An honest politician: An oxymoron

Mayfair Set (Documentary, 1999)

Produced, Written, Directed by Adam Curtis

#4 Twilight of Dogs

1987 was a good year for Britain and Mrs Thatcher. Her idea of a free market stimulating the economy seem to be working. So they thought, until Black Monday showed up, wiping out 20 percent of its capital.
This final episode tells us how the unhealthy mix of businessmen and politicians produced a ruling system that was corrupt and powerless to the power of the market forces. The bankers became the play makers and could dictate terms.
In 1971, the Heath's Labour Government started pumping money into the economy, trying to recreate the Renaissance of British businesses. In 1973, however, they were embroiled into a crash which was worse than the 1929 crash. The leaders then realized that they cannot control the economy.
In 1979, during Thatcher's administration, the economy was not controlled and the markets had a free rein. Exchange control was deregulated making money move easily across borders. Foreigners move in with their oil money. Bankers started changing the landscape of UK. Factories were bought over, downsized, with the intent of fueling the economy.

Tiny Rowland, after his nefarious undermining reputation of acquiring gold mines in Africa, brings in his money. He made his bid to acquire Harrods. His seedy, shady, corrupt past hanging over his head, the banks tried their utmost to stop Rowland to control their crown jewel and succeeded.

Mohamad Al Fayed

The high interest rates at that time drew many investors to ship their money to the US. One of such figures was the richest man in the world then, the Sultan of Brunei who wanted to ship £10 billion out. The desperate British managed to coax him to stay put through his agent Mohamad Al Fayed. As a token of appreciation, Al Fayed was given the easy pave to acquire Harrods for £ 570 million. The sore Rowland and the many British nationalists voiced their discontent. They questioned Al Fayed's source of acquiring cash.
The 1987 stock market crash drew James Goldsmith back to London from his self imposed exile in Mexico. He, however, found it hard to break into the system which were too familiar with his way of doing business. Even the pension managers used his ways to enrich their members.
Fayed's close relationship with the royal family and some MPs created animosity. It started a culture of MPs patronizing businessmen and lobbyists in the British Parliament. Soon the MPs started asking, "What is it for me?". Scandals of money for questions in parliament cropped up. Retired MPs were made directors of companies of their proxies.
James Goldsmith also started The Referendum party to challenge the ruling party. The Party was disbanded after his death in 1997. Tiny Rowland also died the following year.
The new Labour Goverment in 1997 gave away the control of interest rates to the Bank of England and much of its power to the market forces. And the economy was booming then...

When lions and hyenas were friends!

Mayfair Set (Documentary, 1999)
Produced, Written, Directed by Adam Curtis

#3 Destroy the Technostructure

This episode showcases how vulture like businessmen squandered money and power from the Government and established big corporations and transferred them to the stock market. In the process, in the name of enriching the stockholders, they also fattened their profits quite handsomely. After acquiring companies through hostile takeovers, they would sell off their assets, downsize their staff and just destroy the business altogether. That was their modus operandi.
1976 was not just the hottest summer in the UK, it also saw the fall from grace of the original Clairmont club members. James Goldsmith almost became bankrupt trying to sue a newspaper and subsequently left to the US.

James Goldsmith

He moved in to US at a time when the economy, under the leadership of Ronald
Reagan, was opening the markets. Power was transferred to the markets. This was a move away from FDR's philosophy of developing state controlled and big corporation controlled businesses after the 1928 collapse of the economy. Professional managers were appointed to man these corporations. Decisions were made by one man or board with very passive involvement from the stockholders.
An obscure banker from Drexyl, Michael Milken, initiated a new way of generating fast money by selling high yielding bonds (junk bonds). he initially got his money by investing the high risk business of casino in Vegas.

Michael Milken

Goldsmith, in America, haughtily bought over lands belonging to Crown Zellerbach on borrowed money and destroyed the fiber of its assets and fired workers in the name of downsizing.
These raiders went on a rampage destroying every takeover with the sole intent of enriching the shareholders (sic). Soon these raiders were eyeing the monies in the pension fund. Since the junk bonds gave high yields, its managers felt morally obliged to be drawn into it.
Traders in UK also mimicked this trend. The old school method of doing business was brought down. Bankers were more powerful than leaders (politicians). All good things must end. Goldsmith with his grandiose plans tried to alter Kremlin, providing escape routes to defectors. Milken was convicted of insider trading and was imprisoned. Pressure mounted on Goldsmith by the bankers. In 1987, he sold everything and emigrated to Mexico, vowing to return.
Even though, the 1980s raiders' activities were curbed, their blueprint of activities is still around the world in various other names.
The irony is that the pension funds ended up being the beneficiary. Their managers used the same technique to invest in high yielding bonds for the benefit of its members. The same people who were cast aside by the raiders during downsizing were the winners in the end.

