I was sent an email today that claimed lessons about the Holocaust have been removed from the UK’s school history syllabus in case it offends Muslims who are in denial about its existence.
First of all I find it incredible that an entire religious body could deny a plain historical fact. Can this really be so?
And secondly, why on earth would the British Government endorse this sick and disgusting show of weakness to a minority pressure group. If that is what you’d call the entire Muslim community.
It certainly resonates with the current trend to avoid confronting or challenging minority opinion in case it offends people. But to go this far, to run away from the truth, if indeed we are makes me very sad indeed.
The SQA is to be congratulated for mounting an exhibition, in the RSA no less, of A grade artworks by Scottish Schoolchildren sitting Standard, Int 2 and higher grade art.
I saw it on wednesday and it is brilliant and must be seen.
Here’s a taster by Steven Mcarthur of Williamwood High School.
My friend Terry and I went to an exhibition celebrating ten decades of Edinburgh Art College at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh on Wednesday. The show features works from some of the colleges best known alumni including Bellany, Byrne, Inness, Blackadder and Peploe to name but a few.
But it this piece of haunting animation by a young American?italian, Josef Feltus and his brother that stole the show for me.
The Simpsons it aint but stick with it. It is beautiful and won the Jim Poole award, amongst many others, last year.
Scottish golf has had such a bad year that it would be fair to say that my personal emergence from the woods to become a credible 18 handicapper has been one of the Scottish Golf Union’s highlights.
So today’s golf world cup win (as predicted by Monty) was not universally expected.
What was even less credible was that I spotted Dougie Donnelly at Gleneagles this afternoon and whispered the fact across the table to Jeana.
She was astonished.
“Colin Montgomery?” she whispered in a tone below the one that dogs can hear.
“Yes.”
(”The guy you snogged in 1988?” I must have subconsciously thought, seeing as I really thought she had said “Dougie Donnelly?)
“It doesn’t look like him”, she replied
Naturally it didn’t because a) it wasn’t and b) it was Dougie Donnelly and c) Dougie Donnelly doesn’t look like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle.
Judge for yourselves…
Monty?
Or Dougie?
Spitting images?
OK, they’re both gingers, like the Mrs, but how could Monty be relaxed at Gleneagles at the same time as he’s lifting the cup in China?
For the record, Jeana was at a corporate do in 1988 and Dougie was the compere. In a moment of weakness Jeana shreiked across the dance floor “Dougie, gie us a kiss.”
PT Anderson is currently the world’s most gifted film-maker.
Fact!
Boogie Nights, Magnolaia and Punch Drunk Love are each brilliant in different ways. His new movie “There will be blood” breaks in the US at Christmas and in the UK on Feb 8th. (I will be there on opening night.)
It is garnering feverish reviews as this punter blog on IMDB shows.
PT Anderson delivers perhaps his best work with “There Will Be Blood”. Unlike “Magnolia”, the film’s daunting runtime is not very daunting whilst watching it. All acting in the film was solid, even the work of the child actors. Daniel Day-Lewis in particular delivered a truly phenomenal performance, capturing the power of greed, fear, insanity, and comedy simultaneously, at many points throughout the film. At no point does the time period distract from the power of the film. Sometimes period pieces cannot be appreciated because they delve too deep into historical details — turning the experience into more of a documentary than a narrative set in the past. This is not the case for “There Will Be Blood”, as human interactions are the focus of the film. Johnny Greenwood’s chilling score is very strong, benefiting from the elegant minimalism that he show’s in the band Radiohead. Will this picture go on to win Best Picture? It absolutely has every right to, however I feel that this movie is a bit ahead of current trends in modern cinema, and will sadly go unnoticed for that particular Oscar. I’m certain that this film will garner many accolades in the independent and film festival scenes. All in all, this is truly a perfectly crafted film.
Apparently Daniel Day Lewis is, once again, peerless and fully method-acted throughout. (Although, to be honest I thought his portrayal of Billy Blood; the butcher in Gangs of New York was over the top.)
If you haven’t seen any of his previous films see them on DVD now.
He was not a great manager. But being treated like the antichrist is totally out of order though and I think this is a very intelligent blog post to that end.
Doug Cook tells me that Santas in Australia’s largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas’s traditional “ho ho ho” greeting because it may be offensive to women.
Sydney’s Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say “ha ha ha” instead.
One disgruntled Santa said a recruitment firm warned him not to use “ho ho ho” because it could frighten children and was too close to “ho”, a US slang term for prostitute.
Jeez, what next? Soon the won’t be able to tell kids they had a nice shag the night before because campaigners will claim it encourages kids to partake in rubbish American dances.
