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[
"Ninelu Tu",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T04:49:01 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160831PD204.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PD204.html | en | null | Taipei hosts industrial automation exhibition | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Taipei hosts industrial automation exhibition
Ninelu Tu, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 31 August 2016]
The Taipei International Industrial Automation 2016, an exhibition focusing on Industry 4.0-based smart manufacturing, bgean today at the Nankang Exhibitin Center, and will run till September 3.
A few other exhibitions is taking place there at the same time: Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, Taipei International Mold & Die Industry Fair; Taipei International Logistics & IoT Exhibition; Taipei International Fluid Power Exhibition; and Taipei International Mechanical Technology & Equipment Exhibition.
Taipei International Industrial Automation showcases equipment, technology and solutions based on Industry 4.0, industrial robots and robotic arms, automated industrial control equipment and motion transmission control equipment. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PD204.html | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/f02884d9139a7048de3b9adacc157368930118faee597e1b9180c9ea18960519.json |
[
"Aaron Lee",
"Taipei",
"Joseph Tsai",
"Digitimes",
"Tuesday August"
] | 2016-08-30T04:48:49 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160829PD204.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PD204.html | en | null | Acer, Asustek to release 18-inch and larger gaming notebooks | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Acer, Asustek to release 18-inch and larger gaming notebooks
Aaron Lee, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 30 August 2016]
Asustek Computer and Acer are planning to launch gaming notebooks with 18-inch and above displays. Asustek is currently developing an 18-inch gaming notebook, while Acer is looking to release a 21-inch model. Since these notebooks are expected to feature weight and size much larger than regular gaming models and prices between NT$100,000-200,000, market watchers are pessimistic about their sales although they may attract attention from consumers, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Currently, 13-, 15- and 17-inch are the mainstream sizes for the gaming notebook market, but Acer and Asustek is looking to create further differentiation and planning to release models with even larger display sizes, using top-end hardware specifications.
With Nvidia's recent release of its Pascal-based GeForce GTX 10 series graphics cards, the sources expect the new GPUs to increase demand for gaming notebooks in the second half, especially during the year-end holidays.
For its new 18-inch gaming notebook, in addition to GeForce GTX 10 graphics card, Asustek is also planning to equip the device with a top-notch stereo system, bringing strong multimedia and gaming experience to its users.
Acer's 21-inch gaming notebook will use AUO's curve panel and come with a mechanical keyboard, two discrete graphics cards, four solid state drives (SSDs), over five cooling fans and two 330w power supplies. The system's chassis will also be specially designed to fit with the curve panel.
According to gaming research firm JPR's report, worldwide gaming hardware sales will reach around US$26.1 billion in 2016 and will grow 8.42% on year to reach US$28.3 billion in 2017.
However, overall notebook shipments are expected to drop 6-7% on year in 2017, according to Digitimes Research. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PD204.html | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/2e7f62efa4369a6a2bddaf405c95267795fec9e9b34b818569889b9175611ec1.json |
[
"Monica Chen",
"Taipei",
"Jessie Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Monday August"
] | 2016-08-29T08:48:24 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160828PD202.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/20160828PD202_files/1_r.jpg | en | null | Zhen Ding expects sales rebound in August | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Zhen Ding expects sales rebound in August
Monica Chen, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 29 August 2016]
Flexible PCB (FPCB) firm Zhen Ding Technology Holding expects sales to rebound starting August, and is looking to report flat growth in profits for the second half of 2016 compared to a year ago.
Orders received thus far for the second half of 2016 are similar to the levels a year earlier, according to company chairman Charles Shen. Profits for second-half 2016 are expected to register flat on-year growth, said Shen.
With the arrival of new capacity and availability of more-advanced technology, Zhen Ding's sales will rebound substantially in 2017, Shen indicated.
Zhen Ding saw its revenues for the first half of 2016 fall 15% from a year ago to NT$30.92 billion (US$974.3 million) while profits plunged 78% on year to NT$629 million. EPS for the six-month period came to NT$0.78 compared with NT$3.77 during the same period in 2015.
Zhen Ding attributed its negative performance in the first half of 2016 to clients' transition from old to new products, inventory correction and price adjustments, as well as seasonal factors.
Zhen Ding's weak first-half 2016 is blamed on disappointing iPhone 6s sales, according to market watchers. The FPCB supplier started to see its major client cut back orders since November 2015, the watchers said.
In response, Shen indicated Zhen Ding has been aggressively expanding its client portfolio in China while maintaining relationships with its major clients in the US. Roll-outs of new products from its main clients will buoy Zhen Ding's revenue performance starting August, Shen added.
In addition, Shen revealed the company has started operating its new plant in Huaian, China. Production lines at the new plant are expected to run at full capacity later in the second half of 2016, said Shen, adding that the plant will help the firm generate profits for 2016.
Zhen Ding has also set up a new R&D center in Dayuan, northern Taiwan, with staff stationed at the center reaching more than 20 employees, Shen indicated.
Shen disclosed the company will halve its capital expenditure (capex) budget this year to US$100 million from the NT$200 million allocated for 2015.
Zhen Ding chairman Charles Shen
Photo: Shinmin Fu, Digitimes, August 2016 | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160828PD202.html | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/c44475efbc2e99266452882607236667ad6c4cb2a433d0c143caa1a416b4abc6.json |
[
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Thursday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:03:47 | null | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160825VL200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825VL200.html | en | null | China Internet user base over 709 million at end of June, says CNNIC | null | null | www.digitimes.com | China Internet user base over 709 million at end of June, says CNNIC
Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Thursday 25 August 2016]
The number of Internet users in China increased to about 709.58 million as of the end of June 2016, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
The number of users rose 6.27% from a year ago to reach a penetration rate of 51.7%, CNNIC indicated. Of the users, 656.37 million or 92.50% used handsets for mobile access. During first-half 2016, the average time of using Internet services a week per surfer was 26.5 hours.
There were 337.608 million IPv4 addresses and 20,781 blocks/32 of IPv6 addresses, 36.984 million domain names, and 4.542 million websites registered in China as of the end of June. At the same time, China had total bandwidth of 6,220.764Gbps for international Internet connections, with China Telecom being the largest ISP with bandwidth of 3,817.006Gbps, followed by China United Network Communications (1,501.805Gbps), China Mobile (787.763Gbps), CERNET (61.440Gbps) and CSTNet (53.248Gbps).
CNNIC: China Internet users, June 2016 Category Item Percentage Sex Male 53.0% Female 47.0% Age group < 10 2.9% 10-19 20.1% 20-29 30.4% 30-39 24.2% 40-49 13.4% ≥ 50 9.0%
Source: CNNIC, complied by Digitimes, August 2016
CNNIC: China Internet access by device and location, 1H16 Category Item Percentage Device* Desktop 64.6% Notebook 38.5% Handset 92.5% Tablet 30.6% TV 21.1% Location* Home 87.7% Internet cafe 17.7% Working place 35.9% School 16.4% Public place 17.3%
*A user may have more than one choice
Source: CNNIC, compiled by Digitimes, August 2016
CNNIC: China top Internet services used in 1H16 Service Proportion* of surveyed for often using the service Instant messaging 90.4% Search engine 83.5% News 81.6% Video 72.4% Music 70.8% Payment 64.1% Shopping 63.1% Gaming 55.1% Banking 48.0% Reading 43.3% Reservation/travel 37.1% E-mail 36.8%
*Based on multiple choices
Source: CNNIC, compiled by Digitimes, August 2016 | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825VL200.html | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/bd2eb867b90ceceedf175002cd0b1b818f2feb3be8d8ca4c9c616d32ed284e86.json |
[
"Josephine Lien",
"Taipei",
"Jessie Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:00:41 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160826PD205.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160826PD205.html | en | null | Industry supply chain eyeing huge mobile-SoC market potential | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Industry supply chain eyeing huge mobile-SoC market potential
Josephine Lien, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Friday 26 August 2016]
With more system vendors engaged in the development of mobile SoC solutions in-house, the market for mobile chips is set to expand a further US$10 billion, according to industry sources. IC foundries, and EDA and IC design service companies are all eyeing this additional market size.
Apple and Samsung Electronics will both continue developing mobile SoCs in-house, and other smartphone vendors such as Huawei Devices and Xiaomi have followed suit, said the sources.
Huawei sources chips from subsidiary HiSilicon Technologies, which is among TSMC's 16nm customers, and has increased its use of HiSilicon chips, the sources indicated.
Meanwhile, Xiaomi now has its own design team engaged in the development of mobile chips, the sources said. Xiaomi has already obtained Leadcore Technology's core technology patents to develop mobile chips.
There had also been rumors indicating LG Electronics would develop its own mobile chips, and a recent announcement by Intel seems to confirm them. Intel disclosed plans to build 10nm ARM SoCs with LGE being the first customer. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160826PD205.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/59627a63ad2acdcd3b2f1370a12e1b321b1b72167b95ab134817300fa6967ff7.json |
[
"Mops",
"Jessie Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Monday August"
] | 2016-08-30T04:48:47 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160829PM200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PM200.html | en | null | TSMC orders equipment for NT$21.3 billion | null | null | www.digitimes.com | TSMC orders equipment for NT$21.3 billion
MOPS; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 29 August 2016]
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) purchased machinery equipment from Ebara, ASML and Applied Materials for a total of NT$21.3 billion (US$669.7 million), according to a filing the company issued with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) on August 29.
TSMC said in filings from August 23 to 26 it spent a total of NT$23.59 billion on equipment from Applied Materials, ASM, Hitachi High-Technologies, Hitachi Kokusai Electric, Ja Mitsui Leasing, KLA-Tencor, Lam Research International, Screen Semiconductor Solutions and Tokyo Electron. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PM200.html | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/d28910446971e3e81c42ee34b87f8d89806dea7bfcf1b05f0e82e44d58dd4f49.json |
[
"Rebecca Kuo",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T12:51:03 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160826PD201.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/20160826PD201_files/1_r.jpg | en | null | E Ink sees strong shipments for smart e-paper labels | null | null | www.digitimes.com | E Ink sees strong shipments for smart e-paper labels
Rebecca Kuo, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Friday 26 August 2016]
E-paper maker E Ink Holdings (EIH) had cumulatively shipped 60 million smart e-paper labels as of the end of 2015 and expects the volume to reach 100 million units in 2016, according to company chairman and CEO Frank Ko.
Compared with traditional paper-based shelf labels, smart e-paper labels need much less time to change the content, see fewer man-made mistakes, and the cost is lower, Ko said. Many retail chains in Europe, such as Carrefour in France and Media Markt in Germany, and the US have adopted smart e-paper labels.
In addition smart e-paper labels used in retail operation, EIH has developed models for use in logistics operation and in baggage labels through cooperation with Germany-based vendor Rimowa, Ko indicated.
EIH has developed e-paper used in e-book readers with handwriting functionality. It is showcasing handwriting-enabled e-book readers DPT-S1 (13.3-inch) from Sony and Notepad (13.3-inch) from Taiwan-based Netronix as well as in-house-developed electronic notebook reference design Notetaking Turkey Solution at the Touch Taiwan 2016.
EIH is also exhibiting e-book readers from Amazon, Japan's Rakuten, and Deutche Telekom as well as 32- and 42-inch e-paper display boards and a 32-inch flexible e-paper display at the exhibition.
E Ink chairman and CEO Frank Ko
Photo: Fu Shih-min, Digitimes, August 2016 | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160826PD201.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/23de186460287ae94355c70337851397b63958767404d1b8000d1f6179d7735f.json |
[
"Eric Lin",
"Digitimes Research",
"Taipei",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:08:29 | null | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160824PD202.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD202.html | en | null | China mobile AP shipments increase 8% in 2Q16 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Digitimes Research: China mobile AP shipments increase 8% in 2Q16
Eric Lin, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei [Wednesday 24 August 2016]
China's mobile application processor (AP) market is forecast to reach a total of 166 million units in the second quarter of 2016, up 7.8% sequentially, according to Digitimes Research.
MediaTek saw its smartphone AP shipments increase 8.1% sequentially in the second quarter, thanks to strong shipments of its mid-range and entry-level 4G solutions, said Digitimes Research. Meanwhile, rival Qualcomm enjoyed brisk shipments of its mid-range and high-end smartphone solutions with shipments rising a higher 12.9% on quarter.
Spreadtrum's smartphone AP shipments climbed 16.7% sequentially in the second quarter, buoyed by a pull-in of orders from emerging markets, Digitimes Research indicated. HiSilicon, however, saw its smartphone AP shipments decline 24% on quarter due to its less-competitive high-end offering and unreadiness of its mid-range products, Digitimes Research said.
As for tablet APs, MediaTek's shipments registered a 25% sequential increase in the second quarter, while Rockchip posted shipment growth of only 4.3%, according to Digitimes Research. Meanwhile, Allwinner's tablet AP shipments grew 10% on quarter while Intel's shipments increased 16.7%. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD202.html | en | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/b47371428cc070c0334ddf4b78ac411ae152632b7a030c61c4b84ebc78e6aadf.json |
[
"Irene Chen",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:06:32 | null | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160824PD206.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD206.html | en | null | Mobile Internet-access infrastructure key to development of mobile payments, says NCC | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Taiwan market: Mobile Internet-access infrastructure key to development of mobile payments, says NCC
Irene Chen, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 24 August 2016]
The Taiwan government has been boosting development of mobile payment services in Taiwan, and its is essential to enhance mobile broadband Internet-access infrastructure, especially expanding spatial coverage, according to the National Communications Commission (NCC).
The government aims to hike the proportion of retail transaction value conducted via mobile payments from 26% at present to 52% in 2021, NCC said.
Mobile broadband communication networks in Taiwan cover 95% of the population currently and coverage is expected to increase to 98% at the end of 2016, NCC indicated. However, mobile networks may not cover some remote areas and thus mobile payment services will not be available in these areas, NCC noted. Fixed-line networks may be able to fill the gap, NCC added. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD206.html | en | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/7bc1253db7728f4ba79163bdb93203708d7eb81d6e0e71d0a99e84bc90460d68.json |
[
"Nuying Huang",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Monday August"
] | 2016-08-29T08:48:20 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160827PD201.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160827PD201.html | en | null | Jinko Solar is top China PV module maker in 1H16 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Jinko Solar is top China PV module maker in 1H16
Nuying Huang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Monday 29 August 2016]
Jinko Solar Holdings shipped 3.316GWp of PV modules during the first half of 2016, the largest among China-based makers, according to China-based media reports.
Trina Solar ranked second with 3.081GWp, followed by JA Solar Holdings with 2.508GWp, CSI with 2.462GWp, GCL-Poly Energy Holdings with 2.110GWp, China-based subsidiary maker of South Korea-based Hanwha Q Cells with 2.060GWp, Yingli Green Energy Holding with 1.170GWp and Xi'an LONGi Siliocn Materials with 992MWp. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160827PD201.html | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/a7f34c39ae5ce1d54672cded7755624669855c27f1b9de506c29e93be2800f0c.json |
[
"Steve Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Thursday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:06:15 | null | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160825PB202.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PB202.html | en | null | Consumer IC vendor Sonix to ship over 600 million MCUs in 2016, says report | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Consumer IC vendor Sonix to ship over 600 million MCUs in 2016, says report
Steve Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Thursday 25 August 2016]
Consumer IC vendor Sonix Technology is expected to ship a total of 632 million MCUs in 2016 thanks to increasing demand from the toy and educational sectors, according to a udn.com report.
The company reported earlier that it posted net profits of NT$113 million or NT$0.68 per share in the second quarter of 2016. For the first half of 2016, net profits totaled NT$140 million or NT$0.84 per share.
Revenues totaled NT$272.22 million in July, down 10.85% on year. Accumulated 2016 revenues through July totaled NT$1.837 billion, decreasing 6.39% from a year earlier.
The company's stock price fell NT$0.35 to finish at NT$35.25 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) during the August 25 session. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PB202.html | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/7aa9e441ca6514402742562b42f279c9e7ad504d20ad30897aaf8079215a1095.json |
[
"Jerry Yang",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Tuesday August"
] | 2016-08-30T04:48:40 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160829PD205.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PD205.html | en | null | BYD 1H16 net profit hikes over 384% | null | null | www.digitimes.com | BYD 1H16 net profit hikes over 384%
Jerry Yang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 30 August 2016]
China-based maker BYD generated consolidated revenues of CNY43.745 billion (US$6.70 billion), gross margin of 19.48% and net profit of CNY2.260 billion for first-half 2016, growing 43.74%, 4.45pp and 384.23% respectively on year, according to the company.
The consolidated revenues consisted of CNY23.392 billion (53.47%) from automobiles and related products and services, CNY16.293 billion (37.25%) from handset assembly and components, CNY4.060 billion (9.28%) from rechargeable batteries, energy-storage equipment and PV systems.
BYD sold 49,000 new energy-powered vehicles and 131,000 gasoline- and diesel-powered automobiles in first-half 2016, respectively increasing 130.74% and decreasing 29.61% on year. The half-year sales of new energy-powered vehicles included 22,000 electric vehicles, hiking 310.82% on year.
BYD had a China market share of 61.4% for hybrid electric vehicles and 17.5% for electric vehicles. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PD205.html | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/a192c7cda3f76f39b57a621d1bf4db9a8f754b828b7afe204d7bda494160307b.json |
[
"Commercial Times",
"August",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Tuesday August"
] | 2016-08-30T08:48:50 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160830PB200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PB200.html | en | null | Notebook panels to be in tight supply in 2H16, says paper | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Notebook panels to be in tight supply in 2H16, says paper
Commercial Times, August 30; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 30 August 2016]
Global supply of notebook-use panels will become tight in the second half of 2016 as Samsung Display and LG Display have been reducing output, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.
Samsung Display is expected to ship 18 million notebook-use panels in 2016, decreasing 12 million units on year, while LG Display will ship 42 million units, slipping 4-5 million units, the paper said. Due to tight supply, quotes for 13.3-, 14- and 15.6-inch notebook-use panels have hiked US$0.7-1.
Taiwan-based AU Optronics and Innolux will ship 36 million and 37.6 million notebook panels in 2016. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PB200.html | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/d31d0f7a8f1d6b689029bae0a7142e94999c236767c2cea86813c12d6eb9b438.json |
[
"Monica Chen",
"Taipei",
"Joseph Tsai",
"Digitimes",
"Tuesday August"
] | 2016-08-30T08:48:48 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160830PD203.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PD203.html | en | null | Weak tablet demand prompting vendors to leave segment | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Weak tablet demand prompting vendors to leave segment
Monica Chen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 30 August 2016]
With tablet demand continuing to weaken, Taiwan-based vendors have taken a conservative attitude about their tablet operation. Asustek Computer and Acer have turned to focus more on niche applications, while Micro-Start International (MSI) has already phased out of the business and to focus mainly on gaming PC product lines. China-based white-box players that have joined Intel's China Technology Ecosystem (CTE), have also mostly stopped pushing tablet products.
Dropping demand is expected to cause Asustek's tablet shipments to fall below three million units in 2016, according to sources from the upstream supply chain, leaving Apple the only player that is still able to achieve strong profits from the tablet sector.
The sources also pointed out that despite weakening tablet shipments, Wintel-based 2-in-1 devices continue to enjoy growth. However, growth rates are still not strong enough to offset the decline of tablets.
Asustek has also begun shifting its tablet department's excess manpower to work on products such as virtual reality, augmented reality and smartphones. The personnel transfer will be completed by the end of 2016. However, Asustek will continue its tablet operations and expects the business to achieve breakeven operation in the first half of 2017.
As for the white-box tablet industry, the current number of players that is still releasing tablet products is only one-third of the industry's peak. Many tablet white-box players that were selected by Intel's nurturing project have already given up their tablet development as Intel has been cutting subsidies and new platform development.
To survive in the market, many tablet players have turned to develop products for niche markets such as industrial, enterprise, military and education, and hope to expand their presence in these areas. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PD203.html | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/04447933f86f8013c5312957b37ba5a654298da2d9382fab3660304cb7e64bb3.json |
[
"Siu Han",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T12:57:25 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160825PD200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD200.html | en | null | Heraeus showcases flexible, foldable touch panel technology at Touch Taiwan 2016 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Heraeus showcases flexible, foldable touch panel technology at Touch Taiwan 2016
Siu Han, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Friday 26 August 2016]
Germany-based Heraeus is showcasing dry-film resist photolithography, a high-resolution patterning process for use in Clevios-brand conductive polymer film to make flexible and foldable touch panels in place of ITO film, at Touch Taiwan 2016 taking place in Taipei during August 24-26.
High-resolution patterning of touch sensors is a prerequisite for advanced touch panels, especially flexible or foldable ones, Heraeus indicated. The patterning process was developed through cooperation with the Taiwan government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute, with Heraeus providing materials and technology, Heraeus noted. Testing shows that Clevios conductive polymer film and sensors can withstand bending with a radius of below 1mm up to 300,000 times without degradation.
Clevios conductive polymer film can also be used to make rigid touch panels and enables roll-to-roll processing. Heraeus has provided the film for trail use in 5- to 7-inch touch panels. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD200.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/5d8aeaf5e536809f9e0af81a973116f6b0adee746bf41f88c5e6f20ec36d6c8f.json |
[
"Aaron Lee",
"Taipei",
"Joseph Tsai",
"Digitimes",
"Tuesday August"
] | 2016-08-30T08:48:58 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160830PD204.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/20160830PD204_files/1_r.jpg | en | null | IBM Taiwan expects growth potential in Taiwan, says executive | null | null | www.digitimes.com | IBM Taiwan expects growth potential in Taiwan, says executive
Aaron Lee, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 30 August 2016]
IBM Taiwan hardware business general manager Nelson Lee expects the company to still have a lot of room for growth in the Taiwan hardware market; however, instead of purely selling hardware, IBM Taiwan is focusing mostly on hardware/software-integrated solutions.
In Taiwan, for its Power 9 processor, IBM has been expanding the Power Linux development, while cooperating with SAP to push SAP Hana on Power solutions.
IBM's Power systems are fully capable of supporting SAP's Hana platform and the company has established a demonstration center in Beijing, China to demonstrate related solutions. IBM is also planning to establish a demonstration center in Taiwan.
IBM has also invested over US$1 billion in the R&D of the latest storage technologies and has recently released the IBM FlashSystem A9000 with the latest grid controller architecture, the IBM DeepFlash 150, featuring all flash storage, the Storwize V700F and 5030F.
As for the server, IBM will launch its next-generation server processor Power 9 in the second half of 2017.
Nelson Lee, IBM Taiwan hardware business general manager
Photo: Aaron Lee, Digitimes, August 2016 | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PD204.html | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/6bd2d321a431b134c56f36ff368dad96db877a96f7173fefa1546b482bbcc229.json |
[
"Jessie Lin",
"Digitimes Research",
"Taipei",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T12:55:29 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160825PD207.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD207.html | en | null | Panasonic expected to remain largest automotive Li battery maker, steps into LED automotive lighting | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Digitimes Research: Panasonic expected to remain largest automotive Li battery maker, steps into LED automotive lighting
Jessie Lin, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei [Friday 26 August 2016]
Panasonic has started production at new automotive Li battery factories in Japan, the US and China and is expected to maintain the status as the global largest maker. In addition, Panasonic has extended production to LED automotive lighting, according to Digitimes Research.
Panasonic has extended production of Li-ion batteries to automotive models due to increasing competition from South Korea-based makers and stagnant growth in global demand for notebooks, Digitimes Research indicated.
Panasonic shipped 4,552MWh of automotive Li-ion batteries in 2015 for a global market share of 39.8%, followed by China-based BYD 14.4%, LG Chem 12.5%, Automotive Energy Supply 11.1%, Yuasa 5.2% and Samsung SDI 4.4%. Panasonic's leading market share was due to its partnership with Tesla which has adopted Panasonic batteries for its Model S and Model X. In addition, Panasonic and Tesla have set up Gigafactory, a joint-venture Li-ion battery factory, in Nevada.
Panasonic's LED automotive lighting features GaN-on-GaN LED chips on aluminum nitride substrates which offer higher brightness and better heat dissipation. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD207.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/b6d591facf95cae2a2e34bdd18bcd6f9fcf61a2f69dd1336e1155e859fe951d0.json |
[
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T08:49:09 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160831PR201.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PR201.html | en | null | MOEA sets tentative 2017 feed-in tariffs for renewable energy | null | null | www.digitimes.com | MOEA sets tentative 2017 feed-in tariffs for renewable energy
Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Wednesday 31 August 2016]
The Bureau of Energy under Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has set tentative feed-in tariff rates for renewable energy to be generated in 2017, with the rates for PV power generation downward adjusted by 6.65-7.10% from 2016 levels.
Due to limited land available for setting up ground-mounted systems, more PV power stations will be mounted on the surface of water, mostly reservoirs and ponds, beginning 2017, the bureau said.
To encourage adoption of high-efficiency PV modules, feed-in tariff rates for PV systems or power stations consisting of such PV modules are marked up by 5%, the bureau indicated.
High-efficiency PV modules are defined as those with power generation 12-30% higher than conventional models made of the same number of solar cells, the bureau noted.
The hike in feed-in tariff rate is aimed to prevent use of low-efficiency PV modules, for most of low-price PV modules in use are produced by factories set up by China-based makers in Vietnam and Malaysia, the bureau explained.
The bureau will hold a public hearing to collect opinions from all parties concerned on September 20 and then set final feed-in tariff rates.
Bureau of Energy: 2017 tentative feed-in tariff rates for renewable energy Type of renewable energy Feed-in tariff rate (NT$/kWh) Adjustment from 2016 PV Ground-mounted 4.35 (US$0.14) down 6.7% Mounted on surface of water 4.87 Rooftop systems 6.02 down 7.1% Wind Terrestrial 2.88 up 2.4% Offshore 5.98 up 4.2% Biogas (mostly produced by pig farms) 5.00 up 28.0% Geothermal 4.79 down 3.0%
Source: Bureau of Energy under MOEA, complied by Digitimes, August 2016 | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PR201.html | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/dca68b2fa8811811d2ece726fc358cc6c68dd740ca5badc23002b08ff48aa4e7.json |
[
"Jessie Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T04:49:25 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160830PM200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PM200.html | en | null | Tripod to post 5-8% revenue growth in 3Q16, says report | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Tripod to post 5-8% revenue growth in 3Q16, says report
Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Wednesday 31 August 2016]
Tripod Technology is expected to report revenue growth of 5-8% sequentially for the third quarter of 2016 driven by rising HDI board demand for mobile devices, according to a recent Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report.
In addition, Tripod is looking to further expand its business in the car electronics sector, which will buoy its profit performance. Revenues generated from the car electronics segment are expected to account for more than 20% of Tripod's total revenues in 2016 compared with 17% in 2015, the report quoted market sources as saying. Tripod's profits for 2016 will likely hit a five-year high, the report added.
In response, Tripod said it does not provide revenue and profit guidance.
Tripod has reported net profits for the first half of 2016 increased 28.9% from a year earlier to NT$1.37 billion (US$43 million), with EPS reaching NT$2.60. The company posted revenues of NT$24.39 billion for the first seven months of 2016, up 1.4% on year. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PM200.html | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/0799d96fb80c5c9c05be2b4cc6623510f0ecdcbded00968f995433a686fd4afc.json |
[
"Nuying Huang",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Monday August"
] | 2016-08-29T08:48:10 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160818PD206.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160818PD206.html | en | null | EU cancels MIP status of Neo Solar Power, Motech China subsidiaries, say reports | null | null | www.digitimes.com | EU cancels MIP status of Neo Solar Power, Motech China subsidiaries, say reports
Nuying Huang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Monday 29 August 2016]
The European Union (EU) has removed China-based subsidiaries established by Taiwan-based Neo Solar Power and Motech Industries from the MIP (minimum import price) framework, according to China-based media reports.
The EU imposed anti-dumping and anti-subsidization tariffs on China-based PV module makers in 2013, but later reached an agreement to set an import quota and a minimum import price for China-produced PV modules in lieu of the tariffs. The MIP framework is based on the Bloomberg average international price for PV modules.
In 2015, the EU investigated Taiwan- and Malaysia-based solar cell or PV module makers suspected of providing false production origin certificates, enabling China-based PV module makers to circumvent the MIP restrictions. 21 Taiwan-based makers were subsequently cleared in the anti-circumvention investigation.
Because Neo Solar Power and Motech can directly export Taiwan-produced PV modules to Europe without being subject to MIP restrictions, the EU sees it unnecessary to put their China-based subsidiaries under the MIP framework. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160818PD206.html | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/b40f5552fc5078635612bcd527a4bf1efbc2e43a15692dcf9acae743e12ef443.json |
[
"Rebecca Kuo",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Thursday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:03:24 | null | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160824PD208.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD208.html | en | null | Panel shortages to remain until the end of 2016, say Innolux and AUO chairmen | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Panel shortages to remain until the end of 2016, say Innolux and AUO chairmen
Rebecca Kuo, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Thursday 25 August 2016]
TFT-LCD panels of varying sizes for use in smartphones, notebooks, monitors and TVs are in significant short supply and the shortage is expected to remain until the end of 2016 at least, chairman and CEO Wang Jyh-chau for Innolux and chairman and CEO Paul Peng of AU Optronics (AUO) both commented at Touch Taiwan 2016 taking place in Taipei during August 24-26.
Panel prices dropped 30-40% cumulatively from the third quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016 and therefore panel makers have reduced production to reduce supply since the first quarter, Peng said. Panasonic has shut down an 8G TFT-LCD factory, Samsung Display closed a 5G one and LG Display shut a 6G one, Wang noted. China-based panel makers have brought new factories into operation but have lagged behind in advanced processes and technology, Wang indicated.
For TV panels in particular, the average size has increased by over 1.5-inch and this partly accounts for short supply of TV panels, Wang said. Samsung Display will additionally shut down a 7G factory by the end of 2016 and this will aggravate the short supply of TV panels, Peng said.
As panel customer worry about supply shortages, they are likely to repeat order and thus Innolux has been cautious about overbooking, Wang noted. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD208.html | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/ce462b8f1f639a6eb55b2163e174ebdc126bec5bbfd70350fc5ca7846f630d0c.json |
[
"Hana Hu",
"Digitimes Research",
"Taipei",
"Thursday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:05:16 | null | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160824PD205.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD205.html | en | null | Japan IT vendors stepping into IoT business | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Digitimes Research: Japan IT vendors stepping into IoT business
Hana Hu, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei [Thursday 25 August 2016]
Due to stagnant growth in the Japan IT market, many Japan-based IT vendors have stepped into developing cloud computing-based IoT (Internet of Things) solutions for the Japan market, including Hitachi-developed M2M Traffic Solution, Toshiba-developed Toshiba INdsutry IoT, Fujitsu-developed Fujitsu IoT Solution Ubiquitousware and NEC-developed IoT Solution, according to Digitmes Research.
Toshiba-developed IoT solutions focus on industrial application, while Fujitsu-developed ones target elderly users, Digitimes Research indicated. Hitachi's IoT services feature in-house-produced COE (central office equipment) and terminal devices and this has the advantages of fast establishment and easy expansion of systems.
In view of US-based IoT service providers' strength, there are Japan-based providers in cooperation with US-based ones, such as Toshiba's cooperating with GE in June 2015 and with Microsoft in November.
According to IDC Japan, the Japan IoT market value will grow at an average compound annual rate of 16.9% during 2016-2020, especially with large growth for applications for the manufacturing, transportation, medical care and insurance sectors. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD205.html | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/447c23c6f86b160da291f3e81b350064837963a0645efe335623857cc08d2dba.json |
[
"Eric Lin",
"Digitimes Research",
"Taipei",
"Monday August"
] | 2016-08-30T04:48:43 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160829PD202.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PD202.html | en | null | China mobile AP shipments to growth over 18% in 2H16 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Digitimes Research: China mobile AP shipments to growth over 18% in 2H16
Eric Lin, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei [Monday 29 August 2016]
Shipment of mobile application processors for smartphones and tablets in the China market are expected to grow 18.6% in the second half of 2016 from those shipped in the first half of the year due to seasonal demand and inventory build-ups for the first quarter of 2017, according to Digitimes Research.
Due to a lack of high-end solutions, MediaTek is expected to see its smartphone AP shipments grow 6% sequentially in the third quarter, and the growth rate will dip to 5.6% in the fourth quarter despite seasonal demand, Digitimes Research said.
Qualcomm will see shipment momentum of its mid-range to high-end smartphone APs continue in the second half of 2016 as its mobile APs have been verified for being able to support LTE Cat. 7 specifications as required by China Mobile. With additional orders from new clients, Qualcomm's smartphone AP shipments will grow 12.9% sequentially in the third quarter and expand another 26.6% in the fourth quarter.
Spreadtrum is expected to begin small volume shipments of its 4G SC98960 solutions for the entry-level to mid-range smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2016. Although the SC98960 also supports LTE Cat. 7 technology, shipments of the chip will be limited due to its late launch and issues related to its software, Digitimes Research commented. However, buoyed by its existing portfolios, Spreadtrum will see its shipments increase 10.6% and 6.5%, respectively, on quarter in the third and fourth quarters.
With regard to tablet APs, MediaTek is expected to have its shipments grow 9.1% and 16.7% on quarter in the third and fourth quarters, respectively, on inventory build-ups by clients. Meanwhile, Rockchip Electronics' tablet AP shipments will grow 15.4% and 16.7%, respectively, during the same quarters.
Allwinner Technology will see its tablet AP shipments surge 90% sequentially in the third quarter thanks to the launch of new 64-bit products, but the growth rate will slow to 7.1% in the fourth quarter on seasonality. Intel will post a 28.6% growth in the third quarter as it continues to clear out its SoFIA solutions before recording a 44.4% decline in the fourth quarter on phasing out of the tablet APs. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PD202.html | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/598dea268061c868055372e82487b48b181e153b417230f8bbc363fcb10e52d5.json |
[
"Steve Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T12:57:49 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160826PB200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160826PB200.html | en | null | Microwave device maker UMT looks to brisk sales in 3Q16 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Microwave device maker UMT looks to brisk sales in 3Q16
Steve Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Friday 26 August 2016]
Universal Microwave Technology (UMT), a maker of high-frequency microwave devices used in broadband wireless communications, expects its sales and profits to grow significantly in the third quarter of 2016 as compared to a quarter earlier, according to company president Wu Tong-yi.
UMT has stepped into the 4G market in India in cooperation with its clients Huawei and Ceragon, with shipments of its products to gain momentum in the second half of 2016, Wu said at a press conference held at Taiwan's over-the-counter (OTC) securities market.
The global 4G market will remain brisk in the next few years as the construction of 4G networks has barely reached 30% of demand, Wu said.
Meanwhile, the company has begun small shipments of millimeter wave products to be used in 4G networks, Wu said, adding that UMT is now cooperating with Huawei and Ericsson to apply millimeter wave devices on 5G networks.
Buoyed by peak season effects, the company is expected to see its net profits grow 25% sequentially in the third quarter, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report. UMT posted net profits of NT$56.28 million or NT$1.02 per share in the second quarter of 2016. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160826PB200.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/63a96597f7cf7ea23d80d64307100ecee14f8acb6304391e288ac945de6b244d.json |
[
"Rebecca Kuo",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:00:15 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160826PD202.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/20160826PD202_files/1_r.jpg | en | null | CPT order visibility extends through end of 2016 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | CPT order visibility extends through end of 2016
Rebecca Kuo, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Friday 26 August 2016]
Small- to medium-size panel maker Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) has received orders with shipments scheduled through the end of 2016, according to company president Lin Sheng-chang.
While smartphone- and tablet-use panels are in short supply currently, CPT is giving priority to automotive displays due to higher prices and profitability, Lin said. Currently, the revenue proportions of smartphone, tablet and automotive panels are 40%, 25% and 35%.
Due to limited production capacity, CPT will adjust product mix to maximize gross margins, Lin noted. In addition, CPT has downsized its personnel to 4,600 employees in Taiwan and 4,100 in China, decreasing about 50% from four years ago, Lin indicated.
CPT is constructing a 6G factory in southeastern China with initial investment of CNY12 billion (US$1.85 billion) and will complete building and facility construction at the end of 2016, begin equipment installation in January 2017 and production in May-June 2017. The factory will produce a-Si TFT-LCD panels for smartphones and tablets with monthly capacity of 30,000 glass substrates in the first phase and IGZO-backplane OLED panels for smartphones and tablets in the second phase.
CPT has fully utilized production capacities at a 4.5G and 6G factory, but despite booming orders will not resume production at another 4.5G factory which has been shut down, Lin said. However, CPT is developing a semiconductor process to produce flexible TFT-LCD panels at the closed 4.5G factory. The process uses quite low temperature of 100-120ºC allowing the use of various plastic materials.
Chunghwa Picture Tubes president Lin Sheng-chang
Photo: Fu Shih-min, Digitimes, August 2016 | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160826PD202.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/85a2daefb3bf6d385c3e020ed8e1adfba9933b68d736f02336bc36dceeac5f8a.json |
[
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:08:04 | null | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160824VL200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824VL200.html | en | null | Online search valued at CNY21 billion in 2Q16, says Analysys | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Wireless broadband developments in Southeast Asia markets As of 2013, the 10 ASEAN nations had a total of over 700 million mobile subscriptions, with the CAGR from 2003-2013 reaching 24%. This Digitimes Research Special Report analyzes the various mobile broadband markets in ASEAN and looks at the respective trends in 4G LTE development for those markets.
2015 global tablet demand forecast This Digitimes Research Special Report provides a 2015 forecast for the global tablet market and analyzes the strategies of key market players such as Google, Apple, Intel, and Microsoft. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824VL200.html | en | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/4d5649773907e726e34524418e17a08fac018fdb24dfed99b489296ac071c081.json |
[
"Rebecca Kuo",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T12:52:43 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160826PD200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/20160826PD200_files/1_r.jpg | en | null | Glass substrates in tight supply in 3Q16, says Corning Taiwan president | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Glass substrates in tight supply in 3Q16, says Corning Taiwan president
Rebecca Kuo, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Friday 26 August 2016]
Global supply of glass substrates for making display panels is tight in the third quarter of 2016 and this will help slow declines in glass substrate price, according to Daniel Tseng, president for Corning Display Technologies Taiwan.
The average size of LCD TVs will increase to 42-inch in 2016, Tseng said.
Corning is showcasing Gorilla Class 5, the latest of its cover glass, at the Touch Taiwan 2016 taking place in Taipei during August 24-26. Damage resistance for Gorilla Class 5 is nearly double that for Gorilla Class 4. Gorilla Glass 5 could survive drops from as high as 1.6 meters, according to Corning.
Corning is also exhibiting other glass products: Iris Glass, high-transmission glass for use as light-guide plates to facilitate design of edge-type backlit LCD TVs with thickness of below 5mm; Lotus NXT Glass, which is used in LTPS TFT-LCD and OLED manufacturing processes; Vibrant Glass, which is a decorative design technology; and semiconductor glass wafers.
Corning Display Technologies Taiwan president Daniel Tseng at Touch Taiwan 2016
Photo: Fu Shih-min, Digitimes, August 2016 | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160826PD200.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/071f3301ca2257657364370c8e73c0b11d62d4ed6aab172d47871f15fb1bc676.json |
[
"Nuying Huang",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:04:31 | null | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160824PD207.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD207.html | en | null | Trina Solar to begin production of 5BB solar cells, say reports | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Trina Solar to begin production of 5BB solar cells, say reports
Nuying Huang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 24 August 2016]
China-based PV module maker Trina Solar will begin production of 5-bus-bar (5BB) crystalline silicon solar cells in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to China-based media reports.
A PV module made of 60 5BB solar cells has lower loss of power output and thus 2W higher power generation than one made of 60 similar solar cells with four bus bars.
The shift from production of 4BB solar cells to 5BB models entails changes in equipment and adjustment in manufacturing processes. Most China- and Taiwan-based solar cell makers shifted from 3BB to 4BB in 2015, making 4BB solar cells become the mainstream. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160824PD207.html | en | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/b40e6b9a42f95dd9a6b442a04e2785208c7eaeda74c66c0b288bf97af2001f9f.json |
[
"Sammi Huang",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Monday August"
] | 2016-08-29T08:48:30 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160828PD201.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160828PD201.html | en | null | Pegatron denies China Labor Watch charges of violating Apple-set maximum working hours | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Pegatron denies China Labor Watch charges of violating Apple-set maximum working hours
Sammi Huang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Monday 29 August 2016]
China Labor Watch published a report on August 24 in which it accused ODM Pegatron of having workers at its factory in Shanghai, eastern China, work more than 80 hours a week, far exceeding the weekly maximum of 60 hours set by Apple (the factory undertakes OEM production of iPhone). Pegatron has denied the accusations.
According to China Labor Watch, a worker at the factory worked 109 overtime hours in March 2016 and recorded a total working time of 293 hours in the month. In addition, trainees cannot work overtime according to regulations, but Pegatron hired a large number of trainees and allowed them to work 80 hours in total a week, China Labor Watch noted.
Pegatron offers training and appropriate protection for all of workers and electronically records on and off duty times, the company said. Currently, over 95% of all workers at the factory work for no more than 60 hours and up to six days a week, Pegatron indicated. Pegatron offers a basic wage rate higher than the minimum wage rate specified by the local government, the company emphasized. Pegatron has appropriated an office for the factory's labor union to facilitate workers' access to the union, the company added. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160828PD201.html | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/5b88b761ce0f91ff26c5202eee9aad9a10f65dcfbd3ded3b648b12b7f7a3d78d.json |
[
"Steve Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T08:49:07 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160831PB200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PB200.html | en | null | Tablet market to decline over 11% in 2016 before rebounding in 2018, says IDC | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Tablet market to decline over 11% in 2016 before rebounding in 2018, says IDC
Steve Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Wednesday 31 August 2016]
Global tablet shipments are expected to decline 11.5% on year to 183.4 million units in 2016 before making a rebound in 2018-2020, according to IDC.
Total tablet shipments will reach 194.2 million units in 2020 as detachable tablets continue to steal share from traditional PCs.
"Windows and iOS already have solid detachable offerings and with the latest version of Android, Google will also have a horse in the race as they finally offer better multitasking support and added security features," IDC said.
With the shift towards detachable tablets, IDC also expects small tablets to cede share to larger devices. In 2016, 55% of all tablets will be 9-inch or smaller. By 2020, however, this share is forecast to drop to 40%.
Although detachable tablets capture the spotlight, slate tablets will continue to account for the majority of shipments throughout the forecast. In 2016, 85% of all tablets shipped will be slates and this will decrease to 68% by 2020. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PB200.html | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/482b39e9c70ce593a9531fbe4c377eda3c74deb46663e50fa8951d3322df3cce.json |
[
"Monica Chen",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Thursday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:05:38 | null | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160825PD206.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD206.html | en | null | MSI may ship 5 million graphics cards in 2016 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | MSI may ship 5 million graphics cards in 2016
Monica Chen, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Thursday 25 August 2016]
Micro-Star International (MSI) shipped two million graphics cards in the first half of 2016 and is likely to ship five million units in the whole year, growing 31.6% on year, for an operating profit of NT$1.5 billion (US$47.2 million), according to industry sources.
MSI's large growth in 2016 graphics card shipments will be mainly because graphics cards equipped with Nvidia GPUs have reached a global market share of nearly 80%, the sources said. In addition, the large growth will be partly due to gaming notebook sales which have boosted its brand image, the sources indicated. MSI aims to ship 1.2 million gaming notebooks in 2016, increasing 33.3% on year, for an operating profit of NT$3 billion, the sources noted.
MSI has been competitive with Asustek Computer, the globally largest motherboard and graphics card vendor, in Europe, Japan and Taiwan, the sources said. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD206.html | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/f2fff1148130459882c41e8b246c5d679154383f2299a0e541a4483052b5e0f4.json |
[
"Josephine Lien",
"Taipei",
"Jessie Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:02:05 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160825PD208.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD208.html | en | null | Longsys promotes SDP model to boost SSD sales | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Longsys promotes SDP model to boost SSD sales
Josephine Lien, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Friday 26 August 2016]
Shenzhen Longsys Electronics is promoting its SATA-disk-in-package (SDP) model to boost consumer SSD sales in emerging markets, according to industry observers.
Like the turnkey model MediaTek has used to expand its business in China's mobile-SoC market, Longsys' SDP will help shorten order-to-delivery lead times while reducing costs, the observers indicated.
Longsys had previously implemented a USB-disk-in-package (UDP) model to operate its flash drive business, and it turned out to be quite successful, the observers said. Like UDP, the manufacturing focus of SDP is being shifted away from SMT production to modular assembling enabling a shorter supply chain. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD208.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/a6867857f66cd1a6ee7bfd99d68647ad7e06de2a9e3d383e09497b92a700a273.json |
[
"Nuying Huang",
"Taipei",
"Adam Hwang",
"Digitimes",
"Tuesday August"
] | 2016-08-30T04:48:45 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160829PD206.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PD206.html | en | null | GCL-Poly to acquire SunEdision technology, factory assets | null | null | www.digitimes.com | GCL-Poly to acquire SunEdision technology, factory assets
Nuying Huang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 30 August 2016]
China-based solar wafer maker GCL-Poly Energy Holdings will acquire crystal-growing and polysilicon-making technologies as well as manufacturing assets from US-based SunEdison at US$150 million, and will also take over its debts of up to US$20 million.
The acquisition covers SunEdison's three subsidiaries: Solar cell maker SunEdison Products Singapore, Texas-based semiconductor-grade granular poly-Si maker MEMC Pasadena, and California-based mono-Si solar ingot and wafer maker Solaicx. The acquisition also includes CCz (continuously-fed Czochralski), SunEdison's patented crystal-growing technology, and production facilities.
Since SunEdison Products Singapore holds a 65.25% stake in SMP, a South Korea-based maker of polysilicon based on FBR (fluidized bed reaction) technology established by SunEdison and Samsung Electronics on a joint-venture basis, the acquisition includes the stake in SMP. SMP has annual production capacity of 20,000 tons of polysilicon.
The acquisition is subject to anti-trust review in the US and Singapore in October 2016.
GCL-Poly Energy also plans to compete for acquiring SunEdison's stake in TerraForm Power, a US-based operator of PV power stations and wind farms. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160829PD206.html | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/cb3f0099e1c67a9e1e9ece30a7da5b1e6da668a9120137846376808715d2dbbf.json |
[
"Press Release",
"Jessie Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Tuesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T04:49:17 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160830PR200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/20160830PR200_files/1_r.jpg | en | null | Samsung announces mass production of 14nm Exynos chips | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Samsung announces mass production of 14nm Exynos chips
Press release; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 30 August 2016]
Samsung Electronics has announced mass production of the Exynos 7 Quad 7570 built on 14nm process technology for the budget smartphone market as well as other IoT devices. Exynos 7570 is also Samsung's first Exynos processor to fully integrate a Cat.4 LTE 2CA modem and connectivity solutions including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM and GNSS in one chip.
Exynos 7570, with four Cortex-A53 cores in 14nm, delivers 70% improvements in CPU performance and 30% improvement in power efficiency when compared to its predecessor built on 28nm, according to Samsung.
Additionally, with design optimization and feature consolidation for components such as power management IC and RF functionalities, Exynos 7570 reduces the total chipset size by up to 20% giving manufacturers better ability to craft slimmer smartphones, Samsung indicated.
Exynos 7570 also supports screen resolutions up to WXGA, record and playback of videos in Full HD, and has an improved ISP (image signal processor) for 8Mp/13Mp front and back cameras, Samsung said.
"With Exynos 7570, more consumers will be able to experience the performance benefits of the advanced 14nm FinFET process in affordable devices," said Ben Hur, VP of system LSI marketing at Samsung. "By successfully integrating various connectivity solutions, Samsung is strengthening its competitiveness in the single chip market"
Samsung 14nm Exynos chips
Photo: Company | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PR200.html | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/89c1d4b80cd1241f6df2fa876d74372c7ead758f01b79d14bc9ec18d3d1bdc1f.json |
[
"Max Wang",
"Taipei",
"Steve Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T04:49:15 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160831PD202.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PD202.html | en | null | LG launches X-series smartphones | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Taiwan market: LG launches X-series smartphones
Max Wang, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 31 August 2016]
LG Electronics has launched two models of its new X-series smartphones, the LG X Fast (X5) and the X Power (X3), in the Taiwan market, aiming to ramp up the sales value of smartphones sold in the local market by over 50% on year in 2016.
The X Fast features a 5.5-inch QHD display and supports fingerprint identification and 3CA technologies. The model targets the mid-range to high-end segments with a price tag of NT$15,900 (US$501) unlocked.
The X Power comes with a 5.3-inch HD display, MediaTek MT6735 CPU, a 4100mAh battery and fast charging functionality, priced at NT$5,990.
While cooperating with Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) and Senao International to promote the X5 and teaming up with Taiwan Mobile to market the X3, the vendor will also strengthen its cooperation with local retail channels and large-scale IT stores to push sales of new models, said LG Taiwan. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PD202.html | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/ac40e33e697f27b3bda4e3c625cb6dd02971509a6aa070cd598c02831187d6bb.json |
[
"Rodney Chan",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T04:49:05 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160831PR200.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/20160831PR200_files/1_r.jpg | en | null | Corning unveils Gorilla Glass SR+ for wearable devices | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Corning unveils Gorilla Glass SR+ for wearable devices
Rodney Chan, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Wednesday 31 August 2016]
Corning has unveiled Gorilla Glass SR+. Specifically designed for wearable devices, this new glass composite reduces visible scratches while delivering Gorilla Glass' toughness, optical clarity and touch sensitivity, according to the company.
In lab tests, Gorilla Glass SR+ demonstrated scratch resistance approaching that of alternative luxury cover materials, while delivering up to 70% better damage resistance against impacts and 25% better surface reflection than those alternative materials, said Corning. Such step improvements in optical performance enable longer battery life and improved outdoor readability.
"In early 2015, Corning launched Project Phire with the goal of engineering glass-based solutions with the scratch resistance approaching luxury cover materials, combined with the superior damage resistance of Gorilla Glass," Scott Forester, director, innovation products, Corning Gorilla Glass, was cited as saying in a company press release. "Corning Gorilla SR+ delivers a superior combination of properties that is not available in any other material today - it is in a class of its own."
Corning said its Gorilla Glass has been used on more than 4.5 billion devices worldwide, including more than 1,800 product models across 40 major brands.
Corning said Gorilla Glass SR+ is commercially available and is expected to be on product models from leading global brands later this year.
Corning Gorilla Glass SR+ for wearable devices
Photo: Company | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160831PR200.html | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/fd7647ba3861f8e64360f5e40cc0c700221bfb290927ca7593cfea9cee07ec60.json |
[
"Steve Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Tuesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T04:49:11 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160830PB201.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PB201.html | en | null | LTCC module maker ACX to see revenues high in August, 3Q16 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | LTCC module maker ACX to see revenues high in August, 3Q16
Steve Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Tuesday 30 August 2016]
Advanced Ceramic X (ACX), a Taiwan-based manufacturer of multi-layer ceramic devices and LTCC (low-temperature co-fired ceramic) modules for wireless communications, is expected to see revenues for August as well as for the third quarter of 2016 hit record highs due to strong demand from the wireless, broadband and 4G network sectors.
Sales in the second half of 2016 will be better than those in the first half, and gross margin will also be maintained at the same level reached in the previous six months, the company was cited by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN).
