the legitimate one. Stephen Green is in fact not a lord, government minister or bank manager. He and his colleagues are linchpins in the drug trade. Without them, it wouldn't have functioned. No wonder the HSBC ads feature the line 'understanding people and their values'. 


So where are we? Oh yes: Nicolas Robinson goes to prison for stealing a bottle of water. Stephen Green writes books about ethical markets, gets a seat in the House of Lords and a government job to add to his bloated bank account. I think we can legitimately call him a Drug Lord. As for Robinson… them's the breaks. Steal a bottle of water and that's your problem - he should have worn a tie and thought bigger. Enable a multibillion dollar drugs-and-murder empire… that's our problem.

Bradley Who?

Well done Bradley Wiggins for being the first Brit to win the Tour de France. Emma reminds me that this song - by Dermot Morgan, later famed as Father Ted - soundtracked Ireland's Stephen Roche when he won it in 1987 (alongside the World Championship and the Giro d'Italia).

Monday's Muse

An idle conversation yesterday about Hollywood's addiction to remakes led to us speculating about the few decent films which haven't been re-filmed, and who might star in them.

My vote goes to Arnie and Aniston in Casablanca (though this time the Arabs would be the enemy and the Nazis and Brits would team up to defeat the Islamists). 'Of all ze bars in ze vorld, she valks into mine. Now give me your clothes, your boots and your transit permits'. Instead of a rousing chorus of the Marseillaise in Rick's, Aniston would sing the cat song from Friends.



What else? Brief Encounter would of course be set in an American airport. After queuing for several hours to be groped by rude TSA staff, Jim Carrey - in the Trevor Howard role - would do his wobbly face thing, before going to the gents' for sex with J-Lo, the Celia Johnson de nos jours. No doubt the script would find room for some comedy animals. Perhaps an orang-utan. Instead of the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 2 which pervades the film, Jack Black would be overseeing the soundtrack which would include some Pink, Pussycat Dolls and Bon Jovi. Rather than sorrowfully parting under the weight of their responsibilities, J-Lo calls up her girlfriends and they all run away to Acapulco together, whooping like only celluloid Americans can whoop. As they leave, Jim Carrey drops a bag of flour from the cockpit on J-Lo's husband's head (Danny Glover? Don Cheadle) and we all laugh. Roll credits. (I gather there's a Sophia Loren/Richard Burton remake which could frankly go either way).



Going the other way, I'd quite like to see a Lars von Trier remake of Carry On Up The Khyber (funny that Afghanistan doesn't seem quite so amusing these days) 't any of the Carry On Series. Bjork would make a magnificent Babs Windsor, Madonna's a natural for Hattie Jaques, while Klaus Kinski would slot perfectly into the Kenneth Williams roles. Sid James would be trickier to cast, but I reckon Christopher Ecclestone has the comedy chops to manage it. Tom Hanks would obviously replace Bernard Breslaw. We could probably find a part for Sir Kenneth of Branagh and Nicholas Cage too.

(Warning - contains white British actors playing 'comedy' Afghans).


Also bubbling under - Reese Witherspoon in Twelve Angry Blondes. Alan Carr in For A Fistful of Dollars. Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks in The Front Page or His Girl Friday and of course the cast of EastEnders in It's A Wonderful Life (in which Phil Mitchell murders Clarence in the first scene. Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in Babette's Feast? Finally, A Matter of Life and Death desperately needs the talents of the cast of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.



OK, time for your suggestions. What needs remaking, and who would you cast?