Saturday 19th July 2025
Blog Page 2041

Student screams "Kill the Jews" at Israeli minister

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An Oxford student yelled “Kill the Jews” at Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, when he spoke at the Oxford Union on Monday night.

The student was removed by security after he shouted the Arabic phrase, “IdhbaH al-Yahud”, which means “Slaughter the Jews”. The incident has been reported to the Proctors’ Office. It was also mentioned in an Israeli Embassy press release on Mr Ayalon’s speech.

There was a great deal of protest during the speech, which was disrupted on many occasions by anti-Israeli protesters criticising Israel’s recent conduct in relation to the Palestinian people.

The first interruption was only a few minutes into the speech, when a woman stood up and read from the Goldstone Report, a critical UN report on Israel’s conduct during the recent Gaza war, to a mixed reaction from the crowd – many supportive, but others’ critical. One person shouted, “I didn’t come to hear you talk.”

In reaction to the interruption, Mr Ayalon criticised the protester for just reading out someone else’s work, saying “I’m not sure she even understood what she said.”

She was soon followed by a woman from southern Lebanon who heckled Mr Ayalon and stood holding pictures throughout the rest of the talk.

Other interruptions included a man holding a Palestinian flag shouting “You are a racist,” “You are a war criminal” and “You will be tried”, to applause from much of the crowd, before being ejected.

Danny Ayalon represents Yisrael Beitenu, a nationalist party, and is a controversial figure even among supporters of Israel. Whilst his talk was frequently interrupted, he managed to convey a combination of moderate and hardline views on the subject of the Middle East in his speech, he blamed Iran for “everything bad going on in the Middle East at the moment”; and claimed that instead of meeting the Israelis halfway on the subject of peace, Israel is giving 95% and Palestine 5%.

However, he also admitted that Israel has to make some concessions to the Palestinians. Arguing that “I do feel for the Palestinians”, he said that he blames successive Palestinian leaderships for their present plight.

Meanwhile, even within the chamber the shouts of the protesters outside the Union gates could be heard. Many were shouting slogans, which ranged from “occupation no more”, to “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in support of Palestine.

The protests were organised by PalSoc. They were joined by members of Oxford Anti-War Action group.

 

Five Minute Tute: Spotify

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1. How does Spotify work?
Spotify is a music streaming service that allows users to listen to music, and is limited (at present) to a few countries in Europe (the UK included). It works on a peer-to-peer basis (P2P). This is a network architecture which means that any ‘node’ in the network architecture (in most cases your computer) surrenders some of its resource (processor, storage, and most importantly network bandwidth) to servicing other users on the P2P network. In other words  your machine becomes a server. 
2. Why has it been banned?
This is the wrong question to ask. It should be ‘why does the University ban P2P software?’ of which Spotify is but one of many. The reasons are well-documented (see http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/oxford/rules/p2p.xml.ID=problems) but in summary the main problem with P2P software is that it may use up excessive bandwidth. So a single machine (node) running P2P software will actually be serving data to any other machine on that network (which could be anywhere in the world), and systems on networks that are perceived to have better bandwidth (e.g. like ours) are preferred in the P2P architecture. The user themselves may suddenly notice their machine begins to slow down. However, of more concern is the effect this might have on local networks, i.e. those within a college or department. Some of these are not high-capacity and uncontrolled use of P2P applications could really slow them down, to a point where academic and reasonable recreational usage suffers.
It is worthwhile noting that many students also fall foul of another issue with P2P. What they assume is that all they are doing is downloading material. What they do not realise is that they are actually also serving the material to the rest of the network. Film companies regularly watch out for this, i.e. computers serving up illegal copies of a movie, and we get a couple of letters a week which result in the users’ machines getting blocked (and usually a fine coming their way). By the way, we’re also getting letters from TV companies, software vendors, ebook providers ….
This probably isn’t an issue with Spotify though, as the material provided is legitimate, but it’s worth noting (again).
3. Why ban Spotify and not other applications with high bandwidth consumption (BBC iPlayer, 4OD)? 
Use of P2P software on the network is banned – not just Spotify. BBC iPlayer, for over a year now, has moved away from the P2P model to an http download model (which the user can control). In effect what this means is you download the programme, but you do not then serve it back out to anyone on the network. So yes, there is bandwidth consumption during the download, but it is one way. My understanding is that 4OD also works on a download model.
The exception is Skype, but we have found a way to configure that so it does not flood the network. In fact we were the first University in the UK to do this, working alongside the people at Skype.
4. Why is this ban necessary at Oxford and not other university campuses?
This is simply not true. Go to most University web sites and search under ‘P2P’ and you will see that some form of ban is in place. Warwick, for example, list 24 applications which ‘must not be used’ (though they do not mention Spotify specifically). It was also odd that your spokesperson from Newnham College in Cambridge asked ‘Why would anyone ban it?’. I suggest they read the Cambridge Computing Services guidelines illustrating the pitfalls of P2P, and maybe talk to their colleagues at Darwin College (http://www.dar.cam.ac.uk/computers/conditions.shtml). 
5. What is OUCS doing to try and make it possible to use Spotify again? 
In general we are looking at P2P software to see if it can be controlled to keep traffic levels reasonable, and inhibit copyright infringement. In this specific case we hope to talk to Spotify themselves (they’ve bee

