Bryan News

The Master, silent upon a peak in Corfu, has taken to gazing longingly across the straits to Albania, which, he says, 'looks nice'. God knows I've warned him, but if this Hiatus doesn't end, chances are it'll be because he crossed those straits and ended up as a doner kebab, rotating on a vertical spit in an Albanian back-street eaterie. On the other hand, I think he might be back among us quite soon...

A Hiatus

I shall probably not be posting for one week. Argue quietly but rancorously among yourselves.

Wall.E

Is art for children art? I've always taken the view that there is no such thing as children's poetry, there is only poetry. Yet there are many children's things that qualify as art - stories by Wilde, Kipling, Carroll etc.. On the whole, however, I stick to my view that the best material for children is art's lobby, not its great room. But what about the movies? Children's films are now routinely sold as 'family' films to ensure all age groups are covered. The films in question are invariably made with enough adult material to justify the tag. As a result, it has become routine for the best of these kidult films to be celebrated as art or even great art by critics entranced by the ingenuity and, in the case of cartoons, by the ever increasing technological sophistication. This is usually harmless unless you take it as evidence of the infantilisation of our culture, which, periodically, I do. The case of Wall.E, in this context, is very interesting indeed. I went to see it because of certain rave views in America which said that this was great art. I was almost prepared to believe this as Pixar's Toy Story was, indeed, pretty impressive. But art it certainly isn't. The plot is a mess, there is little real drama, it's far too long and it's not funny. (Incidentally, it's also very fattist, but so am I so that's okay.) Wall.E spends so much time banging home its environmental message with a riot of colour and action that it completely forgets its own narrative dynamics. I assume it works for children, but I'm not sure. The brats around me seemed pretty subdued throughout. So why is it called art? Well, the message - that we are messy, destructive creatures - is true and topical enough and it is technologically breathtaking to the point where I suspect normal critical faculties have been bludgeoned into submission. But the real point is, I think, that people want this film to work at the highest level. There's a yearning for the childish to be true. There always was - look at Carroll - but it is intensified by marketing and technological ingenuity.  The underlying irony in the case of Wall.E is that, beyond the environmentalism, there is another message - that it's okay to be a machine. Is that really the great new childhood truth?

Distraction on a High Wire

In The Sunday Times I write about the culture of distraction and the hollowed out self. Also I celebrate Man on Wire, a wonderful documentary movie.

The picture is of Split Rock in the Joshua Tree Desert, whose resemblance to a surfacing whale has, until now, gone unnoticed.

Cricket

England cricketers now indulge in a group hug when taking to the field. This is not, well, cricket. Cricket is when the players skulk out locked in their private hells, struggling with their demons, muttering, sometimes weeping, always smouldering with resentment. It makes for a better game.

Living the Dream

This woman is an inspiration to us all. She is living as Oprah for one year. I am torn between living as the sublime Richard Madeley or sinking into the dark heart of Elberry. 

Swiss Odour

On the back of a can of Neutradol I read these words: 'The Swiss odour problem solver'. What is this Swiss odour? Is it some woody, nutty amalgam of Toblerone and cuckoo clocks? Is it the bracing tang of ski boots, mountain air and cow bells? I think we should be told.

Living the Hard Rock Life

I see the Hard Rock Cafe - that living embodiment of all that was laid-back, groovy, right-on, cool, rock 'n' roll and socially progressive about the sixties - pays its waiting staff well below the minimum wage, only making this legal by including tips in the package.  Rock on, guys.

More on Balls

Responding to the exam marking chaos, Ed Balls, the education secretary, said on the BBC 6 o'clock news, 'I am angry, I am upset.' One wonders which part of 'it's not about you' he doesn't understand. He added he was going to demand an apology from the American company that marked the scripts. An hour later, on Channel 4 News, he was a different man. It wasn't really a crisis, these were just a few errors that were bound to happen... etc. He was no longer angry, he was no longer upset. Clearly he had taken a call  - one wonders from whom. Balls is a remarkable phenomenon, a senior politician with no talent whatsoever for politics. The Economist this week said Brown had 'a tin ear for public discourse'. Balls is stone deaf. The obvious explanation for this is the way the Brownies spent the Blair years cloistered with their bitterness and longing. Isolated and convinced they were right, they never actually did any politics and, now in the blinding light of day, their shortcomings are exposed. But Balls is such an extreme case that one wonders if some other force is at work. My own impression is that he doesn't seem to care about the real world effects of what he does, only on its Westminster impact. He can never be angry or upset about real people. One wonders about his future career....

Up North with Ailric

Three men were aiming shotguns at me the first time I stepped out of my hotel in Wakefield. A small crowd was egging them on. I took it well, casting a cold eye on life  on death, and smiling with the kind of cool unconcern that Yul Bryner did so well in The Magnificent Seven. In the event, they fired but I did not die. These were electronic shot guns and they were aiming not at my head but at a plastic version of the clay pigeon. It was all part of a Yorkshire Water management jolly. But the hotel being in Walton Hall, violence was always going to be in the air. From here Chieftain Ailric began his campaign of resistance against the Normans. It's also on an island in the middle of a lake. I was puzzled at first to see two blokes pushing a raft towards the hotel - Normans? - but it turned out they were restocking the bar. The whole mise en scene - fake guns, management jolly, Ailric, rafted booze - was so northern I burst out laughing. I was brought up in the north, but, as a child, I wouldn't have noticed its eccentricities. These slowly dawned on me when I went to Cambridge and found myself being mocked by Nige among others for my accent and for my habit of keeping coal in the bath and pigeons in cages in the garden. I did neither, though I did build rafts. The wonder of the north is that in spite of everything - motorways, superstores etc - it remains so defiantly northern. Standing in the rain, Ailric is still resisting the Normans and telling anybody who cares to listen that we're having no summer again this year and he just had a go with an electronic shotgun.