They only want your money

Mayfair Set (Documentary, 1999)
Produced, Written, Directed by Adam Curtis

#2 Entrepreneur Spelt S.P.I.V.

(spiv - A flashy, slick operator who makes a living more from speculation or profiteering than from actual work. The kind of guy who wears a shiny medallion, goes bankrupt from a dodgy swampland development scheme, but still has a big house in his wife's name.)

Jim Slater

Is yet another angle of looking at how businessmen and gamblers gambled away the British economy. The 1950s saw the rise of Captain's of Industry who were owners of big family businesses that spearheaded the industrialization of the nation. These captains worked with politician to prosper the nations. Jim Slater, a newspaper columnist who wrote under the nom de plume of The Capitalist thought he had found the perfect system to analyse the market. The boom of the economy in full scale in the late 50s and he was making loads of money. He realised that the family businesses were not really owned by the family but by the shareholders as they were listed. He used this knowledge to make a hostile takeover of the Coote's family cork business. From the profit that he made this transaction, he went on to buy other businesses and abandon the previous one. His eye was on the profit, not on the idea to improve the business.

James Goldsmith

Other 'entrepreneurs' followed his technique. Many of them were risk taking high stake gamblers from the Clairmont club in Mayfair, e.g. James Goldsmith and Tiny Rowland.

Tiny Rowland

 1964 saw crisis arising from the previous boom years going out control. To boost productivity among the workers, the entrepreneurs were roped in to stimulate the industry. What these people end up doing was just destroying the industries forever with no effect on productivity. The money from the industries were infused into the stock market for the gamblers from Clairmont club to make profits.
Tiny Rowland made his money through his sneaky manoeuvres of undermining other companies.
In Nigeria, he bribed their officials not to renew Spears' Ashanti gold mines licence. When the news reached the British stock market, Spear's shares plummeted. Rowland bought over the shares and the company for a song in Nigeria.This squandering of money from the government to be pumped into the market continued. Many companies including Rolls Royce went bust. Even though these entrepreneurs walked hand in hand with politicians, they were only concerned with increasing the profits for the share holders, not in helping to restructure the economy. In midst of this facade, war in the middle East prompted the Arabs to increase the petrol price by 400%! The entrepreneurs realised that nobody actually controlled the stock market - Slater went bankrupt, Rowland and Goldsmith disappeared to Africa and US respectively.

Blood money

Mayfair Set (Documentary, 1999)
Produced, Written, Directed by Adam Curtis


#1 Who Pays Wins
With an uninspiring name like that, I thought the documentary would deal with something related to British affairs. The only Mayfair that I knew was the most expensive property in the original 'Monopoly' game. (Dark Blue, together with Park Lane)
Glad I watched it as it opened another Pandora Box of evil that lurk in what appear to be a kind gesture. Again, the dictum, 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' holds true.
It narrates the concept of mercenary soldiers and arms sales business that helped to sustain and rejuvenate the British economy after being battered in the World War 2. Colonel David Stirling, a gung ho nationalistic soldier ran SAS (Special Air Services) in Northern Africa, a mercenary army during the fight with Rommel.
After WW2, he led a quiet life in Rhodesia but got embroiled in its politics there at a time of Black nationalism, through the Capricorn Party to safeguard the interests of the whites there. This movement was not, however, supported by the then government.
He then returned to London to start a gambling den named Clairmont in Mayfair, in a building befitting the grandiosity of the past history of Britain. It catered exclusively for the aristocrats and the rich and famous.
His big break came in 1958 when President Naseer of Egypt (who is considered to have the blessings of the Russians) attacked Yemen. An important seaport Aden which is of British interest is situated there. As Naseer had humiliated them in Suez, the British government was not keen to get involved in the debacle. As Saudi was scared of being attacked, SAS offered their expertise for a fee, of course.
This was the beginning of the era of arms dealer like the American stooge, Adnan Kashogi.
1964 saw England, under the Labour Government, in an economic quagmire. The pound sterling  took a tumble and foreign funds started moving out. Spending was cut back, the British troops were pulled and Britain was no longer 'Great'. What better way to make money than to sell off the remnants of the arsenal of weaponry left over from the second World War.
Naseer was defeated.
UK, unofficially, through private ventures continued selling weapons of high sophistication and auxillary support (radar, training, etcetera). Corruption started rearing its ugly head as whitemen tried to sell their arms to the royal Saudi family via agents. Modern off-shoots of arms trade flourished between Saudi and UK.

Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling, 

DSO, OBE (15 Nov 1915 – 4 Nov 1990) 

During the Nigerian civil war, UK supplied arms to the federal army. It was leaked to the public view by a journalist, Jonathan Atkins. A brouhaha ensued in UK, while its watch-dog continued supplying mercenaries to influence and prevent violent overthrows of despots in the Middle East and Africa.
In 1974, Stirling was involved in a bad accident.
After recovering from it, he found his den in London infiltrated by rich Arab big gamblers with oil money. These nouveau riche found pleasure in mingling with aristocrats of their former masters.
With the increase in industrial revolt and unemployment, Stirling, the nationalist, yearned for the good old days where Britain was great. He and his group of friends had a contingency plan to take over the executive powers of the country if political chaos were to occur. They infiltrated into the trade union.
Arab money return to UK to buy as tension in their land escalate. Corruption set in the UK as the Arab buyers started bribing their British sellers for merchandise.
Looks like the whole Arab thing went a full cycle, Arabs bribing the British as they did to the Arabs 20 years previously. To top it all, Stirling's castle in Scotland was bought over by an Arab.
And move over to the second episode....

The silent God, again?

The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde insegle, Swedish; 1957)
Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman

A classic regarding the filmmaker's favourite topic, The Silence of God. As usual, people in power would always decree that this is God's decree and one should lead their lives by His Book. Despite what appears like acts of barbaric and inhumane nature, some things need to be done for the greater good of humankind, so they say, even though it makes no sense. These types of nonsensical actions seem to continue till today.

The Seventh Seal is a film with a heavy theological reference set in medieval time Sweden.

Antonio Block is a disgruntled knight who is returning from the Crusade War to be with his wife. As he and his errand Gian, discover a country plagued with the Black Death and cruelty done in the name of God. Block is visited by Death, but he managed to postpone his time after a game of chess which would go on intermittently throughout the length of the film and end at the tail end of it.

Along with his trip back to his castle, he meets a performing troupe, infidelity, burning of young women labelled as witches and people dying infected with the plague.

He tries to find answers to his questions on God and death through the Church, Death and from those at the cusp of death but to no avail.

He finally reaches his castle with his friends, has their last supper together, and makes their final trip with Death.....

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/riflerangeboy/

Public display of private intent?

The Game... you just lost it!

Call me a loner, a sociophobic, Grinch or Scrooge. I do not particularly fancy having a big bash for something considered private. So what if you turn 50. Anyone with a bit of luck and divine non-intervention or intervention can achieve that. Even stray dogs can celebrate theirs (birthday, i. e.) if they survive the pound catchers or being a road kill. If they still want to felicitate themselves for this, it is still something personal - not appropriate for them to brag about it to their dogs and bitches but to reflect on their personal achievements and shortcomings to shortcomings to be able to survive another anniversary. 

Celebrating any personal achievement must be (er...) personal, enjoying it with the people who make it happened and the ones who were in the receiving end in the endeavor in your journey. Not that the bread man and newspaper man did not assist in your goals, this is personal. They got their dues. 

Perhaps superstition, perhaps fear of jealous roving ill intended eyes, significant event should be small and meaningful, not a public display of affordability and pomp. 

We do not need a surprise 48th or that matter 50th birthday like the one in 1997 movie 'The Game' where the Sean Penn character organizes an elaborate game to commemorate his rich and show-off brother's (Michael Douglas) 48th birthday. A recreational company, in cahoots with his bother, lawyer and staff brought Douglas to knees by siphoning off his money, implicating him in murder, getting him to be on his heels from the cops, drive him to paranoia and finally drive him to jump off a multistory office building to land on a giant glass dome which led him to a conference hall with a giant bed to dampen his fall and with all friends and relatives waiting to propose a toast there!