The company's gross margin stood at 60.45% in the first half compared to 60.37% a year earlier.
ACX posted net profits of NT$363 million (US$11.45 million) in the first six months of 2016, increasing 16.7% from a year ago. The earnings translated into an EPS of NT$5.26 for the period. July revenues came to NT$170 million, up 9.5% on year.
The company's stock price surged NT$5.50 to close at NT$198.50 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) during the August 30 session. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PB201.html | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/cb43f141f9f27cb2105ca70e39bd3f550b28d542c33af9c8bebb08ddc9346674.json |
[
"Jessie Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Wednesday August"
] | 2016-08-31T04:49:18 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160830PM202.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PM202.html | en | null | Orders for iris recognition chips to boost Xintec 2017 revenues, says report | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Orders for iris recognition chips to boost Xintec 2017 revenues, says report
Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Wednesday 31 August 2016]
Taiwan-based Xintec, an affiliate of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) specializing in packaging services for CMOS image sensors as well as MEMS and fingerprint sensors, will start fulfilling new orders for iris-recognition solutions in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a Chinese-language MoneyDJ.com report.
Xintec is expected to enter mass production for iris-recognition chips in 2017, which will boost the backend house's revenues for the year, the report cited market watchers as saying. New orders for iris-recognition sensors include those for the chips that will be embedded in the 2017 series of iPhone, the watchers were also quoted in the report.
Xintec has responded saying the company does not comment on particular products and customer orders.
In other news, Xintec disclosed in an August 5 filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) that the company will spend a total of US$16.77 million from August 6 to March 31, 2017 converting its 8-inch wafer-level packaging lines. The proposed capacity adjustment is to respond to customer demand.
Xintec reported revenues for the first half of 2016 declined 24% on year to NT$2.07 billion (US$65.2 million). The company generated net losses of NT$0.81 per share during the six-month period. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160830PM202.html | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/bf7aaaf47ad5aaf9d6fa1f551342432cc6f106e1d5fd949535e565e180e91e82.json |
[
"Jim Hsiao",
"Digitimes Research",
"Taipei",
"Thursday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:02:33 | null | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160825PD203.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD203.html | en | null | Global tablet shipments to up over 16% on quarter in 3Q16 | null | null | www.digitimes.com | Digitimes Research: Global tablet shipments to up over 16% on quarter in 3Q16
Jim Hsiao, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei [Thursday 25 August 2016]
Global tablet shipments will bounce back 16.3% sequentially to reach nearly 47 million units in the third quarter, but the volume will still be down over 10% compared to the same quarter a year ago, showing the market is still in no condition of recovering, according to Digitimes Research.
The sequential shipment growth is attributed to vendors' inventory build-ups for the year-end holidays in Europe and North America and the fact that several emerging markets have seen improved economies, which has increased tablet demand, Digitimes Research said.
Despite the absence of new models for the second half of 2016, Apple will see its tablet shipment dip only slightly on year to 9.5 million units in the third quarter thanks to steady demand for 9.7-inch iPad Pro. However, shipments by white-box tablet makers are expected to increase significantly to 18.5 million units in the third quarter on growing shipments to retail shops in the US and Europe and an easing in the supply of some key parts and components.
While non-Apple tablet vendors will benefit from inventory build-ups in the third quarter, most brands still remain conservative about their business outlook. Among them, Samsung Electronics will see its shipment momentum fade during the peak season as its new entry-level and mid-range models will face increasing competition from China brands.
Lenovo may temporarily outperform Amazon to take the third position in third-quarter rankings, but its tablet business unit has decided to shift its focus to Chromebooks and other Android devices. Amazon will see its shipments decline in the third quarter due to product shifts in the quarter.
Shipments of tablets from Taiwan-based ODMs are expected to drop to a new low level in the third quarter due to decreased orders from Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, Digitimes Research noted. | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825PD203.html | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/6767c715e9c89b9f5690cc89b28b7f36f557dcb357f75af1eef3d5922e32d545.json |
[
"Jessie Shen",
"Digitimes",
"Taipei",
"Friday August"
] | 2016-08-26T13:01:10 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com%2Fnews%2Fa20160825VL202.html.json | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825VL202.html | en | null | China firms set to expand presence in global NAND flash market, says DRAMeXchange | null | null | www.digitimes.com | China firms set to expand presence in global NAND flash market, says DRAMeXchange
Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei [Friday 26 August 2016]
China-based companies are set to expand their presence in the global NAND flash market dramatically thanks to the region's push to establish a homegrown NAND flash industry and the huge domestic market, according to DRAMeXchange.
A special forum was held during the 2016 Flash Memory Summit to discuss the China market indicating China is gaining greater visibility in the NAND flash industry, said DRAMeXchange.
China's domestic NAND flash consumption is expanding rapidly on account of growing demand for mobile devices, mass deployment of servers and widespread establishment of data centers, DRAMeXchange indicated. China is set to account for 30% of global NAND flash consumption in 2017. The share will continue to grow and exceed 40% in 2020, DRAMeXchange said.
China's domestic demand is the driving force behind the region's push to build its own NAND flash industry, DRAMeXchange noted.
"China's huge growth potential will attract many vendors related to the NAND flash industry to enter the country. Domestic industry participants will also be very aggressive in staking a claim in the home market," said Sean Yang, research director of DRAMeXchange.
"3D-NAND flash will account for over half of the global NAND flash market in 2018 at the latest," Yang continued. "The expansion of the 3D-NAND's market share will spur the growth of the SSD application market and increase the capacities of SSD products." DRAMeXchange forecast that global NAND flash demand will maintain an annual growth rate of about 40% from 2016 to 2020.
XMC is currently the largest China-based NAND flash manufacturer in terms of scale and has partnered with US-based Spansion to develop 3D-NAND flash, DRAMeXchange noted. XMC is scheduled to start mass production of its first-generation 3D-NAND products in the first half of 2018, DRAMeXchange said.
In addition, Yangtze River Storage Technology formed by XMC and Tsinghua Unigroup in July 2016 will enable an integrated supply chain of NAND flash in China, DRAMeXchange indicated.
China-based controller suppliers including Sage Microelectronics, Memblaze and Huawei also participated in the 2016 Flash Memory Summit held in Santa Clara, California from August 9 to 11. DRAMeXchange believes that these first-tier China-based controller makers are gearing up for rapid SSD market growth over the next five years.
"Chinese controller chip makers are accelerating their efforts to develop IPs in-house or obtain them through mergers and acquisitions," Yang said. "More cross-border deals and international partnerships are expected in this particular area of the NAND flash industry within these two years." | http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160825VL202.html | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.digitimes.com/acbe19241c9720d5b087040c83d694945e9c7b5049e3f392d8003b1fd6a00d64.json |
[
"Michael Wood"
] | 2016-08-26T12:57:00 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fmichael-wood%2Fat-the-movies.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | Michael Wood reviews At the Movies · LRB 11 August 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | One of the remarkable things about Alain Resnais’s film Muriel (1963), now released on Blu-Ray and DVD in a new print by Criterion, is that it doesn’t grow on you. It’s just as strange on a second or third viewing as on the first, and part of the reason is its cosy, well-dressed look. The characters wear fur-coats, silk scarves; they seem constantly on some sort of bourgeois parade – well, their hair gets ruffled when they are really upset – but almost nothing in their lives corresponds to this orderly image. Similarly, the film’s orderly, carefully stacked effect doesn’t match any of its continuing preoccupations. At one point we see a display of postcards outside a shop, and the camera obligingly shows us the whole random set. It feels as if the film is doing this all the time. Rooms, objects, streets, old and new buildings just succeed each other on the screen, fragments of history or memory looking for a story.
Unlike Resnais’s two earlier features, Hiroshima mon amour (1959) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961), Muriel is in colour, and a lavish sort of colour at that. This adds to the sense of dislocated tourism. The cinematographer is Sacha Vierny, who also shot the previous films, and would go on to work with Buñuel on Belle de jour (1967). Both Resnais and Buñuel are interested in having the camera work as a kind of spy, but it must have helped to have a craftsman who was so good at getting just that look. One of the eerie things about Muriel, as about many moments in Belle de jour, is that the camera doesn’t move. ‘The challenge,’ Resnais said, ‘was never to shift the camera position.’ There are plenty of cuts and new angles, people walk around within the frame, but the camera just squats and watches. The film doesn’t feel slow or frozen, in fact the quick cutting makes it seem very lively, but you do begin to wonder how the camera always gets to the scene ahead of time, sits there ready and waiting for people to show up. It doesn’t have to move, whatever it needs to catch will always come to it. It’s a prescient spy: it already knows what it is supposed to find out.
I wouldn’t swear that this programme is entirely consistent. There are times when the camera seemed to move a bit, but I could be … seeing things, and the overall performance is striking. And then in the last sequence, the camera moves. It tracks a woman arriving at an apartment, ringing the doorbell, going inside because the door is slightly open, walking through the rooms, looking for someone, her wandering husband as it happens. There is no one there, but the place is full of furniture of all ages. It’s an apartment that also serves as an antique shop. The owner lives among the things she sells, indeed among some things she has already sold. That’s why she tells her guests to be careful with the china. We have spent a good portion of the movie in this room, and we have had several tours of the place. But only edited tours; not this long bewildered prowl.
We know the woman is not going to find her husband, here or anywhere else, because we have already seen him take off when he was supposed to be on his way back to her, in the not so amiable custody of her brother. But who is he, and where is this apartment? The first question is only partly answerable, like so many questions this film asks or implies. He is called Alphonse (played by Jean-Pierre Kerien), he is visiting an old flame in Boulogne. He has (just in case) brought his niece Françoise with him, although she is not his niece, she is his current mistress. He says he has spent the last 15 years in Algiers, running a restaurant, and he implies that he may have done a little more than that. ‘I had a certain influence,’ he says. There is something about the contented, theatrical way in which he says that these were the best years of his life that makes us wonder what he is hiding, and his brother-in-law later offers a refutation of the whole story. Alphonse wasn’t in Algiers at all, he was failing to a run a restaurant in Paris. It seems as if the old romance that brings him to town has some sort of basis in fact, but beyond that the facts get very hazy. It was a wartime affair, the dates are around 1939 or 1940. Did he leave her, did she leave him? Were certain letters lost in the post, or were they never written? What about the rendezvous she failed to keep? Or the one he failed to keep? The whole blurred narrative is like Hiroshima mon amour played as domestic French cliché, the love-in-wartime movie we have all seen more often than we care to remember.
The old flame, and owner of the antique shop flat, is Hélène, marvellously portrayed by Delphine Seyrig. The haughty glamour she brought to Last Year at Marienbad has been replaced by an extraordinary mixture of scattiness and angst. She is so optimistic that she forgets her own sorrows from one minute to the next, and she almost never walks, only runs towards everything and everyone with a hopping, eager stride. Then the camera catches her face, and she looks so desperate you think surely this time she can’t recover. She lives with her stepson Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thierrée), also said to be back from Algeria, although he certainly was there – he had signed up for the army. They have an awkward relationship because she is always trying to pretend that a polite, regulated life is all anyone needs, and he is trying to be a moody existentialist from another movie. He has his reasons.
He is engaged to a girl called Muriel, Hélène believes; and he certainly keeps announcing that he is going off to see her. At one point Hélène says she cares about Muriel only because she cares about him, and she is then very close to the truth she will never know. ‘We must tell Muriel’ is one of the last things she says in the film, when Bernard has disappeared. Another character, to whom Bernard has told his story, says: ‘We mustn’t disturb her.’ Bernard has a local girlfriend whom he often goes to see, but she is not Muriel. Muriel is an Algerian woman Bernard and his comrades tortured. Alphonse, when he is snooping round Hélène’s flat, reads some notes of Bernard’s that explain much of this, but he can’t know what they refer to, and neither can we when we glance at them with Alphonse. Only a good memory or a second viewing will allow them their full effect. ‘It was with Muriel that everything really began,’ one note says. ‘It is since Muriel that I am no longer really alive.’
In one sense it is easy to connect Muriel to Resnais’s earlier work. The themes are all there: war, trauma, damage, memory, lost love. But we shouldn’t do this too simply or too directly. Susan Sontag was right to say that Muriel, like the other films, does ‘not go to the end, either of the idea or the emotion which inspires them’; but not going to end, in this case, seems to be just the meticulously studied point. There is no end, and Resnais, in turn, was wrong to say he had done nothing on film to make things prettier. It’s all pretty, that’s why it feels so desolate. When the characters are not evading reality altogether, as almost all of them are, they are turning it into a boulevard play. A friend asks Bernard what the other torturer is doing now. He says: ‘He’s wandering around Boulogne, like everybody else.’ | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/michael-wood/at-the-movies | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/4d6f868b1924540df79d586ff13d4ff1781cbc32a49acfa0c46072e4b4e0c20e.json |
[
"Emily Witt"
] | 2016-08-31T14:47:18 | null | 2016-09-08T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Femily-witt%2Fdeity-with-fairy-wings.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3817.jpg?1472644509 | en | null | Emily Witt reviews ‘The Girls’ by Emma Cline · LRB 8 September 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | Early on in Emma Cline’s novel The Girls, the sound of intruders wakens a middle-aged woman sleeping alone in a borrowed house. The woman is Evie Boyd, who survived a summer hanging around a Manson-like cult in 1969, when she was 14. Forty or so years later she is out of work, staying in her friend Dan’s vacation house, doing nothing and seeing no one. ‘I ate in the blunt way I had as a child – a glut of spaghetti, mossed with cheese,’ she says. ‘I watered Dan’s plants once a week.’
The sound of someone breaking and entering takes her back to that summer when her friends from the Manson-like cult massacred some innocent people in a Manson Family-like way. ‘When I heard the lock jamming open near midnight, it was my first thought,’ Evie says. ‘The stranger at the door.’ But the unexpected visitors are not homicidal cult members: they are Dan’s university dropout son, Julian, and his teenage girlfriend, Sasha, passing through on a road trip north, unaware that the house is occupied. ‘He didn’t remember me, and why should he?’ Evie says of Julian. ‘I was a woman outside his range of erotic attentions.’ But then Julian does remember: ‘She was in this cult,’ he explains to Sasha.
Evie observes and pities Sasha’s deference to a boyfriend who doesn’t actually like her: ‘that dopey part of teenage girls: the desire for love flashing in her face so directly that it embarrassed me.’ That night she lies in bed listening to the young couple have sex in the next room. ‘There was Sasha’s voice, whining like a porno. High and curdled,’ she writes. ‘Julian growling. “Are you a cunt?”’
The title of The Girls is obviously close to the title of the HBO series Girls. And this scene, of young people whose expressions of sexual fulfilment parrot certain tropes of internet porn, is the kind of scene we see in Girls too. The author of The Girls, Emma Cline, is the same generation as Lena Dunham, the creator of Girls, and reading The Girls, as when I have watched Girls, I felt pained by the theory of girlhood they propose. As Cline describes it:
Girls are the only ones who can really give each other close attention, the kind we equate with being loved. They notice what we want noticed. That was part of being a girl – you were resigned to whatever feedback you’d get. If you got mad, you were crazy, and if you didn’t react, you were a bitch. Girls were good at colouring in those disappointing blank spots. Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of love. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get. I knew just being a girl in the world handicapped your ability to believe yourself.
The premise of The Girls is that Evie is drawn, at 14, to the cult because it offers an escape from a suffocating feminine malaise of insecurity and need. (The older Evie tells the story in flashback.) She is living with her recently divorced mother in Petaluma, an upscale town in Sonoma County, California. She is due to go to boarding school in the autumn. Her mother, in the aftermath of the divorce, has become keen on Gestalt, sensory deprivation tanks, tea ‘made from some aromatic bark’, astrology and acupuncture. She has cut back on motherhood: she has stopped folding Evie’s socks, and leaves her miso soup in the refrigerator for dinner. Evie thinks her mother is pathetic. ‘At that age I looked at women with brutal and emotionless judgment,’ she says. Only later will she come to sympathise, in a passage that seems inspired by Betty Friedan: ‘How she must have sat in the empty kitchen, the table smelling of the domestic rot of the sponge, and waited for me to clatter in from school, for my father to come home.’
One afternoon, Evie sees a curious group in a park – the girls of the title. ‘I noticed their hair first, long and uncombed,’ she says. ‘They were messing with an uneasy threshold, prettiness and ugliness at the same time, and a ripple of awareness followed them through the park.’ She watches as they steal food from a dumpster, then run from the angry owner of the restaurant. One of them manages to flash a nipple at the staid families barbecuing before the group are picked up by a black school bus and driven away. These girls are not like Evie’s mother, abandoned and flailing, and not like Evie herself, taking guidance from teen magazines about how to shrink her pores and make herself more appealing to boys. Evie pays particular attention to a black-haired 19-year-old who she will later find out is called Suzanne: ‘That was the difference between me and the black-haired girl – her face answered all its own questions.’ One day, after a fight with her mother, Evie has trouble with her bike and the black school bus pulls up beside her. The girls inside, including Suzanne, invite her to a ‘solstice party’ at ‘the ranch’. Evie goes, then spends most of the rest of the summer there.
Cline fictionalises the Manson murders by setting them in Northern California instead of Southern California and calling the charismatic psychopath at their centre Russell instead of Charles. The cult’s celebrity patron is called Mitch instead of Dennis Wilson, and the group lives rent-free on a ranch where they help raise llamas instead of renting out horses, as the Manson family did at Spahn Ranch. Cline also removes all reference to Helter Skelter – Manson’s delusional plan to incite a race war in America. In most other respects the plot of this novel is the story of the Manson Family. You read it the way you might watch Titanic, waiting for the ship to sink, which in this case happens when the group switches from LSD to speed.
In its rote historicity The Girls has a Forrest Gump-type reliance on cameos that illustrate everything we have come to understand about the 1960s and how they ended: depressed housewives getting divorced and turning to group therapy, the neighbour who comes home maimed from Vietnam, teenage runaways, Valley of the Dolls, Playboy, the earnest Berkeley undergrad (‘“LBJ,” he said. “Now there was a president”’). The prose, too, takes its historical cues. ‘It was the end of the Sixties, or the summer before the end, and that’s what it seemed like, an endless, formless summer,’ Evie muses in the first chapter. Maybe I’ve just read Joan Didion too many times but this reads as a hair’s breadth away from parody, down to the subsequent mention of jasmine. Or maybe I just felt trapped in the echo chamber of the originary text of girlhood, The Bell Jar: ‘It was a queer sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs …’
Cline’s imaginative embellishment is to posit that Russell/Manson’s followers were there not because Russell/Manson brainwashed them, but because the ranch offered an extreme version of women’s liberation. As Evie puts it:
I waited to be told what was good about me. I wondered later if this was why there were so many more women than men at the ranch. All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you – the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.
Russell has power because he is ‘an expert in female sadness – a particular slump in the shoulders, a nervous rash. A subservient lilt at the end of sentences, eyelashes gone soggy from crying.’ For Evie, the girls’ willingness to make themselves his followers differs from the enslavement of trying to look cute for high-school boys. ‘The way these girls spoke of Russell was different, their worship more practical, with none of the playful, girlish longing I knew. Their certainty was unwavering, invoking Russell’s power and magic as though it were as widely acknowledged as the moon’s tidal pull or the earth’s orbit.’
But Evie is not charmed by Russell. The sexual favours she does for him and Mitch are only a sideshow to the real seducer, Suzanne, with whom she is in love. Suzanne doesn’t love Evie back – she really likes Russell – but lets her sleep in her bed. She goads Evie, treating her as a mascot or pet, but protects her from the cult’s worst crimes. Then she goes to jail for life, and Evie never quite falls in love again. There are hints that she preferred women all along, but for some reason she never says so outright, leaving the possibility that hers was simply a political lesbianism expedient in a world where all relationships with men are doomed to end in exploitation.
Her language is also arrested in adolescence: she moons over this and that, mired in childish metaphors. One character is ‘pretty in the youthful way of hometown beauties’; another has ‘a face as round and rosy as a storybook character’. The girls sing ‘like campers around the fire’. The members of a band ‘turned like jewellery-box ballerinas’. ‘You’re just like a little doll,’ one of the girls tells Evie, and, later, ‘it was like she was recounting a fairy tale.’ One man on the ranch has ‘the feminine duskiness of a cinematic villain’; another ‘reminded Guy of the adventure books of his youth’.
Those who were alive at the time have tended to depict the Manson girls as lost souls or icons of camp and have tended not to give them the credit of motive that the 27-year-old Cline gives her fictionalised renditions. John Waters dedicated Pink Flamingos to the Manson girls, lampooning the nation’s celebrity obsession with them. In Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon’s novel about the aftermath of the 1960s, Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello asks his girlfriend if she’ll wear a wig during sex to look like Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, the Manson follower who tried to assassinate Gerald Ford. Didion helped establish the Manson Family as shorthand for the end of an era of too much sex and drugs: ‘Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive travelled like brushfire through the community, and in a sense this is true,’ she wrote. ‘The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled.’ Didion also gave the family its glamour, buying Linda Kasabian a dress in Beverly Hills to wear at her trial.
While I was reading The Girls in July, one of the Manson girls was again denied parole by the governor of California, Jerry Brown. At 19, Leslie Van Houten was the youngest of the killers. Her attorney told the Los Angeles Times that she had had a forced illegal abortion and had to bury the foetus in her backyard. He spoke of her parents’ divorce, her social difficulties at school and her descent into drug use. Van Houten has described herself as ‘saturated in acid’. ‘I had no perspective or sense that I was no longer in control of my mind,’ she once told Waters, who after Pink Flamingos befriended her and has advocated for her release. In 1994 she told a Washington Post reporter that after she stabbed Rosemary LaBianca she thought she would become a three-inch-high deity with ‘fairy wings’ when Manson’s grand design was fulfilled. Nobody in The Girls ever quite reaches this level of delusion: they commit their grim murders lucid, on amphetamines.
By juxtaposing Evie’s adolescence with that of Sasha forty years later, Cline suggests that little has changed about being a girl. A girl still has no agency, a girl is still trying to please, a girl’s sexuality is still dictated by male fantasy (there’s a scene where Evie sits in disgust while Julian and a friend make Sasha lift up her shirt to assess her breasts). Womanhood offers no respite: Evie describes her middle-aged face as ‘blurred with the pleasant, ambiguous expression of a lawn ornament’. This is writing that traps its women in timorous corners, where they devote themselves to the idle scrutiny of the details that make the world disgusting (in this case descriptions of things like the saliva on olive pits and picking at pimples). In 1963, when both The Bell Jar and The Feminine Mystique were first published, writing about feeling trapped in a suffocating dreamscape helped to destroy a false mythology about what made women happy. Fifty years on it reads as a relentless insistence on the confinements of gender, setting up shop in the bell jar, making it home. Or maybe Cline is right, and the only thing that has changed in America are the mass murderers who pursue fame with violence. Lately no one has found them charismatic, not even women trying to attach themselves to something bigger than themselves. Lately these men have tended to live at home, with their mothers. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/emily-witt/deity-with-fairy-wings | en | 2016-09-08T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/ab231ad9cb8223ebdb081f3a95aba14b2b32cf24fec5e5afb520b3cdcfdc666d.json |
[
"Mark Ford"
] | 2016-08-26T12:50:56 | null | 2016-08-11T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fmark-ford%2Fi-gotta-use-words.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | Mark Ford reviews ‘The Poems of T.S. Eliot’ edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue and ‘The Poems of T.S. Eliot’ edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue · LRB 11 August 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | The first person to annotate a poem by T.S. Eliot was T.S. Eliot. His notes on The Waste Land (1922) were composed partly so that his 433-line poem could be issued by his American publishers Boni & Liveright as a book, and partly, as he recalled in ‘The Frontiers of Criticism’ (1956), ‘with a view to spiking the guns of critics of my earlier poems who had accused me of plagiarism’. ‘Not only the title,’ Eliot observed in his introductory paragraph to The Waste Land’s notes,
but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Cambridge). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston’s book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble.
In these seemingly sober, useful, self-deprecating sentences lurks the MacGuffin, to borrow Alfred Hitchcock’s term, that reaches its epic, mind-boggling climax in the publication, nearly a century on, of Faber’s two all-comprehending new tomes, edited by Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue. The editors promise to ‘elucidate the difficulties’ of Eliot’s work by tracing every possible verbal overlap between the words used in his poems and the words used by other writers, both famous and obscure, in texts that range from Dante’s Divine Comedy to an anonymous scribe’s record of the Acts and Resolutions of the 29th General Assembly of Iowa (1902).
The lines of Eliot’s that most often occurred to me as I worked my way through these thousand or so pages of commentary (set in 10-point type) are from Sweeney Agonistes. In the course of his narrative about a man who ‘did a girl in’, and then kept her body in a bath with a gallon of Lysol, Sweeney explains that the murderer would periodically visit him:
sweeney: He used to come and see me sometimes
I’d give him a drink and cheer him up. doris: Cheer him up? dusty: Cheer him up? sweeney: Well here again that don’t apply
But I’ve gotta use words when I talk to you.
One of the side effects of reading through this edition’s extraordinarily wide-ranging and inclusive notes is the periodical rising of a Sweeney-like urge to declare: ‘That don’t apply.’ Like Sweeney, every poem has got to use words, and those words will also necessarily have been used in the work of earlier or contemporary writers.
To begin at the very beginning: is there a meaningful relationship between ‘Let us go then …’ (the opening words of ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’), and the phrase ‘Let us go now …’ which occurs in Chapter 40 of Daniel Deronda (with ‘street’ and ‘sky’ later in the paragraph); between ‘When the evening is spread out against the sky’ (line 2 of ‘Prufrock’) and Thomas Hardy’s ‘forms there flung/Against the sky’ (‘The Abbey Mason’); between ‘certain half-deserted streets’ (line 4 of ‘Prufrock’) and ‘he sought out a certain street and number’ in Chapter 20 of Little Dorrit; or, moving beyond literature, between that phrase and the recording of a payment made to ‘R.D. Bennett, for sprinkling a certain street’ in the aforementioned Acts and Resolutions of the 29th General Assembly of Iowa; between Prufrock’s ‘overwhelming question’ (line 10) and the observation in Chapter 23 of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers that ‘The whole company were a good deal astounded with this overwhelming question’?
Certainly Eliot’s mind was a vast, labyrinthine echo chamber, and perhaps more than any other canonical poet of the English language, with the possible exception of his great antagonist John Milton, he was conscious of the previous uses by other writers of the words he deployed in his poems. But what exactly is the difference, one can’t help wondering while reading such notes, between an interesting allusion or echo and a mere verbal coincidence? And where should limits be set for the recording of these echoes or coincidences in the age of the internet, when it’s possible to pursue any phrase ad infinitum? Should notes in a scholarly edition aspire to the condition of an entry in the OED? Anyone with an interest in Eliot will be grateful for, and marvel at, the truly extraordinary knowledge of all things Eliotic that underpins these volumes, but – to get my quibble out of the way early, so that I can praise the numerous virtues of this edition with a clear conscience – it is not always easy to discern the value of the links the editors posit between Eliot’s words and the analogous phrases, drawn from a bewildering array of writers, presented for comparison in the commentary.
Those first ten lines of ‘Prufrock’, for instance, elicit, as well as the citations I’ve already mentioned, quotations from Jules Laforgue, W.E. Henley, Théophile Gautier, Russell S. Fowler (author of The Operating Room and the Patient, a 1906 book which includes a reference to ‘anaesthetic tables’), William James, James Thomson, William Acton, Charles-Louis Philippe, W.R. Burnett (a crime novelist in whose High Sierra – published in 1940 – the phrase ‘She was … a one-night-stand type’ occurs), Edward Winslow Martin (author of The Secrets of the Great City, 1868, which mentions ‘cheap hotels’), the London Baedeker, Cooper’s The Prairie and Hamlet’s ‘overwhelming question’ – ‘“To be, or not to be, that is the question.” Perhaps also OED 6: “to pop the question (slang or colloq.), to propose marriage” (1725)’. In addition, the notes on these ten lines draw our attention to eight other Eliot poems, as well as including quotations from The Cocktail Party and a number of his essays and letters. It’s worth remarking at the very least that the parameters established for this edition constitute a new frontier in the use of notes to record verbal echoes and overlaps, as well as to include tangential facts. The quote from The Prairie, for instance, is adduced because Eliot always sounds the final ‘t’ in ‘restaurants’ in his various recorded readings of ‘Prufrock’; ‘OED,’ the editors add, ‘gives a pronunciation in which it is not sounded, and the spelling of its first citation, from Fenimore Cooper, 1827, points to the French derivation: “At the most renowned of the Parisian restaurans”.’ This is a good instance of the sort of knowledge you will pick up from Ricks and McCue’s commentary as an unexpected bonus. It illustrates their generous wish to impart as much information as possible, and while their method throws up all manner of fascinating trouvailles, surely even the most devoted Eliot scholars will occasionally find themselves scratching their heads when ordinary words such as ‘toast’ (‘the taking of a toast and tea’) are glossed by an OED definition – ‘Bread so browned by fire, electric heat etc.’ The editors’ kitchen-sink approach to annotation makes even Longman editions, such as Ricks’s own wonderful three-volume edition of Tennyson – who published an awful lot more poetry than Eliot – seem modest by comparison.
Modernist writing often foregrounded in unignorable ways the issues raised in the opening sentences of Eliot’s notes to The Waste Land. The difficulties presented through his use of allusions and source materials required elucidation by reference to other books, and readers had to be persuaded that getting to grips with an anthropological text on medieval legends in order to understand the poem that it supposedly inspired was ‘worth the trouble’. On occasion Eliot himself expressed remorse for having kickstarted the business of allusion-hunting with his ‘bogus scholarship’, while conceding that the poem and its notes were wed for ever: ‘I have sometimes thought of getting rid of these notes; but now they can never be unstuck. They have had almost greater popularity than the poem itself – anyone who bought my book of poems, and found that the notes to The Waste Land were not in it, would demand his money back.’ Maybe so, but Eliot’s notes hardly offer a reader-friendly exposition of the poem’s mysteries: they assume proficiency in French, Italian, Latin and German, and they struck Arnold Bennett, whose help Eliot sought while he was at work on Sweeney Agonistes, as a spoof: ‘I said to him,’ Bennett recorded in his Journals, ‘“I want to ask you a question. It isn’t an insult. Were the notes to Wastelands a lark or serious? I thought they were a skit.” He said that they were serious, and not more of a skit than some things in the poem itself.’
Much of Eliot’s poker-faced humour – like much of the savagery or violence in his work – derives from his confounding of the difference between ‘a lark’ and the ‘serious’, and the mock scholarly aspect of the notes is to the fore in annotations such as the one with which he glosses the lines ‘To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours/With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine’: ‘A phenomenon which I have often noticed.’ At times he seems almost to be taunting the philistine English poetry-lover who can’t see beyond the Georgians, as when he recommends to those unable to read Sanskrit Paul Deussen’s 1897 translation into German of Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad, where the ‘fable of the meaning of the Thunder’ can be found. His note, on the other hand, on Tiresias (the blind ancient Greek prophet who had been both man and woman) suggested a way of reading The Waste Land that has had a deep and lasting influence on the poem’s reception, for it implied a coherent overall plan and a way of understanding the various characters the poem presents:
Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a ‘character’, is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman, and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem.
This seems to encourage us to view The Waste Land not as a ‘heap of broken images’ or a series of sprawling, disconnected ‘fragments’ shored against the poet’s ruins, but as a skilfully orchestrated jeremiad by a prophet-like creator who, rather than a pulpit, uses collage and allusion and other avant-garde (as well as traditional) poetic techniques to alert his followers to their perilous spiritual state. The note acts as both a declaration of the ‘impersonality’ of the poem and as a kind of prophylactic insulating Eliot from Tiresias. We are not, it warns, to assume that the poet is dramatising his own divided state and dilemmas through his all-uniting ‘personage’, although, reading against the grain, the note may also prompt us to think that this is exactly the use he is making of the old man with wrinkled dugs who foresees and foresuffers all.
The impressive range of references in Eliot’s notes increased the sense among his initial readers that the poem was the expression of a mind bringing to bear a formidable intelligence and an exemplary understanding of culture on the chaotic, postwar world of 1922. ‘The collocation of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism, as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident,’ he writes of his twinning of Augustine’s Confessions and the Buddha’s Fire Sermon at the end of Part III. The introduction to ‘What the Thunder Said’ invites us to appreciate his deployment of themes widely separated in time and place: ‘the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston’s book) and the present decay of Eastern Europe’ (in the drafts Eliot’s ‘hooded hordes’ swarm over ‘Polish plains’ rather than ‘endless plains’).
But to what extent was the openness of the poem to its source texts a sign of Eliot’s professional mastery of his medium, of his easy familiarity with literary greats such as Virgil and Dante and Spenser and Shakespeare, and to what extent was it the openness of a cross-gendered hysteric, one with nerves as bad as those of the unnamed woman in ‘A Game of Chess’ who implores her husband to stay with her? Ricks and McCue’s exhaustive notes make conspicuous the dual nature of the relationship between Eliot’s reading and his writing, the sense that his work often communicates of a poet who is at once making thoughtful, purposeful use of earlier texts, and at the same time desperately seeking solace or precedent in the words of others – grasping for something to help him escape the prison in whose lock he has heard the key turn once, and once only:
‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.’
‘WONDERFUL,’ Vivien wrote in the margin of this passage on the manuscript of The Waste Land. Ricks and McCue alert us to Joseph Conrad’s The End of the Tether (‘Why don’t you speak? … What does it mean? … What’s going on in that head of yours? What are you plotting against me there so hard that you can’t say a word?’); a poem in Aldous Huxley’s collection Leda (‘Heart-rending question of women – never answered:/“Tell me, tell me, what are you thinking of?”’); and Conrad Aiken’s The Jig of Forslin (‘What are you thinking?’) – as well as to a variant line of Eliot’s own ‘Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat’ (‘he sees knows what you are thinking’). The connection between the narrator’s emotional paralysis and the state of shellshocked soldiers returning from the First World War is implicit in the unspoken response that follows the woman’s obsessive demands and questions: ‘I think we are in rats’ alley’ – a trench in the Somme sector of the Western Front – ‘Where the dead men lost their bones.’
Should we consider the ‘personage’ uniting and seeing the poem as a dispassionate, authoritative seer, or as a helplessly traumatised visionary? The answer is of course both; the point of the question is to suggest the contradictory extremes charted by Eliot’s poetry, and necessary to it: central to his imagination was the compulsion to pit his yearning for discipline and control against a longing to renounce the will and yield to unknowable, inexplicable forces – ‘The awful daring of a moment’s surrender’. His use of allusions is particularly interesting in this respect, for while his notes detailing his sources allowed him to figure himself as a scholarly sage instructing his disciples in the canon of great texts, the borrowings themselves – or should we call them thefts? – can be read as enacting an opposite state of affairs, as dramatising a mind overrun and defenceless:
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon – O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
The choice of allusions here is often happily justified by people who have engaged with the poem in an academic context. What such justifications tend to overlook is the primary impression that the lines convey – that Eliot is speaking in tongues.
*
In one of his own accounts of the relationship between a poet’s reading and writing, in the conclusion to The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (his 1932-33 Norton Lectures), Eliot discusses the mysterious processes which give certain phrases or images what he calls ‘personal saturation value’; by this he means that they come to represent or incarnate ‘depths of feeling into which we cannot peer’. The model of intertextuality that he outlines in this conclusion characteristically involves death by water – a submarine descent followed by a wondrous sea-change and a miraculous resurrection. The imagery of ‘Kubla Khan’, for instance, had its origins in Coleridge’s reading; that imagery ‘sank to the depths of Coleridge’s feeling, was saturated, transformed there – “those are pearls that were his eyes” – and brought up into daylight again’. Coleridge, alas, or so Eliot argues, made poor use of the passage in Purchas his Pilgrimage that his opium-addled subconscious reconfigured, because he lacked ‘organisation’. Shakespeare, on the other hand, was able to find a ‘rational use and justification’ for the endless stream of saturated fragments rising from the ocean floor of his mind to its surface: ‘again and again the right imagery, saturated while it lay in the depths of Shakespeare’s memory, will rise like Anadyomene from the sea.’
The maritime opening of ‘Marina’ offers one of Eliot’s most explicit and moving renditions of the theme of loss and recovery so important to his sense of the imagination’s economy. Eliot considered the scene in which Pericles discovers that his daughter Marina (who was born at sea and has been long thought dead by her father) is in fact alive, to be the finest of the ‘recognition scenes’ in late Shakespeare:
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.
Ricks and McCue’s multiple verbal analogues are perhaps best approached as an attempt to aggregate all the candidates from Eliot’s reading that might have sunk, saturated with whatever meanings and emotions, into the poet’s subconscious; and which then, whether impelled upwards by suffering and horror as in The Waste Land, or released, as in ‘Marina’, by the operations of grace, return as images, unbidden and beyond all customary perspectives – ‘more distant than stars and nearer than the eye’. It is interesting that in The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism Eliot describes inspiration as ‘negative’, as the momentary overcoming of inhibitions, as an unexpected breaching of the self’s defences:
To me it seems that at these moments, which are characterised by the sudden lifting of the burden of anxiety and fear which presses upon our daily life so steadily that we are unaware of it, what happens is something negative: that is to say, not ‘inspiration’ as we commonly think of it, but the breaking down of strong habitual barriers – which tend to re-form very quickly. Some obstruction is momentarily whisked away. The accompanying feeling is less like what we know as positive pleasure, than like a sudden relief from an intolerable burden.
‘Marina’ again exquisitely captures this dream of ‘a world of time beyond me’:
let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.
*
This poem’s faintly sketched titular character is one of a number of dreamlike female figures, part-saint, part-muse, who populate Eliot’s poetry of the late 1920s and 1930s, and promise a momentary lifting of the burden of anxiety and fear; but not until he married, in 1957, his secretary at Faber & Faber, Valerie Fletcher, who was 38 years his junior, did these burdens truly lift, and Eliot awaken to the earthly joys so vividly renounced, or moved beyond, in poems such as ‘Marina’:
Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning
Death
Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death Are become unsubstantial.
Eliot’s final edition of his poetry (Collected Poems 1909-62) concludes with ‘A Dedication to My Wife’, in which the doting husband publicly commemorated the happiness of his second marriage with an explicitness that surprised many (‘The breathing in unison//Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other’). I once heard that F.R. Leavis so disliked this poem that he stapled up the last page of his copy of the book so as not to have to read it. This tribute, it turns out, was one of a number of poems that Eliot composed celebrating his union with the woman whom he addresses as ‘the tall girl’ in erotic verses such as ‘How the Tall Girl and I Play Together’ and ‘How the Tall Girl’s Breasts Are’. I doubt that these would have appealed much to Leavis either, but they do offer graphic additional proof in support of Peter Ackroyd’s assertion in his 1984 biography of Eliot that ‘when he allowed his sexuality free access, when he was not struggling with his own demons, it was of a heterosexual kind’:
When my tall girl sits astraddle on my lap,
She with nothing on and I with nothing on
And our middle parts are about their business,
I can stroke her back and her long white legs
And both of us are happy. Because she is a tall girl.
Eliot copied these verses out by hand in a notebook entitled Valerie’s Own Book; and while it’s good to know that, after the prolonged misery of his life with Vivien, he found bliss with the adored and adoring Valerie, it’s also hard not to feel that such ‘private words’, to quote from the last line of ‘A Dedication to My Wife’, should have remained so.
In the preface that Ezra Pound composed for Valerie Eliot’s edition of the original manuscript of The Waste Land, Pound declared, in justification of the project, that ‘the more we know of Eliot, the better.’ Possibly aficionados of any given writer will feel something like this about their chosen one, but it seems to me that there is something distinctive and extreme about the curiosity aroused by Eliot in both his contemporaries and in those who have pursued an interest in his work in the half-century following his death. One of the reasons that the ‘Tall Girl’ poems are so dispiriting is because, in their banality, they threaten to disperse the aura of mystery that has enveloped Eliot more or less since the publication of ‘Prufrock’. As his fame spread, anecdotes and legends about Eliot’s private life flourished on both sides of the Atlantic. They were propagated in particular by younger poets who had fallen under his spell, and felt driven to seek out biographical sources for the power and originality of the poetry they found so mesmerising: W.H. Auden believed that Eliot had had a mystical vision when he was a young child, Hart Crane was convinced that he was secretly gay, while Delmore Schwartz was a fount of scurrilous stories about Eliot’s sex life, which, according to Schwartz, included a relationship with the Jewish woman referred to as Rachel née Rabinovitch in ‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’, who had jilted him and so made him anti-Semitic.
This mystique was principally the result of the compelling amalgam of the reticent and the confessional in his poetry, which often seems to encrypt some private guilt or nameless crime, but in a manner that renders inextricable the ‘lark’, to use Bennett’s terms, from the ‘serious’: ‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,/Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?/Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?’; ‘And you wait for a knock and the turning of a lock for you know the hangman’s waiting for you/And perhaps you’re alive/And perhaps you’re dead/Hoo ha ha/Hoo ha ha/Hoo.’ The tight grip that Valerie (who died in 2012) kept on the Eliot archive in the decades between his death and hers heightened curiosity about the material that it was assumed she was protecting from prying eyes. It is only recently, therefore, that the Eliot industry has been able to set about slaking this interest, but it has done so on all fronts and with impressive thoroughness: over the last five years six doorstopping volumes of the letters have been published, taking us up to 1933; four volumes (of a projected eight) of a digital edition of Eliot’s complete prose have been released; the first volume of a two-volume biography by Robert Crawford has appeared, greatly increasing our knowledge of Eliot’s life up until the publication of The Waste Land; and to these is now added this utterly authoritative edition of the text of the poems, which restores a missing line to ‘The Hollow Men’, prints a range of previously unpublished poems (from off-cuts of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats to the late erotic verses), presents an editorial composite of material relating to The Waste Land, assembles all of Eliot’s ‘Improper Rhymes’ (mainly consisting of the obscene and racist King Bolo poems Eliot so enjoyed composing and circulating among his male cronies), and even finds room for Eliot’s translation of St-John Perse’s Anabase. The apparatus includes, as well as the commentary, details of drafts and of textual variants, the publication history of individual poems and of each Eliot collection, a comprehensive bibliography, a wonderfully useful set of indexes, accounts of recordings made by Eliot, of stage and radio adaptations made by others – oh, in short, the lot! It is a phenomenal achievement; and although reading it cover to cover can feel like being stuck in some brilliantly devious Borges story, it surely sets standards that few succeeding editors of the complete works of poets of the last century are likely to attempt or to attain. Its only near rival in the ratio of text to editorial matter is The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin edited by Archie Burnett, a director, like Ricks, of Boston University’s Editorial Institute (currently, alas, under threat of closure), which bulked out Larkin’s four slim volumes to a staggering 729 pages.
While not all of the verbal analogues that the book’s copious notes offer seem to me valuable or convincing, the extracts given from Eliot’s letters and criticism are nearly always illuminating and worth reading. Some of these will be new even to Eliot experts, for the editors draw on correspondence that hasn’t yet been published, as well as on a range of recondite sources and on various archival materials known only to select Eliot scholars. The effect is of a vast collage in which well-known quotes, such as Eliot’s description of The Waste Land as ‘just a piece of rhythmical grumbling’, jostle with extracts that one vaguely remembers and passages that are completely fresh. Some of the extracts from letters that will appear in later volumes of Eliot’s correspondence are particularly memorable. On New Year’s Day of 1936, for instance, he wrote to his brother Henry with an account of his state of mind while writing The Waste Land that vividly captures the disastrous aspects of his marriage to Vivien:
I was of course too much engrossed in the horrors of my private life to notice much outside; and I was suffering from (1) a feeling of guilt in having married a woman I detested, and consequently a feeling that I must put up with anything (2) perpetually being told, in the most plausible way, that I was a clodhopper and a dunce. Gradually, through making friends, I came to find that English people of the sort that I found congenial were prepared to take me quite as an ordinary human being, and that I had merely married into a rather common suburban family with a streak of abnormality which in the case of my wife had reached the point of liking to give people pain. I shall always be grateful to a few people like the Woolfs who unconsciously helped me to regain my balance and self-respect.
This was written four years after he’d decided that he could cope no more with Vivien’s unrelenting demands, which are figured here as positively sadistic, making his break for freedom by accepting an invitation to give the Norton Lectures at Harvard, and then, on his return from America, lodging with a priest in Kensington rather than returning to his increasingly distraught and desperate wife. They never divorced, but Eliot managed pretty much to avoid all contact with her until she was committed, in 1938, to an insane asylum near Finsbury Park. The following year he bleakly declared in a letter to John Hayward, with whom he would share a flat after the Second World War:
I have no family, no career, and nothing particular to look forward to in this world. I doubt the permanent value of everything I have written; I never lay with a woman I liked, loved or ever felt any strong physical attraction to; I no longer even regret this lack of experience; I no longer even feel acutely the desire for progeny which was very acute once.
Cited in the notes to ‘Marina’ as part of a discussion of Eliot’s attitudes to parenthood, the passage suggests how deeply the role of the ascetic who had ‘divested’ himself ‘of the love of created beings’, to adapt the epigraph from the Spanish mystic St John of the Cross used for Sweeney Agonistes, appealed to Eliot as the only means of dissolving his feelings of shame and guilt. That a man capable of such a self-portrait should have ended up composing the ‘Tall Girl’ poems registers as a glorious upending of his quest to lead a saintly, almost posthumous existence. ‘Because I do not hope to turn again,’ opened ‘Ash-Wednesday’, Eliot’s most penitent and penitential sequence, indicating his commitment to a life of self-denial; in the event his marriage to Valerie would instigate a ‘sea-change’ as miraculous and unpredictable as any in the late Shakespeare plays that meant so much to him.
In the 1930s, however, Eliot was concerned not with his chances of achieving personal let alone sexual happiness, which, as the letter to Hayward indicates, he rated pretty low, but with the narrative of personal salvation that he formally initiated by joining the Anglican Church in June 1927. It was as a Christian that Eliot interpreted the crises leading up to the outbreak of the war. In the stirring last paragraph of ‘Thoughts after Lambeth’ (Eliot’s response to the resolutions passed by Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 1930), he figures himself and his fellow Christians as the last surviving hopes of Western Civilisation. Yet also implicit in his rhetoric of the embattled few is the notion that the looming political turmoil may offer a militant Christian church the opportunity to present itself as the only solution to the world’s ills. Particularly striking, and unpalatable to the non-Christian reader, is Eliot’s conviction that secular society is doomed:
The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilised but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilisation, and save the World from suicide.
Ezra Pound, who saw sound economics – or at least his own distinctive brand of sound economics – as the obvious answer to Europe and America’s social and political troubles, was particularly baffled by Eliot’s turn to religion. ‘This beats me, beats me,’ was all he could answer when, in the course of a visit to il miglior fabbro in Italy, Eliot confided his anxiety about the fate of his soul after death.
Pound, inevitably, is the writer who features most often in this edition’s assemblage of contexts for Eliot’s poetry – nudging, cajoling, haranguing, harrumphing, decisively wielding his blue pencil or scribbling ‘echt’ against the good bits in the margins of The Waste Land. Dante, Shakespeare, Jules Laforgue and Tennyson also rack up substantial entries in the index. Those, however, schooled in the pantheon of great writers championed in Eliot’s criticism, and familiar with his capacious salon des refusés, may be surprised to find lines and phrases by Emerson and Whitman cropping up so often as potential influences, for Eliot’s few public comments on their work were at best lukewarm, at worst dismissive. ‘Let there be commerce between us,’ Pound declared, like some trade negotiator, in ‘A Pact’, a poem of 1913 in which he hails Whitman as his ‘pig-headed father’. The many links discerned by Ricks and McCue between lines by the hyper-educated Eliot and his rude self-taught forebear suggest that a current of paternity ran between Whitman and Eliot too, but one that the fastidious, Dante-quoting, Anglicised exile wasn’t keen to acknowledge.
The nature and extent of Pound’s editing of the poem that started out in life as ‘He Do the Police in Different Voices’ (a quote from Our Mutual Friend) only became apparent when Valerie’s facsimile edition of the drafts of The Waste Land was published in 1971. The 54 leaves of the manuscript of Eliot’s most famous poem, which he had given to the American lawyer and patron of the arts John Quinn late in 1922, came to light in 1968, three years after Eliot’s death. While at work on her edition, Valerie consulted Pound in the hope that he might be able to recall details of his discussions with Eliot about cuts and changes. Alas, now in his eighties, Pound could remember nothing, even when, in June 1969, she and Pound visited the New York Public Library together, and he held again the drafts of the poem that so influenced the history of 20th-century poetry: no flood of memories prompted him to speak. ‘But,’ Valerie later recalled, ‘he was so moved by seeing it that he just sat for a long time in front of it, tears in his eyes.’ | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/mark-ford/i-gotta-use-words | en | 2016-08-11T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/e12d8bb2794118421ed739f618ce6a380a50ccda165ec709fb427ee746f5343f.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:55:31 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fcontents.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/images/favicon.png | en | null | Contents · LRB 11 August 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | null | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/contents | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/dbbbf3a14d1b341f7e20ecccd502bc9f37fda612ee6f4a9140872065528fb910.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T14:47:24 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Fcontents.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/images/favicon.png | en | null | Contents · LRB 8 September 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | null | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/contents | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/a29347c2122b39ddf2d82d0b143b387024543f8119ec9e42a60c91f4c1cdf7c6.json |
[
"Christian Lorentzen"
] | 2016-08-26T12:51:28 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fchristian-lorentzen%2Fdiary.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | Christian Lorentzen | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | My father voted for Bernie Sanders in the spring and says he’ll vote for Donald Trump in November. This places him in a magical category of voters who some believe will determine the election, but because he lives in Massachusetts his vote is unlikely to put Trump in the White House. He thinks of Hillary Clinton as a corporate shill, a politician ‘who’s never had a job in her life’, part of a dynasty that shouldn’t exist in America. He’s suspicious of the Clinton Global Initiative, but he doesn’t go in for right-wing Benghazi talk or say she ought to go to jail. He’s a retired truck driver and has been cool on the national Democrats since the Carter administration passed the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which decreased the prices of consumer goods as well as the income of truck drivers. I’ve put many arguments against Trump to him, and suggested he vote for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, or not vote at all. He has nothing much to say about Trump except that he’s not a politician, and isn’t convinced by the case for voting for a lesser evil. ‘The suffering’, Noam Chomsky and John Halle wrote in June, that Trump’s ‘extremist policies and attitudes will impose on marginalised and already oppressed populations has a high probability of being significantly greater than that which will result from a Clinton presidency’. My father would prefer, this time around, to reject the career politician.
Sanders and most of his supporters who came to Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention were willing to accept the lesser evil argument. Some of them wouldn’t be quiet about it. This was irritating for the Clintonian centre, which wanted to get around to pointing out Trump’s boorishness, nominating the first female major-party presidential candidate, and congratulating itself for doing so. The other irritation came from the release by WikiLeaks of emails which showed that the Democratic National Committee was to some degree in collusion with the Clinton campaign, advising it, for example, to highlight Sanders’s Jewishness or his atheism in advance of the Kentucky primary. The emails, purportedly obtained by hackers working for Russia, though Russia denied it and Julian Assange preferred not to be clear about sources, also exposed the petty and unseemly details of who gets to sit near the president at fundraisers and how much it costs. None of this was surprising. It was one of the premises of the Sanders campaign. The absurd part was the liberal commentariat’s rush to speculate that Trump was working for Putin: he’s so monstrous he must be a foreign agent. It’s a paranoid idea not unlike Trump’s schtick that traces the roots of all violence to Mexico.
