The Random Review Continues.
[Details of the quite frankly batshit Random Review Project can be found here.]
Time: 14:14
Place: Cyberspace
Christopher Hitchens' Waterboarding Adventure (c/o YouTube)
This is wonderful. Five stars. For those of you who are unaware of the background, frothing lunatic Christopher Hitchens (who looks like a cross between the long-term-nightmare-inducing, eye-popping teacher from the Another Brick In The Wall video and Huxley Pig) does not believe that British'n'Merican foreign policy is nearly gung-ho or aggressive enough. He is also mighty pissed off that the bien-pensant public are much too soft on terrorists, whining on as we do that Muslim British citizens are being "tortured" in Guantanamo bay when in fact they are, in his addled mind, cosseted in a delightful utopian bubble of cultural sensitivity and paternal concern. In order to demonstrate this, and also to get in Vanity Fair, he intelligently decided to undergo a waterboarding session. And in order, presumably, to make me very, very happy, someone put this on the internet
Now, having managed to avoid any direct experience of waterboarding, I can't say for certain just how authentic this stunt (sorry, experiment) was, although I'm pretty sure that most high pressure interrogation' sessions don't start with the interrogated party having to present a medical certificate from their GP stating that their asthma is under control. And I'm very sure they don't usually involve the use of a safe word. In fact, this was the most safe, sane and consensual bit of torture I've ever seen. Never mind Vanity Fair; he should have written it up for Skin Two.
Anyway, basically, Hitchens pussied out after about 5 seconds. Next week, he's going to get all his clothes confiscated and be driven round on the front of a fork-lift truck by a cigar-chomping Melanie Phillips, for the Mail on Sunday. (No, not really.)
Time: God Knows
Place: Bed
Claudio Monteverdi, Vespro della Beata Virgine
Having fallen asleep with my nose literally in a book, before remembering to either deactivate the beeper or turn off the radio, I am woken at some preposterous hour to this magnificent bit of music. It's like an Italian Renaissance basilica in sound form, full of space and light, awe-inspiring yet profoundly peaceful. My first thought is that I have died and, to my disturbingly deep surprise, gone to heaven. Then the beeper goes off, and I realise that it is only Radio 3.
Time: 13:58
Place: The Pub
Not the Wimbledon Men's Finals.
Now, let me be upfront about this to begin with: I don't like televisions in pubs, and I don't like sport; and I especially don't like televisions in pubs showing sport. But I actively hate it when they do this: commandeer the two main public broadcast channels, and then use them to show people not playing tennis. They're showing lots of people sitting around waiting for the rain to stop. Whoop-de-doodly-doo on a stick. I'm sitting around waiting for the rain to stop. Half the people in this pub are sitting around waiting for the rain to stop. Bloody hell, at any given time, probably half the people in the country are sitting around waiting for the rain to stop. Gripping TV, it ain't. At this precise moment, Bjorn Borg has been making basically the same comment (Roger Federer is likely to be stressed, but not excessively so) for about five minutes. I'm not knocking Mr Borg - he seems like a very nice chap, and what's more, I can only say one thing in Swedish, and that's really rude. I certainly couldn't get five minutes out of it. Why do they not put Tom and Jerry on? That's what Wimbledon used to be for - providing opportunities for bonus unscheduled cartoons. Still, at least there is no Cliff Richard. If there were Cliff Richard, I should put a barstool through the screen. Seriously.
Time: 14:14
Place: Cyberspace
Christopher Hitchens' Waterboarding Adventure (c/o YouTube)
This is wonderful. Five stars. For those of you who are unaware of the background, frothing lunatic Christopher Hitchens (who looks like a cross between the long-term-nightmare-inducing, eye-popping teacher from the Another Brick In The Wall video and Huxley Pig) does not believe that British'n'Merican foreign policy is nearly gung-ho or aggressive enough. He is also mighty pissed off that the bien-pensant public are much too soft on terrorists, whining on as we do that Muslim British citizens are being "tortured" in Guantanamo bay when in fact they are, in his addled mind, cosseted in a delightful utopian bubble of cultural sensitivity and paternal concern. In order to demonstrate this, and also to get in Vanity Fair, he intelligently decided to undergo a waterboarding session. And in order, presumably, to make me very, very happy, someone put this on the internet
Now, having managed to avoid any direct experience of waterboarding, I can't say for certain just how authentic this stunt (sorry, experiment) was, although I'm pretty sure that most high pressure interrogation' sessions don't start with the interrogated party having to present a medical certificate from their GP stating that their asthma is under control. And I'm very sure they don't usually involve the use of a safe word. In fact, this was the most safe, sane and consensual bit of torture I've ever seen. Never mind Vanity Fair; he should have written it up for Skin Two.
Anyway, basically, Hitchens pussied out after about 5 seconds. Next week, he's going to get all his clothes confiscated and be driven round on the front of a fork-lift truck by a cigar-chomping Melanie Phillips, for the Mail on Sunday. (No, not really.)
Time: God Knows
Place: Bed
Claudio Monteverdi, Vespro della Beata Virgine
Having fallen asleep with my nose literally in a book, before remembering to either deactivate the beeper or turn off the radio, I am woken at some preposterous hour to this magnificent bit of music. It's like an Italian Renaissance basilica in sound form, full of space and light, awe-inspiring yet profoundly peaceful. My first thought is that I have died and, to my disturbingly deep surprise, gone to heaven. Then the beeper goes off, and I realise that it is only Radio 3.
Time: 13:58
Place: The Pub
Not the Wimbledon Men's Finals.
Now, let me be upfront about this to begin with: I don't like televisions in pubs, and I don't like sport; and I especially don't like televisions in pubs showing sport. But I actively hate it when they do this: commandeer the two main public broadcast channels, and then use them to show people not playing tennis. They're showing lots of people sitting around waiting for the rain to stop. Whoop-de-doodly-doo on a stick. I'm sitting around waiting for the rain to stop. Half the people in this pub are sitting around waiting for the rain to stop. Bloody hell, at any given time, probably half the people in the country are sitting around waiting for the rain to stop. Gripping TV, it ain't. At this precise moment, Bjorn Borg has been making basically the same comment (Roger Federer is likely to be stressed, but not excessively so) for about five minutes. I'm not knocking Mr Borg - he seems like a very nice chap, and what's more, I can only say one thing in Swedish, and that's really rude. I certainly couldn't get five minutes out of it. Why do they not put Tom and Jerry on? That's what Wimbledon used to be for - providing opportunities for bonus unscheduled cartoons. Still, at least there is no Cliff Richard. If there were Cliff Richard, I should put a barstool through the screen. Seriously.