n in touch), as we did in the past with Skype (which is allowed and Oxford set the pace in devising a way to allow its use without damaging the network). If there is a way of controlling the bandwidth use by the ‘node’, or turning file sharing off, or similar, then we may get somewhere.
6. How likely is a positive outcome for Spotify users? 
Hard to tell. Most suppliers of P2P are becoming aware of the issues, and know there is a problem (especially in the domestic market where bandwidth is always tight). So they want to seek a solution as much as we do. However, the bottom line is we cannot allow the local networks to be put at risk and thus slow down the academic work of staff and students. But we recognise that the network is also for social purposes. Hopefully we can reach a solution that suits us all.

How well do you know your Big Issue seller?

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An in-depth look at who the homeless are, how they live, shelters in the city, and what you can do to help.

Review: The Wolfman

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The Wolfman is yet another entry into the werewolf/sci-fi sub-genre that appears to be in vogue right now. But rather than overtly trying to attract a teenage audience in the same manner as the Twilight series, the makers of this film were looking to make a ‘classic’ horror movie. Although its plot and direction owes much to the 1941 movie of the same name, star and producer Benicio Del Toro wanted to update the original rather than simply create a frame-by-frame remake.

The story is relatively straightforward; upon hearing of his brother’s mysterious death, Laurence (Del Toro), returns to the derelict family home inhabited by his estranged father (Hopkins) and his brother’s fiancée (Blunt). Merely adding in the words, ‘werewolf’ and ‘love’ will give you the rest of the plot.
The main downfall here is Del Toro whose woodenness (I think he was trying to portray tension) fails to endear the audience to his character, and leaves you wanting the villagers to lynch him just so he might perhaps show some emotion. He is totally unconvincing as a human, especially his attempt at falling in love; it is only when he transforms that he comes into his own, these scenes, enhanced by the special effects, being one of the highlights of the film.

The supporting cast are commendable – Hopkin’s acting as ever added gravitas to the affair but still failed to add more than a little bit of interest, nonetheless his ability to work convincingly with dubious lines is impressive. Blunt, tackling a more heavyweight role than she is used to (think Devil Wears Prada) played her part well – although she seemed unconcerned about the death of her fiancé and more than happy to fall in love with his brother.

Although this is a horror film there were moments of comedy – the police inspector’s exchange with the barwomen is one of particular note and intentional unlike many of the others. Blunt’s impassioned ‘Laurence, you know me, look at me’ was particularly banal and exemplary of some of the questionable scripting, while Hopkins removing his top as a werewolf to reveal an incredibly hairy chest elicited laughter from much of the cinema.

The sets, scenery, costumes and make up were the highlight of this otherwise predictable piece of drama. Chatsworth House, used so often in films, was given a fresh lease of life through its stages of regeneration throughout the film and the admirable attempt to recreate Victorian London should be lauded. Special credit should go to Rick Baker, the creature effects designer, who managed to pull off an incredibly hard job in making the transformation credible and the attention to detail, such as the intricacy of the feet and hands, was superb.

The problem is that this is a remake of a classic, so it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Although new special effects have been utilized beautifully in the transformation scenes, at the end of the day the Wolfman still looks like an oversized Yeti. It fulfills all the clichés: misty moors, stately homes, ‘backward’ villagers, estranged sons, family secrets, copious amounts of blood and lots of howling. Yet it feels tired and even sparkling performances from Hopkins and Blunt and the remarkable scenery fail to light up an incredibly average film.

2 stars

Online review: Invictus

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When asked which actor he would have portray him in a film of his life, Nelson Mandela didn’t hesitate to nominate Morgan Freeman, who, in turn, has been struggling for years to bring the former South African President to the silver screen. With Invictus, based on John Carlin’s book Playing the Enemy, Freeman’s role of a lifetime has finally arrived, and he gives it his all. Although it occasionally feels like an amalgamation of his roles in The Shawshank Redemption and Deep Impact as a prisoner and president respectively, Freeman is by no means weak – on the contrary, his subsequent Oscar nod is well earned, with an admirably nuanced performance that skilfully captures the great man onscreen. As such, it’s a great shame to see Freeman so badly let down by a mawkishly sentimental and reductive slice of thinly concealed Oscar bait.