At its most rabid, the Republican National Convention resembled a witch burning. The Democrats in Philadelphia, when they took aim at Trump, did so in the form of a sanctimonious anti-bullying public service announcement. This didn’t work for his Republican rivals during the primaries, but then they were talking to Republicans, who may see bullying as a fact of life, feel a bit bullied themselves, and indeed nominated the candidate who sold himself as a national bully. The Democrats ask: do you want your children looking up to a president who’s a bully? Children were ever part of the equation in Philadelphia. Trump, meanwhile, was on a speaking tour of the Midwest saying he wanted to hit a number of the DNC speakers so hard their heads would spin, particularly one ‘very little guy’, presumably Michael Bloomberg, who’d implied that Trump was insane and incompetent and could brag of becoming richer than Trump without the help of his father. To my ear the most effective attack on Trump was Joe Biden’s line that it was perverse to hand over the US government and economy to someone who’d popularised the catchphrase ‘you’re fired,’ because taking pleasure in stripping someone of a job is sadistic. And so it is, but all reports indicate that America has become a sadistic country.
Against daily reports of carnage and the fear Trump’s been peddling for the last year, the Democrats offered a message of redemption. Since the performance was made for television, it required a model more suited to the medium than that of the old conventions, and the model was the Oscars. Chunks of the programme had celebrity hosts, and speeches tended to adopt the formula of personal triumph over adversity, followed by expressions of gratitude, especially to Hillary Clinton, with further gratitude in advance to Clinton for saving us from Trump. Trump’s model in Cleveland had been a reality show, with shambolic has-been celebrities, personal testimonials that the real guy underneath the hair isn’t as bad as he seems (and he’s a lot better than that lying bitch with her emails), and the petty drama of Ted Cruz’s non-endorsement, which granted Trump a patina of victimhood. Hillary’s witnesses were triumphant victims here to prove that ‘America is already great,’ ‘love trumps hate’ and ‘we’re stronger together.’ These were the convention’s three slogans. The first is risky in a country with evident self-esteem issues. The second puts the opponent’s name at its centre. The last doesn’t appeal to individualists who think they’re stronger when they own guns.
Before the convention could shift into Hillary hagiography, there had to be a reconciliation with the Sanders contingent, and his diehards had to be scolded like children for not falling in line. ‘To the Bernie or Bust people, you’re being ridiculous,’ the comedian Sarah Silverman, a chipper Sanders advocate throughout the primaries, said on Monday night. Earlier in the day Sanders had been booed at a rally of his own supporters for telling them to vote for Clinton. In a line that Sanders supporters took to be addressed to them, Michelle Obama also got in on the act: ‘We cannot afford to be tired or frustrated or cynical. No, hear me. Between now and November, we need to do what we did eight years ago and four years ago.’ Left-leaning lack of enthusiasm for centrist Democrats was recast as cynicism.
To me it seemed more like a surplus of idealism. Speakers at a Sanders rally around the corner from the convention centre lamented that ‘Bernie sacrificed his credibility’ by endorsing Hillary to save the country from Trump. Sanders had inspired him, but now he was content to be uninspired. At meetings in advance of the convention, one activist told me, Sanders supporters had been sold a new rhetoric meant to solidify their alliance with the Clinton campaign. A Clinton administration would ‘rewrite the rules of the American economy’. Apparently Clinton has been calling to ‘rewrite the rules’ for many months, but the slogan hasn’t transformed her campaign into a movement for economic justice. In other words, the young and the left will have to trade in their revolution for the prospect of some mildly ameliorative technocratic reforms.
Some of them were crying (though it should be said that the cameras kept finding the same two young women) as Sanders spoke to the hall and watered down his talking points both in substance (free public universities for all became a substantial reduction in student debt; universal public healthcare became a public option, a promise Obama made and never delivered) and rhetorically: each policy item was now prefaced by the phrase ‘Hillary Clinton understands’. Perhaps Clinton does understand, but she will have plenty of excuses (chiefly an obstructive Republican Congress) for not doing anything about it unless Sanders’s supporters continue to hold her feet to the fire. If she’s elected, this will mean a challenger to her left in the 2020 primaries. Sanders has failed to leave behind an obvious heir, though on stage he was outstripped by Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who managed at least to speak to Sanders supporters as if they were adults: ‘Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.’
To attend the convention was to surrender yourself to a litany of mantras about the life of Hillary. Her mother was abandoned by her parents as a teenager and never knew a loving family until one hired her to work as a maid at the age of 14. She never let Hillary run away from bullies. On graduating from Yale Law School Hillary didn’t go to work for a corporate law firm but joined the Children’s Defense Fund to fight discrimination against disabled children, the abuse of child prisoners and lingering segregation in Alabama schools. Six million poor children got health insurance when Hillary was first lady. She persuaded George W. Bush to give New York $20 billion after 9/11 and took care of the first responders’ respiratory problems. Her tenure as secretary of state was reduced to an overnight trip to Israel from South-East Asia to wrangle a ceasefire after the ‘Pillar of Defence’ assault on Gaza (the process took days) and her efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran that led to its nuclear neutralisation without a shot fired. Her orchestration of the intervention in Libya wasn’t mentioned. There was Isis to fight and Israel to defend. There were Nato allies not to sacrifice to Putin (as Trump would do). China was the place where Trump had his ties manufactured. As usual, a few veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were trotted out to show that Democrats are tough too.
The vice-presidential nominee, Senator Tim Kaine, appeared to recite his own biography, the appeal of which rests on a stint of missionary work in Honduras (he’s a Christian and doesn’t personally approve of abortion but stops short of legislating against it) and years of litigating against civil rights violations. He’s an unobtrusive running mate who seems to have been picked because he’s a white man (blacks and Latinos are in no danger of going to Trump, women’s votes are already in hand) from a swing state (Virginia) governed by a Democrat who would replace Kaine in the Senate with another Democrat. He also speaks fluent Spanish.
Obama passed through and talked about how much he’d aged since his first appearance as a convention speaker in 2004, then recast that speech in anti-Trump terms. He pulled the neat trick of subtly comparing Trump to Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden in one sentence: ‘America has changed over the years. But these values my grandparents taught me – they haven’t gone anywhere … That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end.’ Without Clinton as secretary of state Obama’s foreign policy has been less disastrous. He remains an innovator in drone warfare.
Preceding Obama on Wednesday night was former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta, whose role mostly seemed to be to affirm that Clinton had been in favour of killing bin Laden and made sure the president knew it. A ‘No More Wars’ chant from stage right interrupted him. He was rattled until a counter-chant of ‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’ came to his rescue. Later that night I crashed a party for Democrats from a certain state, aware that a disruption by Sanders supporters was planned for when the governor appeared. But the governor never appeared, and at 1.30 in the morning the disruptors gave up. Perhaps the governor never spoke because the organisers were onto their infiltration. In any case, they were tired and there was only so much they could do. I repaired to the bar at the Ritz, where the crush of lobbyists and donors in blue suits was making it impossible even for Fox News hosts to get a drink.
Anyone expecting a memorable speech from Clinton was disappointed on Thursday night. Her first salvo was a quotation of the most famous line Franklin Roosevelt ever spoke, and from there she moved into a maze of circumlocutions. Her one joke was that Trump makes promises but likes to keep his plans secret, and she loves to talk about her plans. But on this night she was vague. She did please those to her left by mentioning the ‘one per cent’ and ‘systemic racism’ suffered by blacks and Latinos, but mostly the speech seemed designed to allow her room to manoeuvre. In line with the rest of the convention, it had an air of self-congratulation. Clinton’s scolding of Trump didn’t go beyond anything his Republican opponents had already tried in the primaries. Bill Clinton was right, speaking on Tuesday night, that the choice was between something ‘real’ and something ‘made up’. The trouble is that voters may prefer Trump’s fictions to the real Hillary Clinton. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/christian-lorentzen/diary | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/0b6061855930b07015ac1ac9296fb2c33c8103c98721a76a15271a00fedd1aa7.json |
[
"David Runciman"
] | 2016-08-31T14:47:14 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Fdavid-runciman%2Funtouchable.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3817.jpg?1472644509 | en | null | The Tory State? · LRB 8 September 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | As we stumble towards the end of this summer of political discontent, talk of the country drifting towards being a one-party state is cheap. The new Conservative government appears impregnable, for the simple reason that the main party of opposition looks incapable of replacing it, yet no one else seems capable of replacing Labour as the main party of opposition. Theresa May commands the battlefield and her enemies have scattered. But is this really what a one-party state looks like? This isn’t Turkey. There have been no mass demonstrations in support of the regime; no culls of public institutions or collective firings of unsound public officials (more than a thousand schools have been closed in Turkey, all university deans have been forced to resign, more than two thousand academics are currently suspended; at my university the worst that’s happened this summer is that the handful of academics who were brave enough to come out for Brexit have found some of their colleagues don’t want to sit next to them at lunch); no calls to root out the enemy within. This isn’t post-apartheid South Africa either, where the electoral unassailability of the ANC has often made the courts the sole point of opposition (and the target of ANC ire). It’s true that the courts have played an outsized role in British politics this summer, but that’s not because they have been fighting a rearguard action against the government. They have been dragged into the miserable internal disagreements of the Labour Party.
This isn’t Britain at the turn of the century. Then Labour really did run everything. Blair’s government had a monstrous Commons majority (160 plus) and was still capable of hitting the mid-fifties in opinion polls (in 1999 and 2001). In addition to its dominant position in Westminster, Labour was also the post-devolution party of government in Scotland and Wales. The Blair project’s only real setback came in the London mayoral election of 2000, when the official Labour candidate, Frank Dobson, finished a distant third. But the fact that the runaway winner was Ken Livingstone, who stood as an independent but was in effect the alternative Labour candidate (and became the official Labour candidate in 2004), shows the extent of the party’s hold on every aspect of British politics.
One mark of a one-party state is that internal party disputes become the primary political battleground. By contrast, Theresa May leads a strikingly united party, at least for now. But her Commons majority is only 12. London has a Labour mayor and an increasingly left-leaning electorate. Despite the party’s recent revival in Wales and Scotland, the Conservatives are still nowhere near government in either place. The House of Lords, a traditional Tory bastion, is at present heavily stacked against the government: fewer than a third of its members are Conservatives. Part of Cameron’s motivation for rewarding his chums with peerages after his resignation was a belief that Tories in the Lords are thin on the ground. Finally there is Europe, where the current government is even more friendless. No wonder the Tories are united: it’s easy to see why they might feel surrounded and ready to circle the wagons.
In reality the appearance of Tory strength is little more than a function of the hopeless weakness of the Labour Party in Westminster. Yet under the British political system, facing a busted opposition in Parliament can get you a very long way. The British constitution provides few safeguards against executive rule. The mayor of London can’t stop the prime minister from getting her way, any more than the first minister of Scotland can. The House of Lords has some of those powers, but its lack of democratic legitimacy makes it a weak vehicle for them. Had Blair reformed the Lords – as he promised to do – we might not be in this position. But when an unelected chamber faces an elected one, it can’t substitute for the absence of opposition in the latter without appearing to be substituting for democracy as well. There has to be some chance of the Tories losing the next election before anyone not standing for election can get in their way. I hate to keep harping on this point, but that’s why constitutional reform really matters.
Is there really no chance the Tories could lose? After all, the redeeming feature of any first-past-the-post system is meant to be its capacity to recalibrate the balance of power very rapidly as the public mood changes. No honeymoon lasts for long. As the American political commentator Sean Trende likes to point out, if the Democrats could recover after being on the wrong side of the bloodiest civil war in history, parties can come back from just about anything. How bad would things have to get for Corbyn to stand a chance of winning a general election? Very bad. But even then, a crisis precipitated by Tory failure – an economic meltdown, a foreign policy disaster, a constitutional impasse – would almost certainly make the electorate reluctant to entrust power to a divided and dysfunctional opposition led by a woolly ideologue. Corbyn loses if the stakes are high, but he also loses if the stakes are low, since there would be little reason for the electorate to look past its prejudices against him. What if Labour managed to get rid of Corbyn? The party’s current reputation for infighting and incompetence will still be very hard to overcome. Given the absence of constitutional safeguards in the British system, why would the voters put their future in the hands of these people?
The result is that we are in the paradoxical situation of seeing a weak and embattled government behaving as though it were untouchable. May has been fearless, but only because she feels she has so little to fear from the other side. Her cabinet appointments have resulted in the wholesale reorganisation of Whitehall departments with barely a whisper of opposition. She appointed an inexperienced acolyte – Liz Truss – to the job of justice secretary, whose responsibilities include defending the integrity of the judiciary against the executive. Putting an apparatchik in charge of the legal system could be a mark of political weakness – May needs all the help she can get – or of political strength: there’s nothing anyone can do to stop her. In this case it’s probably both. The first real signs of resistance are only now starting to appear and they are coming from inside the government. Boris Johnson is unhappy with the aggrandising behaviour of Liam Fox at the newly created Department for International Trade. David Davis at the newly created Department for Exiting the European Union is unhappy with both of them. This kind of turf warfare will only get worse as the time for invoking Article 50 draws near. It will put huge strain on the Tories’ united front. But who is there to exploit it apart from Johnson, Fox and Davis themselves?
May will soon face the same challenge that confronted Blair in very different circumstances. She came to Downing Street promising a government that works in the interests of the whole country, just as Blair claimed that New Labour would be ‘the political arm of none other than the British people as a whole’. It’s easy to make those promises when there’s no real opposition. But soon enough they start to look hollow. Blair’s government – with its lord chancellor who was once the head of Blair’s chambers, followed by a justice secretary who was once his flatmate – quickly gave the appearance of being an insiders’ club, and his everyman personality palled into something much more peculiar and partisan. A lot of May’s everywoman appeal comes from the fact that she represents neither side in one of the great divides in British social life. She isn’t metropolitan – unlike Blair and Cameron, who could hardly have been more quintessential embodiments of affluent urban living – but she isn’t rural: she isn’t a Shires Tory. She’s something else, and it’s hard to find a word for it without sounding snobbish. Traditional? Suburban? Provincial? Whatever it is, it could have very wide appeal. But it’s just as likely to turn into something narrow and off-putting: neither city nor countryside but that straitlaced, security-conscious, slightly smug region that lies in between. This is a government of grammar school-educated meritocrats, most of whom represent constituencies in the south outside London. They are pretty chummy too, especially May and her chancellor, Philip Hammond. The ones who aren’t friends are going to be at one another’s throats before long. And the ones who are friends will make everyone else feel excluded.
We have a one-nation government acting as though this is a one-party state, when it is plausibly neither. But who can put together a coalition of the disaffected capable of defeating it? There is no other party – not even a progressive coalition of parties – that can bridge the metropolitan/rural divide, or the divide between England and Scotland, or between pensioners and students, or between Leavers and Remainers. The first-past-the-post system will fracture any Labour/SNP/Green/Plaid/Lib Dem alliance far quicker than it will fracture the Conservative Party. It will also, when the new constituency boundary changes come in, entrench the Tories’ electoral grip. What is the opposition to do? One possibility is to give up on trying to bridge national divides and concentrate instead on what can be done at local level. Labour is still strong as the party of metropolitan Britain. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, represents one possible future for Labour. So, less enticingly, does Andy Burnham, who is quitting national politics to become (almost certainly) the next mayor of Greater Manchester. Social democracy is struggling at the national level right across Europe: terrorism, immigration and above all the strain on public finances since 2008 have made what it has to offer a very hard sell. Even in the US, where one Democratic president may be about to replace another, the populist pressures on progressive politics may soon be overwhelming. But social democracy still sells as a prospectus for city government. Cities can be more experimental, more dynamic, more accommodating. Their electorates are more used to social change: both its strains and its opportunities. Because the stakes are lower there may be more freedom to try something new. City mayors have limited powers – usually restricted to transport and policing – but there’s no reason not to push for more. And cities might have a better chance of achieving international co-operation than nation-states do, particularly on intractable questions like climate change. Britain, Germany, Italy are not going to agree on much at present. But London, Berlin, Rome? We used to be told the future belonged to cities. So why not let the Tories have national government and see what can be done at the city level instead?
Perhaps. But it’s a dispiriting vision. It doesn’t just mean giving up on forming the next government. It means giving up on all those parts of the country that don’t fit the metropolitan template, including areas of urban decay and post-industrial blight, as well as towns, villages and the countryside. These are still where most people live, as the Brexit vote showed. Maybe over time metropolitan living and metropolitan values will predominate, but in the meantime the populist backlash will only get worse and national politics is where it will continue to find its voice. There is no stable equilibrium between progressive local government and conservative national government: one lot gets to hold the purse strings while the other lot gets to work with the money they make available. In any case, the most important decisions remain the national ones. Giving up on the chance to make them would be crazy. London won’t get an opt-out from Brexit, no matter how popular its mayor is, or how much he resists. Labour’s inability to offer itself as a plausible party of government will make any resistance harder, not easier. We don’t really live in a one-party state and there are still plenty of ways for things to go wrong for the current government. But, as things stand, that’s little consolation. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/david-runciman/untouchable | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/0c2defb13dd7c3b728e32915ff0af1f29047d0789e211e25b41f59d720a35304.json |
[
"Jeremy Harding"
] | 2016-08-31T14:47:17 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Fjeremy-harding%2Fat-the-centre-pompidou.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3817.jpg?1472644509 | en | null | At the Centre Pompidou | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | In the Beat constellation, Allen Ginsberg’s star now shines more brightly than the rest. True, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs glowed on in the aftermath of On the Road (1957) and Naked Lunch (1959); Brion Gysin, inventor of the cut-up technique, is still visible on a clear night. But the beautiful Lucien Carr, an Alain Delon lookalike drawn into the Beat circle by a smitten scoutmaster who stalked him across America until Carr pulled out a knife and killed him in New York, no longer emits much light. Nor does poor Herbert Huncke, ‘sad, sweet, dark, holy’, as Kerouac describes him in Desolation Angels. Parts of his notebooks were published in the 1960s, but he only really sputtered to life again in 1990 with an autobiography, and died a few years later.
These names belong to the original small group of friends who met in New York in the early 1940s. Within ten years Ginsberg had moved to San Francisco and Beat was a media legend. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, co-founder of City Lights bookstore, and publisher of City Lights editions, gave him a warm welcome; Kenneth Rexroth, older by twenty years than Ginsberg and the New York crew, was briefly a mentor. The poet Gregory Corso came out west and joined Ginsberg. Neal Cassady, the movement’s mascot/muse, whom Ginsberg and Kerouac had met in the 1940s in New York – Kerouac cast him as Dean Moriarty in On the Road, Ginsberg had sex with him – was already living outside San Francisco with his wife, Carolyn Robinson.
In 1955 Rexroth presided over a famous poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. Ginsberg read the first section of Howl; two younger poets, Michael McClure (early twenties) and Gary Snyder (mid-twenties), read on the same night. So did Lew Welch, who disappeared years later in the Sierra Nevada. Barry Miles, who has written the introductory essay in the catalogue for the Centre Pompidou’s exhibition Beat Generation (until 3 October), identifies the reading as the movement’s ‘birth certificate’: the following day Ferlinghetti cabled Ginsberg with an offer to publish Howl in his Pocket Poets series.
Two nagging problems about a Beat retrospective. Who did you forget to include? (I’ve just struck the poets Philip Whalen and Philip Lamantia off the record of the Six Gallery event.) And when do you reckon it grinds to a halt, or something supersedes it? Anxiety is a reliable guide here, and Philippe-Alain Michaud has covered as many bases as a curator can hope to do. His show at Beaubourg is planned in the manner of a defensive shield: incoming criticisms probing for gaps will simply bounce off, detonating in the ether once they encounter his dome of contingencies and associations, fashioned from a wealth of manuscripts, published texts, paintings, drawings, photos, sound recordings, experimental films, home movies, typewriters, phonographic players, tape recorders, even a Burroughs adding machine, invented by the big man’s grandfather. Near the entrance we’re greeted by a looping, annotated diagram of Beat affiliations, about four metres long and a metre high – a psychohistory of the movement, recording who met whom and where, and mapping the passage of dozens of people from the early 1940s to the end of the 1960s. No one seems to be missing. And there’s no shortage of ambient sound. Songs collected by Harry Smith for the Anthology of American Folk Music (1952) drift on the air in the first rooms; in the last, we can hear Paul Bowles’s recordings (1959-61) of traditional Moroccan musicians.
Beaubourg’s trophy exhibit is Kerouac’s highway-scroll manuscript of On the Road, composed in 1951: at more than thirty metres, it runs most of the length of the second room, inviting visitors on a pilgrims’ route to the true north of the Beat kingdom. All the same, it’s not the heart of the show. Michaud has collected as much material as he can from New York, San Francisco, Tangier, Mexico, even India, where Ginsberg spent most of 1962, and Japan, where he visited Snyder and his partner, the poet Joanne Kyger, in 1963. But Paris is Michaud’s real centre, in particular the Beat Hotel, a cheap rooming house in rue Gît-le-Coeur, where Beat as a form of hysterical alchemy came to a head at the end of the 1950s.
The great feats in those years are Burroughs’s completion of Naked Lunch, Gysin’s ‘discovery’ of cut-up, after slicing through a wad of newspaper as he was making a passe-partout, and the beginnings of Kaddish, Ginsberg’s extraordinary poem to his mother, Naomi. Michaud doesn’t try to present Paris as the Beat city par excellence, but Ginsberg wrote several good poems besides the first part of Kaddish while he was lounging ‘on a bed in Paris/sunglow through the high/window on plaster walls … alone in old red under/wear’ (from ‘Europe! Europe!’, 1958). The Olympia Press, run by Maurice Girodias, was a ten-minute walk from the hotel, and an obvious destination for Naked Lunch. Girodias had already published The Thief’s Journal, Lolita, various unreadable works by Henry Miller, pornographic novels by Christopher Logue and Alexander Trocchi, a para-Beat from Glasgow, and Trocchi’s ghosted volume of the Frank Harris memoirs (Trocchi was Olympia’s ‘top all-out literary stallion’, according to Girodias). Olympia went on to publish two more works by Burroughs, The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded.
Paris was also a rendez-vous with European modernist traditions for Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso. Erudite and alert, Ginsberg led the others in this ring-a-roses with the grandees. They met Duchamp, Man Ray and Benjamin Péret at a party (fifty years before the selfie, Ginsberg snogged Duchamp). They ran into Tristan Tzara. Ginsberg and Burroughs paid a visit to Céline in the suburbs. They were greeted by his ferocious dogs (Burroughs must have liked that). Céline explained that he took them with him when he went out, to keep ‘the Jews’ in the neighbourhood at bay: perhaps it was a way of putting Ginsberg back where he belonged, in outer darkness.
Only he didn’t. There would have been no Beat phenomenon without Ginsberg, logorrhoeic poet and protester; illustrious, predatory queer; inventor and supporter of colleagues and hangers-on; impresario and self-appointed hero of a tradition that he put together from all kinds of sources – Buddhist, Hebraic, European, pre-Columbian – in order to loosen the American grain and leave a lasting trace. In fact American poetry was already a rich, eclectic mix when he began writing, and many non-Beat poetic paths in America would have been trodden with or without this unholy fool from Paterson, NJ, who thought he could change the course of literature by chanting a mantra, or turning Robert Lowell on to hallucinogens. (On the way to the Lowell/Hardwick apartment on Riverside Drive in 1961, with Timothy Leary in tow, Ginsberg’s partner Peter Orlovsky asked an entirely reasonable question: ‘Why are we giving psilocybin to Lowell?’ Ginsberg, according to his biographer, Miles, was in no doubt: ‘We hope to loosen him up, make him happier … We’re not dealing here with a Dionysian fun-lover. He’s a good guy with a psycho streak. We should be cautious about the dose.’ They were, and Lowell took the drug in his stride.) Even the Black Mountain poets, well established by the time Ginsberg published Howl, and the San Francisco poets, who were unsure what to make of him when he showed up in California – Jack Spicer, co-founder of the Six Gallery, couldn’t be doing with him – took him seriously. He had all-consuming ambition, and a promiscuous sense of the poetic canon, which included much of the new American work on offer.
He also took a lot of photos of friends and colleagues. The show has thirty or so, mostly captioned by him in longhand in the 1980s. They hold their own with more famous photos, taken on and around the Beat scene by Harold Chapman, Fred McDarrah and John Cohen. The photographer Robert Frank is in another league; a dozen prints from The Americans, first published in Paris in 1958 with texts by Beauvoir, Steinbeck, Faulkner and others, hang alongside the Kerouac ms. Frank’s forgettable movie Pull My Daisy (1959) is on a loop in another room, and reminds us how bleakly homosocial the Beat thing could be, even when it wasn’t priapic-gay. Most of the tangential figures in this show, like its heroes, are male and white. The painter Bob Thompson and the poet LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) are rare African-American presences. The catalogue contains a fascinating interview with Joanne Kyger by Miles, and there’s a set of haiku by Diane di Prima on display, but that’s the extent of it for women. Women, Burroughs once explained to Ginsberg, only partly in jest, are bad news: ‘Steer clear of ’em. They got poison juices dripping all over them.’
The last date on the Beat-links mural at the start of the show is 1967. The scandalous fame of Beat was by now decaying into run-of-the-mill notoriety. But Burroughs and Gysin, an eccentric from the Home Counties, had earned their spurs as formal innovators, the first of the last of a literary avant-garde, while Ginsberg’s libertarian urges fed naturally into the hippie movement, and his politics led fluently from a horror of nuclear weapons to staunch opposition to the Vietnam War and the American imperium. (He’d badly wanted to love Cuba and Czechoslovakia, but was thrown out of both on visits during the 1960s).
His standing as a poet was assured in 1965 by an invitation to the Berkeley Poetry Conference, a two-week event attended by a small, distinguished group, including Spicer, Snyder, Kyger, Robin Blaser, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, John Wieners, Ed Dorn, among others – as a colleague rather than a Beat figurehead. He was given a Guggenheim grant the same year and bought a VW camper van. His idea, I guess, was that he and his lover Peter Orlovsky would achieve tantric sublimation as they trundled round America from sea to shining sea, and on from there to the rest of the universe, with Ginsberg drawing poetic inspiration through every orifice, including Orlovsky’s. Beat had a knack of finding wild ways to be on the road without actually committing a traffic violation. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/jeremy-harding/at-the-centre-pompidou | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/f6bb4d52073d133d33b990605e85cc0d59777c9abd14060cd9e26059c28a554c.json |
[
"Ian Patterson"
] | 2016-08-26T12:56:33 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fian-patterson%2Fat-the-fitzwilliam.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | At the Fitzwilliam | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year with a series of exhibitions and activities designed to illustrate different aspects of the collection, which since its foundation in 1816 has been wonderfully various: various enough at times in the past to constitute a muddle of badly hung or oddly displayed materials. Not that this stopped people liking it, as Humphrey Jennings made clear in 1929, when what he called ‘the hideous new wing’ was almost complete. Writing in the undergraduate magazine Experiment, he urged those who had never been there, as well as ‘old friends’, to visit the museum at once. ‘For it cannot be that the present glorious mix-up will remain; there will be a tidying-up and a sorting-out, a re-arranging and a re-hanging, and that muddle of sculpture, old clothes and superb water-colours … will have departed for ever.’ And of course there has been plenty of successful reorganisation and new building since then, as Lucilla Burn’s new history of the museum (Philip Wilson, £25) concisely and effectively demonstrates.
All through this year, an exhibition accompanies and fleshes out the new history, illuminating the character and achievements of successive directors, the often difficult relationship between the Fitzwilliam and the University of Cambridge, the challenges posed by both world wars (much of the collection was moved to Shropshire in 1939 and members of staff had to spend three weeks at a time there, acting as nightwatchmen) and the (quite interesting) personal life of the founder. Richard, seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion was a collector on a fairly grand scale. When he died early in 1816, he owned about ten thousand printed books, 130 illuminated manuscripts, musical scores (most famously the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), paintings by Veronese, Titian, Rembrandt and others, and more than forty thousand prints. All these he bequeathed to the university ‘for the purpose of promoting the Increase of Learning and the other great objects of that Noble Foundation’, along with a sum of money sufficient to build ‘a good substantial Museum Repository’. It was another 32 years before the grand neoclassical building in Trumpington Street was complete enough to house the collection, which was already growing as a result of bequests and donations. The subsequent history of the museum is very largely a history of donations and bequests, and of the museum directors who secured them.
The first gifts the museum received were, in 1822, the elaborate coffins made for an Egyptian man of some status named Nespawershefyt, who flourished in the period between 1070 and 890 bc, and a year later the lid of the sarcophagus of Rameses III. A combination of Napoleon’s depredations during his attempted conquest of Egypt and, in 1822, Champollion’s deciphering of hieroglyphs, led to a fashion for plundering the pristine tombs and antiquities of Egypt by amateur explorers and travellers, to the benefit of the Fitzwilliam, the Louvre and the British Museum among others.
Earlier this year, I went to the Fitzwilliam to see an exhibition of Egyptian coffins and funerary objects, some on loan from London and Paris but many from their own extensive collection. Death on the Nile, subtitled ‘Uncovering the Afterlife of Ancient Egypt’, was designed not just to showcase the collection but to illustrate the recent discoveries of a team of research scientists and conservators who had been working on the coffins for ten years, and, by setting them in chronological sequence, to outline the development of death rituals from 3000 bc to the period of Roman rule. Quite apart from the intrinsic beauty of the objects, large and small (especially small), the focus – thanks to MRI scans and chemical analysis – was on materials and on the work of the craftsmen who made the coffins or carved the models that some, like the tomb of Khety from about 2010-1950 bc, had contained: miniature boats and crews, brewers, butchers and bakers, a whole retinue for the afterlife.
As Burn makes clear in her lucid and detailed account of the Fitzwilliam’s development, a concern for craftsmanship has been central to its principles since probably the most influential period of its history, the directorship of Sydney Cockerell from 1908 to 1937. Cockerell, who followed M.R. James in the post, had been library cataloguer and acquisitions assistant to William Morris during the 1890s, and his taste was formed by Morris and Ruskin and their circles. He seems to have been relentlessly acquisitive, mostly on behalf of the Fitzwilliam, and the lists of the gifts he elicited constitutes a goodish proportion of the modern catalogue, especially when it comes to illuminated manuscripts, Old Master drawings, William Blake’s work, fine printed books and money for accessions and building. It was his predicted reorganisation that Jennings was objecting to, and which still dominated the museum walls in the 1950s.
The foundation of the museum in 1816 coincided with the ‘year of no summer’. The eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies brought predictions of the end of the world, widespread famine, crop disruption and civil unrest to Europe, dramatic sunsets to Britain and millennial thoughts to Byron, who ‘look’d up/With mad disquietude on the dull sky,/The pall of a past world … All earth was but one thought – and that was death.’ Nightmare visions of extinction and new forms of life, such as Byron’s and Mary Shelley’s, made a sharp but complementary contrast to the impulse to found museums to display the greatest products of civilisation and relate them to the nation’s, and the university’s, own civilising mission.
The Fitzwilliam has commemorated the year with a small exhibition of prints by Turner, Goya and Cornelius. The Turner prints are from Parts XI and XII of the Liber Studiorum and the curators do their best to link them to the extraordinary weather of 1816, claiming that ‘it is conceivable that the glowing sunset [in ‘Solitude’] was inspired by the fiery red skies of 1816, caused by the stratospheric volcanic dust cloud.’ The extreme weather didn’t do much damage in the Iberian peninsula, but following close on the insurrection and instability of 1808-14 the exhibition suggests it may have influenced the atmosphere of Goya’s Tauromaquia, especially coming, as it does, so soon after his earlier sequence, Los Desastres de la Guerra. Cornelius’s drawings for engravings on the subject of Goethe’s Faust were finished by 1811, so it’s harder to see them as direct responses to the climate and its consequences, but the finished suite makes a revealing comparison with the others.
The Fitzwilliam is very good at mounting small exhibitions of this sort, like the current Brueghel and His Time (until 4 September); anyone visiting one of the big exhibitions should look into the Octagon Room and the Charrington Print Room, too. And while Kettle’s Yard is being extended, there is a series of exhibitions entitled Being Modern (until 31 March), showing some of the works from that collection alongside pieces from the Fitzwilliam. M.R. James claimed there was insufficient work for two people in the Fitzwilliam Museum of the 1890s. There’s been a huge expansion since then, and major developments in all the areas of the museum in recent years, and it takes a great many more people to promote ‘the Increase of Learning’, but they do things better now. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/ian-patterson/at-the-fitzwilliam | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/69f050d29f3c54183783c1ba934b7bc2e2774596b3fb58b21690d1154c173a4f.json |
[
"Jon Day"
] | 2016-08-26T12:55:03 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fjon-day%2Fshort-cuts.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | Jon Day · Short Cuts · LRB 11 August 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | The day after Brexit, in need of distraction, I joined nine other volunteers at a pub on the bank of the River Lea in East London to count eels. The European eel is critically endangered, and annual counts have taken place on London’s rivers since 2005. We were met by representatives of the Canal and River Trust and an ichthyologist from London Zoo named Joe. Across the river there was a weir and a few old industrial buildings – what the Canal and River Trust people called ‘heritage structures’ – by the side of which had been built an eel trap. This was a long pipe lined with what looked like the plastic turf you used to see in butchers’ windows, down which water flowed. It was an attempt to recreate a mossy crevasse by the side of a waterfall, Joe said: eels wriggle up the bristles in search of a way past the weir and then get trapped in the box at the top.
We made our awkward introductions. There was a couple from Stoke Newington, trailing a herd of whippets, who said that they enjoyed being outside and wanted to volunteer for something but not anything ‘too political’. There was an angler from Romford who spent his weekends fishing for specimen coarse fish on the Lea and had always been fascinated by eels. There was a man who’d just got back from a trip around Britain to collect the seeds of native trees for preservation in a doomsday vault in Svalbard in case of ‘apocalyptic extinction events’, as he called them.
John was wearing a plaid shirt and a poacher’s jacket; his moustache drooped and his teeth were furred with plaque. He said he was a hunter and forager. I asked him what this involved and he told me he collected nuts and berries on Walthamstow marshes and ate roadkill he found on the verges of the A12. To earn money he led corporate foraging sessions: teaching bankers how to dig up pignuts in parks, brew elderflower champagne and trap squirrels. I asked him what he had eaten for dinner the night before and he said he’d had a pot noodle: ‘They’re easy to catch.’ He must have used the gag before. I had volunteered for the project because I’d spent the last six months stuck in my house reading novels and I wanted to get out. I’d been interested in eels since reading Graham Swift’s Waterland, in which he describes the curious life-cycle of these fish and I was intrigued by what the river on my doorstep might contain.
As a boy I was an obsessive angler, exploring what were then the neglected waterways of north-east London with my fibreglass rod and a box of maggots. I fished the murky water of the Regent’s Canal and the dark ponds of Hampstead Heath. Back then you were as likely to hook an old boot or a nicked car stereo as you were a fish, but every now and then I would catch something alive: a small, brilliantly coloured perch, with its armoured cladding and crest of spines angrily raised; a common roach, with silvered flanks and red eyes. Once or twice, usually when dusk was falling and they were beginning to move out from their lairs under the bridges to feed, I caught eels. There was something unnerving about them, with their serpentine bodies, their deep-set eyes and the ruinous slime they’d ooze over your tackle as you unhooked them.
Back on the riverbank, Joe told us that all European eels are born in the Sargasso Sea, a placid oceanic gyre in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Mexico. There they hatch amid the trailing fronds of Sargassum weed before developing into leptocephali: transparent leaf-shaped fry that were once thought to be a distinct species of fish. As leptocephali the baby eels drift and feed in the current for a few months before heading east, riding the Gulf Stream to Europe.
On the journey their bodies change dramatically. When they get to the coastal areas of Europe they become glass eels – still transparent, but skinnier now. Glass eels are a delicacy in Spain and Japan, something that is largely responsible for their decline. As they move on through estuaries and begin to run up freshwater rivers in the spring they darken and become elvers. Over time their bellies turn yellow, then dark green. They live in freshwater for up to a decade before at some point returning – no one really knows why – to the Sargasso Sea to breed. If, in the intervening years, they get stuck in a canal or a lake, Joe told us, they can climb out of the water and slither overland until they find a river again. They’re sometimes found on dewy nights writhing in the middle of fields, trying to find a way to get home.
When they return to salt water, their bodies change again: they take on a silvery sheen, their eyes grow, and they lose their stomach and intestines and never eat another meal. Then they start swimming. The journey is long: around four thousand miles, and they complete it in six months. Arriving back at the Sargasso Sea they breed and finally die. Unlike salmon and migratory sea trout, who spend their middle years at sea before returning to the rivers they were born in to breed, eels have no memory of the rivers they return to year after year. Quite how they do it is still unclear. Is it a kind of embodied recall? A smell? Joe said he didn’t know, but suspected it was a simple process, a combination of tidal forces and the eels’ aversion to areas of high population density.
Until one hundred years ago the life-cycle of the eel was a mystery. Some in the 17th century thought, according to Izaak Walton, ‘that as Pearls are made of glutinous dewdrops, which are condensed by the Suns heat in those countries, so Eels are bred of a particular dew falling in the months of May or June on the banks of some particular Ponds or Rivers, apted by nature for that end; which in a few dayes are by the Suns heat, turned into Eels, and some of the Ancients have called the Eels that are thus bred, The Off-Spring of Jove.’ Before he became a neurologist, Sigmund Freud spent many months dissecting adult eels in the hopes of finding their sexual organs and thus proving once and for all that they bred by sexual reproduction, rather than being spontaneously created by the action of the sun on glutinous dewdrops. He never managed it, and the story of the European eel was only fully explained in 1922, when the Norwegian scientist Johannes Schmidt finally proved that leptocephali were indeed juvenile eels.
The eels we were monitoring had survived the first part of that journey, but the genus isn’t doing well. Since the 1980s, Joe said, there has been a 95 per cent decline in the number of eels returning to London’s rivers. John the forager said he thought it was due to cormorants, whose population has increased in the same period. Joe thought it was probably caused by climate change and overfishing at sea.
There were no eels in the trap that day, but a week later I returned with another eel monitor, a student of molecular biology at UCL. It had been raining the previous few days, and the water was high when we got to the weir. There had been 300 eels in the box two days before, and we were expecting a few more to have made it up the bristles since then. Once we’d checked that the water was still flowing along the pipe and pulled back the lid, we could see them: dozens of eels, dark ribbons swimming in frantic circles, their shovel-shaped heads madly weaving through the mass of bodies, knotting and unknotting themselves. Every now and then one would try to slither up the walls of the trap before dropping back down into the water. We decanted them into a plastic bucket before scooping them out one by one, putting each eel into a sandwich bag and measuring it against a ruler screwed to a plastic chopping board. We recorded their lengths, which ranged from 6 to 18 centimetres. There were 34 in all: a decent haul. When we’d finished we released them back into the river above the flow of the weir and watched them swim away into the weeds. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/jon-day/short-cuts | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/eb68a05748286b98ccc4b0e2776e1c8550aba831862f636f969d0659dfa9f9e9.json |
[
"Mary-Kay Wilmers"
] | 2016-08-26T12:51:58 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fmary-kay-wilmers%2Fsubjective-correlative.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | Subjective Correlative | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | In January 1961 I came to London and started looking for a job. I’d graduated the previous June and been told by the person in charge of women’s appointments that the best I could hope for was a job as a typist. In March I started work at Faber, as the advertising manager’s secretary. Faber was T.S. Eliot’s firm: my father was very impressed. I shared an office with two other secretaries, one of them Eliot’s. She was called Angela, not Valerie: Valerie had married Eliot four years before, in 1957. (We all know now that she’d decided to marry him long before she first came to Faber, but some people knew even then that she kept a pair of white shoes in a drawer in her desk to wear when he summoned her to his room.)
I had some bad moments with him. I hadn’t been there more than a few months when he caught me looking out of the window onto Russell Square. I had my back both to my colleagues and to the door, and I was saying: ‘Look at all those lucky people in Russell Square doing bugger all.’ My colleagues were silent and when I turned round I realised why: Eliot had come into the room and was glowering at me. I might as well have been tearing at the grapes with murderous paws. After I’d graduated to blurb-writing he showed all the directors a blurb I’d written, saying: ‘Surely we can’t publish this.’ It was for Ann Jellicoe’s play The Knack and I’d said that the knack in question was the knack of getting girls into bed. Once, early on, I pointed out a discrepancy between two printings of one of his early poems – I can’t remember which. I was quite proud of myself. He said it didn’t matter.
The disapproval wasn’t all one way. When no one else was in the room I’d look at the letters his secretary typed up for him and turn away dismayed to have found him thanking people for their ‘courteous’ or ‘gracious’ letters. How could he use such awful words? Then there were the clothes, the light blue flannel suits: surely a poet, even an elderly poet, should dress in normal tweeds, or in black, or in something more outlandish altogether. Worst of all, I saw him one evening standing at the top of the stairs holding hands with Valerie. How could someone so old and so grand allow himself to be seen in public holding hands with his wife?
The stories of Eliot’s unhappy first wife, Vivien, or Vivienne as some people have it, were more appealing. Not that they were told very often. She was no longer alive in my day – she died in a mental hospital in 1947. In my mind it was the fact that she was crazy, or crazy-ish, that made her so much more suitable to be the wife of a poet, but it’s also the fact that she was crazy – by the last ten or fifteen years of her life properly crazy – that makes her so appealing to me even now. In the late 1930s, before she was committed, she’d sometimes come to Faber in search of her husband, and while Eliot slipped out of the back door his current secretary would go downstairs to explain to Vivien that it wasn’t possible for her to see him. She was a ‘pathetic, worried figure, badly dressed and very unhappy, her hands screwing up her handkerchief as she wept’, one of those secretaries later recalled. But she was also a very determined, stubborn woman, unlikely to give any ground. When she wasn’t allowed to leave some of her husband’s favourite hot chocolate for him she poured it through the letterbox, and if she got to know that he was giving a lecture somewhere in London she would stand outside the hall holding a placard that read, as I’ve always (and wrongly) remembered it: ‘This is the wife he abandoned.’ Sadly, but no doubt accurately, the various biographies substitute ‘I am’ for ‘This is’.
It wouldn’t have been unlike her to say ‘this is the wife he abandoned.’ For her, as for him, there was no clear demarcation between objective and subjective reality. It is far more important, Eliot said, to have a sense of sin than to be good or bad. And in Vivien’s diaries her own subjectivity presides like a god, or a prophet who should have known better. ‘King Albert of Belgium is killed,’ she noted in February 1934. Unlike other Belgian kings he was a popular figure who died in a mysterious climbing accident. ‘I should have foreseen this on Ash Wednesday,’ Vivien wrote, ‘when Jack put the ashes in the Rose ashtray. Or before that, when I passed St Cyprian’s last night, and the dry leaves of the Bay tree shivered in the cold wind, and a queer figure passed me and slipped into the Church. Or when I found a tiny dead leaf outside the Pink room door.’ | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/mary-kay-wilmers/subjective-correlative | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/7513315c328de339ae39e0edfa62d39428b9f47ac1f21bffa2462a91aa0c401f.json |
[
"Steven Rose"
] | 2016-08-31T14:47:22 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Fsteven-rose%2Fhow-to-get-another-thorax.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3817.jpg?1472644509 | en | null | How to Get Another Thorax | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | Modern biology, at its conception in the 17th century, inherited one unshakeable belief, two mysteries and an unfortunate error of timing. The belief was in the immutability of species, that each species has essential, unalterable characteristics, which can be traced back at least as far as Aristotle. The mysteries were, first, over what it is about life that distinguishes it from death, and second, the process by which a fully developed organism, be it chicken or human, emerges from a fertilised egg. The first mystery was solved, tautologically, by answering that creatures were animate rather than inanimate because they were infused with the breath of life. The second mystery, the chicken and egg problem, was a matter for dispute: was the final adult form of the organism in some way present in miniature in the egg or sperm (preformationism), or did it develop by stages from an original formless mass (epigenesis)? These questions may have been reformulated over the centuries, but they are still at the heart of the life sciences.
The unfortunate error of timing, which made the questions harder to answer, was that biology developed as a science later than physics. Physics – above all Newtonian physics – had become established as the ideal modern science, and biologists sought to understand living processes through analogy with physical and mechanical systems: the heart as a pump; the brain and nerves first as hydraulic systems, later as telephone exchanges and these days as computers. The hydraulic metaphor was pioneered by Descartes, writing early in the 17th century. He regarded living organisms as mere machines, though humans, uniquely, possessed a soul, which communicated with the body by way of a mini-organ at the centre of the brain, the pineal gland. A hundred years later, the physician, philosopher and self-declared ‘mechanical materialist’ Julien Offray de la Mettrie dismissed Descartes’s dualistic waystation in his manifesto L’Homme machine. He argued that mental processes were no more than manifestations of the workings of the brain, a heretical view at the time but today shared by many neuroscientists.
The conflict between the mechanists and a diminishing group of vitalists rattled on through the 19th century. Darwin’s theory of natural selection put paid to any remaining belief in the immutability of species. His was a thoroughly materialist explanation of evolution based on three simple propositions: like begets like, with minor differences; all creatures produce more offspring than can survive into adulthood; and the ‘fittest’ – those best adapted to their environment – are most likely to survive and reproduce in their turn. Thus species will gradually be transformed – evolve – over time. This is natural selection. However, he wasn’t able to explain how such minor differences in fitness could be passed on from a carrier to its offspring. (He speculated about a variety of possible mechanisms, including the idea that each body organ contained minute particles – gemmules – that circulated in the bloodstream before concentrating in the reproductive system.) This gap in the theory was seized on by Darwin’s critics, some of whom were opposed to the very idea of evolution, others to Darwin’s gradualism, preferring to believe that the formation of a new species could only occur as the result of a large leap.
Working at the same time as Darwin but unknown to him, the Moravian monk Gregor Mendel discovered the mechanism that he could not. Mendel showed in breeding studies that the colour and shape of sweet-peas was transmitted from one generation to the next by what he called ‘hidden determinants’. The full implications of his work weren’t appreciated at the time, but around 1900 his results were rediscovered and repeated by several scientists, whose experiments with plant breeding turned up cases in which sudden changes in some characteristic appeared and could be transmitted to the subsequent generation. They called these changes mutations, and Mendel’s hidden determinants were renamed genes. For several decades, dramatic Mendelian mutation, rather than gradual Darwinian natural selection, was the favoured explanation for evolutionary change. Preformationism was reborn in the guise of genetics, in which development was understood as little more than the carrying out of a molecular program embedded in the genes.
A subterranean current continued to oppose this sort of reductionism. For romantics, quantification emptied the world of its observable features: colour, scent, feel, shape and pattern. It was absurd to believe that the swirling motion of a flock of starlings in flight, or the fast co-ordinated turns of a shoal of herring, could be reduced to the motion of each individual bird or fish. Newton was the archetypal enemy, captured in Blake’s image of the scientist measuring the world with a pair of callipers (misunderstood in Paolozzi’s massive reimagining of Blake’s Newton as hero in the courtyard of the British Library).
In the 1930s, a group of young biologists in Cambridge associated with the embryologist Joseph Needham formed the Theoretical Biology Club (TBC), calling themselves ‘organicists’ in an attempt to transcend the tired opposition between mechanism and vitalism. At the International Congress on the History of Science and Technology in London in 1931, they were galvanised by the dramatic intervention of a delegation from the Soviet Union led by Nikolai Bukharin, a favourite of Lenin but soon to be purged. The Soviets rejected the Whiggish view of the history of science as a progressive, disinterested search for truth, insisting instead that science – even its greatest and most theoretical achievements – was driven by the political economy of the time. From this perspective, the dominance of mechanical materialism could be understood as a function of the needs of capital in the rapidly industrialising 19th century. Gradgrindism, as they might have said, was no accident. When, a few years later, an English translation of Engels’s Dialectics of Nature appeared with an introduction by the geneticist J.B.S. Haldane, a close associate at Cambridge, the group felt that at last they had the theoretical tools they needed.
Life could not be reduced to mere molecules, they argued, but neither was some non-materialist vital principle required to explain it. The material world consists in a multitude of entities and processes of various levels of complexity. Each level is governed by a set of organising principles dependent on, but irreducible to, those that govern lower levels. The properties of water cannot be deduced from the properties of hydrogen and oxygen; the behaviour of the basic unit of life, the cell, is not simply an aggregation of the properties of its constituent proteins, lipids and so on. At each level of complexity, from molecule to cell to organism to ecosystem and society, new properties and organising relationships emerge, and to each belongs its proper science. Above all, the TBC insisted, the living world is self-organising and dynamic: it should be understood not so much as an assemblage of things but of dialectically interacting processes. Biology, unlike physics, is a historical science, Needham argued: the present status of any living system can be understood only with reference to the immediate (developmental) and longer term (evolutionary) past that brought it about. Life forms themselves are not static but are continuously regenerated, persisting even as every molecule in the body is broken down and resynthesised thousands – sometimes millions – of times an hour.
The TBC strove to unite three biological sciences that had become divorced earlier in the century: evolution, genetics and embryology (soon renamed ‘development’). Haldane was one of a trio of mathematically minded biologists – the other two were Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright – who brought Mendelian genetics and natural selection together in what became known as the Modern or neo-Darwinian Synthesis, a comprehensive theory of evolution which persisted throughout much of the rest of the 20th century. In the Modern Synthesis, small chance mutations in genes provide the heritable variations in an organism’s fitness on which natural selection acts. Rapid mutational jumps were out; gradualism was in. Living organisms were now considered mere vehicles for genetic transmission, and evolution itself became redefined as ‘a change in gene frequency within a population’.
Bringing genetics together with development was a tougher proposition. Genetics had since Mendel been a science of differences, seeking to explain why some peas are yellow and wrinkled, others green and round, or why one person has blue eyes, another brown. Development, though, was a science of similarities, asking for instance why humans, in their trajectory from fertilised egg to adult, are generally bilaterally symmetrical, each with two eyes, two arms terminating in five-fingered hands. An attempt to unify them was made by another of the Cambridge group, the polymath biologist C.H. (Hal) Waddington, who in the early 1940s coined the term epigenetics to refer to the study of the ‘causal interactions between genes and their products which bring the phenotype into being’. (Phenotype is a Humpty-Dumptyish word, but can be roughly taken to mean any observable feature of a living organism, at any level from the molecular to the cellular to the entire organism and its behaviour. Richard Dawkins extended its definition by asserting that the dam a beaver builds is part of its phenotype.)
Epigenetics seeks to explain how, starting from an identical set of genes, the contingencies of development can lead to different outcomes. To illustrate this, Waddington imagined what he called an ‘epigenetic landscape’ of rolling hills and valleys. Place a ball at the top of the hill and give it a little push. Which valley it rolls down depends on chance fluctuations; some valleys may converge on the same endpoint, others on different ones. Waddington called this process ‘canalisation’, though the material basis for the metaphor was, at the time, unknowable. He imagined the hills and valleys as held in place by strings stretching from nodes (genes) located below the surface landscape.
