Now I’ve never opened the hallowed pages of a VS Naipaul book, so I wouldn’t want to comment on his writing. However I do have this to say about his comments; THEY ARE SO BORING. Seriously, we’ve all heard this before, it’s been replied to with thousands of brilliant books by women (which does leave one with the lingering suspicion that these chaps don’t actually read), when are they going to come up with something new? I guess the more interesting question is why we are still giving this kind of tosh print space – it doesn’t tell us anything new about writing, and we already knew VS was an old sexist. The only thing it seems to do is continue the curious trend of gentleman writers getting to a certain age and then saying something naughty in public to gain attention. That trend seems so well established now that I’m bored with that too.

Edit: Diana Athill has given a lovely response here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13436429

Of course my thoughts on this come issue come direct to you, completely untainted by any exposure to the actual source material in question, so in fact I can only comment on the act itself, but that’ll do. Why of publish a tell-all memoir right in the middle of the leadership election for your own beloved party? I can only assumed that Blair, like Mandelson before him, may well love the labour party, but not more than they love the monotonous sound of their own voice, appearing in whatever media presents itself.  Should some scientist invent some telepathic device we’d all be subjected to the narcissism, sorry wisdom, of Blair on a daily basis, projected into our collective consciousness. ‘I was right, you see, I was right. One day you’ll understand, history will vindicate me’.

These guys run around wanting the respect due to wise established statesmen, but publish memoirs about squabbles and trysts so quickly that they allow no real distance from the events they describe. They want respect but act like a bunch of public school boys on too much sherbert. And of course there is the problem of Blair being caught out with such a big lie, do we believe anything he writes now?

The point is Tony, it’s too late, you’ve had your turn, you lied and rode rough shod over national opinion to take us into an illegal war. It may seem like a trifling little thing to you, but the public are a bit funny like that. You look just a little bit reptilian now, not having the power any more, and a book putting forwards ‘your side of the story’ and a nice little donation to wounded soldiers is not going to fix that.  Move over,  it’s someone else turn.

Before seeing the film I read review from Phillip French in the Guardian, and heard Mark Lawson talk about it on Front Row, and while neither implied this was potential classic, they both seemed to take it seriously. I can only assume that neither reviewer saw the second half, which is predominantly where all the bad stuff happens. Splice is so many kinds of awful that I don’t really know where to start. Should I talk about the hysterical assumption underlying lots of the dialogue in the film that there must be ‘something wrong’ with women who choose not to have children? Should I talk about the deep-rooted fear of male violence also implicit in the plot of the film? Should I talk about the fact that in films advertised as trashy sci-fi assuming you are normally unlikely to be ambushed with grim and unnecessary rape scenes, that while completely absurd, still repeat on you the next morning? I’m not going to talk about any of that, I’m just going to say that this is seven quid and two hours of your life better spent elsewhere. Should you want to spend that time and money in a cinema watching a film with some intelligence, sophistication and maturity, I suggest you go and see Toy Story or Inception. If you just want to be amused for a couple of hours, Shrek will do the job admirably.

What I’ve found particularly uncomfortable has been the debate of education, or more the way the argument has been framed. It seems to me to go something along the lines of going to university is an individual indulgence that somebody has to pay for, and that the primary role of universities should be to turn out people who have useful skills for businesses (and not say doing ground breaking research), so frankly yo should be able to stuff all that stuff into 2 years. Us academics, or indeed anyone who values education as one of the great successes of modern civilisation, should stop harping on about deep thinking  and face the real world. All is said, of course, by people who enjoyed their free education thankyou very much and are now busy pulling that ladder up behind them.

Well, I’m going harp on a bit about deep thinking and if that means ignoring the real world then so be it. Education is an activity that has a value in its own right. It’s not just about cramming people full of facts and hoping the pull the right one out on the right occasion, it’s about learning to think for yourself, about spending time thinking, and encouraging exploration of many different and exciting areas of life. A good education (and I wouldn’t try to claim that all educations are good, but this is what we should be aspiring to) will give individuals the tools to continue to educate themselves after the stuff of formal lessons is over, and about providing a richness of experience that is not reducible to a set of transferable skills or monetary equivalent. Those opportunities should be available to anyone who could make use of them, irrespective of background or financial means. Indeed I think we have a moral duty (the con-dems are fond of such phrases I have heard) to ensure that as many people have those opportunities as possible, and not make it more and more daunting for people from families who may not see university as the obvious option in life. I also believe that educating individuals is a benefit for society as a whole, and not an indulgence.  I’m talking about university, because that is my experience, but I think the principle applies at any level, from 5 to 85, from night courses to apprenticeships to PhDs. If you want to nurture the talents and the interests and well-being of a population, equality and education are pretty fundamental.

