RIFLE RANGE BOY

Last Night in Soho (2021) Director: Edgar Wright We always like to think of the 'good old days' and how life was simpler then and people were honest. Were they really so? Artefacts from our pasts stir so much serotonin that nostalgia sells. Like Pavlov's dog, we drool at sephia photos of yesteryear. Would we really give up everything we have right now and recoil into the past and do it all again if those days were indeed so simple? If we were to delve into our lives, we should consider ourselves lucky to have survived the negativities that could have brought us down at every single turn of our lives. We should thank our lucky stars that the turns we took at the crossroads of our decision-making moments turned out to be a-OK. Not perfect, could have been better than could have been worse off. What made us take the right turn? Is it some kind of guardian angel, guiding light, our sheer intellect or the deeds of our past karma? I guess it is a topic for the sophists to argue a...

Carvings on the wall of the Amaravati stupa  ©FG One lifetime is just not enough to complete perusing all the artefacts at the British Museum. This, I realised during my second trip to this place in September 2018. Just like in the first trip, three years ago, I managed to browse through part of the museum -the Indian, Chinese and part of the European sections in this six-hour walk.  Sure, critics would gripe saying that the British squandered all the valuables from their colonies and shamelessly exhibit their spoils under a roof calling them monumental gifts of mankind! We all know many of them were substantial gifts but obtained through suspicious and sometimes clandestine ways. A case in point is glaring on the headpiece of the monarch for all to see. For their credit, the Westerners did discover things that their subjects had long lost, abandoned or had no clue. India, with all its wisdom, propagated through the ages of intellectual discourses, had all but forg...

The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire (Documentary; 2017) Director, Producer: Michael Oswald I always wondered how Britain, after 200 years of ruling over almost half of the globe, survived after losing everything after the Second World War. It is a mystery how they continued their role in being one of the economic powerhouses of the world. It is no secret that WW2 marked the beginning of setting of the sun over the British Empire. Slowly, one by one, its colonies demanded to be cut off their attachments to the Crown. The coup de grâce must have come after their disastrous 1956 campaign over the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by President Nasser. The value of the pound-sterling plummeted. Foreign investors withdrew their investments. A special market was created to circumvent the control of the monetary bodies of the UK. Hence was born the London Euro-Dollar market to keep investors' interest in Britain. This was the precursor to the setting up...

Their Finest (2016) Unlike movies like 'Dunkirk' and 'Darkest Hour' that looks at a macro level, at the decisions and moves made at a higher level, this British film looks at it from a somewhat different angle. It reveals two things, as I see it; how the war affects the little man in the streets of London and how the spin doctors bend the truth to give a more grandiose picture to suit their agendas. Somehow, in the name of nationalism and duality of nature of things, we always see ourselves as the aggrieved but the righteous one. Is it just me or do I see more and more flicks where the female, in many recently released movies, play a more dominant and composed role? Their male counterparts are made to appear weak and fickle.  Catherine Cole, a Welsh lady, starts work with Ministry of Information to make documentaries to boost the morale of the public during the trying times of World War 2 as the UK is under attack by the German forces. She hears about a...

Alan White BuzzFeed News Reporter, UK Circa 1950: London Underground rat-catchers with their net and ferrets. Topical Press Agency / Getty Images 1952: A group of women cleaning one of London’s underground tunnels. Hulton Archive / Getty Known as ‘flutters’, they would clean the tunnels at night, after the last train had gone and the current had been switched off. 1952: Advertisements being pasted up. Topical Press Agency / Getty 1952: Tube cleaner. Hulton Archive / Getty Harry Weatheley, surfacing from a vent under Piccadilly Circus underground station. 1952: Tube train at Piccadilly Circus. Hulton Archive / Getty 1952: Liverpool Street. Harry Todd / Hulton Archive / Getty  1952: Kingsway Tram Monty Fresco / Hulton Archive / Getty 1954: Underground fluffers. Chris Ware / Hulton Archive / Getty 1955: Underground life. Topical Press Agency / Hulton Archive / Getty 1955: All-night dancing. Via Hulton Archive / Getty After leavi...