He also went further, proposing that if a strongly canalised phenotypic change was repeated generation after generation, some random mutation would eventually catch up with it and it would be assimilated into the genome. He demonstrated that this was possible by exposing developing fruit fly embryos to ether, which induces them to develop a second thorax. After some twenty generations (it takes a fruit fly about seven days to develop from a fertilised egg to an adult ready to mate, so experiments using them are fast and easy), the flies developed the second thorax without exposure to the ether – the epigenetically induced bithorax had become fixed in the fly’s genome. To many of his contemporaries, it appeared as if Waddington was arguing for a version of the ultimate evolutionary heresy, Lamarckism – the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It was easy for them to dismiss Waddington’s results as the artificial product of extreme laboratory conditions, irrelevant to the real world.
The TBC sought funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to set up a theoretical biology institute in Cambridge, but Rockefeller turned the proposal down in favour of a major investment in biochemistry, which presaged the later triumphs of molecular genetics. By now, many of the group’s members had been drafted into war work. Needham was posted to China, where he began the work on the history of Chinese science for which he is now best known. Waddington worked on operations research for the air force. In 1947 he left for Edinburgh, where he remained for the rest of his career, but despite his continued advocacy of the theory, epigenetics faded from view.
*
With the discovery of the structure of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson in the 1950s, there was a renewed conviction among biologists – especially the physicists and engineers turned biologists like Crick – that what was needed was a ruthless reductionism. It was immediately recognised that DNA’s helical structure provided the chemical form of a program – a code made up of the molecule’s four subunits or ‘bases’, adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine, represented by the letters A, C, G and T – that could direct an organism’s development, and also a copying mechanism by means of which information could be transferred from generation to generation. Life, it seemed, was computable. The triumph of reductionism seemed so secure that by the 1990s ambitious molecular biologists were able to persuade their funders, public and private, to embark on the massive project of sequencing the entire three billion As, Cs, Gs and Ts that spell out the human genome. The information the sequence provided would, they claimed, transform our understanding of medicine, and in so doing give a powerful boost to a languishing economy.
As the project got underway, the sequencers conducted a poll. How many genes – that is, mini-sequences of A, C, G and T coding for specific proteins – would they discover embedded in the human genome? The betting suggested around a hundred thousand, roughly the same as the number of different proteins in the human body. When it came to it, the chastened researchers reported that the actual number of genes was just over twenty thousand, about the same number as in a millimetre-long nematode worm. Twenty thousand genes to direct the development of the human embryo from fertilised egg to newborn baby, to code for the hundred thousand proteins, to determine the fates of the 37 trillion cells in the human body.
The numbers made a nonsense of the idea that there is a ‘gene for’ any particular human characteristic, from eye colour to IQ to sexual orientation, and has confounded the hope that sequencing the genome would generate a cornucopia of precision-tailored treatments for complex diseases. The problem lies in the common misconception of genes as ‘master molecules’ directing the operation of the cells in which they reside. In fact DNA is a rather inert molecule, as it has to be if it is to serve as a code. It is the cells that do the work. Cellular enzymes read, edit, cut and paste, transcribe and translate segments of DNA – the literary metaphor, universally employed by molecular biologists, isn’t accidental; they think of DNA as the language in which the Book of Life is written – in a scheduled flow during the development of the foetus, according to whether the cells are destined to become liver or brain, blood or bone. No gene works in isolation but as part of a collaboration. Many genes may be required to produce a single phenotype – more than fifty main gene variants have been shown to affect the chances that someone will contract coronary heart disease, for example – and a particular gene may influence many different phenotypic traits, depending on which organ’s cells it is active in. It is during this period of rapid growth that living organisms are at their most plastic, responding to environmental challenges by modifying anatomical, biochemical, physiological or behavioural phenotypic traits. This is epigenetic canalisation.
For molecular biologists, the task has been to discover the mechanisms by which external causes switch genes on and off. This has meant coming to terms with the significance of the fact that DNA is not a naked molecule but is protectively wrapped in a cling-film of proteins – histones – portions of which have to be peeled away before any particular length of DNA can be read; environmental factors affect the peeling process, and therefore the selection of genes to be read. A second important finding has been that during development segments of DNA become ‘marked’; a small molecular chunk, a methyl group (CH3), is attached to one of the DNA bases (generally C, cytosine). The presence of the methyl group prevents the DNA from being read – that is, it switches the gene off. Removing the methyl switches the gene on again. As the field of epigenetics develops, many more such mechanisms are likely to be discovered.
The environment in which a developing embryo is immersed is not unchanging; in mammals the hormonal status or diet of the pregnant female will affect the embryo and foetus, which responds adaptively to environmental challenges as methyl groups are added to or removed from specific regions of its DNA, thus controlling the direction of its development down one or another of the valleys in Waddington’s epigenetic landscape. What’s more, there is growing evidence that methyl marks placed on DNA during development persist and can be transferred to the next generation during reproduction, along with their phenotypic effects. Such transgenerational phenomena, though not their molecular mechanisms, have been known for decades, demonstrated experimentally in animals and observed in humans. One of the best-known studies followed the effects of the Rotterdam famine during the Second World War. During the winter of 1944 the retreating Germans imposed a blockade of food and fuel across western Holland, affecting some 4.5 million people. Children born to women who conceived or were pregnant during the famine period were found to be more susceptible to health problems such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease than their contemporaries born in the liberated eastern parts of the country. More surprising, at least to orthodox geneticists, is that similar susceptibilities have been found in their children and even their grandchildren.
The data from such ‘natural experiments’ is complex and any conclusions drawn from it must necessarily be fragile, but similar, sometimes quite subtle effects have been found in laboratory experiments. One involved feeding pregnant or lactating rabbits food containing strongly flavoured juniper berries. Given a choice, their offspring, as adults, also favoured a juniper berry diet, and so did the next generation down. The transmission of food preference could be a consequence of the epigenetic marking of DNA, or it could, as Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb say in their book Evolution in Four Dimensions (2006), be behavioural transmission. Evolution is a multidimensional process, they argue, combining genetic, epigenetic and behavioural transmission across generations. To this they add symbolic transmission, through what they call animal traditions or, in humans, language and culture. A diminishing band of geneticists remain sceptical, arguing that unless transgenerational effects are constantly reinforced, they are gradually diluted and will eventually disappear, rather than being assimilated into the genome. Epigeneticists respond with the bold claim that an epigenetic trait is, as one recent definition has it, a ‘stably heritable phenotype resulting from changes in a chromosome without alterations in the DNA sequence’.
Whatever further insights it may bring, epigenetics has already achieved one of the goals that eluded the biologists of the 1930s: the bringing together of genetics and development, now no longer understood as contrasting sciences of differences and similarities, but as part of a greater unity, the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). The EES, which was presaged by Waddington, challenges the Neo-Darwinian picture of living creatures as ‘lumbering robots’, in Dawkins’s phrase, whose sole function, crushed as they are between the millstones of genes and environment, is to survive long enough to transmit the genes they carry to the next generation. Chickens, one might say, are merely an egg’s way of making more eggs.
In the EES, by contrast, selection operates not just on the individual adult organism but, through epigenetic processes, across the entire life cycle, and at multiple levels – genes, genomes, organisms, populations and even entire ecosystems. Co-operative interactions within and between species become important – not just competition. In the EES, as for the dialectical biologists of the 1930s, organisms do not merely accept the environment into which they are born, but work to seek out a more favourable one (the term for this is ‘niche construction’) and, having found it, they transform it, just as the beaver does by building a dam. In this way, the EES recognises that processes other than natural selection contribute to evolutionary change. This would have been no surprise to Darwin, who repeatedly emphasised that he saw natural selection as the major, but by no means the only evolutionary mechanism. Yet the EES remains contentious. The announcement this year that the John Templeton Foundation, a Christian funding agency, has awarded an $8 million grant to a multinational team of researchers, led by the evolutionary biologist Kevin Laland, to work on the EES has caused a rumble of dissent from hardline Neo-Darwinists.
Epigenetic mechanisms have been adduced to explain differences between genetically identical twins and in the aetiology of such diseases and disorders as cancer, hypertension, obesity and addiction. New prefixes appear: nutri-epigenetics, for example, attributes many disorders to epigenetic marking caused by nutritional imbalance during gestation. There is research underway into the prospect – still a little distant – of targeted methylation as a means to the permanent silencing of particular genes in the treatment of cancer and viral infections. A whole new field of pharmacological research, with enormous potential for novel and patentable drugs, has been opened up. Alongside the science, the pseudo-science proliferates. On the web, you can read articles claiming that mental effort can cause epigenetic change to ward off or induce cancer; advertisements sell vitamin supplements said to work through epigenetics. Practising epigeneticists try to police the boundary between science and myth while at the same time defending themselves against a residual genetic orthodoxy that continues to look on epigenetics with unease. Yet science fiction can go where scientists fearful for their reputations may hesitate to tread. And sometimes, science fiction proves a better judge of future possibility than established science fact. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/steven-rose/how-to-get-another-thorax | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/45dcf95f232007e6d04ee9541d88d1ded7c647697ea96099719244562eee9f17.json |
[
"Colin Burrow"
] | 2016-08-26T12:54:36 | null | 2016-08-11T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fcolin-burrow%2Fi-am-a-severed-head.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | Colin Burrow reviews ‘‘The Sea, the Sea’; ‘A Severed Head’’ by Iris Murdoch · LRB 11 August 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | The word ‘parodiability’ is not in the OED, but it is a significant literary attribute. Iris Murdoch certainly had it. Malcolm Bradbury’s Murdochian parody ‘A Jaundiced View’ has Sir Alex Mountaubon watching his daughter Flavia beneath a ‘dark and contingent cedar tree … sitting on a white wooden seat, in her unutterable otherness, her pet marmoset on her shoulder, her cap of auburn hair shining like burnished gold on her head. Nearer to the house, in the rose-garden, their younger daughter, seven-year-old Perdita, strange, mysterious and self-absorbed as usual, was beheading a litter of puppies with unexpectedly muscular and adult twists of her slender arms. Her cap of golden hair shone like burnished auburn on her head.’ Bradbury does capture something. Occasional whiffs of Walter Pater-meets-upmarket-Woman’s-Own fiction can emanate from Murdoch’s descriptive prose: ‘A memory came back to her from her Italian journey, the young David of Donatello, casual, powerful, superbly naked, and charmingly immature.’ And no one could read more than a couple of her novels without recognising that they usually take place in summer, often in a large house, and rarely shift their gaze significantly below the upper-middle-classes. Her people have too much time to do anything except fall in love, darling, and many of them would, one feels, have been better off had they been given a sharp slap and told to go off and make something. Rather too many of them either are or could be called Hugo. And, in the way of most parodiable writers, she can sometimes parody herself – Iris Murdoch, the Sartrean, Platonising, Buddhistical philosophical novelist – by having her characters launch into speeches like this, from The Bell (1958): ‘The good man does what seems right, what the rule enjoins, without considering the consequences, without calculation or prevarication, knowing that God will make all for the best. He does not amend the rules by the standards of this world.’
But parodiability cuts several ways. It is often a marker of writing that takes risks and that clearly has a style. It also presents critics with an easy opportunity to be unfair rather than to think. And being fair to Murdoch is quite hard at the moment. She has received a sympathetic biography by Peter Conradi, which may be too kind to her, and a sour memoir by A.N. Wilson from which even the concept of kindness appears to be absent. What with John Bayley’s Iris and the film of it, and all the ‘coo wasn’t she a one’ coverage of her sex life, she has had too much press as the novelist who did a lot of shagging and then lost her marbles to be given an entirely fair trial for at least another decade.
A first step towards being fair to Murdoch would be to take stock of what is remarkable in her. The first time I read Bradbury’s ‘unexpectedly muscular and adult twists of her slender arms’ I did find it very funny indeed. But decapitating puppies? Murdoch had the inestimable virtue of not only liking dogs but of making several of her plots turn on their kindness and humans’ kindness to them: in her first novel, Under the Net (1954), a retired film star German shepherd remains infinitely obliging despite enduring the indignity of being sold and then dognapped; in The Nice and the Good (1968) a ‘somewhat poodle-like dog’ warms a pair of characters trapped in a cave. She writes brilliantly and with real sympathy about other hurtable creatures. Her adolescent men are perhaps her most vivid creations: the scene early in The Bell in which 18-year-old Toby is in a hot railway carriage opposite the insensate and sexy Dora captures an adolescent mixture of straight desire and a desire to please that vindicates her statement: ‘How misplaced is the sympathy lavished on adolescents. There is a yet more difficult age which comes later, when one has less to hope for and less ability to change.’ Murdoch’s representations of gay men, and also of gay men who are attracted to much younger males, are free of both cliché and moralism in a way that is probably without parallel among fiction written by women or men in the 1960s and 1970s. There is an omnivorousness about her understanding of desire which brings with it a wise form of toleration.
Perhaps her greatest skill, however, is one for which she’s rarely praised and for which she herself would probably not have wanted praise. She is exceptionally good at describing gravity-defying feats of engineering. So in The Sandcastle (1957) Don Mor, the hero’s son (an adolescent who is made vivid chiefly by not saying very much, and by his love for a dog who has died), is stuck up a tower after a school prank has gone wrong and is about to fall to his death. His father, a teacher at the school who had been off with a new love, manages to stretch out a ladder to him across from an adjacent building. Gravity, and human efforts to defy it, add material weight to the levity of passion in the novel: ‘As Mor saw the body still perched there over the sharp edge, and as he felt the terrible drop opening beneath him, he was in such an agony of fear that he almost fell himself.’ In The Bell the mechanics by which the adolescent engineer Toby sets about getting an ancient submerged bell out of a lake – a tractor, a rope, an incline, then a makeshift crane and much leverage – are all worked out in such detail that one could imagine Murdoch having made drawings of the whole thing. Indeed some of her plots, particularly in the earlier and mostly better half of her career, do not turn on the sub-Jamesian summery reveries that are foregrounded in Bradbury’s parody, but on literal pivots, on objects counterbalancing each other and perilously holding good: ‘Once the bell was inside the barn, the steel hawser would be passed over one of the large beams and the winch used to raise it from the ground.’
That concern with physically complex feats of engineering is an element that many of her (apparently) ultra-serious moral fictions have in common with the ultra-frivolous detective novels of the 1940s and 1950s, the dénouements of which so often turn on precisely engineered actions, in which, say, an apparently impossible murder has been committed by hoisting a body up through a skylight by means of a block and tackle and thereby vacating the murder scene. Cyril Hare’s fiction and the Oxford-based novels of Edmund Crispin in particular must have been works which Murdoch knew well. In The Nice and the Good a jealous mistress (Murdoch created rather a lot of these) tries to gather evidence of infidelity from the house of John Ducane (who is himself a kind of detective investigating a suicide that may be a murder). She casually notes ‘the bathroom wastepaper basket contained a detective novel.’ That’s a guilty acknowledgment of a debt to a genre which would not have figured large in Murdoch’s grave North Oxford conversations about Philosophy and Love. But that surprisingly donnish genre (the English tutor at Christ Church in the 1950s and 1960s, J.I.M. Stewart, wrote detective fiction as Michael Innes, and Edmund Crispin took his pseudonym from one of his novels) could be regarded as Murdoch without the metaphysics.
But of course Murdoch without the metaphysics would not quite be Murdoch. Her chief contribution to the English novel was to create an unstable marriage (and marriages within her fiction are always unstable) between apparently incompatible elements. She took the forensic realism and the stagey conjunctions of many people in one place from detective fiction and welded onto it a large dose of philosophy, with a dash of incongruous starry-eyed romantic fiction on the side. As this description implies, it was a very unstable fusion, both structurally and tonally. Sometimes her novels read as though a French farce were being redescribed by Sartre. Sometimes Hugo (as it were) pitches up for no apparent reason other than to tell the protagonist he needs to sort out his karma, and everyone suddenly falls in love. At these moments it’s hard to tell if Murdoch’s fictional tongue is in her cheek, or if it’s just poor engineering in the plot, over which she laboured with less care than she did over representing material actions, or some deeper failure to recognise that people usually do things for some kind of reason.
Her particular flavour of metaphysics is not always easily combined with the conventions of realist fiction. In 1953 she wrote one of the earliest English-language discussions of Sartre’s philosophy. Sartre’s conception of freedom made her uneasy, but she thought about it throughout her working life; and Sartre’s way of exploring larger perceptual truths through the description of transient experiences often helps her add weight to moments of bodily accident. So, when Charles Arrowby, the narrator of The Sea, the Sea (1978), meditates on his near-fatal fall into the ocean he reflects in the mode of the more casual sections of Being and Nothingness: ‘Even in a harmless fall in the road there is a little moment of horror when the faller realises that he cannot help himself.’ Freedom and the void are there to swallow you up when you fall, and we are all weighed down with an amoral kind of gravity.
The other main strand in Murdoch’s intellectual origins is a version of Platonism that is pretty much a direct enemy of the tendency in bourgeois fiction to particularise people. This generates many problems. Her novels tend to be overpopulated with Flavias and Hugos and Pierces and Peregrines, not to mention Johns and Judies, who fall in and out of love with one another with remarkable ease. Of course there is not much else to do when you are summering by the sea in a large house; but this much-noted feature of Murdoch’s fiction does not simply result from her tendency to represent middle-class characters at leisure. Love evidently was for her an emotion that was transferable between individuals, each of whom might partially embody a form of the loveable, and whose external accidental attributes – their name, their sex, the colour of their hair, their taste in food – were therefore insignificant.
Here I should make a confession. I am completely out of sympathy with Platonism, and, moreover, have a sure and settled belief that love either is or ought to be an emotion that is centrally concerned with particularising the other person and, indeed, with feeling affection for the accidental characteristics of that person (the way they walk, the way they drop things, their recurrent bad taste in fabrics, their delight in bees). I am, in short, a bourgeois monogamist of the most pitiable sort. This makes me perhaps unusually resistant to the metaphysical core of Murdoch’s representations of human desire. But it also prompts me to make a critical observation that extends beyond the tiny restraining circumference of my beliefs about love: she is in some respects an anti-novelist, in that she is not very good at particularising people unless they happen to be very wicked, in which case they tend just to become embodiments of Power. Or, to put that another way, she is in a very precise sense a promiscuous author, for whom individuals are over-interchangeable – and as a result they seem sometimes to be not quite there, or are there while you read and then vanish the moment you put the book down.
*
The two novels reprinted here as Everyman Contemporary Classics are both first-person narratives explicitly about power and passion. A Severed Head (1961) is not a good book, but it does show how difficult it is to write a novel founded on Murdoch’s metaphysical principles. I read it two weeks ago. I have not been donked on the head since, but found I could not without picking up the book again remember who was who, who loved whom, or quite why anyone does anything in it. I can remember its layers of clunky Freudianism, its many reflections on marriage and on power (a word it uses far too often), and a memorable scene in Cambridge in which our hero turns up to see a woman he has previously disliked (but with whom he has suddenly decided he is in love) in bed with her brother, who is the hero’s analyst. There is an ex-wife, and lots of ah, the vagina, well it’s just like Medusa’s head. The analyst then runs off with the protagonist’s discarded girlfriend because Love does that kind of stuff, is necessarily entangled in power relations, and we all want to collect heads (severed and separable from the individuals who own them), don’t we? The heads on particular people are as a result curiously not there. The narrator says of the incestuous psychoanalyst Palmer: ‘There was something abstract in his face. It was impossible to pin wickedness or corruption on to such an image.’ His sister, who displays implausible skill with a samurai sword, as though she needs a characteristic which might confer reality on her, confesses that ‘I am a severed head such as primitive tribes and old alchemists used to use.’
The Sea, the Sea (in which the words of its title are also pounded on a bit too heavily) is quite a different cauldron of sea monsters. It won the Booker Prize in 1978, and if one wanted to be irritated by it one could say it too clearly displays the features of Booker Prize-winning novels of that era: it has a narrator who is in his own eyes cleverer than any of the other characters, but who allows his readers the luxury of believing that they are cleverer than he; and over all this cleverness presides a super-clever author who is probably much cleverer than her readers, and who, moreover, probably knows all this. The Murdoch vices are all on display. The book is too long. The narrator, a retired thespian called Charles Arrowby, has a succession of more or less interchangeable lovers who are all variously jealous. His cousin James can be relied on to turn up in a Bentley at the least psychologically plausible of moments in order to deliver short lectures on Buddhist philosophy, and is, like Palmer in A Severed Head, a powerful force who seems not to have a face: ‘Perhaps it is just not a very coherent face. It is as if a fuzzy cloud hangs over it.’
But two features of The Sea, the Sea make it probably the second best Iris Murdoch novel after The Bell. The first is that it is very nearly a detective novel told from the point of view of the victim. Charles is at one point pushed into a deep chasm in the sea by an invisible hand. The fact that he is then rescued in a way that seems physically impossible comes to be the principal enigma of the novel. And that mystery depends on Murdoch’s earlier interest in the practicalities of rescue, because, having written about two men stranded by the tide in a cave with only a dog to warm them in The Nice and the Good, and having had herself at least one bad experience of near-drowning, she had thought hard about how difficult in practice it is to escape from the sea when it decides to have you. In The Sea, the Sea magic rather than mechanical engineering appears to bring about the rescue. Charles then has to work out who among the large cast hates him enough to kill him, and this leads him to individualise people whom he had previously not thought about as having particular thoughts or feelings. Was the killer ‘Gilbert, mad with secret jealousy because of Lizzie? Rosina mourning for her lost child? Perhaps there were quite a lot of people with motives to murder me.’
The second thing that makes The Sea, the Sea still such a powerful book is that alongside its treatment of love as a sentiment that sanctions the transposability of human beings – Charles has a Rosina and a Lizzie and even a teenaged Angela panting to be dominated by him – it also gazes hard and cruelly at love as a particularising force. Murdoch here seems to regard the love of a particular person as a human horror that is necessarily driven, and driven mad by, power and appetite. Charles has a past singular love, from his adolescence, for a woman he calls Hartley (and the bisexuality which Murdoch saw as an inevitable consequence of sexuality means that his other main lover also has the androgynous name of Clement). Charles’s retirement home, a damp house over a roiling sea, turns out (by pure coincidence, he wants us to believe) to be near the village where Hartley lives. She is now old and married. Charles, who has the egoism of Prospero and perhaps something of his power, imprisons her, and does the whole Proust with Albertine love-as-obsession-which-dominates-and-paradoxically-disindividuates-its-object routine over her. His Buddhist cousin James repeatedly tells him that his love for Hartley is for a simulacrum, that particularising love is a delusion, and that marriage is a kind of servitude – and we eventually discover it’s the philosophical James, who has picked up funky tantric tricks in Tibet, who in defiance of gravity and physics had rescued Charles from being ‘murdered’ in the sea.
There is an obtrusive moral (as well as a vividly mad collie dog): we are but shadows, and our desires for particularised individuals are both illusory and predatory. In a sentence that might be labelled in the margin with ‘wake up and listen’, Charles asks the rhetorical question ‘Can we not love each other at last in freedom, without awful possessiveness and violence and fear?’ The answer to that question for Murdoch was a resounding ‘no’. The reason for that answer does not lie in the nature of human beings or of the universe. It lies in her strange mixture of beliefs. She combined an implausibly unconstrained conception of human freedom ultimately drawn from Sartre with an implausibly depersonalising view of love drawn from Plato. Fusing those two things with the conventions of the realist novel was a profoundly interesting thing to have done, and for having attempted that fusion she certainly will always be thought to deserve a major part in the history of 20th-century fiction in Britain. But it made for plots in which people try to be free and find they are trapped in master-slave relationships, and in which being in love means being cruelly disloyal to more or less any particular person. Behind that recurrent dynamic in her fiction is a deep kind of sadness: she never quite recognised that it might be possible and even pleasurable just messily to get on with loving one person. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/colin-burrow/i-am-a-severed-head | en | 2016-08-11T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/e2c58106a57e3596a67de48787a9d860c9579aa38eb8928f576789d46a1fd4a5.json |
[
"Terry Eagleton"
] | 2016-08-31T14:47:16 | null | 2016-09-08T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Fterry-eagleton%2Fjack-in-the-belfry.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3817.jpg?1472644509 | en | null | Terry Eagleton reviews ‘The Trials of the King of Hampshire’ by Elizabeth Foyster · LRB 8 September 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | The line between eccentricity and insanity in the English aristocracy has always been hard to draw, and perhaps never more so than in the case of John Charles Wallop, third Earl of Portsmouth. Born in 1767 at the family’s Hampshire residence of Hurstbourne Park, Wallop grew into a child who betrayed signs of being what his contemporaries would have called a simpleton. He was sent to be tutored by the Rev. George Austen, father of Jane, but proved a slow learner and had a serious stammer. Jane was still to be born at the time he lived in her home, but she encountered Wallop at a ball in later life and thought him presentable enough. Nothing this keen-eyed observer of humanity says of him would suggest that she found him in any way odd. She was, however, less impressed by his dim-witted younger brother Coulson, whom she regarded as a cad given to drunken habits and indelicate language. He could easily be a minor character in one of her novels. Brains were not the Portsmouth family’s strong point. Wallop’s uncle had been elected master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, but according to one contemporary observer was completely illiterate.
John Charles was sent to grammar school at the age of seven, where one of his fellow pupils described him as the laughing stock of the school for his ‘singularly foolish silly ways and antics’. Though not exactly an ‘idiot’ in the judgment of one doctor, he was a crybaby, sang grotesquely out of tune and regularly fouled his clothes and bed. He was also in the habit of skiving off from school to visit a local hovel, where he ate bacon and greens with a carrier. It was a foretaste of his remarkably egalitarian attitude towards his own servants later in life, a familiarity which was to do him no good at all.
Unlike his younger brothers, he did not go on to Eton. He could be a belligerent child, and once pulled the ears of the 11- year-old Byron. Byron retaliated by throwing shells at him and broke a window. Even as a boy, the legendary daredevil was not to be messed about. Years later, however, Byron testified to Portsmouth’s sanity when he was put on trial – testimony that might have carried more weight had Byron himself not been widely considered to be mad. Privately, however, he regarded his fellow nobleman as a ‘fool of an earl’, having perhaps not entirely forgiven the ear-pulling episode.
Wallop succeeded to his father’s title in 1797, but was not allowed to manage his fortune, household and vast estates, which included a Norman castle and close to 13,000 acres of land in Wexford. Instead, his formidable mother, Urania, ran his affairs, while Portsmouth himself, one of the wealthiest landowners in England, was provided with what amounted to pocket money. (He did better in this respect than the feeble-minded Mr Dick of David Copperfield, who is supplied with pocket money but not allowed to spend it.) Not long after becoming third earl, he fled from home for a brief period in the company of his Swiss valet, though whether this was an abduction or an elopement is hard to say. The valet later threatened to expose the ‘repeated Sodomitical attempts’ that his master had allegedly made on him, though Portsmouth’s ignorance of sex makes the claim fairly improbable. If it had been shown to be true, however, he could have faced the death penalty. Fifty men were executed for sodomy in England between 1805 and 1832. In the event, the Portsmouth family stepped in, squashed the valet and destroyed his reputation, despite his plausible claim that the earl was happy to escape from a home where he was stripped of authority and placed under constant surveillance. As Elizabeth Foyster remarks in her assiduously researched, crisply written biography, ‘nobody was interested in the grievances of a low-born French speaker when they stood opposed to the words of an honourable English nobleman and his family.’
Not long after the botched elopement/abduction, Urania ordered that her son be strapped to his bed. She also threatened to place him in the custody of the chief physician at Bethlem, England’s most notorious madhouse. Her own sister had grown paranoid during the years of the French Revolution, convinced that her life was under threat from the insurgent masses of Twickenham. She spent the rest of her days confined to an asylum. Another of Portsmouth’s relatives kidnapped the woman he loved at pistol-point, and later declared that he was the figure described in the Book of Revelations as bringing peace on earth. He also challenged Napoleon to single combat. He, too, ended up in what was politely known as a Private House. The family were well schooled in how to close down any members who threatened to become a public embarrassment, and Wallop could be forgiven for suspecting that he was next in line.
Instead, Urania found another kind of keeper for her wayward son in the form of a wife, Grace Norton, whom he married in 1799. At 47 years of age, 15 years older than the earl himself, she seemed sufficiently mature and level-headed to keep him safely bridled. She appears to have had no illusions about her husband’s mental agility, but it is unlikely she thought him mad since the insane could not enter into a contract of marriage. She was, however, party to an agreement by which Portsmouth handed over all of his estate to four trustees, an action later to be adduced as proof of his madness. The Lord Chancellor of the day observed that the earl had chosen to ‘put himself under fetters very similar to those which belong to a Commission of Lunacy’. If he really was out of his mind, however, he would not have been deemed legally capable of signing such a deed. It was a Catch- 22 situation: if Portsmouth signed the document voluntarily he was clearly off his head, but if he was then he couldn’t validly sign it.
Grace proved an excellent mother to Portsmouth, who to the astonishment of his dinner guests would sometimes stop eating, lay his head on her neck, fondle her affectionately and sob loudly, while she humoured him like a fractious child. He would then resume eating with a hearty appetite. He also took to arranging secret meetings in the woods with young working-class women from around the estate – not for the traditional patrician purpose, but so that they might bleed him with a case of lancets he carried around with him. Since he paid the women for doing so, he was rarely short of volunteers. One volunteer reported that Portsmouth was obsessed with how women’s pockets bulged out, believing that this was because they carried basins under their skirts in which to collect the blood of the men they bled. Spilling his blood into female basins seems to have been his substitute for sexual intercourse, an activity with which he was unfamiliar in both theory and practice. He scoffed incredulously at a member of his staff who tried to inform him of the facts of life, and seemed to believe that a woman’s pregnancy lasted for nine years. Brothels he regarded as places where gentlemen went armed with their lancets. He did, however, have some acquaintance with masturbation, since on some occasions when his arm was tied for him to be bled he would delightedly watch the rising of the veins while applying his other hand to a similarly tumescent part of his body. It was, he told his doctor, the only situation in which he ever had an erection. Given a choice between giving up his wife and his case of lancets, he added, there was no question of which he would abandon.
Compared with his so-called black jobs, however, being bled in the woods seems relatively rational. ‘Black jobs’ was the name Portsmouth gave to those of his activities which involved a morbid obsession with death. When the young daughter of one of his workmen was dying, the earl, to whom the girl was a complete unknown, insisted on being present at her death and had to be forcibly prevented from entering the house by her outraged father. The workman was able to allow his daughter to die in peace, but only at the cost of not being present at her deathbed himself.
Portsmouth also turned up uninvited at funerals. On one occasion he posed as chief mourner at the burial of a total stranger, and gleefully reported that he was served turkey and wine at the lunch that followed. He would request his servants to place logs on their shoulders as though they were coffins, and would then walk behind the bogus cortège singing psalms. He knew all the main hearse drivers in London, and would visit undertakers to find out if there were any forthcoming funerals. He would then join the procession in his phaeton, driving so close as to scrape the wheels of the mourning coaches while laughing and shaking his whip. Admirably egalitarian in his necrophiliac tastes, he once accompanied to the grave the body of a former servant of his who had landed up in a lunatic asylum. When his park keeper told him that his wife was seriously ill, Portsmouth replied that he was glad of it and hoped she would die soon. It was not quite the attitude of a model paternalist landlord. At the funeral of another servant, he winked and laughed constantly at the scandalised members of the congregation. There were times, however, when it proved difficult not to join in his merriment. When he officiated at burials, he would read out psalms by the graveside in such a droll manner that some mourners had to stifle their laughter.
Bell-ringing was another of his obsessions. He would set off in heavy rain to walk a mile from his house to ring the bells at a church when someone died. As soon as any church service was over, he would rush out of his pew and dash up to the belfry, where he would strip to the waist and demand to be called Jack. His campanological skills were not of the finest. He did not understand the idea of ringing in a peal, so someone had to stand beside him in order to catch the rope and hand it to him when it was his turn. There were times when he took the fun a little too far, as when he once placed a rope around another ringer’s neck. Someone removed it just as the bell was swinging upwards, otherwise the man would have been hanged. To keep their master amused, his servants strung ropes across hooks in the stables so that he could pretend he was ringing bells. His long-suffering domestic staff were desperate to escape his childish pranks: if the earl wanted to play hide and seek, they would pretend not to know where he was hiding so that he would leave them alone for a while. One manservant had to put a broomstick between his master’s legs and chase him around the room. Portsmouth also liked him to rap the pig-tail of his wig against his neck like a knocker, shouting: ‘Is anybody at home?’ It was a pertinent inquiry.
Portsmouth was both bully and victim, cruel and pitiable. He whipped his horses mercilessly, and sometimes his underlings too. He tortured his oxen, knocking them on their heads with an axe he had made specially for the purpose, and roaring with laughter when they bellowed in agony. Sticking frogs with the prong of a fork was another of his pastimes. Domestic servants he disliked were held down and forced to drink beer mixed with jalap and mustard, while others were fed with nothing but water-gruel and mustard for a week. He threw himself on one of his coachmen with such force that he broke the man’s leg. If a child who passed him in the street did not raise his hat, Portsmouth would order him to be caned.
When the United Irish rebellion of 1798 raged around his Wexford estates, he wrote to an uncle that his tenants had been slaughtered and his estate laid to waste. All he seems to have cared about, however, was the impact of the loss of rent on his finances, which he used as an excuse for not helping his uncle out with a gift of money. From an Irish viewpoint, the Portsmouths were archetypal absentee landlords, a phenomenon that would contribute a century or so later to the ousting of that class from its dominant position in the country.
*
Yet the nobleman was sinned against as well as sinning. When his wife died, an event on which he commented ‘with great glee’, he entered into a second marriage with Mary Ann Hanson, who seems to have detested him from the outset. She soon struck up a sexual liaison with one William Alder, who was discovered by a servant in bed with Lady Portsmouth while Portsmouth himself lay by the couple’s side, apparently asleep. It was troilism with a new twist. This, too, would serve later as evidence of his lunacy. It was proper for Alder to attend his wife at night, the earl insisted, since she was subject to hysterics and Alder was a doctor. The first statement might just have been true, but the second was not. Mary Ann turned out to be a husband batterer who kept a whip under her pillow, beat her spouse regularly (not least when he was naked in bed) and encouraged his domestic staff to do the same. Alder joined in with gusto. In a carnivalesque reversal, a wife and her live-in lover mocked and humiliated the lord of the manor, with the co-operation of some of their lackeys and relatives. When he heard that his wife was returning to Hurstbourne Park after a visit to Edinburgh, Portsmouth fortified the place against her arrival with forty or fifty labourers armed with bludgeons. There is no doubt that he was monstrously ill-used, though it doesn’t explain his own callous behaviour to others long before a bruiser of a second wife appeared on the scene. Foyster wonders whether her brutal treatment might not have pushed Portsmouth over the edge into madness, but this is rather like claiming that winning the Republican nomination may have pushed Donald Trump over the edge into egoism. It cannot, however, have helped, not least because the earl was a man with a keen sense of his own social position, easily offended if others seemed less than respectful of his title.
If Portsmouth were to produce a child, his brother Newton would find himself disinherited. Mary Ann did indeed give birth to a daughter, though the child was almost certainly Alder’s. Portsmouth himself believed that her pregnancy was the result of her having consulted a doctor, and thought the medic in question the cleverest fellow in the world to have put his wife in the family way after just one consultation. It was time for Newton to make a long-pondered legal move against his brother, who had now taken to calling himself King of Hampshire. If Newton could establish that his brother was insane, his marriage would be retrospectively invalid and his child (who was not his child in any case) could not inherit. Portsmouth was hauled in front of a Commission for Lunacy, who decided that he was of unsound mind and deprived him of all control over his property. He was allowed to go on living at Hurstbourne Park, where he died in his 86th year. He had survived from the age of Johnson to the age of Dickens. Struck down by ill-health, Newton did not live to enjoy the fruits of his scheming, and a debt-ridden, poverty-stricken Mary Ann died in exile in Canada, a social outcast. Nobody except Grace Norton comes out of the story well.
Foyster has turned a great mound of papers lying neglected in the Lambeth Palace Library into a grippingly readable tale, enriching it with a good many other sources of information. With the best liberal etiquette, she refuses to judge whether her protagonist was genuinely mad. Given the cultural relativity of the concept, her wariness is understandable. Shakespeare, whose drama is deeply interested in such matters, seems to regard sanity as a question of the internal coherence of one’s speaking or acting, along with its conformity to generally accepted standards of rationality. Neither criterion is rock-solid. Some might suggest that the answer to whether Portsmouth was insane is an unequivocal yes and no. He was of sound mind in some respects, whatever that may mean, but not in others. He was sharp in money matters, quick at figures, could speak decent French, had a thorough understanding of farming and was able to conduct himself in public with propriety, at least from time to time. On the other hand, there are aspects of his behaviour which seem clearly psychotic. Being afflicted with psychotic delusions, however, does not generally mean that you can’t pull on your trousers or engage in polite conversation. There is no necessary contradiction between knowing the price of beef and beating your cattle over the head. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/terry-eagleton/jack-in-the-belfry | en | 2016-09-08T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/cb0da4de8cfce9e6630eb2c42f0bcb262ce568709d4277dc3c91a3c127296ca6.json |
[
"Paul Taylor"
] | 2016-08-26T12:52:29 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fpaul-taylor%2Fthe-concept-of-cat-face.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | The Concept of ‘Cat Face’ | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | Over the course of a week in March, Lee Sedol, the world’s best player of Go, played a series of five games against a computer program. The series, which the program AlphaGo won 4-1, took place in Seoul, while tens of millions watched live on internet feeds. Go, usually considered the most intellectually demanding of board games, originated in China but developed into its current form in Japan, enjoying a long golden age from the 17th to the 19th century. Famous contests from the period include the Blood Vomiting game, in which three moves of great subtlety were allegedly revealed to Honinbo Jowa by ghosts, enabling him to defeat his young protégé Intetsu Akaboshi, who after four days of continuous play collapsed and coughed up blood, dying of TB shortly afterwards. Another, the Ear Reddening game, turned on a move of such strength that it caused a discernible flow of blood to the ears of the master Inoue Genan Inseki. That move was, until 13 March this year, probably the most talked about move in the history of Go. That accolade probably now belongs to move 78 in the fourth game between Sedol and AlphaGo, a moment of apparently inexplicable intuition which gave Sedol his only victory in the series. The move, quickly named the Touch of God, has captured the attention not just of fans of Go but of anyone with an interest in what differentiates human from artificial intelligence.
DeepMind, the London-based company behind AlphaGo, was acquired by Google in January 2014. The £400 million price tag seemed large at the time: the company was mainly famous for DQN, a program devised to play old Atari video games from the 1980s. Mastering Space Invaders might not seem, on the face of it, much to boast about compared to beating a champion Go player, but it is the approach DeepMind has taken to both problems that impressed Google. The conventional way of writing, say, a chess program has been to identify and encode the principles underpinning sound play. That isn’t the way DeepMind’s software works. DQN doesn’t know how to repel an invasion. It doesn’t know that the electronic signals it is processing depict aliens – they are merely an array of pixels. DeepMind searches the game data for correlations, which it interprets as significant features. It then learns how those features are affected by the choices it makes and uses what it learns to make choices that will, ultimately, bring about a more desirable outcome. After just a few hours of training, the software is, if not unbeatable, then at least uncannily effective. The algorithm is almost completely generic: when presented with a different problem, that of manipulating the parameters controlling the cooling systems at one of Google’s data centres with the aim of improving fuel efficiency, it was able to cut the electricity bill by up to 40 per cent.
Demis Hassabis, the CEO of DeepMind, learned to play chess at the age of four. When he was 12 he used his winnings from an international tournament to buy a Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. At 17 he wrote the software for Theme Park, a hugely successful simulation game. He worked in games for ten more years before studying for a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at UCL, then doing research at Harvard and MIT. In 2011 he founded DeepMind with, he has said, a two-step plan to ‘solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else’.
*
In 1965 the philosopher Hubert Dreyfus published a critique of artificial intelligence, later worked up into a book called What Computers Can’t Do, in which he argued that computers programmed to manipulate symbolic representations would never be able to complete tasks that require intelligence. His thesis was unpopular at the time, but by the turn of the century, decades of disappointment had led many to accept it. One of the differences Dreyfus identified between human intelligence and digital computation is that humans interpret information in contexts that aren’t explicitly and exhaustively represented. Someone reading such sentences as ‘the girl caught the butterfly with spots,’ or ‘the girl caught the butterfly with a net,’ doesn’t register their ambiguity. Our intuitive interpretation in such cases seems to arise from the association of connected ideas, not by logical inference on the basis of known facts about the world. The idea that computers could be programmed to work in a similar way – learning how to interpret data without the programmer’s having to provide an explicit representation of all the rules and concepts the interpretation might require – has been around for almost as long as the kind of symbol-based AI that Dreyfus was so scathing about, but it has taken until now to make it work. It is this kind of ‘machine learning’ that is behind the recent resurgence of interest in AI.
The best-known example of early machine-learning was the Perceptron, built at Cornell in 1957 to simulate a human neuron. Neurons function as simple computational units: each receives multiple inputs but has only a single output – on or off. Given numerical data about examples of a particular phenomenon, the Perceptron could learn a rule and use it to sort further examples into sets. Imagine that the Perceptron was trained using data on credit card transactions, some of which were known to be fraudulent and the rest above board. To begin with, each element of information fed to the Perceptron – it might be the size of the transaction, the time since the previous transaction, the location, or information about the vendor – is assigned a random weight. The machine submits the weighted values of the elements in each case to an algorithm – in the simplest case, it might just add them up. It then classifies the cases (fraud or not fraud) according to whether the total reaches an arbitrary threshold. The results can then be checked to find out whether the machine has assigned the example to the right or wrong side of the threshold. The weights given to the various inputs can then gradually be adjusted to improve the machine’s success rate.
Given enough data and a well-structured problem the Perceptron could learn a rule that could then be applied to new examples. Unfortunately, even very simple problems turned out to have a structure that is too complex to be learned in this way. Imagine that only two things are known about credit card transactions: their amount, and where they take place (since both must be expressed as numbers, let’s assume the location is expressed as the distance from the cardholder’s home address). If fraud is found to occur only with large purchases or only with distant ones, the Perceptron can be trained to distinguish fraudulent from bona fide transactions. However, if fraud occurs in small distant purchases and in large local ones, as in Figure 1, the task of classification is too complex. The approach only works with problems that are ‘linearly separable’ and, as should be clear from Figure 1, no single straight line will separate the fraud cases from the rest.
Interest in the approach faded for a while, but at the end of the 1970s people worked out how to tackle more complex classification tasks using networks of artificial neurons arranged in layers, so that the outputs of one layer formed the inputs of the next. Consider the network in Figure 2.
Imagine the two nodes in the input layer are used to store, respectively, the size and location of each credit card transaction. If the left-hand node in the middle layer can be trained to detect just the cases in the top left of Figure 1 (which are linearly separable) and the right-hand node can be trained to detect only the cases to the bottom right, the two inputs to the output layer would measure the extent to which a case is a) small and distant, and b) large and local. Bona fide transactions will score low on both measures, fraud transactions will score highly on one or the other, so the two classes can now be divided by a straight line. The difficult part of all this is that the network has to identify the concepts to be captured in the hidden middle layer on the basis of information about how changing the weights on the links between the middle and output layers affects the final classification of transactions as fraud or bona fide. The problem is solved by computing a measure of how a change in the final set of weights changes the rate of errors in the classification and then propagating that measure backwards through the network.
For a while multi-layer networks were a hot topic, not least because people were excited by the explicit analogy with human perception, which depends on a network of cells that compute features in a hierarchy of increasing abstraction. But, as before, early promise gave way to disappointment. The backwards propagation of errors seemed a hopelessly inefficient training algorithm if more than one or two layers separated the input and output layers. Shallow networks couldn’t be programmed to complete challenging tasks in vision or speech recognition, and given simpler tasks they were outperformed by other approaches to machine learning.
The challenge in machine learning is not so much finding a rule that correctly classifies a particular set of data, as finding the rule that is most likely to work for future examples. One approach that would work for a linearly separable problem would be to divide the two sets using the straight line that maximises the distance between the line and the nearest point in each of the two sets. Finding that line is mathematically relatively straightforward. But the most interesting problems tend not to lend themselves to linear separation. A mathematically elegant solution is to project the data into a higher dimensional space where a simple separation can be found by a process of iterative searching. For the data in Figure 1, the search would be for a mathematical function that takes the values of the x and y co-ordinates for each point and uses them to derive a z co-ordinate, so that the red points hover at a greater height than the blue ones.
The representation of credit card transactions as points on a 2D surface or in a 3D volume in this way is, of course, a spatial metaphor. In reality each transaction is just a set of numbers, and in most problems there will be a lot more than three numbers to deal with. A 2D space is divided by a line, a 3D space by a plane. A ‘space’ of more dimensions than that is divided by a hyperplane. Classification algorithms of the sort I’ve been describing are known as ‘support vector machines’. Their job is to identify the hyperplane that optimally separates points in an n-dimensional space. SVMs dominated machine learning from the 1990s until very recently; they have the sought-after property, not shared by neural networks, that if the computation converges on a solution, it is guaranteed to be the best available one.
Imagine a classifier is to be trained using a hundred images: fifty of them are of the letter ‘i’, each in different handwriting in shades of grey on a white background; the other fifty, similarly presented, are of ‘j’s. If each image is 32 pixels high and 32 pixels wide, it can be represented as a single point in a 1024-dimensional space (322 = 1024), where each dimension corresponds to a pixel, and the value on the dimension ranges from 0, which represents white, to 255, which represents black. The data for the set of images is completely represented as a hundred points in this 1024D space. A support vector machine could attempt to find a hyperplane that divides the space so that, ideally, all the points corresponding to the images of ‘i’s are on one side and all the ‘j’s on the other. However, the hundred images will form a diffuse cloud that takes up only a tiny fraction of the total feature space, as it’s called, and they will almost certainly be unhelpfully distributed within it. This is a common problem in machine learning: the feature space is only very sparsely populated by the data.
An alternative is to build a new feature space, a system of co-ordinates adapted to the data we are interested in. For example, the origin of the new system of co-ordinates could be placed at the centre of the cloud of points and a line drawn that passes through the origin and goes as close as possible to as many points as possible. A second line through the origin could be drawn at 90° to the first, again as close to as many points as possible; and then a third, and so on until, say, ten dimensions have been defined. Each image could now be given a set of co-ordinates in the new ten-dimensional space; it would no longer be represented by 1024 pixels but by a set of ten numbers that is both a much better characterisation of the data and a more parsimonious input to a support vector machine. Each of these ten numbers corresponds to a value for an abstract feature which has been derived by the computer from an analysis of the data as a whole. This abstract feature will correspond to some way in which the ‘i’s and ‘j’s vary, but it may or may not correspond to an intuitive human interpretation of the data.
Between, roughly, 1990 and 2010 most research in machine learning was focused on statistical techniques such as support vector machines and the attempt to derive feature spaces that made classification easier. As computers became more and more powerful and datasets larger and larger, it became more practical to leave the computers to figure out the right feature space to use. That is what seems magical about software like DeepMind’s: computers are abstracting from experience something which can then be applied in reasoning about a problem. It seems right to say that the computer has learned a concept.
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In 2006 Netflix offered a prize of $1 million to anyone who could improve on the algorithm it used to generate recommendations for its customers. To give contestants something to work with, it released a database of 100,480,507 ratings that 480,189 users had given to 17,770 movies. The prize was awarded in 2009 to a team that used a blend of different algorithms, though most of their success seemed to be down to two of these approaches.
In the first approach a large matrix is created in which each movie is a row and each user a column. In roughly 1 per cent of the cells there will be a number between one and five which indicates the rating a particular user gave to a particular movie. The challenge is to use the data to predict whether a given user would like a movie they haven’t seen yet. This corresponds to using the values in the filled cells to predict the rating that should go into the empty cells. The assumption is made that a smallish number of features – thirty, say – determine whether or not a user likes a movie. No assumption is made about what these features are (a happy ending, a big budget, a strong female lead etc), just about how many there are. The problem then reduces to identifying two much smaller matrices. One has a row for each movie and a column for each of thirty features and records the extent to which a given feature is present in the movie. The other has a row for each feature and a column for each user and records the extent to which a user has demonstrated a preference for a given feature. The product of these two matrices will then generate a rating corresponding to each cell in the original large matrix.[*] The problem is that because we didn’t start out by making assumptions about what the salient features are, none of the values in either of the smaller matrices is known. The solution, as with other approaches to machine learning, is to start with a guess, see how the generated predictions for filled cells compare with the known ratings and then make repeated adjustments to minimise the average error.
The other approach also assumed that the required predictions could be generated from a small set of salient features, but used a variant of a neural network, known as a Restricted Boltzmann Machine or an autoencoder, to derive the features from the data. A conventional neural network is trained on samples with a known classification until it learns a rule. An autoencoder is trained on samples of unclassified data until it learns how to generate similar patterns of data. The Netflix autoencoder looks just like the neural network in Figure 2, but with many more nodes.
Although Netflix awarded their prize in a blaze of publicity, the winning strategy was never implemented. In part this was because Netflix had already begun to distribute movies via a streaming service. Customers could now pick what they wanted to watch there and then, and somehow this meant they were less likely to pick the kinds of film that earn high ratings (no one wants to watch Schindler’s List when they’ve just put the kids to bed on a Tuesday night), so predicting ratings was no longer the best way to make recommendations. (There was the added difficulty that although Netflix believed it had anonymised the data it released, it had included information about films people had watched but not rated and also the dates on which they were watched. If you knew two or three dates on which you and your partner had watched films together, that would probably be enough to allow you to pick out your column in the data, which might make it possible for you to find out what your partner had watched without you. This became known as the ‘Brokeback Mountain problem’: in 2009 Netflix was successfully sued for breach of privacy.)
About the same time Netflix launched its competition, Geoffrey Hinton, one of a dwindling number of researchers still working on neural networks, realised that if the lower levels of a neural network could be programmed using autoencoders, then the bottom of a deep neural network could learn a feature space that the top of the network could use to perform a classification. In 2009 two of Hinton’s students used this approach to devise a speech recognition system which was, within a few years of development, outperforming competitors that had been refined for thirty years or more. One of the students went on to work for Microsoft, the other for Google, and by 2012 their work was the basis of the algorithm that made it possible for Android phones to respond reasonably reliably to spoken queries and commands.
Google also devoted some space in its massive computing infrastructure to build what was, until last year, the world’s biggest artificial neural network. Inception, as it was called, was trained on a thousand machines running in parallel for three days. It analysed still images selected at random from ten million YouTube videos. Whereas earlier neural networks had been used to perform low-level image processing or speech recognition, the much taller stack of layers in this monster network made it possible for it to recognise human faces or (this tells us more about YouTube than it does about AI) cats’ faces. If this network had been fed thousands of images labelled as ‘contains cats’ or ‘doesn’t contain cats’ and trained to work out the difference for itself by iteratively tweeking its 1.7 billion parameters until it had found a classification rule, that would have been impressive enough, given the scale of the task involved in mapping from pixels to low-level image features and then to something as varied and complex as a cat’s face. What Google actually achieved is much more extraordinary, and slightly chilling. The input images weren’t labelled in any way: the network distilled the concept of ‘cat face’ out of the data without any guidance.
