Black Lion in Long Melford - Special Recommendation

A genuine Georgian dining room overlooking Long Melford village green is an ideal location for a most enjoyable Sunday lunch; this hotel restaurant, frequented by celebrities and literally a stone's throw from the delightful NT property of Melford Hall, provides attentive personal service, waist-line worthy portions (without being over-powering) and superb cooking. I thoroughly recommend this as part of a day out to deepest Suffolk.

Monsters – the War on Terror Re-analysed

Technically, Gareth Edwards movie "Monsters" breaks new ground in production methods and animation. It was shot on a shoestring budget in Guatemala and Mexico, with a professional actor cast of just two (Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy) using improvised dialog and extras hired in at each location. With Adobe Creative Suite to edit the film shot on a Sony EX3, Edward's visual effects engineer background allowed him personally to deliver all the "Monster" animation with five months of work; with 250 effects shots that is a phenomenal rate of 2 per day. The monsters were created with a software package called "3ds Max": "It was the hardest challenge of the whole film because I had never done proper creature animation before," says Edwards.
Edwards also wrote the script and this is what sets him apart from so much of the SF genre. Much of the film is an emotional journey between the principle characters, Kaulder, a news photographer and Able, who he is ordered to escort safely back home to the USA by her father who is also his boss. Various convincing mishaps result in their needing to cross the "infected zone," a route used only by the desperate. On another level, this is a movie about how real people might actually cope with an alien invasion. In northern Mexico, the locals have accepted life coexisting with the aliens: they are only dangerous when the US air force is delivering their chemical warfare over the infected zone. From the US perspective, the approach is containment and then destruction: a massive wall to defend the US border and then chemical attack.
Parallels with the war on terror and indeed the general approach of the Western world to any perceived threat, are disturbingly evident. When we encounter the aliens close up, however, we witness behaviour you might reasonably expect from humans. Yes they will destroy you if you shoot at them, but we also see inquisitiveness (tentacles touching a TV screen to try to understand it) and an encounter between two of the aliens that is evidence of a bond between them, maybe even love. Perhaps these aliens would be no threat to us if we only tried to understand them and treated them reasonably!

I'm afraid I did

This is that moment: when David Cameron admits to Nick Clegg that he did say "Nick Clegg" in reply to the question "What is your favourite joke?" Need I say more?

Gillian Duffy

It's very easy to criticise Gordon Brown's gaff captured by Sky News when he drove off with one of their microphones, but more respectable reporting would not spy on someone's private conversation in this way. I'm quite sure that any politician will have said equally damning things in private. In fact we all have. The real question for me is what did Gillian Duffy actually say. Here is a transcript:

"But there's too many people now who aren't vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't claim, can't get it.....You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you are ... But all these Eastern Europeans what are've comin in, where are they flocking from... And what are you going to do about students that are coming in now...."

Is this bigoted? Or to put it another way, do you think she would be a suitable recruit into our immigration department?

Three Ghosts for Your Money

In Roman Polanski's film "The Ghost" (renamed "The Ghost Writer" when released in USA; presumably so that that particular audience would be able to understand the title), you get three ghosts. Based on Robert Harris' novel, the naive unnamed narrator is appointed to ghost write the memoirs of Adam Lang, ex-prime minister of the UK. Lang is taking refuge at the holiday home of his publisher, on Martha's Vineyard, whilst charges of war crimes are being levelled. Our second ghost is the previous ghost writer, Mike McAra, who drowned in suspicious circumstances following a row with Lang. The third ghost is the UK prime minister, who has ghost-written the justifications for invading Iraq, in support of the US president. This film has a worrying credible plot and a curious twist at the end. What was not credible to me was why our narrator would reveal what he discovers near the end of the story and so put himself in such jeopardy. A desire to show off your deductive powers for me would be outweighed by a desire to survive.

Tattoo Transcendence

Stieg Larsson’s bestselling thriller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” was originally entitled “Men who hate Women,” and divided critics on the question: is this book feminist or misogynist?  The film depicts the violence alarmingly accurately for UK audiences and whilst any entertainment depicting violence will always be condemned by some as indulgent, the scenes here are truthful and informative. English speaking cinema has ratings chasing conventions about the depiction of violence that are intended to be slick but are now hackneyed. This film is refreshing in its honesty and has a satisfying story line: the misogynists get their come-uppance. I highly recommend it, but the 18 rating is there for good reason.

Death by Humiliation

"In Memory of Myself" (2007) is based on a 1960 novel by Furio Monicelli, "The Perfect Jesuit" and is Saverio Costanzo's second film (his first film, Private, set in Palestine, won festival prizes). Monicelli experienced the novitiate directly, so this film carries the chance of authenticity. Set in the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore on the Venetian island of San Giorgio, you enter a world the Catholic Church has devised for the selection of priests. Denied any personal relationships (fellow novices are trained to report private conversations) and humiliated in group sessions, it is surprising that any novices make it through the gruelling and austere process. "You are here to test the order and the order will test you" One incumbent is dying, but only allowed occasional visits from his family. Another is found banging his head against a wall in the middle of the night; he amongst others realise that this life, after all, is not for them, and leaves.
We see the novitiate through the eyes of Andrea (curiously Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore was designed by Andrea Palladio in the 16^th century). Andrea is tested to the extreme. "Who am I," exclaims Andrea tearfully in the chapel. "Why am I here?" The homily rota is changed, Andrea must produce his homily the next day and works all night to achieve this. Fellow novices decry his offering as lacking in love, insufficiently humble. Will Andrea leave as others have done, or will his conversion to a selfless state be completed?
As a piece of cinema, this work is unique, memorable, challenging and rewarding. The sound track itself provokes extreme contrasts between the mood of the music and the sombre timelessness of the monastery atmosphere. As an insight into Jesuit life, I suspect you will not find better. As a two hour journey away from normal life, it was an unforgettable experience.