But Hot Ribena, how are you going to pay for it? Well, basically, I say tax ‘The Rich’. Tax the people who can afford it, and the massive profits massive banks and massive corporations make. Chase down those tax evaders and say either you contribute to the society that you seem to be doing so well in, or fuck off. Frankly I have no sympathy for people who talk about the how unfair it is to snatch the ’hard earned cash’ of people who earn several hundred thousand pounds a year, I know lots of people who earn significantly less than that, but I don’t know many who don’t work hard for it. I think if you are able to contribute more, then you should. You aren’t making your money in a vacume. Most successful people get to where they are through a combination of hard work and luck (by which I mean the right opportunities in the kind of societies that create and support them), and sometimes by ripping off everyone lower down the food chain, so spare me the guff about being self-made or whatever. These people are often described as productive members of society, as making a contribution. I don’t see how there could be a better contribution to make than helping to educate those of without the financial means to do it themselves. See it as philanthropy if you like. Tony Blair has just made a pile of cash, maybe he could set the example (anyone remember Education, Education, Education). I’d be happy to pay more tax (and I do earn significantly less than several hundred thousand pounds a year) if I knew my tax was paying for someone else to go to university, or to have a place on a great apprenticeship scheme (I am more reluctant to pay for bombs,  and for fancy hotels and first class train tickets for MPs). Education for all shouldn’t be seen as a luxury, it should be seen as essential.

Rant over, I feel better now.

But, for me there was something missing, this final episode didn’t pack the kick to the stomach that I would expect. I don’t know if it is because the whole series has been much more even and more tightly written, but these final two episodes didn’t really stand out for me from the rest of the pack.

I’ve been trying to think of something interesting, or at least mildly amusing to say about this one all week. It hasn’t worked. I’ll review both episodes together on Sunday.

If you are going to make a film set in Persia, about a lot of Persian people, it may be a good idea to have some actors that look like they may at least have a relative, or even a friend who comes from the region. A bunch of white English blokes with fake tans and heavy eye liner doesn’t cut it. Then, if you really wanted to push the boat out, you could try a half decent script, some on-screen chemistry between the leads, and a lead actor who doesn’t look embarrassed to be there. You might want to ditch Ben Kingsly too, his rent-a-villian act is getting old. I’m not even going to bother with the underlying misogyny, it’s too easy to spot.

Dreadful.

Not sure I have much to say about this one. It was nice to see Matt Smith’s legs, James Corden was pretty good (and I’m not particularly a fan of his after that bucket of misoginist awfulness Lesbian Vampire Killers), and I liked the conversation with the cat. Overall it felt a bit frivolous, but coming as it did on the back of the heavy emotional job done by Richard Curtis last week, coupled with the tangible absence of Amy Pond for most of the episode, it’s possible it feels a bit light weight just through sheer comparison. Amy finding the engagement ring at the end was quite exciting, but we have yet to see what the outcome of that will be.

In this episode, after seeing something evil in the window of the church in one of his paintings, the Doctor and Amy travel back in time to meet Vincent van Gough. They defeat the monster, who is indeed violent and a member of a brutal race, but that is not really the story here.  To begin with I wasn’t sure I would be particularly convinced by this episode. Written by Richard Curtis, to begin with the dialogue didn’t seem to fit for me, and I wasn’t sure if this would be another ’Doctor meets famous historical person, because he can episode’.  I was, happily, quickly proved wrong. The actor who played Vincent did brilliantly and was uncannily similar in appearance to what we know of the real van Gough. He was particularly good at playing Vincent as someone who clearly does have a mental illness, but who was also acutely human. This is no simplistic troubled genius stereotype. In the episode, only Vincent can see the monster. Everyone else, including the Doctor, cannot see it, and most people simply see Vincent as mad. That Vincent can see the monster, while others cannot is a really nice metaphor for the sensitivity that some artists seem to have above and beyond the perception of the rest of us. Vincent can see things that are truly terrifying, but he can also see things that are truly wonderous. Although I know nothing about this, I wonder if people, artists or not, who have that quality of sensitivity may find the world, with its darkness and light, a more difficult place to negotiate, and so may be a little more vulnerable to illnesses like depression. It was also rather neat that the Doctor could not see the monster. A theme running through this series is that sometimes he fails to see things how humans do, sometimes he gets it wrong. His inability to tackle the monster without van Gough is a nice twist on this.

I really liked how they didn’t shy away from the depression that van Gough is known to have suffered from, and that they didn’t bludgeon the viewer with it either. For me the best scene in the episode is where the Amy and Van Gough are walking hand and hand to the church, and there is a lovely kinship between them.  He says that if Amy can struggle on, then so will he. Amy then replies that she isn’t struggling on, and he then says ‘then why are you crying?’. While we all know why Amy is crying, that she is mourning Rory, even though she cannot remember him, Amy does not. For me this puts a finger on something important about depression and about human existence. We are often sad, and we often cannot name the reason, and sometimes there is no reason at all. Without an explanation for our feelings, we may find it difficult to change them.

The ending of this episode was a master class in manipulating the emotions, and I think that made the episode more Richard Curtis than Doctor Who for me. But I liked it anyway. Amy and the Doctor take Vincent forwards into the future and show him what a great success he is to become. He is overwhelmed with the feelings this provokes. When they take him back in time he leaves the TARDIS exclaiming that everything has changed. Amy insists that the Doctor takes her straight back to the exhibition, convinced that Vincent will not go on to commit suicide, that there will be many new paintings. But there are no new paintings, they did not save him. Amy is upset, and the Doctor tries to ameliorate her pain by explaining that life is essentially a scale with good experience on one side, and bad on the other. They may not have saved him, but they had given the good side greater weight. This may feel emotionally manipulative, indeed one member of the hot ribena household shed a few tears, but I think there is a good message there too. We are all muddling through complex and difficult lives. We have our share of good and bad experiences. We all have difficult times in our lives, and we know people who have difficult times too, but we can also choose to live with compassion for each other. We can help each other bulk up the weight of the good experiences. This is what Who would do.