Last year Hinton, by now a Google employee himself, gave a talk to the Royal Society in which he discussed some of this history and spoke about new developments. One of them is the recurrent neural network, which adds the innovation of weighted links not just between nodes but between instances of the same node at successive steps in the computation. It is as if the network shown in Figure 2 were replicated in 3D, to produce a stack of identical networks with links rising up out of the page from each node to the node above. Each layer in the stack, however, doesn’t represent a part of the network, but the state of the network at a point in time, so the bottom layer is the network at the start of training, the next layer is the network after the first cycle of training and so on. The point is that when a conventional neural network learns how to classify examples, whether they are images or customer ratings, it doesn’t matter in what order the training examples are processed. Recurrent networks, in contrast, are ideally suited to analysing data which is inherently sequential, such as speech or language. Researchers at Google have for some years been programming recurrent neural networks to predict the next word in a sentence. Almost as a by-product this work creates a point in a high-dimensional feature space for each word. The features have no human interpretation: they are just the values of the hidden nodes in a network that was trained for a prediction task. But the researchers noticed that words with similar meanings had similar representations in the feature space. Even more astonishing, if you subtracted the features for ‘uncle’ from those for ‘aunt’ you got almost the same answer as if you subtracted ‘king’ from ‘queen’, suggesting that this abstract, computer-derived space has a dimension that correlates with gender. One practical result of this work is an approach to machine translation that involves mapping between the feature representations of words in different languages. The process is still in its infancy and is currently outperformed by more conventional methods, but it is getting better faster.
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The solving of problems that until recently seemed insuperable might give the impression that these machines are acquiring capacities usually thought distinctively human. But although what happens in a large recurrent neural network better resembles what takes place in a brain than conventional software does, the similarity is still limited. There is no close analogy between the way neural networks are trained and what we know about the way human learning takes place. It is too early to say whether scaling up networks like Inception will enable computers to identify not only a cat’s face but also the general concept ‘cat’, or even more abstract ideas such as ‘two’ or ‘authenticity’. And powerful though Google’s networks are, the features they derive from sequences of words are not built from the experience of human interaction in the way our use of language is: we don’t know whether or not they will eventually be able to use language as humans do.
In 2006 Ray Kurzweil wrote a book about what he called the Singularity, the idea that once computers are able to generate improvements to their own intelligence, the rate at which their intelligence improves will accelerate exponentially. Others have aired similar anxieties. The philosopher Nick Bostrom wrote a bestseller, Superintelligence (2014), examining the risks associated with uncontrolled artificial intelligence. Stephen Hawking has suggested that building machines more intelligent than we are could lead to the end of the human race. Elon Musk has said much the same. But such dystopian fantasies aren’t worth worrying about yet. If there is something to be worried about today, it is the social consequences of the economic transformation computers might bring about – that, and the growing dominance of the small number of corporations that have access to the mammoth quantities of computing power and data the technology requires.
In my field, medical research, applications of machine learning have tended to use datasets with a few thousand or maybe only a few hundred cases. Datasets of 100,000 or 1,000,000 cases are becoming more common, but datasets on the scale of those available to Google or Facebook simply don’t exist in many of the fields where AI could be useful. The Royal Free Hospital NHS Trust recently agreed to share data on 1.6 million patients with DeepMind. It’s a lot of data but most of it will not concern conditions where deep learning could provide insights – most of the reports talk about a project looking for signs of kidney disease. The quality of data extracted from hospital computer systems is often poor, which will be another challenge. The deal, which came to light when it was leaked to the New Scientist, generated a spate of hostile news coverage, with many observers questioning the ethical and legal basis for releasing the data without the patients’ consent and for a purpose other than their care. The company has now signed another deal, this time with Moorfields Eye Hospital, giving it access to the retinal scans of a million patients. This new agreement was announced with much greater regard to public anxieties about the uses of confidential data. In truth, the constraints in both deals are pretty robust and the scope for accidental disclosure or inappropriate use is limited. A greater concern is that these research collaborations, entered into by clinicians and academics excited by the potential of the technology, involve transferring a valuable public asset to a private company. Healthcare is one of the largest industries in the world, one where AI could prove transformative. The one scarce resource that AI companies need in order to build their algorithms is data.
Computers haven’t entirely outsmarted us yet. To pick the best move in a game, you need to consider every possible move and every possible move that might follow from that move, until the game is won. In Go there are on average 250 possible options to consider for each move, and a typical game between experts might last 150 moves. The number of ways a game can unfurl is so vast that an exhaustive search through every possibility is unfeasible, even for Google. There are two ways to limit the search. One is to have a policy that restricts the search to the most plausible moves; the other is to understand the value of a position, so that there is no need to search for further moves from unpromising positions. AlphaGo contains two 13-layer neural networks: a policy network, which computes the probability that any particular move, out of all possible moves, will be made at any given point in a game; and a value network, which computes the probability of winning from that position. DQN learned to play Atari games from scratch, but the AlphaGo policy network uses data from a server that allows people to play games against each other on the internet – with the result that it now has a database of thirty million game positions. Training the policy network on this database enabled it to predict with 57 per cent accuracy the move that the humans – all of them amateurs – would make. That doesn’t sound a great basis from which to improve on human play, but it is enough, and the engineers say that improvements at this stage in the process have huge consequences later on. To move from a passable prediction of human play to a policy that would beat an expert, the system was then programmed to play out games in which the current version of the policy network competed with an adversary selected at random from earlier versions, using the learning algorithms developed in DQN to adjust the weights in the networks to obtain more successful policies. In the final stage of the process the software played out games starting from any one of the thirty million game positions recorded in the database. Here the program was playing against itself, and adjusting weights to improve its assessment of the value of positions. The whole thing is an incredible engineering achievement.
In its match with Lee Sedol, AlphaGo won the first three games, and with them the series. One hour and 13 minutes into the fourth game, with barely thirty minutes left on his clock, Sedol, playing white, thought for 16 minutes before making an aggressive move into black’s territory, on the left edge of the centre. Two or three moves followed fairly quickly, and it was clear that Sedol would need to make two or three forcing moves if he was going to make the attack count. It wasn’t obvious, at least to the commentary team, what they could be. Then, after a terrifying six minutes’ further thought, Sedol placed a white stone in between two black stones at the right side of the centre. Afterwards the AlphaGo team found that its policy network had rated the chances of an opponent making this move at 1 in 10,000. Michael Redmond, a top-ranked professional player commentating on the game, admitted he hadn’t seen it either, but he recognised its significance immediately: if black didn’t find a response Sedol would be able to make his forcing moves. AlphaGo, however, didn’t seem to realise what was happening. This wasn’t something it had encountered in the amateur play on which the policy network was trained, or in the millions and millions of games it had played with itself. At the post-match press conference Sedol was asked what he had been thinking when he played it. It was, he said, the only move he had been able to see. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/paul-taylor/the-concept-of-cat-face | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/09dee8e54807ba9fc0254d579979e7cd0716a0797699faad1c03042c22337200.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:54:07 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fletters.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/images/favicon.png | en | null | Letters · LRB 11 August 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | Failures at the Foreign Office
Jonathan Steele’s article on Chilcot is the first I have seen which asks the FCO: what did you do in the war (LRB, 28 July)? A great deal has been heard about the failings of the intelligence services and the military. As a retired Foreign Office man I have been looking for an assessment of the role played by the foreign secretary and his officials, but almost everything I have seen has concentrated on the FCO’s legal advisers and the question of the legality of the war. Much comment has been directed at what are described as ‘intelligence failures’, but seem to me to be policy failures. Speaking in the House of Lords in the debate on Chilcot, Michael Jay said: the inquiry is critical of the government and, among others, of the Foreign Office, for the degree of preparation for the aftermath of conflict. As permanent secretary to the Foreign Office at the time, I accept that criticism. As I said when I gave evidence to the inquiry, we could and should have carried out a more thorough assessment ourselves of the possible consequences of the invasion than we did. He did not attempt to explain further. Steele quotes John Holmes, then ambassador in Paris: ‘There was “a lot of unease” in the FCO about an invasion’ – I bet there was – ‘we didn’t listen to the experts.’ You didn’t have to be an expert. I am no expert on Iraq, but I wrote a letter to the Financial Times before the war, in August 2002 (it wasn’t printed), making the point that an attack would lead to the fragmentation of Iraq and would threaten all the countries in the region. If cabinet government had been functioning as it did in the past, the FCO would have put up formal advice, normally in the form of a paper for circulation to cabinet, covering such questions as the likely response from Iraqis to an attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and the likely effect on and response from other countries in the region. Clearly Tony Blair’s method of government excluded that. Clare Short told Chilcot that cabinet meetings ‘were very short. There were never papers. There were little chats about things, but it wasn’t a decision-making body in any serious way, and I don’t remember at all Iraq coming to the cabinet in any way whatsoever at that time.’ I would also have expected to see a political office, headed by or including a senior FCO official, attached to the military commander to provide him with advice on the local situation (for example the likely consequences of de-Baathification, tribal problems, sectarian complications) and a link to civilian government departments such as the Department for International Development (DfID). I worked with the political office of the commander-in-chief in Aden in the 1960s, and in the political office of the commander-in-chief in Cyprus in the 1970s. In 2003 I asked a colonel on leave from Iraq, who had told me that he’d set up a new police force in his area but had no idea how much to pay them, why he didn’t seek advice from DfID. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘We were not allowed to communicate with London.’ According to an Arabist from the diplomatic service who was consul general in Basra in 2006, the military’s political advisers were Ministry of Defence civilians working within the military chain of command (one was castigated at one point for telling the consul general too much). Perhaps the Americans or Tony Blair turned down the idea of a political office; the evidence does not seem to be there in Chilcot. Steele quotes Edward Chaplin, the Middle East director at the FCO at the time, saying that information on Iraq was patchy because the UK had no embassy in Baghdad. That is a familiar problem, and there is a better-than-nothing solution: a shadow embassy in London, filling the gap as best it can with information from other sources – friendly diplomatic services, academia, the media, business etc. But to do this resources have to be available, which they probably weren’t. ‘I never felt I had sufficient resources to do anything I was doing in the Foreign Office,’ Michael Jay said. During my time at the Foreign Office, which ended in 1996, the Diplomatic Service was cut by about 1 per cent a year, which was unpleasant but not unreasonable. Since then it has been cut much more savagely, and experiments have been undertaken, such as cutting language training (a decision now happily reversed). It will be expected to play a large part in handling Brexit, and on past form will have to get by for the most part by cutting other activities. How can the FCO maintain its old position as the source of expert advice on the whole range of foreign affairs, with the necessary deep knowledge to tackle the next foreign crisis God knows where, and the one after that? Steele is a bit hard on my former colleagues when he quotes an anonymous retired ambassador as saying: ‘Civil servants are by their nature cautious … people wanting an easy life … so they just do what the minister wants.’ One of the things ministers wanted was volunteers to take up difficult and extremely dangerous posts to help run the ‘bloody mess’ which was not called occupied Iraq, and plenty of them came from the Diplomatic Service. As for speaking truth to power, Ivor Roberts, who made his name as ambassador in Belgrade during the war there, wrote a valedictory dispatch full of home truths to such effect that the then foreign secretary Margaret Beckett banned valedictory dispatches. One small recent incident has me deeply worried. On 21 July, the FCO issued a statement retracting earlier ministerial statements made in answer to four written parliamentary questions by Philip Hammond and in two debates by David Lidington and Tobias Ellwood. Two of the questions were put nearly six months ago. The substance of the retraction was important.The ministers said that alleged breaches of international humanitarian law in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition had been assessed and that there was no evidence of a breach. It turns out that these statements were untrue – no assessment had been made. As a retired bureaucrat I am interested in how these untruths got through the system. Like many civil servants I was often involved in drafting replies to Parliamentary Questions. The process was exceptionally thorough, and it is unthinkable that simple mistakes of this kind could have remained undetected. I have repeatedly been shocked by other failures of the system, for example to produce replies to important letters addressed to ministers (or, a different point, shocked by the illiteracy of some of the replies produced). But this is sheer bureaucratic collapse – for any civil servant, PQs are the Holy Grail. Oliver Miles
Oxford
Brexit Blues
John Lanchester writes that ‘most people in the UK receive more from the state, in direct cash transfers and in benefits such as health and education, than they contribute to it … 48 per cent net contributors, 52 per cent net recipients’ (LRB, 28 July). This obscures the way most of us move from receiving to contributing and back again as we go through life. John Hills, in Good Times, Bad Times (2015), points out that the incomes people get from the market – mainly from earnings – vary greatly across their life cycles … The welfare state – back to Lloyd George’s old age pensions a century ago and even more strongly after the Second World War – has always had a major aim of smoothing out some of these variations. In fact, allowing for services such as healthcare and education as well as benefits such as pensions, the large majority of what the welfare state does is ‘life cycle smoothing’. This is because it is dominated by universal entitlements (such as pensions, education and healthcare), not by stigmatised ‘welfare benefits’ for the poor. Hills shows that, over their lifetimes, only the richest 20 per cent contribute to the state significantly more than they get back from it. Keith Bilton
London NW5
John Lanchester wonders who came up with the winning association of Brexit with ‘control’. It was Vote Leave’s campaign director, Dominic Cummings. It’s the reverse of a trick he pulled when he worked for Business for Sterling, set up in 1998 to prevent Britain joining the euro. ‘If we make the economic case against the euro effectively,’ he wrote in 2002, ‘and link losing control to living standards, then the polls will not move and Blair cannot win.’ Tom Pye
King’s College, Cambridge
Westminster MPs are insisting that in a democracy, the result of any referendum must be final. By this rhetorical manoeuvre they would dismiss the idea that the Brexit vote could be run again. It is perhaps worth remembering that the ancient Athenians had a different perspective, and also that, in the words of Diodotus as recounted by Thucydides, the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion. Following the revolt of Mytilene against Athens and the subsequent subjugation of the city, a decision was taken by the Assembly at Athens that all the male citizens of Mytilene should be put to death. The decision was made in the true democratic manner, and a galley was despatched with these orders. On the next day the Athenians resolved to reconsider. While those most in favour of the punishment weren’t happy with the reopening of the debate, after much discussion the conclusion was reversed, and a second galley was dispatched. With the help of plenteous provisions and encouragement for the oarsmen, the second crew managed to make up a day and a half, and arrived in time to prevent the massacre. Peter Hands
Nottingham
The ‘economic arguments in favour of immigration … are pretty straightforward,’ John Lanchester writes. ‘Since the next generation of taxpayers aren’t being born, we’re going to have to import them.’ There is an important qualification to be made. Governments these days feel able to boast when the unemployment rate is kept down to 5 per cent, though for the twenty years after the war it was around 2 per cent. What’s more, only about three-quarters of the UK population between the ages of 16 and 64 are in paid employment. There are significant regional, gender and age-group differences in access to work. In the long run opportunities for participation in well-paid productive work are probably falling. It is not self-evident that migration will solve this problem. There are internationalist arguments for the free movement of labour, but nationalist models of economic growth that write off significant sections of the population while importing others to do the work exacerbate the problems highlighted by Lanchester in his analysis of the widening social divide. Michael Hill
Haywards Heath, West Sussex
The German War
I write to correct some of the misrepresentations in Richard Evans’s review of my book, The German War: A Nation under Arms, 1939-45 (LRB, 14 July). On one thing we do agree: the book attempts to answer the question of how Germans understood their own cause in the Second World War. Its main purpose – though he does not mention this – is to explain the basis and shifting character of German patriotism. My book argues that the war became the principal focus of society’s hopes and fears: it was popular only in the brief periods when victory appeared imminent and yet its legitimacy was called into question far less than that of the Nazi regime. Evans does not like the use of the collective term ‘Germans’, though he cannot avoid using it himself. I use it to pinpoint moments when there was a shared sense of the national cause in the face of an enemy. This was never easy for the Nazi regime to achieve. German society remained plural in its values and could be marshalled into supporting war in 1939 only by appealing to the broadest possible legitimation for war, namely ‘national defence’. The same appeal had worked in 1914 to bring Social Democrats into line. Evans is wide of the mark in claiming that I think the Nazis ‘had quickly and effectively overcome’ the deep divisions within civil society; even the Nazi regime itself did not believe it had achieved this. By August 1943, many Germans were openly comparing the destruction of the Jews to the Allied strategic bombing offensive. This revealed a widespread sense of both culpability and vulnerability which deeply unsettled Nazi leaders – all the more so because such talk was accompanied by open calls for regime-change. Far from eliding 1943 and 1944, as Evans claims, my book draws more attention to the crisis that followed the fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943 than any other history of this period; and it shows, for the first time, how German anxieties about their own war framed their need to talk in public about the murder of the Jews. Evans claims that I ignore differences of social class. In fact I argue that rationing, bombing and evacuation exacerbated old social conflicts as well as engendering new ones. There was a faint echo of traditional collective action when miners’ wives in Ruhr towns demonstrated until the authorities issued ration cards to children who had returned home after being evacuated – the police even took their side. But most protests did not take this form, and they weren’t aimed at the Nazi regime. Rather, there was a culture of petitioning the authorities to take sides in local disputes about privileged access to special rations, cinema tickets and air raid bunkers. This was a society in which racial hierarchies had infused older ones based on professional standing, skill and gender. Class still coloured many things but was no longer a primary social division. The real collective social endeavour remained the war. The importance of coercion in Nazi Germany should not be dismissed but terror alone is not a sufficient explanation. Forms of self-mobilisation clearly played a significant part throughout the war, but the motives and meanings people invested in their actions are hard to dissect. In his own work, Evans deals with this problem by cherry-picking quotations from private letters and diaries to illustrate existing interpretations. Even in his review, he falls back on generalisations about attitudes and psychology that he claims to reject, pointing to ‘a pervasive nationalism and the effects of the media propaganda orchestrated by Goebbels’. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but without a historical method for testing such assertions, they remain psychological projections. In The German War I address this problem by charting the lives of individual Germans and showing how the war changed them. These people are not, as Evans suggests, all ‘bourgeois’: they include farmers, village schoolteachers, a carpenter, a market-gardener and railway workers. They belong to different generations and come from a wide range of places. Evans claims that I try to extrapolate a national mindset out of a handful of random cases. On the contrary, thanks to the reports the Nazi regime gathered each week and month on public opinion, we already know a great deal about how much attitudes fluctuated and how varied they were. That made it possible for me to situate individuals within a wide spectrum of social views. What makes the individual voices powerful is that they reveal the emotional choices and commitments people made, how they coped with being bombed out or bereaved, or how they dealt with the difficulties of maintaining relationships from afar. Such sources are suggestive, not exhaustive, but they tell us things we could not learn otherwise. Nicholas Stargardt
Magdalen College, Oxford
The Servant Crisis
Rosemary Hill refers to ‘the mass exodus from [domestic] service between the wars’, but census figures show that by 1931 the number of women employed as domestic servants was almost exactly the same as it was in 1911 (LRB, 14 July). This was by far the largest female occupational sector; just over 20 per cent of the ‘occupied’ female population were ‘living-in’ servants. The seemingly limitless demand for domestic staff may have been a marker of social status for some employers, but it is also true that almost no housing in this period was designed around the practical needs of the (mainly) women who had to manage the functions of cooking, cleaning and heating. The perceived ‘servant crisis’ prompted the National Council of Women’s successful petition to the home secretary in 1937 to admit young women immigrants into Britain to take up domestic positions. The government’s sensitivity to this self-interested middle-class demand saved the lives of some twenty thousand female refugees from Nazism. Anne Summers
Birkbeck, University of London
Why did they pick Trump?
If Eliot Weinberger still finds himself perplexed by the Republican Party’s selection of Donald Trump as its presidential candidate, he need look no further than the OED for an explanation (LRB, 28 July): trumpery (n.) 1. Deceit, fraud, imposture, trickery. Obs. 2. ‘Something of less value than it seems’; hence, ‘something of no value; trifles’ (J.); worthless stuff, trash, rubbish. b. Applied to abstract things, as beliefs, practices, discourse, writing etc: Nonsense, ‘rubbish’. c. Applied contemptuously to religious practices, ceremonies, ornaments etc regarded as idle or superstitious. d. Showy but unsubstantial apparel; worthless finery. Michael Neill
London N5
What have we done? | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/letters | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/4f6b6380186ee5aa17d7364a72eb52afb1306a03ffbc8bb0ac04dee64584bf22.json |
[
"Tom Crewe"
] | 2016-08-26T12:50:24 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Ftom-crewe%2Fwe-are-many.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | In the Corbyn Camp · LRB 11 August 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | When pushed for answers by journalists – about his personal prospects, say, or his relationship with his MPs – Jeremy Corbyn has a special knack for finding his way back to what he really wants to talk about: inequality, injustice, the need for the Labour Party to become a ‘social movement’. This is a common enough tactic for politicians battling to stay on message, but in Corbyn’s case it reflects an abiding set of concerns to which he returns repeatedly. What we notice with him is not usually a change in content, but in tone. When in a good mood, he exhibits a good-natured, smiling patience, taking a breath before explaining, yet again, why Britain is a sick society and what measures should be taken to improve it; when he’s in a bad mood (it often depends on who’s asking the questions), he becomes impatient, irritated, as he explains yet again – if you’d only bloody listen – why Britain is a sick society and what measures should be taken to improve it.
Some, clearly, have been listening. On 16 July, I joined an ‘emergency march’ against austerity and racism that I’d found out about by following the #KeepCorbyn hashtag on Twitter. It was now ten months into Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, five days since Angela Eagle had announced a leadership challenge, four days after Labour’s National Executive Committee had voted to allow Corbyn onto the ballot in the subsequent contest without his having to muster fifty nominations from his fellow MPs (which he would have been unable to do), and three days after Theresa May had become prime minister. When I arrived at Broadcasting House for the start of the march, a few hundred people were gathered around a speaker from the UK wing of Black Lives Matter, orating into a megaphone. There were people selling the papers you always see for sale at demonstrations: Socialist Worker, the Socialist, the Morning Star, Socialist Solidarity and the Workers’ Hammer. A variety of placards were stacked against lampposts: ‘No to Islamophobia. No to War’ (Stop the War Coalition), ‘Migrants and Refugees Welcome Here’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’ (Stand up to Racism), as well as signs belonging to Momentum, the group set up last year to maintain the energy of Corbyn’s campaign after his election. Momentum’s signs were printed with Corbyn’s face and the text ‘For Health, Homes, Jobs, Education. JC4PM’. Stuck to railings were posters reading ‘Defend Corbyn! Fight for Socialism!’ There were old anti-apartheid and union standards, as well as a Momentum branch flag and a ‘Women for Corbyn’ banner.
The crowd was largely young and white, but there was an older generation too – veterans of the struggle. Behind me a young man who had come with his mother dipped into a Waitrose bag and – perhaps eager to pre-empt the charge of champagne socialism – produced a mini bottle of prosecco. Once we started off, the sun at a blistering peak, the people around me chanted ‘Refugees are here to stay, let’s deport Theresa May,’ and ‘Tories Out, Corbyn in.’ Bemused tourists on Oxford Street raised their cameras. When we reached Trafalgar Square I noticed an EU flag tied to the equestrian statue of Charles I. Passing down Whitehall, just after Banqueting House, where Charles had his head cut off, removal vans could be seen parked outside 10 Downing Street.
In Parliament Square, the Hare Krishnas were dishing out free lentils and rice. There was another Morning Star stand. The Fire Brigades Union, which re-affiliated to Labour after Corbyn’s election, had set up a platform for speeches. A message from Corbyn was read out, including a few of his favourite lines: ‘Austerity is a political choice not an economic necessity. We can do things differently. We can make our country a very good country.’ I spoke with a middle-aged woman standing next to a large York Momentum banner. She was wearing a ‘Corbynista’ T-shirt (she told me she’d had it printed herself); next to her a man was wearing a ‘Superman’ T-shirt, blue with ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ spelled out in red and yellow block capitals on the front. Corbyn was the Labour leader she’d been waiting for all her life, the woman told me, after years feeling ‘disenfranchised’. She’d only just joined Momentum, prompted by the ‘despicable’ way Labour MPs had turned on their leader – she’d met the other members of the York branch on the train down to London that morning. She was cheerful and confident: ‘We’re not going to go away quietly. We are many.’ I wondered whether she had been reading Shelley.
Judged by any normal criterion, Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party is in crisis. Since his election, with 59.9 per cent of the vote, he has been attacked for organisational inefficiency, poor media management, inadequate performances at Prime Minister’s Questions, being soft on anti-Semitism in the rank-and-file, tacitly condoning the bullying and abuse of his opponents in the party, and for giving only half-hearted support to the campaign to remain in the EU. Labour performed badly in local elections in May (though not as badly as some predicted), losing 11 seats overall, and suffered another ignominious defeat in elections to the Scottish Parliament, for the first time falling behind the Tories. The party has consistently lagged behind the Conservatives in the polls (which tend to overstate Labour support) – the gap has recently been as wide as 16 points. Corbyn is the most unpopular opposition leader on record, polling worse than Michael Foot, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and Ed Miliband, all of whom went on to lose general elections by significant margins, or did not get to contest them.
There are 230 Labour MPs; on 28 June, 172 of them voted in favour of a no confidence motion in Corbyn, and only forty against. (He wouldn’t have been able to stand for the leadership in the first place if several of his colleagues hadn’t voted for him in order to encourage ‘debate’ – one of them, Margaret Beckett, has described herself as a ‘moron’ for doing so.) His shadow cabinet, devastated by a series of staged resignations, is now a patchwork of very young MPs and very old ones, many of them doing more than one job. After 29 years in Parliament the 81-year-old Paul Flynn has made his front bench debut as both shadow leader of the house and shadow Welsh secretary. Corbyn and his shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, have also been abandoned by several of the high-profile economists they signed up as advisers in 2015, including Thomas Piketty and David Blanchflower (who tweeted ‘he has no economic policies’). Corbyn’s former policy chief, Neale Coleman, who was often described as the most effective member of his team, has now been announced as a top adviser to his opponent in the leadership contest, Owen Smith.
Despite all this, Corbyn seems likely to defeat Smith, possibly with an even larger share of the vote than he received last year. As his personal ratings have plunged, Labour’s membership has shot up – it now stands at more than 500,000 – making it by far the largest political party in the UK. Indeed, according to a poll of party members, Corbyn is more popular than ever.
Momentum, which operates independently of the official party machinery, has branches all over the country and claims to have 12,000 members, is resolutely committed to keeping Corbyn in power. Like anything or anybody associated with the Corbyn project, the organisation has not had a good press. Momentum has been painted as a modern-day Militant Tendency, its members as ‘hard left’ entryists intent on deselecting MPs who offer any resistance. When I turned up early for a Momentum meeting in Hackney one evening (Owen Smith had emerged as the ‘unity’ candidate to challenge for the leadership a few hours earlier, after Angela Eagle abandoned her campaign), it was another stiflingly hot day, and there was already a small crowd of people waiting on the street, many of them leaning on bikes. When we got inside, we organised chairs in a large circle and were told to introduce ourselves to the person next to us. More people arrived, and then more, so that eventually a second ring of chairs was set up outside the first. There were around sixty people in the room.
The chair of the meeting, probably in her late fifties, introduced herself as having been a Labour member for the last year (i.e. roughly since Corbyn’s election), though it was not, she said, her first time in the party. She asked how many people in the room had been disenfranchised by the NEC ruling that only those who joined before February this year would be eligible to vote in the leadership election; a good number put up their hands. The meeting was supposed to be running in connection with the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, but it had been decided that we should focus on Jeremy and his campaign (Corbyn is almost always ‘Jeremy’ to his supporters and in Momentum literature). Still, there was time to hear from two members of the NHS campaign, Coral and Carol, who spoke with quiet force about the funding crisis in the health service and creeping privatisation. Afterwards, we were split into discussion groups on different topics: the NHS, how to convince people to stick with Corbyn’s agenda, and how best to organise the new leadership campaign, inside and outside the party.
I joined the ‘sticking with Corbyn’ group. There were more than ten of us, the majority in our twenties, but stretching well past middle age, with many attending a Momentum meeting for the first time. When I introduced myself there was some momentary scepticism (‘Are you here to report on us, or what?’), but no one seemed very concerned, and an Irish man in his seventies indulgently described me as a ‘participant observer’. (It turned out that two of the group were LRB subscribers.)
The discussion that followed, which lasted for the best part of forty minutes, was as far from the tabloid stereotype as could be imagined: earnest, friendly, intelligent, honest, nuanced and reassuringly normal (two people referred to the shadow chancellor as John McDonald). What emerged in the discussion was a clear acknowledgment that the anxieties about Corbyn and his agenda were real and needed to be tackled. One woman confessed that several of her friends had lost faith in him, feeling he was unelectable, and that she wasn’t sure where to find a list of his policies to help deal with their concerns. Several recognised the risk of appearing to be a personality cult: one man said that Corbyn was simply the first person ‘close to power’ who had articulated the values and ideas he believed in; another agreed that there was a need to find a ‘narrative and language beyond Corbyn’; the Irish man, who wouldn’t have ‘touched Labour with a bargepole’ after Iraq, said he’d been brought back into the fold not by Corbyn, but by the enthusiasm he generated, the sense of a popular movement being born.
The group emphasised the need for popular education: to issue FAQ sheets dispelling myths, and to publicise the YouTube videos of John McDonnell’s ‘New Economics’ seminars held at universities earlier this year, as well as the findings of a recent LSE report on media bias against Corbyn (75 per cent of press coverage, it says, has misrepresented his views). It was agreed that there was a need to move away from social media, and to take the battle offline. The PLP should be attacked for choosing exactly the wrong moment to launch a leadership coup: fire should have been focused on the rudderless Tories post-Brexit.
I listened, and was impressed. It was impossible to disagree when someone pointed out that a year or so ago the idea of this many people sitting in a hall during a heatwave to discuss the Labour Party would have seemed fantastical: I don’t think I’ve ever talked about politics in a way that felt so practical and purposive, so engaged with the world. When the groups came back together and reported their conclusions, the sense of common purpose was palpable. I felt some of the contagious enthusiasm that has persuaded so many people of the possibility of a new politics, a community-based social movement.
Yet this particular meeting was essentially concerned with more traditional politics, with ensuring the election of Jeremy – perceived as the guarantor of this social movement – and much of it was focused on organising stalls and phone-banks, and on the NEC’s rulings on the franchise for the leadership election. There was also a partisan edge, sharp against all the good feeling: one older man stood up and shouted that Saving Labour, the group set up to mobilise party members opposed to Corbyn, was out to ‘destroy any form of socialist thought. They are the enemy within.’ My Irish friend recommended that people get to know the enemy by reading a biography of Alastair Campbell.
The meeting lasted longer than two hours. Throughout, in what people said, there was a frequent, unthinking slippage between ‘members’ and the ‘public’. In our small discussion group it was never quite clear whom we were meant to be persuading to stick with Corbyn’s agenda; one person intervened twice in order to try to confine the debate to the membership. Even those who acknowledged the need to move ‘beyond Corbyn’ felt the public just needed to see more of the real man, unobscured by media bias, to understand his longstanding fealty to his principles, and his honesty in expressing them. The problem with this is that the polls show that the public already believes that Corbyn is principled and honest (and that he is more in touch with the concerns of ordinary people than David Cameron or Theresa May). They just don’t want him as prime minister. Even though many of his policies are popular, they are tainted by association with him, as Labour’s policies at the last general election were by association with Ed Miliband, who was also seen as more in touch with ordinary people than Cameron.
While Corbyn’s supporters and the wider public agree that he does not look like a traditional leader, they disagree on what that implies. For the former, it is a signal of his break with a bankrupt political orthodoxy, with the spin and slickness of New Labour (‘straight talking, honest politics’, the slogan goes). For the latter, the worry is not simply Corbyn’s brown jackets and red ties, but the instinctive feeling that he would look out of place outside Downing Street. (Anyone who rules instinct out as a force in politics is naive.) Corbynites would no doubt reply, with some justice, that we need to reconceptualise Britain’s Westminster-centred politics and break with the Victorian trappings of our democracy, cobwebbed with pretensions to the status of a great power. But there is no sign that the public shares in this revolutionary spirit. ‘Prime ministerial’ persists awkwardly as a desirable quality.
There are two other anxieties. One – and this is something no one at the Hackney meeting acknowledged – is that some of Corbyn’s positions are flatly unpopular: on Trident especially he is way out of step with public opinion. For many people, he’s a 1980s throwback – an authentic Bennite discovered on the steppe and thawed out in the 21st century – rather than a believable symbol of a new politics. The other is that Corbyn is in open conflict with the great bulk of the MPs nominally under his leadership. Since this wasn’t coming up as an issue in my discussion group I raised it myself, suggesting that in a parliamentary democracy, it’s untenable for Labour to be unable to provide effective opposition and at the same time appear as a functioning government-in-waiting. To return Corbyn as leader surely means accepting that the party will split, or at best dig in behind existing lines of division? No one seemed to have given much thought to any of this. But in any case, they asked, what was the alternative?
*
The next evening I arrived in what was possibly an even stuffier room, Conway Hall in Central London, for an Emergency Rally to support Corbyn’s campaign. Outside there was the inevitable Morning Star stall, and Momentum posters that read ‘#KeepCorbyn. We are the Labour Party. And we’re here to stay.’ (There was no sign of any official Labour Party material.) The hall was full – its capacity is around four hundred. There was again a palpable feeling in the air, difficult to convey in print: the closest equivalent I can think of is the experience of attending a gig – a narrowed, concentrated attention, a consciousness of shared knowledge and understanding, that peculiar sense of security you have when surrounded by people who like what you do. The tone of the speakers was bullish, and the audience was tensely excited, forever on the brink of applause, rushing gratefully into it at any opportunity.
Like the people in Hackney, the speakers emphasised that this leadership fight was not about Jeremy, but about the values he represented: ‘Because we believe … that a better world is possible and we are prepared to fight for it’, in the words of Diane Abbott. The crowd cheered wildly at any mention of increased house-building, a break with neoliberalism, the end of austerity, support for junior doctors, environmentalism, the end of tuition fees, nationalising the railways. But nothing matched the reaction given to Corbyn himself, when he appeared as a surprise speaker halfway through the evening. There was a great intake of breath and a long exhalation of delight, the audience arriving on their feet in one swift, imperceptible motion; I looked round and saw that everyone was grinning, whooping, pumping their fists. A moment later the room was resounding to the chant of ‘Jez we can,’ the slogan of his 2015 campaign. Once the room finally became quiet, Corbyn thanked everyone ‘for staying the course’, and people shouted back: ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ This was Corbyn in his natural habitat, energetic in his moral seriousness. His short speech touched in his usual haphazard way on familiar themes – Ronald Reagan, Pinochet’s Chile, Latin America in the 1980s, colonialism in Africa, the need for a new economy, environmental protections, new homes and quality mental health services, a plea for respectful debate, the need for Labour to reinvent itself as a collective force that could ‘chase down and defeat’ the causes of inequality, the power of social media as a tool – and earned him another standing ovation and round of ‘Jez we can.’ Then he headed off to another meeting.
One line stood out: Corbyn referred to last year’s leadership election, when ‘we were elected as the leadership of the Labour Party’. This ‘we’ has a different resonance from Mrs Thatcher’s, but is just as suggestive. The idea of the party developing as a social movement – Corbyn is determined to give the membership the primary role in formulating policy – obviously represents a shift from the model of a top-down politics, but the rally made it clear to me that the story of this new campaign is of a Labour leadership joining hands with its supporters in order to crush its own parliamentary party. What was even more startling was the degree to which this feels like a one-sided battle, with the MPs helplessly outnumbered and outsmarted. (Corbyn’s refusal to budge in the face of the attempted coup, and the slow drift into a leadership campaign they’re not sure they can win, show how few options MPs have remaining to them.) Marsha Jane Thompson of Momentum told the audience of the group’s reach on social media – 18 million people on Facebook – and claimed credit for ‘bussing in’ activists who helped win the recent by-election in Tooting and the mayoral election in Bristol. We were told to take out our phones, and send the message ‘JEREMY’ to a particular number, thus contributing £5 to his campaign (everyone around me did so). Hailing the 180,000 people who had paid £25 each in a 48-hour window so that they could vote in the leadership election as registered supporters, Thompson claimed most of them as Corbyn backers and stated that the opposition had ‘completely failed’: the process had raised an estimated £4.5 million for the party and represented a ‘great start to Jeremy Corbyn’s general election campaign’.
The mood wasn’t defensive, but confident, even swaggering. Corbyn had claimed on stage that he ‘wasn’t going to get down in the gutter with anybody’, but his fellow speakers were much less scrupulous. Maryam Eslamdoust, a Labour councillor for Kilburn, who referred to Corbyn as ‘our current leader, our future leader and our next Labour prime minister’, suggested that the ‘plotters’ – the 172 MPs who voted no confidence – ‘are not afraid of losing, but of winning. They don’t want us to change this country. They are the ones who are unelectable.’ A Unite representative who had left Labour during the Blair years and rejoined in the Corbyn era blasted ‘the 172’ – a number destined to go down in infamy – and sneered at the ‘Kinnock dynasty’ and ‘their ilk’ (Neil opposed the Bennites as Labour leader in the 1980s and has supported the moves against Corbyn; his son, Stephen, was one of those who resigned from Corbyn’s shadow administration).
Christine Shawcroft, a member of the NEC, attacked the decision to suspend CLP meetings during the leadership campaign in response to the much publicised death threats, abuse and intimidation suffered by Corbyn’s opponents. She announced that the brick reported to have been thrown through the window of Angela Eagle’s constituency office on the day she announced her leadership bid was actually thrown through the window of a shared stairwell and looked to her more like a ‘bodged break-in’. She dismissed Owen ‘what’s-his-name’, declaring that ‘if he was that left-wing we would have known about him’ (Smith was, until a few weeks ago, Corbyn’s shadow work and pensions secretary). Chris Williamson, the former Labour MP for Derby North, described the behaviour of the 172 as ‘sickening, disgusting’. It was as if, he said, they had been planted as sleepers in the Labour Party thirty years ago by Lynton Crosby (election strategist for the Tories) and had now been activated. These MPs had ‘declared war on the membership’ (‘Yes! Yes!’ shouted the woman next to me). Richard Burgon MP talked about the ‘parliamentary bullies’ who wanted to drive Labour members to ‘turn their backs on anti-austerity’ and warned that ‘socialists don’t give in to threats.’ At least twice, members of the audience shouted ‘Deselect!’ Three young women I spoke to afterwards were unfazed by the prospect of a showdown with MPs after Corbyn’s re-election: ‘Get them out,’ one said. ‘They can join the Tories.’
*
The speakers at the rally had an explicit relationship to Labour Party history: the catastrophe of Iraq is its totemic event but it is seen only as a symptom of the iniquity practised by those who have sought to move Labour to the centre, from Kinnock (whom Burgon bashed for not fully supporting the miners in 1984) to Tony Blair, whose craven capitulation to capitalism is New Labour’s other defining sin. Corbyn is sanctified by his relationship to this past, having stood in opposition to every one of New Labour’s most hated initiatives (accounting for some of the 428 times he voted against the Labour government); most others are damned by it. Many of those I spoke to or heard speaking at pro-Corbyn events had been active on the left in the 1980s, had given up on the party then, or at the latest over Iraq. For these people and others (especially the generation that has come of age post-2008) Corbyn alone can offer a full-blooded socialist programme. Maryam Eslamdoust, who looked to be in her twenties, told Conway Hall that she was tired of being lectured to about ‘electability’: she had spent years ‘making excuses for our policies. I’m fed up of tame policies, with offering no hope … It lost us Scotland.’ The campaign for Corbyn is, we were told again and again, a ‘battle for the soul of the Labour Party’. The left of the party understands his grip on power to represent their best and possibly last chance to create the party of their dreams.
If the Labour left has actively fostered this Manichean perspective, so too have those on the right of the party. But Corbyn’s election came only as a consequence of the failure of the party as a whole at the last general election and before. Its inability to rethink its intellectual foundations and policy agenda, to respond to the drift away from it of many of its traditional working-class supporters, were symptoms of a decline Corbyn too has failed to arrest. The pallid prospectuses offered by the establishment candidates Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham in the 2015 leadership election campaign made clear that the mainstream left had no idea how to confront this problem. Only Corbyn dared to speak from conviction.
But whoever is to blame for the impasse at which Labour has arrived (and of course Britain is not the only nation in Europe struggling to reinvent social democracy for the 21st century), it is clear that the failure to separate Jeremy Corbyn from the project of a revived left – the representation of any opposition to his leadership, of whatever kind, as an attempt to return the party to a dismal appeasement strategy – has created a situation fraught with danger for the party and for the left. It obscures (and by extension denies) the existence of legitimate concerns about Corbyn’s leadership: most notably, the functioning of the leader’s office and his ability to lead a shadow cabinet. ‘I had the opportunity to see what was happening inside the PLP,’ Richard Murphy, once credited as the author of Corbynomics, recently wrote on his blog. ‘The leadership wasn’t confusing as much as just silent. There was no policy direction, no messaging, no direction, no co-ordination, no nothing. Shadow ministers appeared to have been left with no direction as to what to do. It was shambolic.’
Several MPs have supported this claim. Thangam Debbonaire, MP for Bristol West, was appointed a shadow minister without her knowledge while she was being treated for cancer, then sacked the next day when Corbyn ‘realised he had given away part of someone else’s role’. Unfortunately she wasn’t informed of this either, and worked in her new job for six weeks before making the discovery when she returned to Westminster (she was finally appointed again, to avoid further embarrassment). Lilian Greenwood, who resigned as shadow transport secretary, claimed that on several occasions Corbyn had undermined agreed policy positions on national television or radio without warning or consultation. Speaking to her constituency party, she asked ‘How would you feel if you were part of a team and you knew that not only was your boss undermining you but that this was happening to other colleagues?’ Alan Johnson, who led the Labour campaign to remain in the EU, has alleged that Corbyn and his team regularly failed to take up agreed positions, avoided taking part in meetings and watered down speeches. (In truth, the pro-EU Labour vote held up pretty well, but we don’t know whether or to what extent Corbyn’s low-key performance played into the national mood, rather than challenging it.) For many MPs, Corbyn’s suggestion on the morning after the EU referendum that Article 50 should be activated immediately (again made without consultation) showed an appalling lack of judgment. Baroness Smith, the Labour leader in the Lords, where a great number of government defeats have occurred, told BuzzFeed, ‘It is a bit galling when Jeremy stands up and says, “Under my leadership we won on tax credits and we won on trade unions and we won on the housing bill.” I don’t think I had any conversations with Jeremy about those issues.’
That Corbyn has become synonymous with the wider left agenda also inhibits a fair assessment of the politics of the 172 MPs who have no confidence in his leadership. This is far too large a number – and the spectrum of belief it covers too wide – for it to represent the ‘right wing’. The grouping includes both early opponents of Corbyn and those who resigned from his shadow cabinet, themselves a broad church, as well as MPs who nominated him for the leadership (and not just to promote debate). Jo Cox was one of those who opposed Corbyn, but since her death she has been lauded for her principled positions on the positive benefits of migration and the futility of bombing in Syria. The Blairite category has now become so capacious that it seems to include any Labour MP who admits wanting to win an election.
It should not be heretical, either, to argue that Labour needs to develop a broad base of support, and that this may involve some compromise with an electorate that has so far shown little enthusiasm for its leader or his message. Labour MPs are aware that the party membership is well to the left of the country at large – something that will also be brought home to them by regular contact with constituents – and that they have a duty to acknowledge this reality. Even if the party clawed back huge chunks of the vote it has lost to the Greens, the SNP and the Lib Dems, it would fail to win a majority without also winning over Tory voters in Tory seats. There seems to be little chance of this happening at the next election, whoever the leader is, and it’s unclear too whether a less ‘extreme’ leader would be able to reverse the long-term decline in Labour support. But something has to be tried.
What authentic version of the Labour Party is Corbyn fighting for? Presumably one that existed before he entered the House of Commons in 1983, given that he was one of the top ten Labour rebels even in the 1983-87 Parliament. It is, I think, from the foundation myth of the Labour Party as a movement of idealists and working people, finding solidarity in the struggle for their rights, that he derives his chief inspiration. Corbyn’s hero is Keir Hardie. Yet Hardie first ran for Parliament on the slogan ‘A vote for Hardie is a vote for Gladstone,’ successfully argued for the party to be called ‘Labour’ rather than ‘Socialist’ for fear of alienating potential supporters, and refused to back campaigns for the extension of the franchise because he was more anxious to secure practical reforms within the existing system than to fritter away his energy on constitutional struggles, even if it meant leaving some working men without the vote. There has never been a Labour Party that has not made compromises in the hope of improving its chances at electoral success. There have always been refuseniks too. But Labour at its most radical won in 1945 after spending more than a decade painstakingly stitching together a body of support; later serving as chancellor was Stafford ‘Austerity’ Cripps, who for most of the 1930s had been a stalwart of the extreme left.
The Corbynite refusal to compromise – compromise is Blairite revanchism – ignores the existence of vast tracts of common ground. As several observers have pointed out, John McDonnell’s ‘new economics’, with its emphasis on the use of strategic investment and higher wages to create the returns needed to reduce the deficit without further squeezes on spending, bears a striking resemblance to the policy advocated by Ed Balls. Though Ed Miliband’s reluctance to break with the language of austerity was frustrating, it was a (failed) strategic decision rather than an ideological choice: during last year’s general election campaign the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out that under Balls’s plans the party could have ended cuts in 2016 and still met its deficit targets. Margaret Hodge, who tabled the motion of no confidence, is another MP attacked as an unregenerate Blairite, but she spent the last Parliament as chair of the Public Accounts Committee pouring scorn on the PFI deals and outsourcing to the private sector that were Blair’s lasting domestic legacy, and was in large part responsible for publicising tax evasion as a national concern. Only last summer Angela Eagle was John McDonnell’s choice for deputy leader of the party.
Corbyn supporters increasingly resemble devout Brexiters, insistent on a golden future that is in contradiction to all known facts. They appear to believe that Jeremy Corbyn can win a general election without the support of his parliamentary colleagues, without the backing of the majority of Labour councillors, without support in the national media, without needing to demonstrate competence in his office, without even average personal approval ratings, without public confidence in his economic policies and without anything close to a Labour lead in the polls. The fear, based on current projections, must be that the British left will bury itself for good in 2020 (or earlier, if Theresa May chooses to junk the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act and hold a snap election). Those who talk of a ‘marathon and not a sprint’, of a long-term strategy of renewal that will bear fruit in 2025, do not seem to consider the possibility that Labour's position could get much worse at the next election: a marathon gets a hell of a lot longer if you lose your legs halfway through.
My final visit, a week after the march on Parliament Square, was to a Momentum rally, held on another hot Saturday afternoon, in Nuneaton. Corbyn had launched his new leadership campaign the day before, echoing William Beveridge with a promise to eradicate five modern evils: inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination. He also appeared to confirm what had seemed inevitable listening to the speakers in Conway Hall and observing the response of the audience: the constituency boundary changes planned for 2018, which will reduce the number of MPs by fifty, would require every sitting Labour MP to stand for ‘reselection’ by their constituency party. This alarmed many MPs: reselection was a major demand of the Bennites in the late 1970s, and was used to weed out some of their enemies.
Nuneaton is a former mining town, and has the same pinched, hard done by quality as similar places further north. It was number 37 on Labour’s ‘battleground target seats list’ for the 2015 election. A classic marginal, it voted Labour from 1935 to 1983, Tory from 1983 to 1992 and then Labour until 2010, when the Tories won it back again. Last year, the Conservative MP not only retained his seat, but increased his majority by nearly three thousand votes. When Cameron was asked at what point he knew the Tories were going to win, in defiance of expectations, he replied ‘Nuneaton – that was Basildon’ (Basildon was the marginal seat Labour failed to win under Kinnock in 1992, signalling similarly that the polls had overestimated their support). On 23 June Nuneaton voted by 65 per cent to leave the EU. It remains exactly the sort of seat, in what John Lanchester called ‘Deep England’ in the LRB of 28 July, that Labour has to win to stand any chance of returning to power.
The Momentum rally was scheduled for midday in front of the George Eliot statue in the town centre (she was born in Nuneaton). I had checked the local branch’s Facebook page on the train: 35 people were confirmed as attending and someone had recently posted an article entitled ‘1983: The Biggest Myth in Labour Party History’. As I approached a woman was bellowing ‘Vote Labour! Save yourselves! The Tories will destroy you!’ to no one in particular. A sign propped against the hem of George Eliot’s skirts read ‘Austerity – No. Corbyn – Yes.’ The speeches were similar to those I’d heard elsewhere: an emphasis on Jeremy’s honesty and principles and the increase in Labour membership, attacks on austerity, the proliferation of foodbanks, the crisis in the NHS and the housing shortage. Again, I heard that the brick only went through the window of a shared stairwell in Angela Eagle’s office block. Chris Williamson, the ex-MP for Derby North, was back too and made his joke about the 172 being ‘sleepers’ (it didn’t get as big a laugh).
And yet we were a world away from Parliament Square, Hackney and Conway Hall. Most of the people gathered round – the crowd fluctuated between forty and fifty – seemed to be existing supporters and several were members of the pro-Corbyn Socialist Party, which had a stall. Only a handful of passers-by stopped to listen. There was a large butcher’s van parked nearby, and the speeches were punctuated with sales patter: ‘Do you want flavoured or plain chicken?’ ‘Peppered steaks, loads of them. Who’s got a fiver?’ The market traders nearby were angry that their patch had been invaded. There was some heckling: one man walked past and said ‘Absolute joke. Can’t think of anything worse’; another shouted ‘Bollocks’; a third booed loudly. An elderly man wandered over and told someone in a Momentum T-shirt that Corbyn had ‘good points’ and ‘bad points’: ‘The problem is that he just sits there and takes it.’ One of the organisers noticed me taking notes and asked curtly who I was writing for. When I said I was writing for the LRB he responded, ‘That’s a right-wing paper, isn’t it? Aren’t you owned by the Telegraph group?’ His friend told him to relax.
Afterwards I spoke to another of the organisers. The Momentum group had started off with four members, she told me, and was now up to twenty. They had had four meetings so far, and this was their first public demonstration. She was completing a PhD on attitudes to the working class, which had involved interviewing people in some of the poorest wards in the area (where the BNP vote is high). Was Corbyn capable of speaking to these people? I asked. ‘He could, but I’m not sure they’d listen.’ She wasn’t sure what would happen in Parliament if he was reselected as leader: ‘Do you think they’ll split?’ she asked me. Afterwards, I chatted to a young woman standing nearby, who was unaware the event had taken place. She was 16. Was there a groundswell of support for Corbyn among people her age? I asked. She didn’t think so. She thought his ‘heart was in the right place’ but she didn’t agree with his ‘pacifist views’. Her parents were lifelong Labour voters, and were very unhappy with him. She was angry about Brexit: she felt people in Nuneaton ‘didn’t think’. But she could imagine herself voting for the Tories in the future, and thought Theresa May was ‘the right person for the job’. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/tom-crewe/we-are-many | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/a0a582f704afdd490f5402a9c6b506339f09b9a5c40957f86c9f46d74be36e51.json |
[
"Thomas Nagel"
] | 2016-08-31T14:47:13 | null | 2016-09-08T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Fthomas-nagel%2Fby-any-means-or-none.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3817.jpg?1472644509 | en | null | Thomas Nagel reviews ‘Does Terrorism Work’ by Richard English · LRB 8 September 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | When I am hit with news of yet another terrorist attack, I often wonder what these people hope to achieve. In a depressingly timely book, Richard English tries to answer that question for a number of important cases, in order to address the broader question of his title. First, he has to specify what would count as ‘working’, and then he has to look at the historical facts to determine what the groups he studies have actually achieved. He devotes a chapter each to al-Qaida, the Provisional IRA, Hamas and the Basque separatist group ETA, and in a final chapter runs quickly through a score of other examples. While he emphasises that terrorism is also practised by states, his subject here is terrorism by non-state actors – specifically, non-state organisations that have pursued a campaign of terrorism over a significant period of time.