Standby Surprise

On the UK government "Act on CO2" website there is clear advice, which no one would disagree with: Don't leave it on standby
"If everyone in the UK switched off unused appliances it would save £800 million a year. Leaving appliances plugged in and switched on at the socket means they're still using energy – so turn TVs, games consoles and mobile phone chargers off at the mains to save yourself money."


This is self evident advice and easy to implement. Why would any one question it? Turning something off that you don't need will save energy and save the planet. But is it always true?


Here is a simple quiz question for all you energy gurus out there:
I go out for the evening and despite my usual vigilance I leave my phone charger switched on, my TV on standby, and (horror of horrors) an electric light on. The room is heated (it is winter) by an electric heater, which has a thermostat. So here is the question, does leaving the electrical devices on unnecessarily:

1. Use extra energy, contributing to my carbon footprint?
2. Make absolutely no difference to my energy consumption, but increase my carbon footprint?
3. Increase my energy consumption by the wattage of the devices left on, but make no difference to my carbon footprint?
4. Make no difference to either my energy consumption or my carbon footprint?
5. I need more information and need to thermally model your home and the insulation system on a computer before I can say.

So here is the surprise (for some people). If you want to be pedantic and very accurate, the answer is (5), but to a very close approximation, the answer is (4). The reason? Let me go over some very simple physics.


All these electrical devices convert the energy they use into heat (I'm assuming that the phone is not plugged into the charger so we are not converting any mains electrical energy into battery energy). Actually, conversion of electrical energy into heat energy happens at 100% efficiency for almost all electrical devices. The electric heater does the same. The thermostat on the heater does not know if the heat delivered to your room is from the heater or the other devices; it is all just heat. So whilst you are heating the room, the job of the thermostat is to maintain the room at a particular temperature. Everything else being equal, it will turn on the heater for slightly smaller periods of time to exactly compensate for the heat generated by the offending devices. The energy you use will be whatever is necessary to maintain the temperature difference between the outside and the chosen thermostat temperature inside. Which electrical device generates that heat does not matter. Obviously the thermal installation makes a massive difference and air flow from the outside through your room (a draft) is probably even more important. But the TV on standby makes no difference at all.


So why might answer (5) be important. We let us suppose that the phone charger is on the window sill, behind the curtains. It might then lose the heat it generates without contributing so much to the heating of the room. There would then be an argument for switching it off to save energy. I mention this only because there will be people who spot this and then claim that my argument is completely wrong. I will let you judge, on this.


Don't be complacent if you are in a hot climate with air conditioning running. Unfortunately the physics works the other way around in this case. Because air conditioning uses more energy than it shifts, the extra devices in your home now get multiplied by the efficiency of the air conditioning. A TV on standby using five watts now needs, maybe, another 5 watts of air conditioning to keep the room at the same thermostatically controlled temperature. And this will increase both your energy costs and your carbon footprint.

Murdoch Madness?

Let’s get real here. All the main newspapers have invested in their web sites in order to maximise income. Murdoch is just the first to blink and pursue subscription in addition to advertiser income.

Look what happened in the airline industry. Three years ago you had to pay extra to do an on-line check-in with Ryan air. Now you get fined £40 if you don’t. In the meantime, all the check-in desks (and the people who staffed them) have disappeared. Similar cost savings will occur in the news industry, once the market can be moved to the low cost automated delivery of the web.

No Justice for Venables

In order for Jon Venables to receive justice, it was essential for him to remain anonymous and to be tried for any new crime without his identity being revealed. Why do we even know, at this stage, that he might have re-offended? 

It seems to me that the very release of the information that he is back in prison is itself a criminal act and not in the public interest. It has increased the likelihood of his jury knowing who he is, which will then prevent a trial at all, since his lawyers will rightly argue that he cannot be tried without his previous crime being known. This is being handled extremely badly. 

In any case, it was decided that this 10-year-old killer should be given a second chance at life - but now we are reneging on that decision. Of course being in a young offenders prison will not have been the best rehabilitation anyone could receive, but is regrettably the only one available.

The press are guilty of stirring up the potential lynch mob here. We see interviews with Jamie Bulger's mother, who of course is totally distraught. But I am sorry, she has no more right to know what is happening than any of us do. If we believe in the criminal justice system, then its decisions need to be followed through and not flouted by a blood thirsty press. Yes, justice must be seen to be done, but let justice be done first. The debate about how we treat a killer who was still at primary school can come afterwards.