You do not need public display of private intent unless you are a politician or a business where  you need the public to support (or to be hoodwinked) for your private intentions!

Goodbye 49, Hello 50!

Just when you thought you know everything, something happens and your whole post disappears into thin air and you start thinking, perhaps you need one of those help books aptly named 'Computers for dummies'. Now I have to redo the whole post, sigh!

So I thought to myself...
 What better way to end my half century of existence and to usher in the remaining whatever with a getaway away from it all and indulge in an passion of mine all the same time. Then it popped out from nowhere. Marathon at the sunny beaches of Ile Maurice, Mauritius. 

I can get my fix and my other half can immerse herself in the thoughts on the umpteen Hindi movies that she seen that were shot there in the Indian Ocean paradise. She can make believe that she is dancing amidst the sun, sea, sky and scenery. 

Upon arriving at SSR airport, I thought that everyone would be hyped by the event. Actually, there was hardly any publicity.

14th July 2013. Tamassa Hotel. The shuttle bus took contestants who were staying there to the starting point. Me, a tiny minnow in the company of Germans, Swedish and Frenchmen were greeted by fellow Half Marathoners, numbering less than hundred. There was nothing to note that it was the starting point if not for the 3 buntings placed by the road. Coming from a country which makes a fuss about organizing anything - must have pomp, must have publicity,must have politician to officiate, I was quite surprised! The organizers were giving out last minute bib collectors like me, no fuss. Hey, where is the timing chip, where is my running vest? None of the above. Just a piece of plastic with number and chip imprinted paper, that's fine by me. 

As usual in most international meets, there would always be people with many grouses, and it got to be Indians. We got on by, anyway. I never saw those whiners after that, probably they were busy complaining about the distance!

It was 7am on fine Sunday morning temperatures around 22C and cool breeze, just the perfect climate for a run. The start off was again without any loud drum beats or gun shot - just a count down of 3 in French and a whistle blow. The starting point was Baiu de Cap beach. 

Cruising along the breezy picturesque beaches with the company of serious runners was an enjoyable experience. 

One peculiar observation I made in Mauritius is that the people like to build their houses (whether big, medium or gargantuan) along the major roads. The land around the road is actually pricey. So along certain stretch of the run, I managed to see many indigenous people of the land. They were mainly sea faring people who bear a striking resemblance to the Australian Aboriginal people. Before this, in the airport and the hotel. The workers were Indian looking with Indian sounding names. Even the cab driver was listening to his Mauritian Hindi and Tamil channels without knowing a word of either language!

Saw a few Chinamen (businessmen in towns) who flip flop between French, Creole and English with much ease!

Just when I thought that everything was going my way for my PB, my old cringe at the left ankle just surfaced from Km3! It was more of a nuisance initially but later at point 17km it a major annoyance but I laboured on. 

At about 3.5km mark, we made a u-turn. Again, no chip mat or ribbon. Just a couple of officials manually jotting out the bib numbers. 

As I was running, I was surprised to find myself not to be drenched in sweat as I always do. It is the low humidity. They only had 4 water stations along the way. The interesting difference that I saw here was that they served water, Pepsi, raisins, brown sugar and salt for your taking!

We cruised along the predominantly flat terrain flanked by beaches sometimes, sugar cane plantations on various stage of harvest and resorts. The track became hilly towards the end and ended in a another low key point in St Felix beach. At about the 19km mark, we witnessed a heavy downpour which ended as quickly as it started by the time we reached the checkered flag.  We were ushered in at the finishing point with our finishing medals and well wishes. Suddenly everyone is your friend! That is the benefit of this small runs- more interactions and more personal touch. As reward for our accomplishment, we were given a finishers T-shirt and a French loaf sandwich- bon apetit!

Hey, hey, hey! In spite of the minor setback, I still managed to clock in a decent 2h14m39s for the 21.16km distance. Not a personal best but definitely better on recent times! 

To be in the league of serious runners who indulge in many other trail runs and extreme sports, it is an honour. There were no over sized runners or jaywalking occasional runner or wannabes on this one!