His aim is to interpret these campaigns so far as possible as the work of rational agents employing violent means to pursue definite political ends: the motives of lone-wolf terrorists are liable to be inchoate. All four of English’s main examples have been very explicit about what they want and how they hope to get it, and he observes that they have all failed in their main aims, as have almost all other terrorist campaigns, with a few important exceptions. But he also looks closely at the full range of their effects, to determine whether they have ‘worked’ in some more qualified sense.
He distinguishes three further senses, short of strategic victory, in which terrorism might be said to work: partial strategic victory, tactical success and the inherent rewards of struggle as such – and there are further subdivisions within these categories. (It seems to me that the last item doesn’t really belong on this list. If, as English reports, the members of the IRA and other groups have enjoyed the inherent rewards of comradeship, excitement and an ennobling sense of purpose, that is at best a beneficial side-effect of their terrorist activity, not a way in which it succeeds or ‘works’.)
For each of the four groups, English patiently and somewhat ploddingly creates an itemised report card of success, partial success or failure with respect to the group’s overall objectives and also its subsidiary instrumental aims. Items on the list include primary goals, secondary goals, determining the agenda, operational successes (i.e. killing people), obtaining interim concessions, getting publicity (pretty much a sure thing), undermining opponents (e.g. by provoking counterviolence), maintaining control over a population, strengthening the organisation. The detailed information is both interesting and valuable, but some broader themes emerge from the details.
Three of the four (not al-Qaida) are nationalist organisations – Irish, Palestinian, Basque – aiming to overthrow the rule of another nation: Britain, Israel, Spain. The IRA wants British withdrawal from Ulster and a united Ireland, Hamas wants the elimination of the state of Israel and the establishment of a strict Islamic regime over the entire territory of Mandate Palestine, and ETA wants a Basque state independent of Spain. All three were founded in competition with more moderate nationalist movements pursuing related but less radical aims by non-violent means: the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the Partido Nacionalista Vasco. Rivalry with these moderate nationalists has been a very important part of the drama. The terrorism of the IRA and ETA never had more than minority support among the populations they purported to represent, and they officially renounced violence in 2005 and 2011, respectively. Hamas, on the other hand, won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, but was prevented from taking power except in Gaza, and continues to employ violent means. Al-Qaida is not a nationalist but what English calls a ‘religio-political’ movement, with global ambitions, dedicated to the expulsion of the US military from the Middle East, the overthrow of what it regards as apostate Muslim regimes such as Saudi Arabia, and the eventual restoration of the Caliphate, a Salafist theocracy governing the Muslim world under sharia law. But again, these aims are not shared by most Muslims.
English makes it clear that one of the things these four groups share is hatred and the desire for revenge, which comes out in personal testimony if not always in their official statements of aims. He quotes Osama bin Laden: ‘Every Muslim, from the moment they realise the distinction in their hearts, hates Americans, hates Jews and hates Christians.’ Revenge for perceived injuries and humiliations is a powerful motive for violence, and if it is counted as a secondary aim of these movements, it defines a sense in which terrorism automatically ‘works’ whenever it kills or maims members of the target group. In that sense the destruction of the World Trade Center and Mountbatten’s assassination were sterling examples of terrorism working. But even though English includes revenge in his accounting, this is not what would ordinarily be meant by the question, ‘Does terrorism work?’ What we really want to know about are the political effects.
And here the record is dismal. What struck me on reading this book is how delusional these movements are, how little understanding they have of the balance of forces, the motives of their opponents and the political context in which they are operating. In this respect, it is excessively charitable to describe them as rational agents. True, they are employing violent means which they believe will induce their opponents to give up, but that belief is plainly irrational, and in any event false, as shown by the results. As English says,
the main obstacle to a united Ireland actually lay in Ireland, rather than in London or in Britain. Most Northern Irish people clearly, unarguably and lastingly preferred (and still prefer) to stay in the UK than to be expelled from it into a united Ireland, as has been made unambiguously clear in repeated surveys and elections. Neither political argument nor the pressure of impressively sustained IRA violence has shifted Ulster unionist attitudes on this point. Indeed, it may have hardened unionist opposition still further.
ETA had even less support in the Basque country for its secessionist aims. And no amount of Hamas terrorism is going to persuade the Israelis to dismantle their state.
Al-Qaida thought it had some reason to believe that the US would retreat from the Middle East in response to its attacks. English reports that bin Laden was encouraged in this direction by Reagan’s withdrawal from Lebanon and Clinton’s withdrawal from Somalia, both in response to the loss of American lives. Bin Laden also had in mind the example of the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and its subsequent internal collapse. But as it turns out, the US presence in the Middle East has not been reduced, and the apostate Islamic regimes have not been replaced. There is, however, one indirect result of al-Qaida’s actions which, as English puts it, may not be ‘entirely out of tune with their overall wishes’ – namely, the formation of Isis, which presents itself as a restoration of the caliphate under Salafist rule. ‘Isis has far more fighters than al-Qaida, and controls territory in a manner that bin Laden never managed; but its roots lay in the post-2003 violent resistance to an invasion of Iraq which bin Laden and his colleagues had stimulated.’
One of the aims of the three nationalist movements has been to block the moderate solutions of their non-violent counterparts. ETA intensified its campaign of terrorism after Spain’s socialist government reversed the repressive policies of the Franco regime and accorded significant autonomy to the Basque regions, including scope for the Basque language. ETA signally failed to undermine these developments. (As English observes, it is significant that the non-violent separatists in Catalonia have had much more success in gaining local support for total independence and the rejection of any compromise involving Catalan autonomy within Spain.) Hamas, on the other hand, has certainly succeeded in weakening the secular and (now) non-violent PLO and blocking the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Its suicide attacks in 1996 helped bring Netanyahu to power, and its actions since have sustained hardline Israeli policies and reactions.
The violence of the IRA also probably held back for many years the kind of compromise solution in Northern Ireland sought by the non-violent SDLP, but in this case there is a twist to the story: after Sinn Féin, the political arm of the IRA, suspended its support of violence, it became the chief negotiator with the British and the Unionists to bring about just such a power-sharing solution in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Tony Blair himself has made it clear that more attention was paid to Sinn Féin than to the SDLP at least in some degree because the former represented part of a violent, armed movement:
The SDLP thought that they often got ignored because we were too busy dealing with Sinn Féin. ‘If we had weapons you’d treat us more seriously’ was their continual refrain. There was some truth in it. The big prize was plainly an end to violence, and they weren’t the authors of the violence.
Terrorism did not achieve its aim of abolishing the northern unionists’ veto on the unification of Ireland, but it did give the former terrorists a seat at the negotiating table. Many believe that the results of the Good Friday Agreement could have been achieved much earlier if there had been no terrorism, though English is non-committal about this, as he is about most counterfactual conditionals.
The pattern that emerges in these examples – and in many of those English cites in his final chapter, such as the Tupamaros, the Baader-Meinhof Group, Shining Path in Peru and the Weathermen in the US – is of groups employing violence in a hopeless cause. They perceive correctly that their aims cannot be achieved by non-violent means, but fail to see that that is because they cannot be achieved by any means, given the existing circumstances of power and public opinion. Hatred and the desire for revenge probably provide essential motivational support, but justification by expected political results is completely delusional.
It is instructive to compare the rare cases in which terrorism achieves its ends. English mentions a few, but two stand out: the establishment of Israel and the independence of Algeria. In Mandate Palestine after the Second World War, the Irgun carried out terrorist attacks against the British, and this probably sped up Britain’s withdrawal. But as English points out, it was not in Britain’s interest to maintain a presence there: there were plenty of other problems to deal with in the country’s straitened postwar condition – India, for example. The explosive problem of Palestine would have been handed over to the UN sooner or later: the Irgun was pushing at an open door.
The other example, Algeria, is particularly instructive. The FLN’s campaign for independence included terrorism as well as more conventional military operations, and provoked a brutal response from the French military that the French public eventually could not support, even though there was no possibility of the FLN defeating the French army. French withdrawal depended on the decision to abandon the French settlers in Algeria, the pieds-noirs, and as De Gaulle realised, the French in the home country were simply unwilling to continue to fight for them. Here again it was the balance of motivation, more than the balance of forces, that allowed terrorism to work; but it is doubtful that Algeria’s independence, unlike Israel’s, could have been achieved in the near term without violence.
English is mainly concerned to establish the historical facts, but he thinks that their ‘practical importance … for many people (terrorists and counter-terrorists among them) could be huge’. I doubt that he expects his findings to have much influence on current or future prospective terrorists – despite his insistence that they are rational actors. But he does think that states faced with terrorism from non-state groups can take something useful from these facts. If a terrorist campaign has no real chance of achieving its grandiose aims, the state should not overreact to it. Of course the prevention of terrorist atrocities is an essential part of public security, but it is a mistake to exaggerate the threat terrorists pose, beyond the atrocities themselves. It only leads to action that makes the situation worse:
For example, the years of the post-9/11 War on Terror (easily the most extensive, ambitious, expansive, expensive attempt ever made to extirpate non-state terrorists and terrorism) in fact witnessed an increase in the number both of terrorist actions and of terrorist-generated fatalities … Whatever else it achieved during these years, the War on Terror clearly did not achieve a reduction in fatal terroristic violence. Quite the reverse.
English instead favours a ‘calm, measured, patient reaction’ that focuses on prevention rather than on supposed threats to civilisation or wars to end evil: reasonable advice. But this approach has to contend with the emotions aroused by terrorist acts and their inflammatory political effect in states where they occur – an acute problem in France and the United States today.
Though the writing is wordy and sometimes graceless, this is a very interesting book thanks to the information it presents so clearly. But it has one repellent aspect: the author seems to be morally anaesthetised. English doesn’t limit himself to the facts, but occasionally ventures, with great caution, into the territory of moral judgment. And his standard of moral assessment is entirely instrumental. Here, from the conclusion, is his take on the moral justification of terrorism, also expressed elsewhere in the book:
What has emerged is the profound uncertainty of terrorism achieving its central goals, together with a complex pattern of other successes and failures at lower level. What is almost certain (in fact, the historical record suggests it to be certain in all major terrorist campaigns) is that terrible human suffering will ensue from terrorist violence. Taken together, this doesn’t mean that such violence is necessarily illegitimate. But weighing the certainty of damage against the much less certain achievement of beneficent outcomes is vital. Every one of the case studies examined sustainedly in this book has involved considerable human suffering being caused; none of them has involved the achievement of the relevant group’s central goals.
In other words, the costs are certain, the benefits much less certain, so terrorism may not be justified by a cost-benefit analysis. That is the outer limit of his moral criticism.
Two things are missing from such a judgment: evaluation of the ends and evaluation of the means. First, English ignores the question whether goals like the unification of Ireland, the abolition of Israel, or the establishment of a Basque state are so valuable that it would be worth killing lots of people if that were an effective way to achieve them. Even if one limits moral assessment to cost-benefit analysis, the value placed on the supposed benefits by the perpetrators of violence cannot be taken as given.
But the main thing missing from English’s response is any sense that there might be something intrinsically wrong in deliberately killing and maiming innocent civilians as a means to bring about even a desirable outcome. That is what people find morally revolting about terrorism, not just the death and suffering it causes. The sense that there are limits on what may be done to people is a crucial part of the morality most of us share. Contempt for such moral boundaries is the defining mark of both state and non-state campaigns of terror. In spite of his acknowledgment of what he calls the ‘terrible human costs’ of terrorism, English seems clueless about this essential aspect of the phenomenon, and of the normal reaction to it. ‘The casualness with which we all tend to be comfortable with other people’s suffering lies at the heart of the problem of terrorism,’ he says. Note that ‘all’. To assimilate terrorism to a universal human failing is morally obtuse. It is something much more radical than that.
The persistence of terrorism appears to be impervious to its overwhelming record of failure to ‘work’, in the normal sense. Terrorists, it seems, are at least as attached to their means as to their professed ends, and to those for whom killing is an end in itself, there is not much to say by way of rational counterargument. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/thomas-nagel/by-any-means-or-none | en | 2016-09-08T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/f70fececb950a85a0ce038a0e777d8d34762af29363228192b2b088db0ef4f26.json |
[
"Katherine Rundell"
] | 2016-08-26T12:49:20 | null | 2016-08-11T00:00:00 | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Fkatherine-rundell%2Fferrets-can-be-gods.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | Katherine Rundell | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | One hundred years ago, a soldier named Hector Hugh Munro was shot in the head as he crossed no-man’s-land. The night had been dark. Some of the soldiers accompanying him had lit up when they stopped to rest, and the glowing cigarettes attracted a German sniper’s attention. His last words were reported to be: ‘Put that bloody cigarette out!’ The soldier was perhaps the wittiest writer Britain had; his other name was Saki.
Saki’s short stories take place in a world far from the Somme. It’s a world, like that of Oscar Wilde or P.G. Wodehouse, of silk curtains and silver tea sets, though Saki’s is populated not only with tyrannical aunts and obtuse majors, but also with tigers and woodland gods. In ‘Sredni Vashtar’, a boy worships a ferret as a god; the worship gives the ferret a power of its own, and it eats the boy’s despotic cousin Mrs de Ropp. In ‘Gabriel-Ernest’, the wildness of the outside world impinges on country-house society when a naked half-human boy lures a child away into the woods. The naked boy speaks like an Etonian. ‘“They are very nice woods,” said the boy, with a touch of patronage in his voice.’ And then: ‘It’s quite two months since I tasted child flesh.’ Saki wrote in the vernacular of the drawing room but with the ruthlessness of an avenging prophet. A.A. Milne wrote in an early introduction to Saki’s stories:
A strange exotic creature, this Saki, to us many others who were trying to do it too. For we were so domestic, he so terrifyingly cosmopolitan. While we were being funny, as planned, with collar-studs and hot-water bottles, he was being much funnier with werewolves and tigers. Our little dialogues were between John and Mary; his, and how much better, between Bertie van Tahn and the Baroness. Even the most casual intruder into one of his sketches, as it might be our Tomkins, had to be called Belturbet or de Ropp, and for his hero, weary man-of-the-world at 17, nothing less thrilling than Clovis Sangrail would do. In our envy we may have wondered sometimes if it were not much easier to be funny with tigers than with collar-studs; if Saki’s careless cruelty, that strange boyish insensitiveness of his, did not give him an unfair start in the pursuit of laughter. It may have been so; but, fortunately, our efforts to be funny in the Saki manner have not survived to prove it.
This new edition of Saki is published explicitly for children – Saki’s stories could certainly be read by young people, but only by the kind who relish the earlier versions of fairy tales, those in which Red Riding Hood is eaten, and Cinderella’s stepmother decapitated with the lid of a trunk – and proposes a candidate for Saki’s heir by way of its illustrator, Quentin Blake. The spikiness of Blake’s line suits the spikiness of Saki’s universe, but also suggests a kinship between Saki and the writer most associated with Blake: Roald Dahl.
Certainly, Dahl’s barbed energy owed a great deal to Saki. There is a brilliant but wicked little girl called Matilda in Saki’s ‘The Boar-Pig’, who extracts money from a pair of socially ambitious women attempting to gatecrash a party. She is not unlike the first versions of Dahl’s Matilda; in early drafts she is worldly and spiteful and uses her powers to fix a horse race. Blake shows Saki’s Matilda sitting up in a tree and staring down at the rotund would-be intruders (‘I could not do violence to my conscience for anything less than ten shillings’) with the same long dark hair and large eyes as Dahl’s heroine. Children in Saki are often victors in the battle against authority; his stories salute their boldness but have no truck with sentiment. The children are usually nasty, brutish and short, and loved for it. Dahl acknowledged his debt: ‘In all literature, he was the first to employ successfully a wildly outrageous premise in order to make a serious point. I love that. And today the best of his stories are still better than the best of just about every other writer around.’
In places, Dahl’s work provokes questions about the line between influence and theft. In Saki’s ‘The Background’, a man’s entire back, from collarbones to waist, is tattooed by a great artist, and he finds himself haunted by art-lovers claiming to own him. In Dahl’s ‘Skin’, a man’s entire back is tattooed by a great artist, and art collectors clamour to buy him. The difference between their two styles is clear from the endings they choose. ‘Skin’ ends with a characteristic sweep towards the most macabre conclusion possible: the man is killed and skinned. Dahl’s adult stories are a gleeful but blunt kind of instrument; protagonists are sliced up in slaughterhouses or buried in haystacks. In Saki’s ending, the human canvas becomes embroiled in politics, and the tattoo is destroyed by an acid-throwing anarchist. Once the world’s attention has passed on, the victim begins to pine for it. The story ends on a note of wry anticlimax: ‘In the quieter streets of Paris, especially in the neighbourhood of the Ministry of Fine Arts, you may sometimes meet a depressed, anxious-looking man, who … nurses the illusion that he is one of the lost arms of the Venus de Milo, and hopes that the French government may be persuaded to buy him. On all other subjects I believe he is tolerably sane.’
To read a Saki story is to hire an assassin. There have been many attempts in the last hundred years to re-create that specific Saki feeling; the pleasures of laying waste to convention combined with the quickening promise of something wilder in its stead. Nobody has yet managed it entirely, but in the pursuit of Saki a great deal of gleeful choler has been produced. If you were feeling ungenerous, you might compare the writing of an introduction to an animal marking out territory (the same could be said of writing essays for literary publications), and so it is with the list of writers who have introduced Saki’s work: Noël Coward, A.N. Wilson, Tom Sharpe, Will Self. Coward’s use of Sakian humour, though, is constrained by his urgent pursuit of the next punchline; Sharpe’s has a seaside postcard quality that has dated more in forty years than Saki’s has in a hundred. Saki is often said to ring through the novels of P.G. Wodehouse, but Wodehouse turns his raw material into something far gentler than Saki did; there is kindness in Saki but not sweetness, and in a truly Sakian Wodehouse story, Bertie would be trapped under a piece of vintage furniture and torn apart by the dog Bartholomew. Coward and Saki do both give off-kilter advice, and they are at their most archetypal when laying down the law. Coward renders schoolboy humour urbane: ‘Never trust a man with short legs; his brains are too near his bottom.’ Saki is calmly outlandish: ‘Never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the Continent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden.’ The work in Coward’s quips is audible; in Saki’s it is undetectable. As with Donne, Nabokov and Spark, the mechanisms of wit are unseen and so inimitable.
Of living writers, George Saunders is the one whose stories most evoke Saki’s clear-eyed surrealism. Both thrive on the question of class; where Saki has landowners eaten by wolves, Saunders imagines third-world women displayed as human lawn ornaments in bourgeois homes. Both cut back their words to make works of ruthless brevity. ‘The land of the short story,’ Saunders wrote, ‘is a brutal land, a land very similar, in its strictness, to the land of the joke.’
The question of why Saki wrote as he did is made harder to answer by the fact that his sister Ethel destroyed the bulk of his papers. What we do know of Saki’s life reads like one of his own stories. His mother died after being trampled by a cow on a country lane, and an ancestor was killed by a tiger while on a hunting expedition. The account of the death by tiger given in Saki’s biography is full of the kind of detail he would later deploy in his many fictional deaths; a witness ‘heard a roar, like thunder, and saw an immense royal tiger spring on the unfortunate ancestor, who was sitting down. In a moment his head was in the beast’s mouth, and he rushed into the jungle with him, with as much ease as I could lift a kitten.’ It was thought that the commissioning by the Sultan Tipu, ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, of a life-size mechanical tiger savaging a life-size British soldier was meant as a commemoration of the event. There was clockwork inside the tiger that made it grunt, and clockwork inside the man that made him scream. The delicate fashioning of the macabre is very Sakian: there was a flap on the side of the tiger that the Sultan could fold down, revealing a small pipe organ set into the animal. It played 18 notes.
Saki existed in a perfect storm; every element of his circumstances contributed to the lunatic clarity of his imagination. The necessity for secrecy in his romantic life perhaps made it natural for him to write obliquely, to use tigers and wolves and pigs to talk about sex and death and social climbing. Will Self, in his introduction to the Prion Humour Classics edition, suggests that Saki’s status as a gay man who came of age during the trial of Oscar Wilde explains the presence of ‘the cultivated disinterest of Saki’s sexually null – but emphatically male – protagonists’, and ‘the threads of dandyism, ornamentation, erudition and affection’. Self writes: ‘I wish to celebrate Saki the writer as an iconic gay.’ The A.J. Langguth biography of Saki, first published in 1981 and old-fashioned in tone even then, has a moment of sudden exuberance when Langguth argues that the many squiggles in the right margin of Saki’s diary might denote sexual liaisons. ‘If every squiggle did represent a conquest, Hector found six occasions in January to gratify himself and apparently, given his wide correspondence, others. If this supposition is correct, Hector’s average in his best months was an encounter every second day.’ Saki, living a half-hidden life, was a man who saw the hidden wildness of things; if cows can be murderers, ferrets can be gods. His short stories burst with the possibilities of a world in which strangeness is bone-deep and evident in every facet of civilised life.
Because Ethel Munro burned the bulk of her brother’s papers after his death, we cannot know for sure the source of his pen-name. The saki is a long-tailed monkey from South America; it is unusually shy and cautious; the head of the white-faced saki is shaped such that it always looks a little suspicious. Saki is also the name of the bearer of the cup of life in Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, first translated into English in 1859 by Edward FitzGerald. The poem contains these lines:
And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour’d
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.
No amount of pouring will bring another Saki. In his sleek attacks on pretension and tough unruly optimism, Saki was irreplaceable and unreplaced. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/katherine-rundell/ferrets-can-be-gods | en | 2016-08-11T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/1512252b3c3627ac1123f6074ae447dc4aa83276625e1db233cd5ec6d5177c73.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T14:47:20 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Fletters.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/images/favicon.png | en | null | Letters · LRB 8 September 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | Failures at the Foreign Office
I was employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2010, long after Oliver Miles left, and there is to my mind a lot of force in his assessment of its failure to speak truth to power over Iraq (Letters, 11 August). Returning in 2005 after eight years abroad, I quickly came to understand that this was not the FCO I knew and (almost) loved – an institution traditionally full of the most talented, eccentric and outspoken individuals. The new atmosphere of conformity and demoralisation was palpable, aggravated by the rapid turnover of foreign secretaries and junior ministers. Firmly in charge were the Blair collaborators, underpinned by a new generation of liberal interventionists propelled to stardom by the Yugoslav crisis of the 1990s – some having arrived sideways from politics, the UN, charities or the media. Longer-serving diplomats formed a passive resistance, or a silent majority at any rate, and seemed to be regarded with suspicion, as if fatally infected with the scepticism and circumspection learned during the long conflicts of the Cold War. Now, career advancement was expressly linked to volunteering for (futile but preferably repeated) stints of duty in war zones like Baghdad, Basra, Kabul and Lashkar Gah, a willingness to be shot at seemingly trumping all other qualifications. At the same time, in response to mounting pressure on resources from 2007 onwards, the FCO fell victim to a cult of managerialism that seemed to regard foreign policy as an inconvenient side-issue. Under a faddish doctrine of providing a ‘facilitating platform across government’, the FCO stopped trying to do anything well on its own, and was soon known to the general public only for its travel advice. The FCO entered the coalition years as a hollowed-out shell, symbolised by the scrapping of the diplomatic service language school and David Miliband’s dismantling of the splendid Victorian library. Some think that Thatcher started the rot by sucking foreign policy away to Number Ten. But it was Iraq that decisively ended the FCO’s position as a great – once the greatest – department of state. Where was it, for instance, in the EU referendum debate, the biggest foreign policy issue for generations? The appointment of Boris Johnson as foreign secretary might be seen as the final sick joke, a nadir of institutional humiliation. Ever the optimist, I cling to the thought that the same was probably said of Ernest Bevin, who turned out an unexpected success. David Roberts
West Horsley, Surrey
Killed by Tigers
Katherine Rundell’s article on Saki mentions the story that ‘an ancestor was killed by a tiger while on a hunting expedition’ (LRB, 11 August). That was Hugh Munro, son of General Sir Hector Munro of Novar, who died on Sagar Island, Bengal, in 1792. Many Europeans, including at least one other Munro, were killed by tigers in India; a Calcutta silversmith called Dawson had died in the same place and manner six years earlier. Hugh’s death differed in that he had a famous father and the graphic account of his death by his companion Captain Consar was published in numerous British newspapers and magazines at the time and has been frequently reprinted since. The story has come also to be associated with the mechanical organ built for Tipu Sultan, the self-styled ‘Tiger of Mysore’. The first description of the device found in Tipu’s palace following his defeat at Srirangapatna in 1799 was by James Salmond in 1800, and includes a drawing ‘taken from a piece of mechanism representing a royal tyger in the act of devouring a prostrate European’, an ‘emblematical triumph’ of Tipu over the English. The tiger itself was exhibited in London not long afterwards. Whether or not Tipu had any specific British enemy in mind, Salmond’s illustration seems the likely inspiration for the Staffordshire porcelain models depicting ‘The Death of Munrow’ that appeared about this time. It has also been suggested that Tipu’s tiger inspired Saki’s avenging polecat-ferret Sredni Vashtar. The unfortunate Hugh is sometimes said to be Saki’s great-great-uncle. However, despite the shared surname, there is no good evidence that they were closely related. Saki’s paternal grandfather, Charles Adolphus Munro, was born in Calcutta about 1787, so his father would have been Hugh’s contemporary. All four of Hector of Novar’s natural children were openly acknowledged, Hugh himself had no known issue, and his half-brothers were too young to have fathered Charles. (Both of these half-brothers also died young; one killed by a shark off Bombay, and the other at sea on the journey home.) In any case, Charles Adolphus would have been an unlikely name in the Novar family. Just as the death of Munro has been grafted onto the image of Tipu’s Tiger, Munro himself may have been posthumously adopted into Saki’s ancestry, or indeed the association may be authenticated only by repetition. Colin Munro
Glasgow
Throwaway beat Zinfandel
Is it possible that horse-racing does not count among Andrew O’Hagan’s many interests (LRB, 28 July)? He mentions the episode in Ulysses where Leopold Bloom has a drink at Davy Byrne’s ‘before getting into a conversation with Nosey Flynn about the Epsom Gold Cup. “Zinfandel’s the favourite,” Flynn says.’ It was of course the Ascot Gold Cup on 16 June 1904 which plays an important part in the book, in that conversation and in the scene later at Barney Kiernan’s pub, when there is a mistaken belief that Bloom has backed the winner, the 20-1 outsider Throwaway, which beat Zinfandel by a length. Zinfandel had won the Coronation Cup a fortnight earlier at Epsom: he would probably have won the Derby there the previous year too but for the death of his owner, which in those days meant that his entry had to be scratched. Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Bath
Would Dante be sued?
George Schlesinger fell for an over enthusiastic sales pitch (Letters, 28 July). Ciaran Carson’s translation of Dante’s Inferno wasn’t ‘the first ever version by an Irish poet’. The Irish cleric and poet Henry Boyd published his version in 1785 (and then added the Purgatorio and the Paradiso some years later). Peter Jackson
Oxford
Out of Step
‘Some of Corbyn’s positions are flatly unpopular,’ Tom Crewe writes (LRB, 11 August). ‘On Trident especially he is way out of step with public opinion.’ He supplies no evidence in support of this wild statement. The CND’s website lists 11 different polls over the last ten years that have indicated majorities against renewal of Trident: 63 per cent in the Mail on Sunday in June 2010, 58 per cent in the Independent in September 2009 and so on. Stop the War cites data compiled by Nick Ritchie and Paul Ingram, who reviewed all the polling data between 2005 and July 2013. They found that ‘13 representative polls have offered a straight choice between renewing Trident or not. Opinion has varied from poll to poll and from year to year, but seven surveys have found more opposition to renewal than support.’ The average was 39.4 per cent in favour of renewing Trident and 44.4 per cent against, with the rest unsure. When the cost of Trident is mentioned, support tends to drop significantly. In a study conducted by Greenpeace in 2005, for example, 44 per cent supported Trident and 46 per cent opposed it, but if an alternative spending proposal was mentioned – the number of schools that could be built instead – just 33 per cent remained in favour and 54 per cent against. A YouGov poll in 2009 that offered alternative spending proposals found that just 30 per cent opted to spend the money on nuclear weapons. What’s more, these polls were taken when the costs of Trident were estimated to be much lower than they are now. The lifetime cost of Trident is currently estimated at £205 billion and, according to the Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, could rise exponentially. ‘This is a colossal investment in a weapons system that will become increasingly vulnerable,’ he has said, ‘and for whose security we will have to throw good money after bad – in fact tens of billions more than already estimated – to try to keep it safe in the decades to come.’ Frank Stone
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
Brexit Blues
‘If there is hope,’ Martin Loughlin writes, ‘it lies with the Scots’ (LRB, 28 July). Let us hope so. But Loughlin’s analysis omits one crucial factor. Every democracy requires its own demos which, traditionally understood, is something unique, particular and localised, an identity that includes some and excludes others. Many of those who voted to leave the EU clearly felt alienated and disenfranchised, deprived of their own cherished demos by the shift towards a cosmopolitan constitution. They felt that their identity was under attack. This effect operated very differently in Scotland and England, as the voting figures show, and one reason is surely the different ideas of national identity that have developed in the two countries. For two hundred years, most Scots saw themselves as having two distinct ‘national’ identities, Scottish and British, and became used to switching between them according to context. It was relatively easy for them to add a further, European layer of identity and thus to count themselves as part of more than one demos. And it was then a short step to think of sovereignty as something that can be shared and dispersed. The English experience is very different. While most English people recognise, much of the time, that England, Britain and the UK are different things, there is no established public discourse which defines their different roles. As a result English national identity remains muddled and uncertain, clinging to a monolithic past that is poorly adapted to a globalised world. The introduction of a federal or confederal constitution for the UK or the Atlantic archipelago will require the creation of a redefined, multi-level English identity. Whether the necessary will and resources are available is anyone’s guess. Dennis Smith
Edinburgh
What have we done?
Christopher Lord is surely onto something regarding the rise of comedians in politics (Letters, 28 July). I can’t be the only person to have noticed that Eddie Izzard (unsuccessfully) put himself forward as a Constituency Labour Party candidate for the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee. Simon Down
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge
If a US senator counts as a political leader, there’s also the example of Al Franken, who was a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live from the 1970s to the 1990s. He was elected to Congress in 2009. Benjamin Friedman
New York | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/letters | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/544b7347cd8e178cdc64cf0e6d5710ff6fb8b34f48b54cfc234f82a3b81dcf78.json |
[
"Jonathan Meades"
] | 2016-08-31T14:47:21 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn17%2Fjonathan-meades%2Fshort-cuts.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3817.jpg?1472644509 | en | null | Jonathan Meades · Short Cuts · LRB 8 September 2016 | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | Concorde was seen in the sky over West London for the first time in late June 1969. Less than a month later Neil Armstrong stepped from Apollo 11 onto the moon. The future had arrived. It was tangible, it was thrilling, it was now. We came to believe that we were all part of an adventure without end. This was just the beginning, the new beginning. What we didn’t realise was that this was it. A peak had been achieved. The only way was down. We would wonder what had happened to that chimera. Had it been nothing more than an evanescent abstraction? A temporal analogue of Neverland? Had Laika died in vain?
Nor did we realise we were deluding ourselves that we were ‘part of it’. For this thing called The Future seems in retrospect to have been no more than a spectacle, created by the optimistic few for the optimistic many, the readily gulled multitudes who had faith in technological seers just as an earlier generation had had faith in Great Men. Not such a dangerous faith but one that was equally indicative of an indiscriminate appetite for change and enthusiasm for experiment no matter the consequences – should there be any. The recondite wheezes, dystopian prophecies, soft-brained schemes and social essays Douglas Murphy scrutinises in Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture (Verso, £20) mostly led nowhere and spawned no progeny.
Perhaps one should write ‘have’ mostly led nowhere, because there is still time, an infinity, for them to be exhumed in the way that, say, a material like concrete and a form of governance such as theocratic dictatorship have been. More likely they are stalled rather than extinct. It is probable, for instance, that circumstances propitious to the revival of widespread architectural determinism will recur – in an amended form, of course. Sure, it’s a practice that smacks of the authoritarian’s stick and the behaviourist’s carrot, but moods and appetites change. Ideologies and their expressions are as susceptible to fashion as hairdos.
Given that petty bossiness and online manipulation are everywhere to be found it is hardly surprising that the smartest of smart buildings are already being programmed to exercise control over us – caring control, softly spoken – and with a degree of subtlety that quite evaded B.F. Skinner and still evades the uniformed gorillas who patrol gated ‘communities’ and apartment complexes. So far the patrons of this new, chummy determinism are the barons of parallel reality and fiscal mockery – Apple, Google, Amazon etc. Skinner’s bludgeon may be absent, his menu of reinforcements may be diluted but his intentions stretch from the grave. According to one of Norman Foster’s apparatchiks working on the Apple project, ‘We have a building that is pushing social behaviour in the way people work.’ Maybe not so chummy. While over at Google: ‘We … hope to bring new life to the unique local environment … enhancing burrowing owl habitats.’
Among the other architects on this West Coast gravy train are, predictably, those consummate exterior decorators Frank Gehry and Thomas Heatherwick. They are unlikely to cede control to the rodents inhabiting their bespoke boxes which plainly derive from the biospheres and domes of the late 1960s and 1970s. Those are among the more feasible, more tested, hence more repeatable forms of that era. Once these megalomaniac yet affectless schemes are complete, drip-down will occur as it never does in the pecuniary world. We will witness supply-side aesthetics. It is characteristic of the architectural trade’s insensitivity that forms conceived by Buckminster Fuller should be replicated by schemes pandering to the most ruthless of modern employers. It was Fuller’s conviction that technology would render labour redundant, that physical drudgery would be eliminated and intellectual activity would replace it. Fifty years ago such hopes were not reckoned odd. Far from it, they were at the core of establishment thinking. Technological innovation might foment moral progress or at least educational progress. The Open University was not created by cranks. ‘A crank is a crank only until he has been proved correct.’
Gehry and Heatherwick will, as ever, be strenuously plagiarised by their flocks of unimaginative disciples who will, then, be making copies of copies. But so what? There are many more baroque buildings of the Edwardian era than of the brief Baroque era in Britain; aristocratic palaces were replicated as offices for ranks of ledger clerks with scratchy dip pens. Today, offices and labs whose stylistic precursors were built expressions of liberty and the common good will be crammed with harassed interns patronised by the bogus amiability of first names.
Nifty, if ethically questionable, thefts from Fuller (and Frei Otto) are among Murphy’s happier topics. And on the penultimate page he mentions Elon Musk’s Hyperloop projects, which have their origins in the work of the English engineer Eric Laithwaite, whose promising trials of magnetic levitation were shortsightedly thwarted by the Heath government’s withdrawal of funding. Maglev might have become a commercial reality had Laithwaite, like so many of his contemporaries, migrated to the United States and, like Hyperloop, had a test track in Nevada rather than in the Ouse Washes alongside the Old Bedford River (where its piloti are still visible). It did at least get off the drawing board. More usually the technological failures and pusillanimous losses of nerve that make up Murphy’s galère of yesterday’s cancelled tomorrows have left no physical trace.
In many instances there was nothing to leave traces of. Paper architecture bequeaths no ruins. Archigram (‘often embarrassingly “groovy”’) created the platonic ideal for an entirely novel sort of building, but it was Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano who, in the most audacious of creative heists, designed the Pompidou Centre. The proposed new town of Hook in north Hampshire was never built, yet John Gold’s book about its planning became an advertisement for British urbanism: the cannily gauged illustrations persuasively suggest a place both modern and homely. The more or less contemporary new town of Cumbernauld became a different sort of advertisement for British urbanism – that’ll be because Cumbernauld got built. It could be visited. It could promise the visitor a jolt of despair. Even the most fervent advocates of megastructures were shocked. It appeared, still appears, simply to have happened. The idea that its centre might have been designed, might have been deliberately wrought, is surely fantastical. But there was an architect, one Geoffrey Copcutt. Copcutt had this to say: ‘Like a jeweller fashioning precious metal I hammered cross-sections and shaped landscape to form an urban morphology.’
Extravagant projects were announced with such frequency that they ceased to seem extravagant. A solar-oriented, pyramidal headquarters in a field for Northamptonshire County Council. Why not? A floating town off the Norfolk coast. UEA’s neighbouring ziggurats. Space colonies. Arctic cities. James Stirling’s particularly daft proposal to link Derby’s new civic centre to the town’s past by propping up the façade of the old Assembly Rooms at 45 degrees. Every week brought forth a blinding new notion.
Murphy’s catholic survey has a straitened cast. In this it recalls two previous distinguished studies of the utopian urge, W.H.G. Armytage’s Heavens Below and Gillian Darley’s Villages of Vision. The same people crop up over and again in different contexts wearing different hats. Utopians move from one discipline or commune or guru or ‘philosophy’ or technology to the next in just the way that the religiously susceptible move from one faith to the next. There is of course a crossover. It takes a particular sort of mind – credulous or inquisitive, according to taste – to undertake constant tourism of the unprovable, to enjoy the unsupported conviction that there are big solutions rather than billions of unanswerable questions. Take Stewart Brand, a sometime student of biology (under Paul Ehrlich) and photography who staged happenings and joined Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters as an apprentice Beat. He visited Native American settlements and Midwest communes. He was fascinated by ‘communal living, system theory, cybernetics, geodesic domes, computers, the space programmes’. When he inherited some money he combined these interests in the Whole Earth Catalog, a series of manuals for the footsoldiers of the communal counterculture which soon collapsed in animosity and arguments about the hierarchy of anti-hierarchy. But not before Brand had made a fortune and moved on to ‘hacker communities’ and the ‘liberation’ that would be achieved by personal computers. Next stop: just when, in Murphy’s inspired phrase ‘the enclosure of the digital commons was beginning’, Brand started a new magazine called CoEvolution Quarterly which revived the idea of space colonies. Though it had the support of Carl Sagan, James Lovelock and Buckminster Fuller it came to nothing, but there’s time yet. | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n17/jonathan-meades/short-cuts | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/0d056b1d8ad87d00bb445854c8d67e8671710b14210aadb6834685d54fd57a58.json |
[
"Eliot Weinberger"
] | 2016-08-26T12:49:50 | null | null | null | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv38%2Fn16%2Feliot-weinberger%2Fit-was-everything.json | http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/assets/covers/q/cov3816.jpg?1470224954 | en | null | ‘It was everything’ | null | null | www.lrb.co.uk | Donald Trump vowed that the ‘convention in Cleveland will be amazing!’ It will probably be the only campaign promise he ever fulfils, but indeed, as watched on television, it was amazing, unlike any other, if not quite, as he later summed it up, ‘one of the most peaceful, one of the most beautiful, one of the most love-filled conventions in the history of conventions’.
Amazingly, most of the major figures in the Republican Party stayed away: all of the previous presidential and vice-presidential nominees (even Sarah Palin), with the exception of the nonagenarian Bob Dole; the Bush family and anyone who held an important post in the administrations of either Bush; 11 of the 16 candidates who ran against Trump in the primaries; the two most prominent Republicans in the host state (Governor John Kasich and Senator Rob Portman); and scores of Senate and Congress members, governors and mayors nervously up for re-election, facing the prospect of having to defend or refute whatever would be Trump’s latest wacky pronouncement and losing voters either way.
Instead we were given a pageant of Trump family members, Trump business pals, D-list ‘celebrities’, grieving mothers, and angry soldiers and policemen. There was a caravan of minor officials from the Confederate states (‘Y’all … this is what a real Arkansas woman sounds like … Raised on a cattle farm, married to a row crop farmer, I’m a Christian, pro-life, gun-carrying, conservative woman’). There were a few noted committed Trumpistas (Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie); a few party stalwarts (Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell – who was booed) taking a sip of, if not exactly drinking the Trump Kool-Aid; and a breadline of hungry ‘rising stars’, fixed on the 2020 elections, hoping to be discovered as Barack Obama was at the 2004 Democratic Convention.
On the podium were the 492nd-ranked pro woman golfer; a soap opera actress turned avocado farmer, presented against an avocado-green screen (‘for all of you guacamole lovers out there’); a former underwear model and participant on Celebrity Wife Swap, who said of Obama: ‘I believe that he’s on the other side – the Middle East. He’s with the bad guys. He’s with them. He’s not with us, he’s not with this country.’ There was the manager of the Trump Winery and Hotel; the founder and owner of a waterproofing company (‘I’m not a big important person. I’m just a regular guy’); someone who runs a ‘fashion studio’ called MV House of Style in Brandon, Florida; the owner of the Treasure Island Casino; and the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (‘You might be wondering why I’m here’). There was the self-styled ‘hunter and redneck’ from the Louisiana bayou reality show Duck Dynasty and the former teen star of a 1970s television comedy – noticed by Trump for tweeting that Hillary Clinton is a ‘cunt’ – who called Obama ‘a Muslim or a Muslim sympathiser’ who wants to ‘totally eliminate’ the United States, and implored the convention crowd to ‘make America America again’, though one would have thought it already is.
The theme of the convention, like a horror movie based on the sermons of Cotton Mather, was that evil is afoot in the land, incarnate in undocumented immigrants, ‘radical Islamic extremists’ (or ‘radical extreme Islamists’ or ‘Islamic extremist terrorists’), Black Lives Matter and Hillary Clinton. The proceedings opened with a benediction from a pastor asking for God’s help in defeating the ‘enemy’: Clinton and the ‘liberal Democratic Party’. Mothers told sad stories of their deceased children. Two had been murdered in the last eight years by ‘illegal aliens’ in gang-related violence. Three had died in the last four years in car crashes with aliens. (Given that these mothers had chosen to turn their private suffering into a public spectacle in the name of Trump’s plan to deport 11 million people, perhaps it can be mentioned that during the same period, approximately 120,000 others died in car crashes, presumably caused by citizens or legal residents. By this logic, the US should deport every American old enough to drive.) The mother of one of the four people who were killed in Benghazi was unhinged, and painful to watch: ‘I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son. That’s personally … How could she do this to me?’
Chris Cox, the executive director of the National Rifle Association – which he described as ‘the largest and oldest civil rights organisation in America’ – asked the crowd to ‘imagine a young mother at home with her baby, when a violent predator kicks in the door. He’s a three-time loser who never should have been released from prison early. But he was, because some politician wanted to show their “compassion”.’ Marcus Luttrell, a Navy Seal known from the Afghanistan invasion for his (possibly exaggerated) heroism, host of a television talk show produced by the conspiracist Glenn Beck and a former ‘special guest’ on Duck Dynasty, fired up the hall when he suddenly stopped reading the teleprompter to ‘speak from the heart’: ‘To the next generation, your war is here, you don’t have to go searching for it. Your people are afraid … Who among you will love something more than you love yourself? Who among you are going to step up and take the fight to the enemy, because it’s here? The only way we survive this is together.’
An African-American county sheriff warned that Black Lives Matter would soon be teaming up with Isis. Rick Scott – who successfully ran for governor of Florida a few years after his healthcare company paid a fine of almost a billion dollars for defrauding the federal government – helpfully explained: ‘This election is not actually about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. In fact, this election is not about you or me either. This election is about the very survival of the American Dream.’ Newt Gingrich, in his usual mild-mannered student-of-history persona, calmly listed every incident of mass violence in the last 37 days, summarising in bullet-point form (in the official transcript):
We are at War. – We are at War with Radical Islamists. – They are determined to kill us. – They are stronger than we admit. – And are greater in number than we admit. – And there is NO substitute for victory. While THEY [the Democrats] lie about the threat, WE need to tell the truth about the danger … If our enemies had their way, not a single Jew or Christian in this room would be alive unless they agreed to submit.
Then, having killed off everyone in the Quicken Loans Arena, he expanded the devastation: ‘The worst case scenario is losing an American city to terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction… Instead of losing 3000 people in one morning, we could lose more than 300,000.’
Gingrich’s temperamental opposite, Rudy Giuliani – although looking like a Count Dracula who had spent the last fifteen years in his coffin watching clips of himself on 9/11 and the last scene of Invasion of the Body-Snatchers – wildly gesticulated and screamed: ‘The vast majority of Americans today do not feel safe! They fear for their children! They fear for themselves! … There’s no next election! This is it! There is no more time for us left to revive our great country!’ Even more frighteningly, he promised: ‘What I did for New York, Donald Trump will do for America!’
The Antichrist in this eschatological scenario is no longer Obama, who, after eight years of marshalling the forces of darkness, has passed the crown to Hillary Clinton. In the vast majority of speeches, she was the primary subject, and she was held responsible for, among many other things, the economic rise of China, the abduction of schoolgirls in Nigeria, the shootings of policemen in the US, and essentially every terrorist attack and mass murder anywhere in the world. ‘Hillary for Prison’ signs were everywhere in the convention hall, along with such charming items as a button that read: ‘Hillary KFC Special: No breasts, fat thighs and a left wing’. Chris Christie convened a Salem witch trial – a revival of The Crucible is currently a hit on Broadway – with the conventioneers howling ‘Guilty!’ and ‘Lock her up!’ as Christie read the charges against her. (‘Lock her up!’ – in the exact cadence of ‘Kill the pig!’ – was the chant most frequently heard throughout the four days, far more than any expressions of support for their nominee, possibly because the only possible rhymes are words like ‘chump’, ‘stump’ and ‘Forrest Gump’.) The avocado farmer was apoplectic – ‘The Democrats offer up a woman who when she had a chance to stand up for women, did not do so. Instead, she attacked women, denigrated them, called them liars. I personally know victims and they find Hillary’s actions and remarks repulsive!!’ – but it was unclear what she was talking about. And the inimitable Dr Ben Carson, deep in the fruit salad of his mind, took it to the limit by invoking the Horned Man himself:
One of the things that I have learned about Hillary Clinton is that one of her heroes, her mentors, was Saul Alinsky. Her senior thesis was about Saul Alinsky. This was someone that she greatly admired and that affected all of her philosophies subsequently. Now, interestingly enough, let me tell you something about Saul Alinsky. He wrote a book called Rules for Radicals. On the dedication page, it acknowledges Lucifer, the original radical who gained his own kingdom. Now, think about that … So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer? Think about that.
(Although Alinsky – who was, of course, joking about Lucifer as the first successful rebel – died 44 years ago, he’s been a major bogeyman of the right because of his supposed influence on the young Obama. Curiously, Tea Partiers have distributed copies of his book as a handbook for successful grassroots organising.)
Nearly every speaker raised the spectre of Benghazi, although seven Congressional investigations and a two-year House Select Committee inquiry – the longest in history, longer than similar inquiries into 9/11, the Kennedy assassination and Pearl Harbor – had managed to come up with nothing. Nevertheless, they all quoted the same line from Clinton’s testimony to the committee, ‘What difference at this point does it make?’ as indicative of her heartless obliviousness to the deaths of four brave Americans. In fact, she was responding to a question about whether it was a spontaneous protest that turned violent or a planned attack. Clinton had replied:
With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator … But you know, to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.
Speaker after speaker attacked Clinton’s use of private email to conduct government business (which Colin Powell, as secretary of state, had also done). It was the primary reason she should go to prison: she had ‘put our national security at risk’; she had made us ‘less safe’. In the recent FBI report that criticised her lack of judgment – which was true, especially considering that the Republicans are continually on Clinton Red Alert – but found no criminal offence, it was revealed that there were only three ‘confidential’ (the lowest level of ‘classified’) emails. One is unknown. One informed her that Kofi Annan was stepping down as special envoy attempting to mediate the war in Syria, and the third was about Clinton’s forthcoming telephone call to Joyce Banda, the newly inaugurated president of Malawi. Lock her up! (It was inadvertent proof, by the way, that Obama probably ran the most corruption-free administration in American history. Under microscopic scrutiny by the Republicans and Fox News, Hillary’s emails were the only scandal they could produce. They couldn’t even find some low-level bureaucrat who had used his government franking privilege to send out personal Christmas cards.)
*
Dominated by the coming end of the world and its agent Hillary Clinton, the speeches were notable for their lack of praise for the nominee. This was Trump’s convention, but few had much to say about him. The task of promoting the brand was left to those bearing the brand name: his family. His sons, quickly nicknamed Uday and Qusay in the Twittersphere, previously known for their safari snapshots, posing next to endangered species they had slain, were tan, smartly suited, well-gelled, and clearly unhumbled by the historical moment. The obscure child, Tiffany, was sweet and sad. Her parents married after she was born and split up a few years later, but ‘my father always asked about my family in Georgia to make sure that they are healthy and safe.’ Trump’s current wife, Melania, with her heavy accent and heavy make-up (and possible surgical improvements) brought back memories of Zsa Zsa Gabor, but without the effervescence. She glumly struggled through her speech, which contained no warm and fuzzy anecdotes of life with Don. As everyone knows, it took the legions of amateur investigative journalists on the internet less than an hour to figure out that portions were cribbed from, of all people, Michelle Obama, who for years has been reviled by Republicans as a crypto-Black Panther revolutionary, and whose most innocuous proposals – kids should eat more vegetables! – were attacked as, in Sarah Palin’s words, ‘government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us’. (Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, said about the uproar over Melania’s plagiarism: ‘This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton she seeks out to demean her and take her down.’) Poor Melania didn’t show up again until Trump’s acceptance speech, which she sat through glowering.
It was left to Ivanka – purportedly the smartest Trump and the only one Donald truly trusts – to recover some human qualities in her dad. She exuded a kind of finishing-school perfection, but strangely seemed to have been beamed in from the Democratic Convention, speaking at length about equal pay for working women and subsidised childcare, which Republicans, needless to say, utterly oppose. (If they recognise that women work at all: Manafort explained why women will vote for Trump: ‘Many women feel they can’t afford their lives, their husbands can’t afford to be paying for the family bills.’) Ivanka was probably the most poised, rational and articulate speaker at the entire convention. However Trumps will be Trumps, and the next day she was hawking copies of her dress on the internet. Democracy, as Dad might say, makes for great deals.
Among the rising stars auditioning for 2020 were Tom Cotton, Iraq War veteran and freshman senator from Arkansas, and Joni Ernst, First Iraq War veteran and freshman senator from Iowa. Cotton is widely considered the Great White Hope of the party. Running for the Senate, he revealed that ‘groups like the Islamic State collaborate with drug cartels in Mexico, who have clearly shown they’re willing to expand outside the drug trade into human trafficking and potentially even terrorism. They could infiltrate our defenceless border and attack us right here in places like Arkansas.’ (Arkansas is six hundred miles from the Mexican border.) Ernst, who was rumoured to be on the vice-presidential shortlist, says that Obama has ‘become a dictator’ and should be impeached. She told an NRA convention that she’d take up her Smith & Wesson against the government ‘should they decide that my rights are no longer important’, and thinks states should be free to nullify federal laws. She is an Agenda 21 conspiracist and believes that George Soros and the United Nations want to move Iowa farmers ‘off of their agricultural land, consolidating them into city centres, and then telling them that you don’t have property rights anymore’. Her senate race produced an unforgettable television ad: raised on a pig farm where she routinely castrated hogs, she promised to do the same to Democrats in Washington. Her slogan: ‘Make ’em squeal!’ Cotton’s speech at the convention was mainly about the generations of his family who have served as soldiers. He mentioned Trump only once in passing, and declared that defence is ‘the chief responsibility of our federal government’. Ernst went on stage late in the evening, after Melania Trump, and spoke to a nearly empty hall. She proudly displayed her camouflage-coloured high heels and claimed that the FBI has stated that Isis is active in all of the 50 states.
Bush Sr’s ‘thousand points of light’ and Reagan’s ‘shining city on the hill’ having been sucked into a black hole, all that remained was for Ted Cruz to come on stage. Cruz, unlike Hillary Clinton, is compared to Lucifer by members of his own party; he is a man whose name is always attached to the adjective ‘loathsome’, the way ‘fleet-footed’ precedes ‘Achilles’. He dragged out his long speech of gloom and doom – complete with a little girl kissing her policeman daddy goodbye on the day he was slain – as the crowd waited for his endorsement of Trump. After he finally dog-whistled ‘vote your conscience,’ he could barely be heard in the roaring boos. Although it was generally assumed that Cruz was gambling that, after the party’s presumed ignominious defeat in 2016, he could return in 2020 as the only man who had kept his sanity amid the madness, it was more than that. Cruz, as has been evident from his short Senate career, revels in being hated, martyrdom being the traditional prerequisite for sainthood.
Somewhat lost in the cacophony was the vice-presidential pick, Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, yet another Irish-American Catholic ‘regular guy’ vice-presidential nominee (Paul Ryan, Joe Biden and Hillary’s choice, Tim Kaine). Pence became a born-again evangelical (to his mother’s dismay) and is a hardliner on all issues. He believes that women going to work has destroyed the fabric of the American family, and wrote an article attacking the Walt Disney animated movie Mulan (about a Chinese woman warrior) for promoting women in the military. His anti-gay legislation was even denounced by the Republican mayor of Indianapolis when major corporations started cancelling conventions and expansions in the state. (In the era of Republican control of the Congress and many state legislatures, it is the corporations that have become the agents of progressive social – though, of course, not economic – change.) Before his speech, the Pence family was seen huddled in prayer besides a Secret Service SUV in the parking garage. The speech itself, with quotes from Reagan and the Bible and attacks on Benghazi Hillary, was unremarkable. His public role in the campaign so far is to sit silently next to Trump in joint interviews, with a bemused ‘Can you believe this guy?’ expression. His private role, however, will have Trump gloating over the ‘great deal’ of his vice-presidential choice: Pence is very close to the zillionaire Koch brothers, whose moolah has bought much of the Republican agenda, but who haven’t yet – it takes one to know one – sent a dime to Trump.
Trump had said, ‘it’s very important to put some showbiz into a convention, otherwise people are going to fall asleep,’ and for his introduction to Pence’s speech, he had entered through a backlit cloud of dry ice to Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions’, in the style of a World Wrestling ‘smack down’. For his acceptance speech the stage was reconfigured with a gold lectern and a backdrop of Trump’s name in enormous – it’s time to say ‘yuuge’ – gold letters, much as he does on all of his buildings. It looked like Leni Does Vegas, or The Triumph of the Shill.
Republican apparatchiks had been saying that, at the convention, Trump would ‘pivot’: become less of a rabble-rouser and more of a presidential elder statesman. After all, his speech was not only for the roused rabble inside the convention hall, but also for the millions watching on TV. It was wishful thinking. Trump stayed on Trump course, ranting for 75 minutes that the country was in collapse, sunk in ‘crime and terrorism and lawlessness’, with cop-killers and unscrutinised Muslims and ‘180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records … roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens’. Inspired by Richard Nixon’s speech in 1968 – a year when there were riots in major cities – he repeated ‘law and order’ four times, dramatically elongating the phrase: ‘I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country … On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced.’ Tellingly, where the Obama supporters in 2008 had chanted, ‘Yes we can!,’ the Trumpistas in Cleveland chanted: ‘Yes you will!’
It’s hard to know what Trump genuinely believes. He is indeed an elder statesman, but of the Republic of Entertainment, where he is a duke of two of its most powerful duchies: right-wing talk radio, which rules the airwaves, and reality television, which currently has some seven hundred programmes in prime time in the US. Both are dependent on ever escalating outrageousness to keep their listeners and viewers hooked. Moreover, their audiences have shown an extraordinary capacity for the willing suspension of disbelief. They know it’s fiction – that the two naked people left on a desert island are surrounded by a television crew – but they don’t care: that’s entertainment. Similarly, Trump will say anything – it has been estimated that 60-80 per cent of his facts are lies – as long as it makes news. He launched his political career in 2011 by relentlessly claiming that Obama was born in Kenya. Asked about this later, he said: ‘I don’t think I went overboard. Actually, I think it made me very popular … I do think I know what I’m doing.’ He has repeated many times the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
He ran a campaign where he had a staff of thirty (Hillary had around a thousand) and spent almost nothing on television ads. With his knack for saying something that would dominate the news cycle, he needed neither. He turned the normally unwatched Republican debates into hit television shows. And he won the Republican nomination while denying or ignoring nearly everything that Republicans care about. His acceptance speech didn’t mention God, although he thanked the evangelicals for supporting him. (He once said that his two favourite books are the Bible and The Art of the Deal, though obviously he was lying about one of them.) He didn’t mention abortion; he clearly has no problem with gays. Romney in his 2012 acceptance speech was attacked for not saluting our brave soldiers overseas; Trump didn’t mention them and no one noticed. He spoke of building ‘the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports and the railways of tomorrow’, the kind of infrastructure projects that Republicans oppose as ‘big government’. Although he somehow plans to stamp out Isis, he is opposed to military intervention – even US military bases – abroad. The neocons surely suffered a collective heart attack when he recently told the New York Times that he wouldn’t necessarily support Nato if Putin invaded the Baltic nations. His supposed opposition to free trade agreements and his promises to bring jobs back to the US are pure opportunism and blatantly hypocritical, considering that nearly all Trump-branded items are made in factories abroad.
He has no interest in the details of policy or running a government; he’ll simply hire the ‘best people’ to take care of all that. His message is simple: this country is a mess and ‘I alone can fix it.’ The mess is brown and black people: the one thing that is certain about Trump is that he doesn’t like them. His mindset is the world of New York City real estate in the 1950s and 1960s: Negroes and Puerto Ricans are bad for business; one family moves in and the property values go down; soon the whole neighbourhood is taken over. The bedrock of Republicanism since Nixon has been its simple appeal to racism, the ‘Southern strategy’. Reagan made it more sophisticated: black and brown people are moochers living off ‘free stuff’ (Jeb Bush’s term) from the government paid with white people’s hard-earned tax dollars. The solution is to slash taxes – which, of course, mainly benefits the party donor class – and drastically cut government spending for all things except defence. (As Paul Ryan said at the convention, quoting Reagan, government should not be ‘the distributor of gifts and privilege, but once again the protector of our liberties’.) Rather than overtly racist rhetoric (with a few exceptions) they thinly disguised it with talk about ‘less government’. Trumpism’s open racism, however, is a reflection of the new demographic: white people will soon no longer be the majority in the US. (For the last few years, more non-white than white babies have been born. Obama is the most visible sign of this inevitable future and undoubtedly that is the reason he has been subject to the most extreme vilification and obstruction by the opposing party of any president.) What’s new with Trump – though reminiscent of the anti-immigrant rhetoric at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th – is the replacement of the image of the dark-skinned freeloader with that of a horde overrunning the land: the criminal Mexicans and the terrorist Muslims ‘roaming free’. It is hardly a coincidence that the most popular genre of horror movies and television these days is zombies – mobs of zombies. Our only hope is a fortress – or a wall – to keep them out.
Trump further divides the world into winners and losers. He is, needless to say, the greatest winner: ‘Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world, I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens: “Can you believe what I am getting?”’ (One wonders who those top women were: Margaret Thatcher? Simone de Beauvoir? Mother Teresa?) His self-aggrandisement is so unbounded, his persona has eaten his person. He routinely refers to himself as ‘Trump’ or ‘Mr Trump’ and even his family members at the convention struggled to come up with some anecdotes about the man who inhabits this character. Contrary to that character, however, the man was not all that successful as a real estate mogul. He’s always been a minor player in New York, notorious for never paying his bills or repaying his debts. His projects tend to end in bankruptcy and thousands of lawsuits, and no major American bank will still lend him money.
Luckily for him, he discovered that celebrity could be more lucrative than real estate. In the great American huckster tradition of ‘a sucker is born every minute,’ he realised he could make a small fortune convincing all those losers out there that they can be winners too. As he wrote, ‘I play to people’s fantasies.’ Thus his books: How to Get Rich; Think like a Champion; Think like a Billionaire; Think Big and Kick Ass. Thus the fraudulent Trump University, a self-help scheme where the desperate forked out their cash to receive some recycled business articles or nothing at all. And thus his genius at measuring the mood of a certain demographic: the undereducated, underemployed or underpaid white male. As he said at the convention, ‘I have made billions of dollars in business making deals – now I’m going to make our country rich again.’ Herbert Hoover in 1928 famously promised ‘a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage’. Trump, like those television preachers of the ‘gospel of prosperity’, carries it much further. Many of his campaign rallies were held at airports so he could swoop in on his private Trump-logoed airplane. Forget about chicken: I’m eating my cake and you can have it too.
The day after the convention, Trump still had not pivoted into presidential mode. He was still attacking Ted Cruz – like all egomaniacs, Trump wounds easily – and he was still repeating his quintessentially Trumpian out-of-nowhere assertion that Ted Cruz’s father was close to Lee Harvey Oswald. But suddenly, in the middle of his free-associative ramble, he turned rhapsodic: ‘Now it was the summer of Trump. It was the autumn of Trump. It was the Christmas of Trump. It was everything.’ | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n16/eliot-weinberger/it-was-everything | en | 2016-08-01T00:00:00 | www.lrb.co.uk/c54dc7a983af235c18f2bc5e51d9d48bda5fc4c601a9d8a268f85d2386ba087f.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:08:30 | null | 2016-08-24T14:23:47 | Halifax MP Holly Lynch has backed Jeremy Corbyn’s challenger for Labour leader. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fmp-backs-owen-smith-1-8086206.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8086205.1472045011!/image/image.jpg | en | null | MP backs Owen Smith | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Halifax MP Holly Lynch has backed Jeremy Corbyn’s challenger for Labour leader.
Ms Lynch joined leadership contender Owen Smith at a rally in Halifax, citing the Pontypridd MP as the best candidate to unite the Labour Party.
She said: “There are around 3,000 Labour members across Calderdale who will help decide this crucial leadership election and it’s great to see so many people engaged with Labour party politics.
“I have worked closely with Owen during my time in parliament and have seen at first-hand how hard he fought when leading the campaign to force the Government into a U-turn on cuts to tax credits.
“He is best placed to both lead and unite the Labour Party and deliver radical policies to benefit those who need us the most.”
The challenge against Labour leader Mr Corbyn was mounted after a vote of no confidence within the party and the mass resignations of members of his Shadow Cabinet. But Mr Corbyn enjoys enormous support within the party’s membership and won last September’s leadership election by a landslide.
At the rally, held at the Threeways Centre, Mr Smith said: “I have committed to a British New Deal which will see a £200bn investment package to rebuild Britain over the next five years, £50bn of which would be spent in the North.
“Infrastructure projects that are vital to West Yorkshire are ready to go but simply lack the necessary finance to get started. Rail electrification, renewable energy schemes, plans for new FE colleges.
“Housing is the greatest example. If set in train quickly enough, this could provide a fiscal stimulus big enough to ward off a downturn.
“The Government should be spreading resources more equally across the country.
“Why not build HS2 starting in the North towards the South? The Government should be building HS3 through the Pennines to link up the North.”
Ballot papers have been sent to party members eligible to vote and the result will be announced at a special conference in Liverpool on Septmber 24. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/mp-backs-owen-smith-1-8086206 | en | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/0eea3390c53a2baec07bc3b0736d7e1eed01b5e709a21aa6f252bc9e59b89f31.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:56:34 | null | 2016-08-22T22:30:18 | TWENTY-four hours after announcing that he had been ruled out of the one-day series against Pakistan through injury, England yesterday announced that David Willey, the Yorkshire all-rounder, is to rejoin the national squad after all. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Fsecond-scan-clears-willey-for-action-as-yorkshire-get-ready-for-notts-1-8083100.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8083098.1471899259!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Second scan clears Willey for action as Yorkshire get ready for Notts | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | TWENTY-four hours after announcing that he had been ruled out of the one-day series against Pakistan through injury, England yesterday announced that David Willey, the Yorkshire all-rounder, is to rejoin the national squad after all.
In a statement on Sunday, the England and Wales Cricket Board said that an X-ray to Willey’s left hand, his bowling hand, had “not excluded a significant injury”, casting doubt on his participation for the rest of the season considering that the summer has only a month or so to run.
But a second scan yesterday revealed that there is no fracture to the hand that Willey injured when he was struck by a fierce return drive from Mark Stoneman, the Durham batsman, during NatWest T20 Blast Finals Day at Edgbaston on Saturday.
It is now being suggested that Willey could even feature in the second one-day international at Lord’s on Saturday, with the five-match series starting in Southampton tomorrow.
Jake Ball, the Nottinghamshire seamer who was called up to replace Willey, will stay with the national squad and therefore be unavailable for the County Championship game against Yorkshire at Scarborough, which starts this morning.
Stuart Broad, the England pace bowler, has also been withdrawn from Notts’ squad for the fixture at North Marine Road pending a scan on his left ankle.
Both second-placed Yorkshire and bottom club Notts are depleted due to injuries and international calls as they each look to bounce back from losing in the T20 semi-finals.
Alex Lees, the Yorkshire one-day captain, said that there was no time to dwell on that setback as the county champions seek a win that would significantly strengthen their hopes of a hat-trick of titles.
“We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves because there’s some big games coming up in the next five or six weeks, starting with Notts,” said Lees.
“It’s a massive game against a team who have struggled for form this year, and if we can play our brand of cricket, I’m sure that we’ll put pressure on them over the four days.”
Lees said Yorkshire are relishing the chance to get Saturday’s disappointment out of their system.
“The opportunity to get back up and running in a different competition with a win, and so soon after the disappointment of Saturday, is a great incentive,” he said. “We need to show the character that this group has become renowned for in recent years.” | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/second-scan-clears-willey-for-action-as-yorkshire-get-ready-for-notts-1-8083100 | en | 2016-08-22T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/4f710969f84f81967c7f4e85b6d16b8724f9306e9c70dda21fada621615c8a2b.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T10:47:29 | null | 2016-08-31T09:39:37 | Old Brodleians will travel to the East Coast on Saturday for their Yorkshire One opener against Bridlington in good heart, following a highly-satisfactory pre-season. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Fnew-season-dawns-with-tough-away-assignment-for-old-brods-1-8097245.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8097243.1472632757!/image/image.jpg | en | null | New season dawns with tough away assignment for Old Brods | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Old Brodleians will travel to the East Coast on Saturday for their Yorkshire One opener against Bridlington in good heart, following a highly-satisfactory pre-season.
The coaching team of Matty Smith and Danny Monk have been pleased with the consistently high numbers attending training on a twice-weekly basis and with a dominant performance at Old Crossleyans followed by a good performance in a hastily arranged fixture at Huddersfield YMCA, the Hipperholme-based side will travel with confidence to a game which has been a traditionally tough fixture over the years .
Brods were disappointed last weekend when their visitors, Redcar, in the Yorkshire Shield pulled out at short notice.
Danny Monk quickly arranged a game with Huddersfield YMCA who play two levels above the Hipperholme side in order to get more match practise going into the opening league game of the season.
In fact, the work out was probably more beneficial to the Woodhead boys and the result, which showed a deficit of three tries to one, was not of prime importance as they prepared for this weekend’s game .
Last season Brods and Bridlington shared the spoils with home victories apiece and this follows a similar pattern over the years with neither side able to obtain a result away from home.
Brods will have several changes to their starting line-ups from last season and selection will pose several problems following some outstanding efforts in pre-season.
Captain Oliver Akroyd will lead the side and his charges will be looking to play an expansive game on the firm grounds using their undoubted pace throughout the first XV.
There will be an opportunity for those players not travelling to the East Coast when the Development side entertain Halifax Vandals Seconds at Woodhead (3.00pm kick-off).
The management team have a strong looking outfit with numerous players pushing for first-team selection and a good sprinkling of new talent making their debuts at senior level. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/new-season-dawns-with-tough-away-assignment-for-old-brods-1-8097245 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/c23e7d21b547ce8aaf023c88e85168ccbd5df6296922c17553b8c481975ef064.json |
[
"Graham Walker",
"Graham.Walker Jpress.Co.Uk"
] | 2016-08-30T14:48:36 | null | 2016-08-30T15:06:21 | Yorkshire | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fyorkshire-s-strictly-ex-champs-to-give-free-dance-lessons-at-city-limits-1-8096127.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8096126.1472566063!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Yorkshire's Strictly ex-champs to give free dance lessons at City Limits | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Yorkshire's Strictly Come Dancing ex-champions Darren Bennett and Lilia Kopylova will quick step back home this weekend - to give free dance lessons to fans.
It coincides with the start of a new season of the hit BBC One show.
Strictly's most successful couple, now parents to one-year-old Valentina Rose, are returning to their family's City Limits Dancentre studio in Penistone Road, Sheffield.
They will take part in free taster sessions on Saturday, September 3, from noon to 2pm. Full details and more at www.city-limits.co.uk
City Limits is run by Sheffield born Darren's parents, former dance champions, Tony and Judith, and his twin brother Dale.
Darren, aged 39, and his Moscow wife Lilia, 37, are the most successful competitor couple of their generation, winning four British amateur championships, three UK championships and representing Great Britain at the World and European Championships.
They turned professional in 2003, winning the British National Professional Championship two years running and made the final of the World and European Championships.
But they became household names when they joined the cast of Strictly Come Dancing in 2004 and won the show in consecutive years.
At his first attempt Darren, dancing with Jill Halfpenny from Eastenders, won the show and then went on to win the Champion of Champions dance off.
In 2005, Lilia waltzed off with the title while partnering Barnsley's own former Yorkshire and England cricketing star Darren Gough, after which they also went on to win the International Christmas special.
They went on to host their own West End show, Latin Fever, which they toured nationally and are today still regarded as one of Britain’s finest Latin American dance couples.
More recently they have worked on the Turkish and Lebanese versions of the Strictly TV show, Darren, born in Deepcar and brought up in Todwick, as a judge and Lilia as a consultant choreographer to the professional dancers.
Darren has also consulted on Danse Avec la Stars, the first series of the French version of Dancing with the Stars.
As well as being successful competitors and performers they have built up an International reputation as coaches, choreographers and first class trainers in both dance and corporate arenas.
They have also trained many of the top junior, youth and amateur couples, including the British Junior champions and No. 1 youth couple in the UK.
Darren's twin Dale said: "Strictly is back and we have Darren and Lilia joining us for an open day, with free taster sessions for children and adults to come along and see what being a student at City Limits is like.
"Fans can take part in one of our Ballroom and Latin classes led by Darren and Lilia.
"It runs from 2pm until 4pm, and we have a timetable of taster sessions throughout the day. Plus visitors can chat to our teachers and find out more about our new beginners' classes starting in September.
OPEN DAY TASTER CLASS SESSIONS
12.15-12.45pm: BALLROOM & LATIN WITH DARREN AND LILIA ALL AGES
12.30-1.00pm: STREETDANCE FOR ALL AGES 4-ADULT
12.30-1pm: BABY BALLET AND TAP
1.00-1.30pm : SALSA AND LATIN WITH DARREN AND LILIA
1.15-2pm: ZUMBA AND FITSTEPS TASTER
1.15-1.45pm: ADULT TAP
The pole fitness studio will also be open, for demonstrations and free workshops, from 12-2pm.
There will also be three Ballroom and Latin technique workshops for those wishing to develop their skills
2pm: Juvenile (under 12's), 45min, cost £5.
2.45pm: Junior (age 12 to 15), 45min, cost £5.
3.30pm, - Adult (age 16+), 60min, cost £8.
For more information about the open day and new class timetable, call he studio on 0114 234 4866 or visit www.city-limits.co.uk
Also visit Darren and Lilia's official website at www.darrenandlilia.com
* Strictly Come Dancing has confirmed this year's celebrity cast for the show, which returns on BBC One on Saturday, September 3, 6.50pm.
The line-up features EastEnders actor Tameka Empson, Birds of a Feather’s Lesley Joseph, former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, Pop Idol winner Will Young, former Eternal singer Louise Redknapp, actor Danny Mac, newsreader Naga Munchetty, reality TV’s Judge Rinder, US singer Anastacia, model Daisy Lowe, GB long-jumper Greg Rutherford, gymnast Claudia Fragapane, presenters Laura Whitmore and Ore Oduba, DJ and presenter Melvin Odoom.
TV stars Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman will be on hosting duties with the judging panel of Darcey Bussell, Bruno Tonioli, Craig Revel Horwood and – in his final year – Len Goodman. For more visit www.bbc.co.uk | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/yorkshire-s-strictly-ex-champs-to-give-free-dance-lessons-at-city-limits-1-8096127 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/0f3dd8be8ba4d552ac609c14b2540e1f33735de07f781252910ddf29d4ca9690.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:08:42 | null | 2016-08-24T12:15:51 | Police are appealing for the driver a BMW 1 Series involved in a road traffic collision near Wakefield to get in contact. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fman-injured-after-being-hit-by-car-on-m1-1-8085872.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8085870.1472037335!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Man injured after being hit by car on M1 | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Police are appealing for the driver a BMW 1 Series involved in a road traffic collision near Wakefield to get in contact.
It is thought the dark-coloured vehicle and a pedestrian were in collision on the north bound carriageway of the M1 motorway.
The incident happened near to junction 39 at 10.20pm on Saturday August 20.
The BMW did not stop and continued north. As a result of the collision a 41-year-old local man was left with serious but not life threatening injuries.
The driver of the vehicle or anyone who witnessed the incident is asked to contact PS Adrian Newman on 101 quoting log 1694 of 20 August. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/man-injured-after-being-hit-by-car-on-m1-1-8085872 | en | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/c1bcbae683ce01554beb3913590cb9b8aca46f5477135888e0d8361c5ead3664.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:02:26 | null | 2016-08-26T08:45:55 | Wow... they have done well ! | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fharvest-festival-time-at-carr-green-school-1-8087398.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087397.1472113719!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Harvest festival time at Carr Green School | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:
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Add This ► Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/harvest-festival-time-at-carr-green-school-1-8087398 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/2cea8cde0ed9aba88673c77c04f3d75a4b9f6212e23043f6e82c94d478119411.json |
[] | 2016-08-31T10:48:35 | null | 2016-08-31T10:29:14 | Calderdale Council’s popular Start Your Own Business drop-in sessions will be running throughout September offering free advice to people interested in becoming self-employed. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2Fbusiness-news%2Fstart-your-own-business-1-8083573.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8083572.1471944910!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Start your own business | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Calderdale Council’s popular Start Your Own Business drop-in sessions will be running throughout September offering free advice to people interested in becoming self-employed.
More than 900 people have benefitted from using the service, from Calderdale Council’s Business Support Team, since the sessions started in April 2012.
Drop-in sessions take place at King Cross Library on September 1 between 12.45pm and 2pm, Elland Library on September 6 between 12.15pm and 1.30pm, Mixenden Parents Resource Centre on September 14 between 1.45pm and 3pm, Todmorden Library on September 19 between 12.45pm and 2pm and Halifax Central Library on September 23 between 11.45am and 1pm.
The drop-in sessions are free to attend and for anyone employed or unemployed within Calderdale who may be considering starting their own business.
For further details or if you can’t attend a session and you would like to arrange a free one-to-one advice meeting, contact Eric Binns on 01422 392222 or email eric.binns@calderdale.gov.uk. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/business/business-news/start-your-own-business-1-8083573 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/71715efbb7ea157afdd021103474a5f9639b0d7551aa440cdf6b6137fb295366.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:10 | null | 2016-08-25T13:00:07 | Local burlesque performer and teacher Lady Wildflower presents an evening of burlesque and cabaret this Saturday (Aug 27) at Hebden Bridge Little Theatre. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fit-s-all-going-on-at-the-frou-frou-club-1-8087955.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087953.1472122141!/image/image.jpg | en | null | It’s all going on at the Frou Frou Club | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Local burlesque performer and teacher Lady Wildflower presents an evening of burlesque and cabaret this Saturday (Aug 27) at Hebden Bridge Little Theatre.
This will be the first burlesque show in the town since the hugely successful 4th annual Hebden Bridge Burlesque Festival back in May, which is co-produced by Wildflower and Heidi Bang Tidy.
This Saturday’s show will see performances from Londoner, Bettsie Bon Bon - an internationally acclaimed bump’n’grind showgirl who was recently voted in the Top 20 UK Burlesque performers of 2015.
There will be knife-throwing, sword-swallowing and other deadly feats from the Death Do Us Part Danger Show - a husband and wife duo from Scotland who travel the world with their old fashioned circus sideshow. Lilly Laudanum, a comedy burlesque act from Wales, will be poking a cheeky finger at some of history’s most prominent figures.
Lilly recently won the “British Crown” at the World Burlesque Games with her hilarious Queen Victoria act.
Betty Blue Eyes will also be travelling over from Wales to bring us some fun and laughter.
Her acts include dressing up (and stripping out of) a killer whale costume and an act involving aliens and a Henry hoover...
Local performer, Kinky Krayola, will be bringing her unique brand of burlesque inspired by Drag Queens and performance artists such as Leigh Bowery.
Finally, two of Lady Wildflower’s burlesque students, Vanity Dare and Freida Nipples, will be making their Burlesque debut at this show after training for the past 12 months.
Lady Wildflower, who has been producing the show in Hebden Bridge since 2011 said: “This Saturday’s show is going to be one of the most eclectic and funny we’ve had so far at the Little Theatre.
“I feel these performers really represent what a diverse artform burlesque really is. It’s going to be a really fun night.”
There will be an after-show party in the theatre bar with DJ Dapper Dan and attendees are encouraged to “dress to impress” as there will be “best-dressed” prizes awarded.
Tickets are on sale now at www.thefroufrouclub.co.uk and are priced at £12.50 in advance or £14 on the door.
Doors open at 7:30pm for an 8pm show. Suitable for over 18s only.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story It’s all going on at the Frou Frou Club Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/it-s-all-going-on-at-the-frou-frou-club-1-8087955 | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/904d7790486119c2de6d4261f211e5e03e2b6d1c05e4c53563af747069850750.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:06:52 | null | 2016-08-25T15:12:04 | A parenting advice website has listed the most popular baby names so far in 2016 and revealed previous favourites such as Sophia, Mia, Daniel and Harrison are on the decline. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Frevealed-the-most-popular-baby-names-so-far-in-2016-1-8088931.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8088930.1472134307!/image/image.jpg | en | null | REVEALED - the most popular baby names so far in 2016 | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | A parenting advice website has listed the most popular baby names so far in 2016 and revealed previous favourites such as Sophia, Mia, Daniel and Harrison are on the decline.
Bounty Baby Club, a popular parenting advice site, has scaled its 100,000 visitors a month, to uncover the most popular baby names of the first half of 2016 and there are a few surprises.
A few favourites of recent years are still holding their popularity but the results reveal some new up and coming themes and trends.
The favourites
Holding onto their 2015 top spots, Alfie and Isla remain the most popular names for boys and girls. Out of the top 100 most popular names, the biggest winners have been Caleb, jumping up nine positions to 19, Jenson, rising up five places to 26 and Ellie, rising up nine positions to nine.
The biggest climber so far this year has been Arlo, previously was outside of the top 50, now cementing a top 10 position at number six. Other names you may start to hear more include Freddie, Aaron, Phoebe, Ellis and Millie.
So what names are falling out of favour this year?
Results show that for girls, Sienna, Mia, Sophia, Mila and Scarlett are on the decline in 2016. Yesterday’s news for boys’ names include Dylan, Sebastian, Daniel and Harrison which are proving less popular than they have in recent years.
There is a new trend of baby names emerging from Bounty’s findings, vowel heavy names, particularly for girls. Male names ending in a softer letter are also becoming more popular, for example names such as Alfie, Arlo, Archie and Harry.
Take a look at the top 10 for boys and girls for the first half of the year below:
Top 10 most popular baby boy names of 2016 so far:
Alfie
Oscar
Teddy
Harry
Jack
Arlo
Noah
Charlie
Jacob
Archie
Top 10 most popular baby girl names of 2016 so far:
Isla
Amelia
Ava
Freya
Evie
Olivia
Esme
Elsie
Mia
Ellie | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/revealed-the-most-popular-baby-names-so-far-in-2016-1-8088931 | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/eebd269a259b8bcf63bb7bade65fbde5baab0024c1a8650b687b616fea11f9f7.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T08:47:56 | null | 2016-08-27T09:00:20 | Award-winning Australian comedian Adam Hills, host of Channel 4’s acclaimed The Last Leg, is the latest headliner announced as part of the stellar line-up for this year’s Halifax Comedy Festival. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fnine-days-to-put-a-smile-on-our-faces-1-8087753.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087750.1472119860!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Nine days to put a smile on our faces | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Award-winning Australian comedian Adam Hills, host of Channel 4’s acclaimed The Last Leg, is the latest headliner announced as part of the stellar line-up for this year’s Halifax Comedy Festival.
Kicking-off the impressive comedy programme in style, Hills will launch the festival with the first date of his autumn UK tour at the Victoria Theatre on September 30, performing his Clown Heart show which completed a sold-out run this spring. Hills has won rave reviews and a fan base around the globe thanks to his uplifting comedy and skilful improvisation, winning Best Breakthrough Act at the British Comedy Awards 2013 and nominated for Best Entertainment Performance at the Royal Television Society Awards 2016.
The full line-up for the Festival has now been unveiled. New acts joining confirmed headliners Jimmy Carr, Al Murray and Romesh Ranganathan include Edinburgh Award winner and TV presenter, Russell Kane, who will unleash his new show, Right Man, Wrong Age.
Other stand-out stand-up shows include ‘Sinha at the Minster’ which will see international comedian Paul Sinha – best known as a ‘chaser’ on BBC 1’s The Chase – perform in the majestic setting of Halifax Minster, along with Channel 4’s Friday Night Project host Rob Rouse, and actor, writer and comedian Steve Royle of Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights and Max & Paddy fame.
The Festival also features a host of special one-off workshops and comedy nights including The Nutty Roast at Square Chapel which brings together a diverse range of comedians including Lynne Ruth Miller, who, at 82, is the oldest performing stand-up female comedian and the poster girl for growing old disgracefully.
Other unmissable events include unstoppable comedy juggernaut The Noise Next Door, the UK’s premier improvisation troupe, who will drop into Halifax with their third national tour.
This adds to stand-up and TV regular Andrew Lawrence and Edinburgh Fringe favourite James Acaster whose names were announced earlier this year.
Festival Director Tim Fagan said: “We’re excited to reveal our full comedy line-up which features international talents such as Adam Hills; established and ascending British stars and much-loved favourites from the local comedy circuit.”
The Halifax Comedy Festival runs from 21 to 29 October with more than 20 events taking place across eight quirky venues from Halifax’s little-known Wellington Rooms, to legendary local music venue, the Arden Road Social Club.
Tickets are now on sale from www.halifaxcomedyfestival.com
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Nine days to put a smile on our faces Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/nine-days-to-put-a-smile-on-our-faces-1-8087753 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/8926140617beecb2aa2a85127420d6b3c39e5ff358f00ab3b639b4f02845665f.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T12:48:15 | null | 2016-08-29T12:17:24 | The Calderdale Way is preparing for a relaunch and should be completed by next Summer. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fcalderdale-way-will-be-relaunched-1-8091475.json | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/calderdale-way-will-be-relaunched-1-8091475 | en | null | Calderdale Way will be relaunched | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | The Calderdale Way is preparing for a relaunch and should be completed by next Summer.
The 50 mile walk has circled Calderdale for 40 years and work has already started by CROWS and the Calderdale Countryside Service.
So far the route has been surveyed to identify repairs that are needed and it has been waymarked to make it easier for people to find their way.
The Calderdale Way Association developed the route in 1977 and produced the guide but has not been very active for some years so this will also be relaunched.
Some exciting ideas such as a blog and a website are in the works as well as the establishment of Friends who will keep an eye on small stretches of the route.
Richard Peters, one of the organisers, said: “The meeting will need to deal with some admin stuff so the Association can continue to function, but we are hoping for a lively discussion to generate ideas for promoting and looking after the route in the future.”
An open meeting of the Calderdale Way Association will be held on Monday September 5 at 7pm at The Works in Sowerby Bridge.
Anyone who can’t attend can contact calderdalewayassociation@gmail.com | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/calderdale-way-will-be-relaunched-1-8091475 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/cba9a4d2e27eddbf8da71e9515e22bb39210fc8c8044b6a8a81352e46b68d1c4.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T12:48:08 | null | 2016-08-28T13:00:11 | Everybody’s favourite northern comedian, Jason Manford, will be performing a best of show which promises to feature a wealth of comedy anecdotes, misunderstandings and audience banter delivered with his his trademark likeable charm and teasingly intelligent wit. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fjason-brings-his-best-of-show-to-the-lbt-1-8087903.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087901.1472121539!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Jason brings his best of show to the LBT | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Everybody’s favourite northern comedian, Jason Manford, will be performing a best of show which promises to feature a wealth of comedy anecdotes, misunderstandings and audience banter delivered with his his trademark likeable charm and teasingly intelligent wit.
Jason’s numerous TV credits include: Sunday Night at the Palladium (ITV1), Live at the Apollo (BBC One), Have I Got News For You (BBC One), QI (BBC Two) and The Royal Variety Performance (ITV1) - all of which have served to establish him as a British comic household name.
The multi-talented all-singing, dancing and joke-cracking comic recently told his fans ...
“Some of you might think I’ve had a career change what with all the opera and musical theatre I’ve been doing lately. Not a chance, I’m excited to be getting back to what I really love the most – stand up!”
Jason Manford will perform his Best Of 2016 show at the LBT on Monday September 12 at 8.00pm.
Tickets are priced at £18.50 and can be booked by calling box office on 01484 430528 or visiting www.thelbt.org
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Jason brings his best of show to the LBT Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/jason-brings-his-best-of-show-to-the-lbt-1-8087903 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/20403a305c8a4e6a4d2b34163c4a254d8329714726ccb6085e0a04cdeed34ecb.json |
[
"Chris Waters"
] | 2016-08-29T08:47:01 | null | 2016-08-29T09:01:30 | JASON GILLESPIE has resigned as Yorkshire’s first team coach. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Fjason-gillespie-to-stand-down-as-yorkshire-ccc-coach-at-end-of-2016-season-1-8093941.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8093938.1472457699!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Jason Gillespie to stand down as Yorkshire CCC coach at end of 2016 season | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Australian heading back home after five years of success at Headingley
JASON GILLESPIE has resigned as Yorkshire’s first team coach.
The former Australia fast bowler is to leave the club at the end of the season.
Jason Gillespie with Martyn Moxon at Headingley back in 2012.
The news is a body blow to the county champions, whom Gillespie has led to back-to-back Championships.
READ/WATCH MORE - Timeline and slideshow of Jason Gillespie’s time at Yorkshire
READ MORE - Royal London Cup: Semi-final misery continues for Yorkshire as they come up short against Surrey
However, it is not entirely unexpected, with Gillespie’s wife and four children having recently returned to Australia, and with his future having been a regular source of speculation.
Martyn Moxon will not begin the search for a new head coach until the end of the current season Yorkshire CCC statement
Gillespie has been linked with a number of international coaching jobs during his five seasons in charge, and he already doubles up as coach of the Big Bash franchise Adelaide Strikers.
Yorkshire had hoped that he would stay for at least another year, but after the club lost to Surrey in the Royal London Cup semi-final yesterday, Gillespie communicated his decision to the Yorkshire board.
Yorkshire say they will start the search for a new head coach at the end of the season, who will work under director of cricket Martyn Moxon.
In a statement issued today, the club said: “Yorkshire County Cricket Club can confirm that Jason Gillespie will leave his position as head coach at the end of the 2016 season.
Yorkshire's head coach, Jason Gillespie, pictured with Jonny Bairstow during Sunday's Royal London Cup semi-final defeat at Headingley. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture: Richard Sellers/PA.
“The club would like to place on record its thanks to Jason, who led Yorkshire from the Second Division to consecutive Championship titles, along the way suffering just five defeats in 76 Championship fixtures since his appointment in November 2011.
“His wife Anna and their four children have recently returned to Australia and, with the 41-year-old’s existing commitments to coaching the Adelaide Strikers in Australia’s Big Bash, Jason feels the close season is an appropriate time to part company.
“Martyn Moxon will not begin the search for a new head coach until the end of the current season, and the club will provide further updates when the time is appropriate.”
Gillespie has the chance to go out on a high, with the club well-placed to secure a hat-trick of Championships.
Yorkshire go into Wednesday’s match against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl in second place in Division One, five points behind leaders Middlesex with four games to play. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/jason-gillespie-to-stand-down-as-yorkshire-ccc-coach-at-end-of-2016-season-1-8093941 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/9fbe9b07982528ad8c0174a941292ca3c6895892856068b8b7b793dc6f17f4dc.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:07:38 | null | 2016-08-24T13:50:17 | A former Halifax man suspected of involvement in the murder of a policeman on the tourist island of Bali has confessed to attacking the officer with a beer bottle and leaving him unconscious. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fformer-halifax-man-arrested-over-bali-police-officer-s-death-1-8086121.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8086120.1472043043!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Former Halifax man arrested over Bali police officer’s death | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | A former Halifax man suspected of involvement in the murder of a policeman on the tourist island of Bali has confessed to attacking the officer with a beer bottle and leaving him unconscious.
David Taylor and his Australian girlfriend, Sara Connor, were arrested last Friday, two days after the bloodied body of traffic police officer Wayan Sudarsa was found on the beach outside the Pullman Hotel in Kuta, a popular tourist area.
Denpasar Police Chief Colonel Hadi Purnomo said Taylor admitted getting into a fight with the officer after Connor accused him of stealing her handbag.
Police said the fight began when Mr Sudsara resisted Taylor and Connor’s attempts to search him.
Taylor’s lawyer, Haposan Sihombing, said his client admitted to the attack.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Former Halifax man arrested over Bali police officer’s death Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/former-halifax-man-arrested-over-bali-police-officer-s-death-1-8086121 | en | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/2c96dfc02375236429d9386629bb0077fa2de4656ce45e73a39c5fb896ca6447.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:00:35 | null | 2016-08-21T15:57:24 | Huddersfield Amateur got their first victory of the season at the third time of asking in Division One of the West Yorkshire League, beating Leeds Modernians 6-0 at Old Earth on Saturday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Fopening-win-for-elland-side-1-8080844.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.5906109.1472111580!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Opening win for Elland side | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Huddersfield Amateur got their first victory of the season at the third time of asking in Division One of the West Yorkshire League, beating Leeds Modernians 6-0 at Old Earth on Saturday.
It took the Elland side 30 minutes to open their account but when the goal arrived it was a beauty from Jacob Driver, who took aim from 25 yards and fired an unstoppable drive into the corner of the net.
Jonny Crowther doubled the lead on the stroke of half time with a neat left foot finish.
In the first minute of the second half the home side were awarded a free kick and Driver put the game beyond doubt, aided by some poor ‘keeping.
Matty Parker then bagged his customary brace of goals and the scoring was wrapped up in the 85th minute. Special praise must go to young keeper Matt Berry who looked assured and confident in keeping a clean sheet in goals with a couple of important saves to help the Amas get their season up and running.
The reserves were stretched to the limit for resources and had just 11 fit and available men going down by 8-0 at Beeston St Anthony’s in their first league fixture of the season.
Brighouse Old Boys have only one point from three games in the Premier Division after losing 2-0 away to Headingley, who had lost their previous two contests.
Halifax Irish’s home game against Kirkburton in the top section of the West Riding CA was postponed due to waterlogging at West Vale. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/opening-win-for-elland-side-1-8080844 | en | 2016-08-21T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/27e1adcdce861b1e60e1fceebfeee66f956318082ea4348559b985fd97449652.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T10:48:06 | null | 2016-08-28T10:00:36 | Halifax Amateur Operatic Society prepares to take its audience back to a time of big music, big egos, big guitar solos and even bigger hair when it presents the Broadway and West End smash hit ‘Rock of Ages’. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fbig-hair-big-noise-it-s-the-80s-1-8087842.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087840.1472120919!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Big hair, big noise - it’s the 80s | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Halifax Amateur Operatic Society prepares to take its audience back to a time of big music, big egos, big guitar solos and even bigger hair when it presents the Broadway and West End smash hit ‘Rock of Ages’.
Set in LA’s infamous Sunset Strip in 1987, ‘Rock of Ages’ tells the story of Drew, a boy from South Detroit, and Sherrie, a small-town girl, both in LA to chase their dreams of fame and rock stardom while falling in love. Working at a Hollywood club, The Bourbon Room, the pair get mixed up with everyone from pretentious rock stars to wicked redevelopers who want to close down the club!
Everything from Bon Jovi, Europe, Twisted Sister, Journey to Poison will be belted out in this spectacular production.
The show is filled with colourful characters all of whom get the chance to sing some fantastic numbers including Don’t Stop Believin, Nothin’ but a Good Time, Wanted Dead or Alive and Hit Me With Your Best Shot.
The show is directed by Neil Hurst, Luke Robbins-Ross is the Musical Director and Sarah Attah has created the choreography.
Said Neil: “We have a committed cast dedicated to putting on a fantastic production.”
Rock of Ages runs at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax on Sep tember 14, 15, 16 at 7.30pm.
There are two performances on Saturday, September 17 at 4pm and 8 pm.
Tickets range from £17 to £21 with discounts available. Purchase tickets online, www.victoriatheatre.co.uk, or by calling the Box Office on 01422 351158.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Big hair, big noise - it’s the 80s Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/big-hair-big-noise-it-s-the-80s-1-8087842 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/911a40de73449f87740fcdb07e6cabedbf65752c591cdfb01a642ee4fcab768c.json |
[
"Chris Waters"
] | 2016-08-29T06:47:02 | null | 2016-08-29T05:48:25 | ON the one hand, the portents were not favourable: Yorkshire had lost 16 of their previous 19 List A semi-finals dating back to 1979. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Froyal-london-cup-semi-final-misery-continues-for-yorkshire-as-they-come-up-short-against-surrey-1-8093704.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8093696.1472417150!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Royal London Cup: Semi-final misery continues for Yorkshire as they come up short against Surrey | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | ON the one hand, the portents were not favourable: Yorkshire had lost 16 of their previous 19 List A semi-finals dating back to 1979.
On the other, when they last reached a one-day final in 2002, Yorkshire beat yesterday’s opponents in the semi-finals at Headingley before going on to beat Somerset – who contest the other semi against Warwickshire today – by six wickets at Lord’s.
Surrey's Jade Dernbach celebrates taking the final Yorkshire wicket of Tim bresnan to seal a memorable semi-final win at Headingley. Picture: Richard Sellers/PA
Something had to give, and on a grey day at Headingley, that something was the hope that Surrey’s latest semi-final trip to Leeds might prove a good omen.
After the visitors scored 255-7, Steven Davies leading the way with 104 and Ben Foakes making a one-day career-best 90, Yorkshire came up short at 236 as their semi-final hoodoo continued apace.
Before a disappointing crowd of 4,836, which was not the bumper gate Yorkshire had been hoping for on Bank Holiday Sunday, the hosts made an excellent start after winning the toss.
Jack Brooks had Dominic Sibley lbw with the final delivery of the second over – umpire Peter Hartley deciding that the ball would not have drifted down leg-side, as replays suggested it might – and Tim Bresnan picked up the key wicket of Kumar Sangakkara with the fourth delivery of the third over.
Surrey's Steven Davies celebrates what proved to be a match-winning century against Yorkshire at Headingley in the Royal London Cup semi-final. Picture: Richard Sellers/PA .
The Sri Lankan, who had chopped the previous ball to the point boundary to get off the mark, drove on the up to cover, where Azeem Rafiq picked out the catch.
Sangakkara, who won the quarter-final against Northants with an unbeaten 130, has a mystifyingly poor record against Yorkshire; in eight innings against them in all cricket, he has managed 179 runs at 22.37.
From 8-2, things could only get better for Surrey, and they did as Davies and Rory Burns added 53 in 12 overs.
Davies, silky and stylish through the offside, injected impetus and Burns kept him good company, sensibly giving his partner as much strike as possible. Just as Surrey were starting to seize control, Matthew Waite, the 20-year-old making his first appearance in this year’s tournament, broke the stand with his opening ball from the Kirkstall Lane end.
Yorkshire's Tim Bresnan (left) and Will Rhodes encourage each other during the run chase against Surrey at Headingley yesterday. Picture: Richard Sellers/PA.
It was an innocuous leg-stump half-volley, and Burns carelessly helped it to Steve Patterson at deep fine-leg.
Waite might have had a wicket with his fourth ball, too, when Davies, on 43, drove back a return chance, but the ball seemed to come back a little slower than Waite expected, and the opportunity was lost.
It was another 24 overs before Yorkshire struck again, Waite finally getting Davies when he wellied a low full toss to deep square.
Thus ended a stand of 130 between Davies and Foakes, which beat Surrey’s previous best for the fourth wicket in one-day cricket against Yorkshire of 110 between Monty Lynch and Andrew Needham at Bradford in 1985.
Waite captured his third wicket when Sam Curran highlighted Surrey’s tendency towards over-funkiness by trying one ramp shot too many, stepping away so far to the offside that he was unable to prevent the ball clattering into leg stump.
Surrey ideally needed one of Davies or Foakes to be there at the end, but Foakes followed his partner back to the pavilion when he was sixth out at 249, ramping Bresnan to Brooks at short fine-leg.
Ollie Pope, an 18-year-old making his List A debut, chipped in with 20, but boundaries proved elusive as Surrey failed to summon a grandstand finish.
Yorkshire’s bowlers deserved credit for restricting them, and Pope was run-out off the final ball of the innings as only 63 came off the last 10 overs.
It felt as though Yorkshire had their noses in front at halfway, but those noses were put out of joint when Adam Lyth hit Jade Dernbach to cover in the third over.
Alex Lees played some handsome strokes before being undone in the flight by Gareth Batty, and Yorkshire lost the key wicket of Jonny Bairstow when he chipped Stuart Meaker’s third ball to mid-wicket.
In Meaker’s second over, Gary Ballance tried to steer to third man and was caught behind, and Meaker claimed his third victim in nine balls when Jack Leaning chopped on.
Having looked relatively comfortable at 75-2, Yorkshire were suddenly 81-5 and looking anything but in control, the soft nature of their dismissals undoubtedly a frustration.
But Yorkshire showed characteristic fight as Bresnan and Waite combined in a stand of 80 in 16 that changed the mood and momentum.
Waite, impressively unflustered for one so young, showed a fine temperament and some deft touches before falling for 38, the ball perhaps stopping in the pitch as he lobbed Sam Curran to Batty at mid-off. Bresnan then added 46 in eight overs with Will Rhodes, who was brilliantly run-out by a direct hit from Tom Curran at point as he tried to steal a single off Dernbach.
Tom Curran had Rafiq caught at long-on and Patterson held at mid-wicket, and Dernbach ended things with seven balls remaining when Bresnan picked out long-off. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/royal-london-cup-semi-final-misery-continues-for-yorkshire-as-they-come-up-short-against-surrey-1-8093704 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/1a718d708142267a30adb3323a672bad2333a9427e6f74d177cc3cec975b0632.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:01:59 | null | 2016-08-21T09:13:53 | Brighouse Town and Glossop North End must meet again on Monday in the preliminary round of the Emirates FA Cup after a 2-2 draw between the sides in Derbyshire. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Fbrighouse-must-try-again-1-8080504.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8080503.1471767222!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Brighouse must try again | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Brighouse Town and Glossop North End must meet again on Monday in the preliminary round of the Emirates FA Cup after a 2-2 draw between the sides in Derbyshire.
The visitors looked in trouble when they trailed 2-0 after 19 minutes to goals from Michael Norton and ex-Halifax Town player Jamie Rainford.
However, Lee Spires pulled one back with a fine shot into the bottom corner of the net from 20 yards on 31 minutes.
The equaliser came five minutes after the break from Ernest Boafo, who bent the ball into the top corner of the net from the edge of the box.
The winners of the Hove Edge replay will be at home to Lancaster City, who thumped West Auckland 5-1 away. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/brighouse-must-try-again-1-8080504 | en | 2016-08-21T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/73ad389d75b8aeeed58bbac8bd0602d90721848e81669808932184b2d3d7fb78.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:56 | null | 2016-08-14T10:00:12 | As seen on the Royal Variety Performance and John Bishop Show and America’s Got Talent 2016, Tape Face returns to the UK this autumn with a major tour and stops at the Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds in September. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Funique-silent-comedy-1-8064560.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8064559.1470929143!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Unique silent comedy | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | As seen on the Royal Variety Performance and John Bishop Show and America’s Got Talent 2016, Tape Face returns to the UK this autumn with a major tour and stops at the Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds in September.
This is a unique show – stand-up comedy with no talking, drama with no acting and punch lines with no words. The artist formerly known as The Boy with Tape on His Face brings you a multi-award winning, multi-hyphenate spectacle that has to be seen to be believed. Join Tape Face as he conjures uproarious and moving tableaux using only everyday objects and the popular songs.
Think you’ve seen Tape Face? Think again. This year promises to be a bigger, brighter and more spectacular re-imagining of his unique and special brand of silent comedy. Visually stunning, heart-stopping and very, very funny.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Unique silent comedy Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/unique-silent-comedy-1-8064560 | en | 2016-08-14T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/3566d20e2c635dead8ee1187d5acf54610a2ade1e92c76b4d9f7a9e73ddbfc63.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T18:46:51 | null | 2016-08-28T17:10:22 | Three wickets in nine balls at a cost of two runs for Stuart Meaker tore the heart out of Yorkshire’s batting at Headingley and sent Surrey through to the final of the Royal London One-Day Cup at Lord’s. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Froyal-london-cup-yorkshire-v-surrey-misery-for-yorkshire-as-they-miss-out-on-lord-s-final-yet-again-in-headingley-defeat-1-8093417.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8093574.1472409030!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Royal London Cup: Yorkshire v Surrey - Misery for Yorkshire as they miss out on Lord’s final yet again in Headingley defeat | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Three wickets in nine balls at a cost of two runs for Stuart Meaker tore the heart out of Yorkshire’s batting at Headingley and sent Surrey through to the final of the Royal London One-Day Cup at Lord’s.
A century for man-of-the-match Steven Davies and 90 from Ben Foakes left Yorkshire Vikings chasing a 256 target and although they recovered well after Meaker’s dramatic intervention, thanks to a brave 68 from Tim Bresnan, the task was just beyond them and they were bowled out for 236 to lose by 19 runs with seven balls remaining.
Yorkshire captain Alex Lees is bowled out by Surrey's Gareth Batty for 26. Picture: Richard Sellers/PA.
Surrey now have the chance to avenge last season’s final defeat by Gloucestershire but for Yorkshire it was the second consecutive year that they have stumbled at the last-four stage.
It also continued a depressing run of semi-final reverses in List A cricket for Yorkshire, who have now lost 17 times out of 20 on such occasions since 1979.
Captain Alex Lees admitted - combined with defeat in last week’s T20 Blast semi-final to Durham Jets - Yorkshire hadn’t been good enough to progress in either game.
“I think we are all gutted to lose because we have played some great white ball cricket this season,” said Lees. “But when it has mattered in two semi-finals over the past week we have not been good enough.
Yorkshire's Tim Bresnan (second left) is congratulated by Jack Brooks (second right) and Jonny Bairstow (right) after taking the wicket of Surrey's Kumar Sangakkara. Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
“I thought it was a reachable target and we needed some contributions from the top five and this didn’t happen. All credit to the Surrey bowlers who kept going.”
Lees was also quick to praise the efforts of Bresnan, adding: “He has won three or four games single-handed for us and has been exceptional both with the bat and ball. His big contribution almost got us there. When we look back it will have been a positive season but you still don’t want to lose two semi-finals.”
Yorkshire lost Adam Lyth to Jade Dernbach in their third over and after skipper, Alex Lees, had played some solid strokes in reaching 26 he was bowled driving at his opposite number, Gareth Batty.
At 74-2 in 19 overs, however, Yorkshire were still handily placed until Meaker, bowling from the football end, began his lethal burst.
Jonny Bairstow, released by England for the match, drove gently to Dominic Sibley at mid-wicket; Gary Ballance was caught behind trying to flick over the top of the slips and Jack Leaning dragged into his leg-stump.
The slide to 81-5 was halted by Bresnan and 20-year-old all-rounder, Matthew Waite, who enjoyed a fine match in which he earlier captured three wickets and then scored 38 in an enterprising stand of 80 in 16 overs with his senior partner.
Waite survived a confident appeal for a catch off Batty’s bowling but in the next over from Sam Curran he drove into Batty’s hands at mid-on. Bresnan and Will Rhodes kept the hopes of the 4,836 crowd alive with a busy stand of 46 which ended at 207 in the 45th over when Rhodes played to backward point and set off for a single but was beaten by Tom Curran’s direct hit on the stumps at the bowler’s end.
Bresnan and Azeem Rafiq continued to battle hard, but when Tom Curran sent back both Rafiq and Steven Patterson in the 48th over to make it 236-9 the task was just beyond Yorkshire and the match ended when Bresnan drove Dernbach to Sibley at long-off, his 68 coming off 82 balls with two fours and a six.
Put in to bat, Surrey found themselves on eight for two by the third over, with Kumar Sangakkara one of the wickets to fall, but the early setbacks did not unsettle Davies whose 104 followed consecutive Championship scores of 117, 52 and 56 against Yorkshire this season.
Jack Brooks, in his first List A match of the summer, struck in the day’s second over as Dibley shaped to play to leg but missed and was lbw. Sangakkara was quick of the mark, cutting Bresnan for four, but in the same over the Sri Lankan drove loosely to Rafiq in the covers.
Davies, however, made smooth progress with some splendidly timed shots through the covers, taking boundaries off consecutive balls from Brooks, and he hit 34 of the first 48 runs scored.
But at 61-2 in 14 overs, Waite joined the attack and his first delivery was flicked casually to long leg by Burns for Patterson to hold a good catch dropping to his knees.
It should have been an even more memorable over for Waite but three balls later Davies, on 43, drove back past the bowler’s hands and the chance went begging.
Had Davies gone then, Surrey would have been in big trouble but they were rescued by Davies’ and Foakes’ partnership of 130, the visitors’ highest for the fourth wicket in List A cricket against Yorkshire and beating the 110 by Monty Lynch and Andrew Needham at Bradford in 1985.
Davies, having reached his half-century from 57 deliveries, continued to time the ball to perfection, hooking Bresnan for four and on-driving Rafiq for six while Foakes moved smartly to his own 50 from 51 balls, the stand entering three figures in 21 overs.
A single to Davies off Patterson took him to his century off 112 balls with ten fours and a six, but four runs later he hit a low full toss from Waite straight to Rhodes on the mid-wicket boundary.
Surrey were 191-4 in the 39th over and they lost much of their momentum in the last dozen overs or so, Sam Curran going for 16 when he was bowled by Waite in a futile and ungainly attempt to scoop the ball round the corner.
Waite’s figures of three for 48 were Yorkshire’s best of the day and at the end of his stint he received warm and prolonged applause from the appreciative crowd.
Foakes struck Bresnan high over long on for six but was denied a century when a ramp shot went wrong and he was caught by Brooks for 90 from 100 balls with seven fours to go alongside his big hit.
Surrey debutant, Ollie Pope, was run out for 20 off the last ball of an innings which never quite blossomed as much as it might of done, although it may never have bloomed at all but for Davies and Foakes.
As it happened (the last 10 overs) ...
49.5 overs - WICKET - GAME OVER - Bresnan hits high full tos down the throat of Sibley at long-off from the bowling of Jake Dernbach - Bresnan dismissed for 68. Surrey win by 19 runs
48 overs: WICKET - Yorkshire 234-9 - Steve Patterson goes first ball, ball stopped on him and he just looped a catch up to Sangakarra at mid on.
47. 3 overs: WICKET - Yorkshire 231-8 - Rafiq hits full toss down to long on where he is caught by Burns off Tom Curran - Steven Patterson joins Bresnan who is 64 no
47 overs: Yorkshire 229-7 - Another good over Yorkshire, good running once again - Bresnan 64 no; Rafiq 5 no. 27 needed off 18 balls
46 overs: Yorkshire 222 -7 - Good over for Yorkshire, 143 runs including big six over long on from Bresnan and some cracking running between the wickets; Bresnan 62 no; Rafiq 2 no
45 overs: Yorkshire 209- 7 - Two runs off the last ball brings up 50 for Bresnan, who is joined at the crease by Azeem Rafiq - Bresnan, 51 no; Rafiq 0 no 44.5 overs: WICKET Yorkshire 207-7 - Rhodes run out from direct hit by ???? at backward point. Rhodes hesitated slightly before setting off and it proved costly
44 overs: Yorkshire 202-6 - Bresnan 47 no; Rhodes 21 no - 54 needed off 36 balls. Surrey bowling nice and tight, making it difficult for both Bresnan and Rhodes to get them away.
43 overs: Yorkshire 193-6 - Bresnan 44 no; Rhodes 15 no - 63 off 41 needed
42 overs: Yorkshire 188-6 - Bresnan 42 no; Rhodes 12 no- 68 needed off 48 balls
41 overs: Yorkshire 179-6 - Bresnan 37 no; Rhodes 10 no - 77 needed
40 overs: Yorkshire 173-6 - Bresnan 36 no; Rhodes 4no - 83 runs needed | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/royal-london-cup-yorkshire-v-surrey-misery-for-yorkshire-as-they-miss-out-on-lord-s-final-yet-again-in-headingley-defeat-1-8093417 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/02b4ff64727b1bdb0fc80e845cb46f3614f52411cf119a773890d861ed5c9e65.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:10:32 | null | 2016-08-20T13:00:57 | Be ready for pretty much anything when Jason Cook takes to the stage at the next Comedy at the Works Show in Sowerby Bridge (August 27).. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fjason-takes-you-to-unexpected-places-1-8075835.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8075816.1471514944!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Jason takes you to unexpected places | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Be ready for pretty much anything when Jason Cook takes to the stage at the next Comedy at the Works Show in Sowerby Bridge (August 27)..
Behind his cheerful Geordie exterior lurks a dark, sharp comedic mind capable of taking an unsuspecting audience to places they didn’t want to go.
Jason also wrote and starred in the BBC sitcom “Hebburn” alongside Vic Reeves, and Chris Ramsey.
The show was based on his upbringing in South Tyneside.
Since then he has appeared regularly on our screens as the face of a well known cracker manufacturer and had his second radio 4 series ‘School Of Hard Knocks’ broadcast.
(“Jason Cook has more funny in his middle toe than most comics do in their whole body” - Chortle)
Chris McCausland is the only professional comedian in the UK and possibly even the world who is blind.
This only occasionally attracts the focus of his stand-up however with the attentions of his unique brand of observational comedy being cast far and wide. Chris is also the face of a well known high street bank’s advertising campaign.
(“A must see. Be sure to catch the always excellent McCausland” - Sunday Times)
Compere for the evening is Scouser Brendan Riley and shouty bloke Ben Briggs takes the middle slot.
The show starts at 8.30 pm prompt and tickets are £12.50. Further info and online booking at www.comedyattheworks.co.uk .
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Jason takes you to unexpected places Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/jason-takes-you-to-unexpected-places-1-8075835 | en | 2016-08-20T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/946d9ab785e4a999e01c2686149d0e9f34a6f4d96146b37016abb206b8bb24be.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:09:51 | null | 2016-08-25T12:30:32 | Calderdale in Recovery, which helps local people overcome drug and alcohol addiction. is holding a family fun day in Centre Vale Park, Todmorden on August 31. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Ffamily-fun-day-will-help-people-tackle-addiction-1-8087929.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087928.1472121917!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Family fun day will help people tackle addiction | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Calderdale in Recovery, which helps local people overcome drug and alcohol addiction. is holding a family fun day in Centre Vale Park, Todmorden on August 31.
Among the attractions for kids will be face painting, a bouncy castle, and a number of games . There will be a healthy picnic and music for all in the event which runs from midday to 4pm.
Says Andy Bryant of the Calderdale in Recovery team: “We are trying to pass the message that it is possible to recover and become useful members of the community.There would seem to be a number of people in Todmorden who suffer with addiction problems but nobody in the community who can demonstrate visible recovery.
“We are hoping that by holding it in Todmorden people can see and talk to families and individuals who have benefited from recovery elsewhere. Hopefully the wider community can also see how people can change and become assets. Of course we can just have fun as well.”
Entry and food is free, but some aspects may carry a small charge.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Family fun day will help people tackle addiction Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/family-fun-day-will-help-people-tackle-addiction-1-8087929 | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/2a9ed00d34d4992247e4a83cca3e67255aea8cb7de5c0dd1381d7fbed33b7fbc.json |
[
"Chris Waters"
] | 2016-08-27T10:46:29 | null | 2016-08-27T10:30:10 | JASON GILLESPIE believes there has been clear progress in Yorkshire’s one-day cricket this year, regardless of the result of tomorrow’s semi-final. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Fyorkshire-v-surrey-white-ball-progress-gives-jason-gillespie-grounds-for-optimism-as-prize-of-lord-s-final-awaits-1-8092007.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8092004.1472248055!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Yorkshire v Surrey: White-ball progress gives Jason Gillespie grounds for optimism as prize of Lord’s final awaits | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | JASON GILLESPIE believes there has been clear progress in Yorkshire’s one-day cricket this year, regardless of the result of tomorrow’s semi-final.
Yorkshire are aiming to reach their first Lord’s final since 2002 when they take on Surrey at Headingley (11am start).
THREAT: Surrey's Kumar Sangakkara
It is the second successive season that Yorkshire have reached the Royal London semis, with the club going down by eight wickets to eventual champions Gloucestershire at Headingley last year.
Surrey, last season’s runners-up, will pose another stiff test, but Gillespie has been encouraged by Yorkshire’s white-ball performances, with the club having also reached the semi-finals of the NatWest T20 Blast before losing to Durham.
“We’ve seen clear progress in white-ball cricket this year,” said Gillespie. “We’re not the finished article, but we’ve definitely seen improvements overall in both of the comps.
“We should have chased down the runs against Durham in the T20 semi, even though Mark Wood bowled very well against us.
“But that’s gone now, and I’m pleased overall with how the lads have gone about their work in one-day cricket.”
To get past Surrey, Yorkshire must overcome a semi-final hoodoo in List A cricket. Their defeat to Gloucestershire last season was their 16th in 19 one-day cup semis.
“That stat isn’t in our minds,” said Gillespie. “It hasn’t even been discussed. Sunday is a new day, and the fact is that we’ve played some good cricket in the 50-over comp.
“We know Surrey are a quality team and that people will see them as favourites, which is okay with us.
“We just need to go out there and play the best cricket we can and focus on that.”
On paper, the biggest danger to Yorkshire is Kumar Sangakkara, the former Sri Lanka batsman/wicketkeeper. Sangakkara, 38, scored an unbeaten 130 to help Surrey to a dramatic one-wicket win off the last ball of their quarter-final at Northants.
“Sangakkara is clearly an extremely dangerous player,” said Gillespie, whose side booked their semi-final place with an 11-run win over Kent at Canterbury.
“He has a proven track record, and he is capable of winning games single-handed.
“At the same time, we will do our homework against him and encourage our bowlers and everyone to do their research.
“Phil Dicks (the Yorkshire analyst) puts a lot of stuff together, and the players have iPads where they can look at all the relevant footage – ie, where Sangakkara scores his runs, his wagon wheels, and potentially where he could be vulnerable, which is what we do with all our opponents.”
Yorkshire’s attention to detail in this regard has increased markedly in recent times.
Dicks is an important member of the backroom operation, equipping players with all the necessary stats and info.
“Phil has been brilliant,” said Gillespie. “He’s an important cog in the support staff at Yorkshire.
Yorkshire (from): Ballance, Bresnan, Brooks, Carver, Coad, Hodd, Leaning, Lees (capt), Lyth, Patterson, Rafiq, Rhodes, Waite. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/yorkshire-v-surrey-white-ball-progress-gives-jason-gillespie-grounds-for-optimism-as-prize-of-lord-s-final-awaits-1-8092007 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/09756614902c3d9aae4086a05eb818f8fe2d2ba03067cad157403d7bdfe67224.json |
[
"Chris Waters"
] | 2016-08-27T00:46:25 | null | 2016-08-27T00:07:09 | IT was not so much North Marine Road as Submarine Road at Scarborough cricket ground on Thursday night. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Ftim-bresnan-and-blotter-combine-to-vindicate-yorkshire-s-scarborough-tactics-1-8092010.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8092006.1472248066!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Tim Bresnan and ‘Blotter’ combine to vindicate Yorkshire’s Scarborough tactics | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | IT was not so much North Marine Road as Submarine Road at Scarborough cricket ground on Thursday night.
Yorkshire were sufficiently concerned that rain would run their hopes of a final day victory against Nottinghamshire – after they had passed up the chance to enforce the follow-on on day two - that they arranged for their “Blotter” to be brought over at 5.00 yesterday morning from their Headingley headquarters some 70 miles away.
MAGIC MOMENT: Yorkshire's Alex Lees takes a great catch to dismiss Nottinghamshire's Imran Tahir and give them victory at Scarborough. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com
After two hours of blotting the saturated outfield, play was able to start on time and Yorkshire romped to a 305-run win after Notts resumed on 61-3.
Had there been an official man-of-the match, the “Blotter” would have been a strong contender, with Yorkshire’s 21-point triumph closing the gap to five points on leaders Middlesex.
If Yorkshire had not prevailed, they might have been tempted to get “blottoed” hours after calling for the “Blotter”, following their decision to bat again with a first innings lead of 188.
That decision, unanimous in the dressing room according to first team coach Jason Gillespie, was not quite so unanimous among the Yorkshire supporters, who could be heard debating it in and outside the ground for two days with all the gravitas of whether a nation should go to war.
Yorkshire's Tim Bresnan is congratulated by Ryan Sidebottom and team mates on dismissing Nottinghamshire's Tom Moores. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com
But, as William Shakespeare once scribbled, ‘all’s well that ends well”, and history will remember the result first and foremost.
For Gillespie, it was vindication of Yorkshire’s approach as they made suitably light work of the division’s bottom club after recovering from a perilous 51-6 on the opening day.
“It was the right call (to bat again),” said Gillespie.
“People had a pop at us for not enforcing the follow-on, but we stick by what we believe is the best opportunity to win the game of cricket, and we were vindicated there.
“The bottom line is, it was a very important result against a very good side.
“Having been 51-6 on the first day, to win by over 300 runs, this team never ceases to amaze me.
“I can’t be any more proud of them. There are no words to describe it.”
After the torrential rain of the previous night, the “Blotter” went about its business beneath sunny skies as summer returned to North Marine Road. Technically, it did its work so well that Notts even lost a wicket before the official start time of 11, with the clock showing 10.59 when Tom Moores fell to the day’s fourth ball.
Moores, the 19-year-old son of former England head coach Peter, had played with great maturity to make 41 on the third evening.
He had not added to his overnight score – and neither had Notts – when Tim Bresnan located his edge from the Trafalgar Square end, Adam Lyth doing the rest at second slip.
Notts fell to 77-5 when Samit Patel perished after half-an-hour, adjudged caught behind off Bresnan by umpire Neil Mallender.
Patel stood his ground in echoes of Michael Lumb’s dismissal the previous evening, when he, too, felt that Mallender had wrongly given him out caught behind, and the visitors’ cause became utterly hopeless when Bresnan claimed his fifth wicket, Chris Read edging to Jake Lehmann at fourth slip.
Bresnan has never had a six-wicket haul in his distinguished career, and this was only his eighth “five-fer” in first-class cricket.
He had to content himself with career-best figures of 5-36, and his best match haul of 8-51 too, his spell of 3-9 in 31 balls during an eight-over burst yesterday morning ensuring that there would be no unexpected resistance from the visiting team.
That is not to say that they put up the white flag, however, on a day when it would probably have blown away in any case such was the strength of the south-westerly wind. As the red-and-white pin-striped deckchairs flapped in front of the Festival marquee, and as the washing hanging outside the houses at the Trafalgar Square End enjoyed a late-summer airing, Notts showed fight through Brendan Taylor and Brett Hutton.
The pair negotiated the 80 minutes remaining until lunch before Hutton fell to the third ball after the break, drawn forward by a tantalising delivery from Ryan Sidebottom from the Peasholm Park End and caught behind by wicketkeeper Andrew Hodd.
Taylor fell to the third delivery of the next over when he lobbed a short ball from Jack Brooks to cover, having resisted gamely for over two-and-a-half hours, and Brooks bowled Luke Fletcher with the next delivery to leave Notts 130-9.
Brooks wrapped it up at 2pm in his next over, Imran Tahir turning to short-leg as the pace bowler ended with 4-35, Notts all out for 146. Yorkshire left the field to a standing ovation from the 2,676 crowd, which lifted the match attendance to 15,283, a ringing endorsement for England’s finest outground. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/tim-bresnan-and-blotter-combine-to-vindicate-yorkshire-s-scarborough-tactics-1-8092010 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/57d116a673138f68816262a0c5eb6304fb41b138a1ac984371f07859d99ee642.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T10:47:58 | null | 2016-08-27T10:00:36 | Ralph, a once famous screenwriter is in his seventies and is terminally ill. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fthis-will-be-one-night-to-remember-1-8087775.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087774.1472120128!/image/image.jpg | en | null | This will be one night to remember | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Ralph, a once famous screenwriter is in his seventies and is terminally ill.
He has two final missions. To be reconciled with his son and not to be a burden to his wife Anna as he goes gently into that good night.
He is a man who has always had his own way.
He has taken what he wanted and believed in the power of money. He is charming, cantankerous and rude. Will everything go his way? Well, we’re about to find out as Halifax Thespians bring this play to the stage of Halifax Playhouse from September 6-10 - evening starts are 7.30pm with a Saturday matinee at 2.30pm (tickets from 01422 365998).
A film version of this play is in production in Portugal at the moment starring John Hurt and Charles Dance.
Its creator NJ Crisp began his career as a short story writer in the 1960s and his work was published in stacks of magazines.
He went on to work on some iconic TV series writing scripts for Colditz, The Brothers and Dixon of Dock Green among others.
The play was originally produced professionally by Mark Sinden in 1996 starring Donald Sinden and Nigel Davenport and was critically acclaimed.
The director of this production Jeanne O’Rourke, has assembled an experienced cast including Derek Smith, Penny Wadsworth, Andy Rea, Roxanne Rogers and Judith Hardaker.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story This will be one night to remember Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/this-will-be-one-night-to-remember-1-8087775 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/16da095967172e4dfa679dfa459bf67361b4cc5c8f3b17d996a961fa872370b5.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T08:48:23 | null | 2016-08-30T09:29:51 | A new call centre in Elland near Brighouse is set to double its workforce by recruiting a further 30 staff. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2Fbusiness-news%2Fnew-jobs-at-successful-call-centre-1-8083458.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8083457.1471942263!/image/image.jpg | en | null | New jobs at successful call centre | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | A new call centre in Elland near Brighouse is set to double its workforce by recruiting a further 30 staff.
An initial 30 people were employed by Orchard Energy when they opened the call centre at their head office on Park Road in Elland in July.
The call centre is part of a five-year contract won by Orchard Energy’s sister company, Providor, both part of the Lakehouse Group, to provide smart meter services for one of the ‘Big Six’ energy companies. The remit of the call centre is to deliver the UK-wide smart meter telesales services.
In its first month, the call centre has exceeded its appointment booking target by 17 per cent. It has also surpassed a target to secure 85 per cent capacity of engineers’ time, instead scheduling 95 per cent of its capacity.
Due to smart meters becoming more prevalent across the country, further recruitment will now take place.
It is hoped 53 million digital gas and electricity meters in 30 million premises by 2020 across Wales, Scotland and England. There have already been 3.6 million installations in Great Britain so far.
Smart meters allow consumers and smaller businesses to monitor their gas and electricity more closely and help them understand their bills and what’s costing them, and will have a direct impact on their bill at the end of the month.
Orchard Energy’s operations director, Colette Costello, said: “The success of the call centre in its first month is phenomenal. All staff have exceeded our expectations.
“Consumers are becoming more savvy with energy consumption and how they can save money, and smart meters are being seen as a logical solution to monitor that.” | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/business/business-news/new-jobs-at-successful-call-centre-1-8083458 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/40f493574c563de8fca2a767479d9f7524dc648ad93169614785f605b2a6d85e.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T12:48:09 | null | 2016-08-28T12:00:43 | Violinist Jennifer Pike, 2002 BBC Young Muscian of the Year at the age of 12, will appear with the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra to open the Leeds International Orchestral Season on Saturday, October 8. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fjennifer-s-season-debut-1-8087869.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087868.1472121207!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Jennifer’s season debut | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Violinist Jennifer Pike, 2002 BBC Young Muscian of the Year at the age of 12, will appear with the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra to open the Leeds International Orchestral Season on Saturday, October 8.
She will perform Sibelius’ Violin Concerto and is among a line-up of outstanding young musicians from across the globe who will appear at Leeds Town Hall. Other highlights include Natalie Clein performing Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra on November 19 and the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yuri Temirkanov on January 28, 2017.
There will also be concerts by Leeds Festival Chorus and Leeds Philharmonic Chorus.
Tickets and brochures are now available for the orchestral season by calling 0113 378 6600.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Jennifer’s season debut Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/jennifer-s-season-debut-1-8087869 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/fbfa499181e44f9f332a1d589d28655c02f28cf5d409c703a103bdcd9743fef9.json |
[
"Emily Anderson"
] | 2016-08-26T13:07:51 | null | 2016-08-25T15:51:50 | On Friday night at Jeremy’s they have the Funkside Soul Band from 9.30pm. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fgood-times-1-8084486.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8084485.1472027600!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Good Times | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | On Friday night at Jeremy’s they have the Funkside Soul Band from 9.30pm.
There is also a big event on September 3, when they host the after party for the T3 Farm Challenge that is happening in Mirfield. The event is held at Crossley Farm in Mirfield to raise money for Kirkwood Hospice and is an obstacle course that is lots of fun. Jeremys at The Boathouse and Music Dedication Live have the pleasure of hosting the after party starting at 6pm until late. The bar will be set up along with food stalls, plus three live bands will be perform. Days of Riot, a rock band, Lizzy and The Crescendos, a full seven piece pop/soul/motown group and Bootylicious, who will bring disco, dance, and 90’s music. Tickets are £5 and can be purchased via the Jeremy’s website. If you are taking part in the whole day’s events, this entitles you to entry for the after party. The Millers Bar This Saturday night at The Millers Bar from 8.30pm they have The Board Room. It’s a big band night with classic covers from 60’s to the present day with the likes of The Kinks, The Beatles, Oasis and many more. The Pear Tree Fresh from their success and presentation evening for CAMRA pub of the season it’s onwards and upwards for former Rastrick landlord Alan Ingle, as this weekend they host a family fun day on Sunday from 12 noon in aid of Kirkwood Hospice and will include a barbecue, raffle, stalls and face painting.
The Barge~
On Thursday music comes from LA Fox, on Friday they have Sonnet, on Saturday it is Empress and on Sunday it’s Psychoslinkys.
The Pear Tree Fresh from their success and presentation evening for CAMRA pub of the season it’s onwards and upwards for former Rastrick landlord Alan Ingle, as this weekend they host a family fun day on Sunday from 12 noon in aid of Kirkwood Hospice and will include a barbecue, raffle, stalls and face painting.
Brooks
The restaurant on Bradford Road is hosting a charity supper for the Mayor of Calderdale on September 21 at 7pm.
It’s for one of his charities called ‘Together for Looked-after Children’, who enhance life chances for Calderdale’s children in care. Tickets are £25 for a two course dinner and coffee.
The Red Rooster
Phil Ward has been on from the Red Rooster to say this evening’s Curry Night has had to be cancelled owing to his supplier upping his prices.
“I would just like to apologise to my regulars who have come down from the Junction in Rastrick, but there are irons in the fire to find a replacement for the last Thursday in September and onwards,” added Phil.
The Sun Inn, Rastrick
I have noticed ornaments have appeared in the windows of the Sun Inn, Rastrick, that has been closed for over a year for extensive alterations and I would say the much awaited opening is imminent as everything looks neat and tidy inside. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/good-times-1-8084486 | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/2cf828202ce1616269d3362a8c3decb5b631754ef0f4a3192b3c0b6c32e619b8.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T14:48:12 | null | 2016-08-28T14:00:00 | Toronto born singer-songwriter Jane Siberry, is renowned as one of contemporary music’s most creative, innovative artists - with eleven major recordings, her own independent label and the acclaim of fans and peers alike. Her work has spanned three and a half decades with twenty critically acclaimed CD’s, including Calling All Angels. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fcanada-calling-1-8087919.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087918.1472123615!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Canada calling | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:
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Add This ► Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/canada-calling-1-8087919 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/6ab1f800cce7bee637d6267373bf06b7f9dafc3b5bf040e1fd0fa505c3a5a8ea.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:12:07 | null | 2016-08-14T11:00:45 | Norma Winstone has kept her place at the front rank of UK jazz singing since she first came to notice at Ronnie Scott’s in the late 1960s. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fnorma-sings-for-her-75th-birthday-1-8064565.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8064563.1470929293!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Norma sings for her 75th birthday | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Norma Winstone has kept her place at the front rank of UK jazz singing since she first came to notice at Ronnie Scott’s in the late 1960s.
Her renowned technical ability earned her this plaudit from ‘The Times’: “There is no jazz singer in the country to touch her . . ”
She will mark her 75th birthday with a special concert with her regular collaborators The Printmakers at the Crossley Gallery, Dean Clough, Halifax, on Thursday, September 15 at 8pm.
Mark Lockheart on saxophones, Nikki Iles on piano, Mike Walker on guitar, Steve Watts on bass and James Maddren on drums will join Norma in what promises to be a stunning performance.
While working in an office in the early 1960s, Norma started her career singing in local pubs in the London area.
She was offered her first stint at Ronnie Scott’s in 1966, initially cutting her teeth on jazz standards before developing her own improvisational style and working with the likes of Mike Westbrook, Michael Garrick, John Surman, Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor.
Norma was ‘top singer’ in a Melody Maker Jazz Poll in 1971 and released her first solo album ‘Edge of Time’.
In the late 1970s she joined forces with Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor in the trio Azimuth whose recordings became a by-word for excellence over the next 17 years. Even while collaborating with others, she kept her individual profile and her 1986 album ‘Somewhere Called Home’ is hailed as a classic.
In recent years she has been credited as a lyricist and worked with pianist Glauco Venier and sax/clarinet player Klaus Gesing, releasing ‘Distances’ in 2007.
Tickets for the Dean Clough gig are £15/£12. Tel: 01422 255266 or visit www.deanclough.com
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Norma sings for her 75th birthday Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/norma-sings-for-her-75th-birthday-1-8064565 | en | 2016-08-14T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/278d59ab6b8a32898ccf8de49193b8e3362e763dcce946ad67b790351a197415.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:57:58 | null | 2016-08-24T08:42:04 | Halifax and District made it four wins out of four as they completed their Federation National League programme with a 21-11 victory over Airedale and Wharfedale. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Fbittersweet-win-for-halifax-1-8085318.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8085317.1472024511!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Bittersweet win for Halifax | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Halifax and District made it four wins out of four as they completed their Federation National League programme with a 21-11 victory over Airedale and Wharfedale.
It still wasn’t enough to give them the Division One title, however, with the honours going to Leeds A, who they had beaten in June.
Leeds were also playing on Sundaye, against Fylde A, and won 25-7 to claim top spot by a margin of four points.
The significant facts were that Leeds won 59 of the 96 individual games played by each team during the summer. Halifax won only 52, although they did pick up three more aggregate points than Leeds.
The home leg against Airedale and Wharfedale, who themselves still had plenty to battle for, was played at Brighouse Sports Club. Halifax achieved their best result of the season with 10 winners from 12 games played.
They picked up the two aggregate points by a 243-205 margin for a 12-2 result.
Anchor man Mark Regan (Brighouse Sports) had the best Halifax result of the day, winning to nine, and Gareth Nicholson (Mytholmroyd BC) limited his opponent to 13.
The away leg at Farsley BC in Leeds produced a mixed bag of results for Halifax.
The first four jacks all lost, the second four all won and then there was only one success from the last four.
However, the away aggregate loss was restricted to 14 (194-208) meaning the overall aggregate four points also went to Halifax (432-413) for an overall success by 21 – 11.
Debutant Nigel Bloomer (Brighouse Sports) had the best result from the first four, being the eighth Halifax player this season to lost 21-20.
Clive Austin (Mytholmroyd BC) was the best of the second four jacks, winning to 10.
Tom Gasson playing at number 12 and paired against a former Yorkshire county player, led 15-1 at one stage and finished with a 21-10 result to share the sweep with Austin.
The result meant that Airedale & Wharfedale failed by one point to retain their Division One status with Middleton retaining their spot despite an inferior chalks difference.
For 2017 a resurgent Barnsley and Bury will be promoted to Division One.
At Brighouse Sports: P Ingleby (Elland WM) 21 C Daysh 19, M Steels (Clayton Vics) 21 D Carter 19, S Haynes (Hill Crest) 21 L Teale 19, R Hitchen (Elland WM) 19 M Benson 21, A Bray 14 D Upton 21, R Holmes (Elland WM) 21 S Morris 15, G Nicholson (Mytholmroyd BC) 21 J Teale 13, P Demetriades (Elland WM) 21 R Benson 18, J Summers (Asa Briggs) 21 D Teale 17, G Bradford (Greetland) 21 N Bastow 18, D Clare (Clayton Vics) 21 I Kemp 16, M Regan (Brighouse Sp) 21 M Barker 9.
At Farsley BC: T Riley (Brighouse Sp) 10 N Nicholson 21, K Bannister (Mythoolmroyd BC) 18 G Wike 21, K Hatzer (Hove Edge) 5 J Hanson 21, N Bloomer (Brighouse Sp) 20 T Cater 21, J Abdy (Elland WM) 21 A Hodgson 11, C Austin (Mytholmroyd) 21 D Beardsworth 10, D Radcliffe (Hove Edge) 21 I Matthews 18, A Tate (Brighouse Sp) 21 T Lawrence 12, D Fountain (Brighouse Sp) 15 J Stockdale 21, R Hobson (Brighouse Sp) 12 C Hight 21, T Bannister (Mytholmroyd BC) 9 J Benson 21, T Gasson (Hove Edge) 21 R Stockdale 10.
Final points: Leeds 82, Halifax 78, Middleton 61, Aire & Whrafe 60, Fylde A 39. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/bittersweet-win-for-halifax-1-8085318 | en | 2016-08-24T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/4615a4b08ab3efdec1ce53f91e0bef113cd3d8ca90d2be0abf97c38b01639bb3.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:07:08 | null | 2016-08-25T11:53:52 | Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe has been moved out of Broadmoor psychiatric hospital and back into jail. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fyorkshire-ripper-moved-to-jail-after-32-years-in-broadmoor-1-8087975.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8087973.1472122416!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Yorkshire Ripper moved to jail after 32 years in Broadmoor | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe has been moved out of Broadmoor psychiatric hospital and back into jail.
Sutcliffe, 70, has spent 32 years inside the high-security institution in Berkshire after murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven more between 1976 and 1981.
It is thought he was moved to Franklands jail in Durham yesterday.
Sutcliffe, who has been in Broadmoor since 1984 after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia following his life sentence in 1981, will continue to have his mental health assessed in prison and could be returned to a psychiatric hospital if there is a change in his condition.
It has been estimated that the move will save the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Dr Ruth Tully, a consultant forensic psychologist at the University of Nottingham, said cost would not have been a factor in the ruling that the serial killer is sane enough to be transferred but that the cost difference was considerable.
Figures show that it costs around £325,000 per year to keep a patient in Broadmoor, compared with around £45,000 per year in a category
A prison. Sutcliffe, a former lorry driver from Bradford, now calls himself Peter Coonan.
Most of his victims were prostitutes who were mutilated and beaten to death.
He was given 20 life terms for the murders and was caught when police found him with a prostitute in his car.
They became suspicious and found he had a fake licence plate and weapons including a screwdriver and hammer in the boot.
Before he was moved to Broadmoor, the killer spent three years at Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight.
A Prison Service spokeswoman said: “We do not comment on individuals.” | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/news/local/yorkshire-ripper-moved-to-jail-after-32-years-in-broadmoor-1-8087975 | en | 2016-08-25T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/28e0349b76f2277d87b6b52a6ca0bb8faa0d322ffd67fc19027eb245d511889a.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:47:39 | null | 2016-08-21T11:52:57 | Zafar Khan was again Northowram Fields’ match winner - but this time with the bat - as his side retained second place in the Bradford League’s Conference with a three-wicket victory at Adwalton. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Frams-snatch-unlikely-victory-1-8080595.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8080594.1471776765!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Rams snatch unlikely victory | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Zafar Khan was again Northowram Fields’ match winner - but this time with the bat - as his side retained second place in the Bradford League’s Conference with a three-wicket victory at Adwalton.
Khan is the side’s most reliable bowler but he can put bat to ball, as he demonstrated coming in at number nine with his side on the ropes at the Drighlington club.
Adwalton had made a respectable 265 for six on their small ground with Matthew Donohue (84) and James Pearson (72) holding up the visitors. Josh Bennett Kear took four for 57.
The Rams looked out of it at 144 for seven in reply but opener Ben Grech was still there and he found a willing accomplice in Khan, who hit 90 not out to clinch a three wicket win.
Khan’s 56-ball knock included nine sixes and six fours while Grech buckled down superbly to finish on 53 not out off 123 balls.
Higher up the Bradford League, it was a miserable day for Lightcliffe and Brighouse, who were both dismissed for 108 and lost by eight wickets.
Lightcliffe’s hit and miss form in the top section continued with a poor display at Pudsey Congs.
Their former player Josh Wheatley contributed to their demise, the off spinner taking four for 24.
Jonathan Wilson (23) and young Alex Kennedy (24) were the top contributors to the visitors’ score.
Wheatley only managed 10 with the bat but opening partner Nick Lindley hit 51 not out and Callum Geldart 43 not out from 32 balls as Congs romped to victory.
Brighouse remain bottom of Championship B after losing at Bankfoot.
Mohammed Zahid made 37 but six players failed to get off the mark as Indian spinner Marupuri Suresh (5-23) and Kamran Siddique (3-13) ripped through the visitors’ ranks.
Bankfoot wrapped up victory in only 12.1 overs with Nahim Ashraf making 54 and Shoukat Ali an unbeaten 33.
Todmorden’s Lancashire League match at Ramsbottom and Barkisland’s Huddersfield League match at home to Skelmanthorpe failed to start on a damp, blustery day.
There was some play at Delph and Dobcross, where Elland’s Saqib Matloob kept the home side at bay with 50.
The struggling Hullen Edge side were 134 for seven, with their former play Greg Buckley having picked up three wickets, when play was ended.
Illingworth were 77 for three in reply to visitors Knaresborough’s 197 for six when the rains arrived at Jammy Green.
The Halifax side were rallying after losing Veryan Brooksby, Liam Kelly and James Lawton for ducks, Daniel Murfet again showing the way.
The Aussie was 50 not out off 58 balls and Stephen Cook was 22 not out off 32 at the finish.
Earlier, Murfet and Ben Robertshaw had taken a couple of wickets apiece with young opener Andy Ward’s 45 best for Knaresborough.
Bradford League, Premier Division: Lightcliffe 108 (J Wheatley 4-24), *Pudsey Congs 110-2 ( N Lindley 51 no, C Geldart 43 no).
Championship B: Brighouse 108 (M Zahid 37, M Suresh 5-23, K Siddique 3-13), *Bankfoot 109-2 (S Ali 33*, N Ashraf 54).
Conference: *Adwalton 265-6 (M Donohoe 84, J Paterson 72, J Bennett Keer 4-57), Northowram Fields 266-7 (B Grech 53 no, Z Khan 90 no).
Huddersfield League, Premiership: Barkisland v Skelmanthorpe no play, Elland 134-7 (S Matlub 50; G Buckley 3-40) v *Delph & Dobcross abnd.
Aire/Wharfe League, Division Two: Knaresborough 197-6 (A Ward 45), *Illingworth 77-3 (D Murfet 50 no).
Lancashire League: Ramsbottom v Todmorden abnd. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/rams-snatch-unlikely-victory-1-8080595 | en | 2016-08-21T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/bca7bbf8e7acd8cef22ada5ebe3f18b0302e82169430e3daf6ebcec32c517da6.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T18:47:54 | null | 2016-08-13T09:00:33 | Where there’s muck there’s brass as the saying goes... | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fbrassed-off-and-with-good-reason-1-8064515.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8064514.1470928370!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Brassed off and with good reason .. | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Where there’s muck there’s brass as the saying goes...
And nobody is denying there’s still almost a hundred years’ worth of profitable coal in the Grimley colliery seam.
Yet the miners who stood firm throughout the 1984 strike are now faced with a renewed redundancy ballot that threatens to consign both their livelihoods and a century of brass-band tradition to extinction.
Based on the 1996 hit Brit Flick of the same name, Brassed Off captures perfectly both the resilience and despair of an era in which successive Conservative governments ripped out the heart of the mining community and then came back for its soul. This stage version of Brassed Off by Bite My Thumb, Foot of the Barrel, Gravitas Entertainment and Northern Spark are proud to present their upcoming mini tour of Paul Allen’s masterpiece (based on the screenplay by Mark Herman) and featuring players from City of Bradford Brass Band and BD1.
It kicks off its three-legged tour at the end of this month, fittingly at the National Coal Mining Museum, Wakefield before heading for The Carriageworks in Leeds and finally the Civic Hall in Brighouse.
This stage version retains the film’s rugged humour, embattled sense of community and all those memorable lines. Simultaneously sad and uplifting, Brassed Off is staggeringly relevant today as the scars of wounds inflicted on Yorkshire communities during the 1984 Miners’ Strike still run deep.
As the curtain falls, Brassed Off guarantees to bring the house down ... Giving the true story of an against-all-odds struggle for the notion of community.
“This is an unbelievably important story”, said director Neil Knipe. “Plays like Brassed Off are now a modern folk tale for the north.
“These stories need to be ever-present, passed down from generation to generation so we never forget the plight and battle of the miners and the tragedy of the pit closures.
“Yes, this production has all the classic lines from the film and good old northern humour but, unlike a lot of productions, we’re making sure we highlight the deep desperation and sense of being trapped that these characters faced.”
The production has been months in the making and involves Brighouse based Foot of the Barrel productions who produce several shows and comedy nights across West Yorkshire.
The dates for Brassed Off are, August 26/27 – The National Coal Mining Museum (Call 01924 848806 for tickets): Sept 1/3 - The Carriageworks, Leeds (Call 0113 376 0318 for tickets): Sept 9/10 – Brighouse Civic Hall (tickets from www.visitbrighouse.co.uk or Ryecorn Wholefoods 01484 711835 for info.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Brassed off and with good reason .. Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/brassed-off-and-with-good-reason-1-8064515 | en | 2016-08-13T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/28cabf5d6c46b444cdf81fbf4f62721c8aa4fd11c335bbea322d72e01b5182dc.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:01 | null | 2016-08-19T08:00:28 | Halifax has a surprising and rich history of music. From the late 1950s through to the 1970s, the town’s many music venues hosted visits by some of the top pop music artists of the day. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fon-the-trail-of-pop-and-rock-history-1-8075565.json | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/on-the-trail-of-pop-and-rock-history-1-8075565 | en | null | On the trail of pop and rock history | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Halifax has a surprising and rich history of music. From the late 1950s through to the 1970s, the town’s many music venues hosted visits by some of the top pop music artists of the day.
Dusty Springfield, Rod Stewart, Iggy Pop, Pulp, Joy Division, The Jacksons and The Cure are just some of the major names who have played gigs in the town.
The town’s rich musical heritage is now celebrated in a trail which visits the venues which remain and the sites of those which have been lost.
Halifax Music Heritage Trail was the brainchild of music promoter Michael Ainsworth, and was inspired by the books of Trevor Simpson which chronicled the town’s thriving pop and rock scene.
The trail was started in 2011 as part of Halifax Festival and has been developed in the years since. Michael said: “I believe the cultural history of Halifax is important and will be kept alive via the music trail. More than anything we should remember that some of the biggest names in popular music appeared on stages in our northern industrial town.”
The trail takes in venues such as the Victoria Theatre, whose stage has hosted gigs by iconic artists such as Little Richard, Martha Reeves, Smokey Robinson, Morrissey, Paul Weller and Glen Campbell and the former Odeon Cinema, where Dusty Springfield gave her first solo performance and well-known artists such as Cliff Richard and The Shadows, Billy Fury, Dave Berry, Billy J Kramer and Helen Shapiro attracted crowds of fans.
The former Princess Ballroom hosted around 800 gigs in the 1960s, attracting The Kinks, Herman’s Hermits, Animals and Carl Wayne, while The Return Club, on the site of North Bridge Leisure Centre, hosted Pulp, Dodgy and The Mock Turtles.
Another popular venue was Alexandra Hall, scene of around 500 gigs between 1962 and 1970, and The Plebians Jazz Club where Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and Jimmy Cliff were among the headline acts.
Michael Ainsworth and Trevor Simpson will be leading a walk round Halifax Music Heritage Trail on Sunday, August 21 from 2pm to 5pm, starting from North Bridge Leisure Centre. A second walk will be held on Sunday, October 9.
Venues visited will include: 1, North Bridge Leisure Centre; 2, The Odeon; 3, Scene Three/The Kibbutz; 4, AEU Club; 5, Pot O’ Four; 6, Marlborough Hall/Halifax YMCA; 7, Clary’s Good Mood; 8, Plebians Jazz Club; 9, The Plummet Line; 10, Milan’s; 11, Arden Road Social Club; 12, The Victoria Theatre; 13, Alexandra Hall; 14, The Royal Oak (Dirty Dick’s); 15, The Shay; 16, Halifax Minster; 17, The Piece Hall; 19, Palin’s (McDonald’s); 20, Cookies.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story On the trail of pop and rock history Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/on-the-trail-of-pop-and-rock-history-1-8075565 | en | 2016-08-19T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/ee68239e43aa2e3df1365df0eee8bc66fb5e037589f5f6a833461dacd17b829f.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:58:46 | null | 2016-08-21T12:44:40 | Queensbury look set for another crack at the Spenser Wilson Halifax League’s top flight thanks to the heroics of Amjid Ali at Low Moor yesterday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fsport%2Flocal-sport%2Fbury-close-to-premier-return-1-8080659.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8080658.1471779867!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Bury close to Premier return | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | Queensbury look set for another crack at the Spenser Wilson Halifax League’s top flight thanks to the heroics of Amjid Ali at Low Moor yesterday.
They were one of only three winning first teams - the others were Great Horton Park Chapel and Shelf - as grounds heading toward Bradford fared best in avoiding showers.
Queensbury were at home to Low Moor in Division One and prolific wicket taker Ali snapped up eight for 46 to dismiss the visitors for 124.
Opener Jamie Priestley then ensured maximum points with 58 not out as Queensbury, agonisingly relegated from the Premier on the final day of last season, won by eight wickets.
With only two fixtures left for middle section teams, Queensbury look likely to go up alongside Oxenhope.
Queensbury lead the table by four points from Oxenhope, who were rained off at Bridgeholme.
The luckless Eastwood side dropped to fourth and their hopes of making it to the Premier for the first time look to have gone.
Great Horton PC went third - 14 points behind Oxenhope - after opener Amaar Syed’s 151 not out blasted them to an easy win over visitors Stones.
Syed hit 26 boundaries, including two sixes, as the Ewart Street team made 250 for five.
Their visitors from Ripponden had only nine batsmen and were rolled over for 84 with Ethan Pollard’s 31 their top score.
The other match to finish was at Shelf in Division Two.
The hosts beat Greetland by 57 runs after Alex O’Keefe (54) headed a solid top-order effort and number 10 Robert Ramsden added 48 not out.
Greetland, needing 202 for victory, succumbed to Baber Malik (5-60) and Aamir Rashid (4-47), being all out for 144.
Best for the visitors were four-wicket pair Hizar Hayat and Waheed Hussain, who also hit 34.
Cullingworth were unlucky, bowling out hosts Bradshaw for 145 before moving to 125 for three. At that point rain saved the home side.
Ben Burkill took another four wickets and Jon Terry was unbeaten on 46 not out for the visitors.
All the teams in the Premier Division picked up four points from abandoned games.
The only play was at Warley, where the title hopefuls made 97 for three in the 18 overs that were possible.
Premier Division: *Blackley v Jer Lane - no play: pts 4-4. *Sowerby Bridge v Booth - no play: pts 4-4. *SBCI v Copley - no play: pts 4-4. *Thornton v Mytholmroyd - no play: pts 4-4. *Triangle v Northowram - no play: pts 4-4. *Warley 97-3 (Hassan 35, Bottomley 32*) rsp v Sowerby St Peter’s dnb: pts 4-4.
Division One: *Bridgeholme v Oxenhope - no play: pts 4-4. *Great Horton PC 250-5 (Syed 151*, Jordan 48, Swales 3-103), Stones 84 (Pollard 31): pts 12-1. *Old Crossleyans 120-7 (Wolfenden 41, Pilling 31*, Belfield 4-51, 3-29) rsp v Southowram dnb: pts 4-4. Low Moor HT 124 (Ali 8-46), *Queensbury 126-2 (Priestley 58): pts 1-12.
Division Two: *Bradshaw 145 (Fisher 54, Burkill 4-32, Poole 3-30), Cullingworth 125-3 (Terry 46*, Powis 37) rsp: pts 4-4. Outlane 117-3 (Mellor 56, Brook 32*) rsp v *Luddenden Foot dnb: pts 4-4. *Old Town v Clayton - no play: pts 4-4. *Shelf 201-9 (O’Keefe 54, Ramsden 48*, Marshall 36, Ali 32, Hayat 4-108, Hussain 4-69), Greetland 144 (Reynolds 40, Hussain 34, Malik 5-60, Rashid 4- 47): pts 12-5. *Upper Hopton 159-9 (Stephenson 42, Aslam 3-29, Mahmood 3-48), Denholme Clough 39-1 rsp: pts 4-4. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/sport/local-sport/bury-close-to-premier-return-1-8080659 | en | 2016-08-21T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/89798237a1d034a5a8f82e58bac6cb4f27b74152cc1a2a0c307aacd011a7f580.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:10:23 | null | 2016-08-20T14:00:09 | Prolific recording artist and comic book writer/artist Jeffrey Lewis arrives back at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on August 28 (doors 8pm) with his band Los Bolts for what promises to be another rip-roaring gig. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fstraight-from-big-apple-1-8075833.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8075830.1471515086!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Straight from Big Apple | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:
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Add This ► Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend. | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/straight-from-big-apple-1-8075833 | en | 2016-08-20T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/e357dddf76dc5969eacd04f830d37cc0fff7f8cbb97327170b7911de0c16cb18.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:50 | null | 2016-08-21T12:00:18 | ‘Wear Your Poppy With Pride’ is a song composed by local singer/songwriter Roger Davies. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brighouseecho.co.uk%2Fwhat-s-on%2Farts-culture-and-entertainment%2Fsong-and-real-life-go-in-perfect-harmony-1-8075548.json | http://res.cloudinary.com/jpress/image/fetch/w_300,f_auto,ar_3:2,c_fill/http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/webimage/1.8075546.1471511774!/image/image.jpg | en | null | Song and real life go in perfect harmony ... | null | null | www.brighouseecho.co.uk | ‘Wear Your Poppy With Pride’ is a song composed by local singer/songwriter Roger Davies.
But did you know that the special red dye used to colour poppies is actually made in Halifax?
And as chance would have it, Roger will be appearing on stage with Steve Greenwood, the very research chemist directly responsible for the production of this unique dye!
Roger is appearing as the guest of Halifax Gilbert & Sullivan Society in a joint concert at Elland Working Mens Club on Friday September 2. Steve is a founder member of the Society and Head of Research at Brenntag Colours, at their Waterside works in Halifax.
Amongst other songs Roger will be performing from his wide repertoire are Brighouse on a Saturday Night, The Ghost of Lily Fogg, Huddersfield Town and other favourites.
Halifax G&S Society will present a medley of popular Savoy choruses including the charming Iolanthe, which is to be their annual show at Halifax Playhouse in November.
Tickets are £8 and are available from Elland Working Mens Club, or by phone on 01422 311631.
Have you got something to share on the story? Were you there? What do you think? - Send your pictures, videos or story and we'll publish the best × Continue the story Song and real life go in perfect harmony ... Loading ... Add up to 3 photos or 1 videos to the story There's been a problem uploading your files. Please try again. By uploading your file you agree to our Terms and Conditions × Continue the story Sign in to contribute sign in shape the news in your area... | http://www.brighouseecho.co.uk/what-s-on/arts-culture-and-entertainment/song-and-real-life-go-in-perfect-harmony-1-8075548 | en | 2016-08-21T00:00:00 | www.brighouseecho.co.uk/5826df9d2caa70e3a983c26289dbad2b03640c2b9245acf94c40342be8de8e15.json |
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