It starts promisingly enough: reconstructed news footage shows Mandela/Freeman being freed from prison and soon being elected as President, while his assistant (a convincing Adjoa Andoh) warns him of the urgent problems facing South Africa, including a crippled economy, poor healthcare and seething racial tensions. A more political filmmaker such as Oliver Stone may have leapt at the chance to draw out contemporary parallels with Obama, but instead the filmmakers chose a simpler and supposedly inoffensive route by concentrating on the 1995 South Africa Rugby World Cup. However, in doing so the film might manage to sidestep political controversy, but it is also resoundingly successful in offending the intelligence of its audience. Mandela effectively abandons all other presidential commitments in order to oversee victory for the Springboks – a team representative of apartheid – with the hope of easing the racial tensions threatening to engulf the country. Even without knowing the outcome of the World Cup, one can quite easily map out the film’s narrative trajectory – if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the film.

The execution of the film is not at fault here. Clint Eastwood has evolved into one of the most consistent and hardworking directors in Hollywood, and at 79 he shows no signs of slowing down. His direction here is confident and at times impressive, no more so than in the climactic Springbok/All Blacks showdown. Alongside this, Matt Damon provides quietly effective support as the Springbok captain, François Pienaar, as he neatly sidesteps the trap previously fallen into by Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond by producing a surprisingly convincing South African accent. Perhaps more importantly, Damon’s in fully-fledged beefcake mode here, bouncing back from his gut-heavy performance in Soderbergh’s The Informant! to show off a newly acquired rugby player physique. Unfortunately, his less impressive stature provides the film with some unintentional laughs, as, at 5’ 10’’, Damon is constantly dwarfed by his more authentic onscreen teammates.

However, despite the convincing performances and Eastwood’s sure-handed direction, the film’s painfully inept plot greatly overshadows the brief flashes of excellence. Within half an hour, its central message – rugby cures racism – is made clear, and the script then proceeds to crudely beat the audience over the head with this simplistic and sentimental mantra for a further hour and a half – most noticeable in the painful employment of a song entitled “Colourblind” prior to the climactic match. The moral complexities and sheer narrative subtlety that defined Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood’s previous collaborations (Million Dollar Baby and Unforgiven – still Eastwood’s unsurpassed masterpiece) are entirely absent here, replaced instead with a clumsy feel-good conclusion courtesy of Anthony Peckham’s otherwise unremarkable script. The film casually concludes that racism was ended in South Africa on 24 June 1995, and offers no hint of the country’s future political and racial difficulties, let alone any criticism of Mandela himself. The skill with which this film was made and the talent of those who made it only serve to make its shortcomings all the more noticeable and frustrating. The quality of Freeman’s performance is wasted on a poor script, while Eastwood has shown elsewhere that he is a far more able and intelligent director than Invictus would have you believe.

 

2 stars

Chelsea’s other scandal

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The press attention given to the John Terry affair over the last week has buried another story involving Chelsea which could potentially have much more damaging implications than unrest in the England dressing room. On Thursday the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) lifted the transfer ban imposed on the Blues following their signing of French teenager Gael Kakuta from FC Lens. The sensational ban, barring Chelsea from buying players until 2011 and imposing hefty financial burdens, was handed down by FIFA in September last year after it was claimed that Kakuta was induced to break his contract with the French club.

The CAS decision stated that “the two clubs and the player have recognised the contract between the player and Lens was not valid.” It is noticeable that the decision does not state whether Chelsea were in the wrong, just that the two clubs came to an agreement and the case was dropped. The case remains suspicious when you compare the difference in the statements made by the clubs during the crisis. Lens President Gervais Martel said when the ban was given, “the player was under contract with us and they came and stole him away from us. Chelsea didn’t follow the rules.” The official club statement after Thursday’s decision was that Lens were “financially and technically” happy with the agreement. This represents a significant change of heart. If, as is claimed, Lens now agree the contract was not valid why did they appeal in the first place? And why did FIFA impose the original ban?

A transfer ban is a very effective way of punishing wealthy clubs which can easily cover the cost of fines. Chelsea were previously fined £300,000 for illegally ‘tapping up’ Ashley Cole in 2005, but the fine made little significant impact on billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. This transfer ban potentially represented a precedent for football’s governing bodies standing up to the abuses of the rules by wealthy clubs. The dropping of the case with no explanation of why Lens and FIFA initially felt it was valid is worrying. The £130,000 paid in compensation to Lens as “an act of good faith”, according to Chelsea Chairman Bruce Buck, suggests that money has definitely talked. If this is the case then it is disturbing for the poorer clubs, and will surely have greater consequences for the game than the break down of John Terry and Wayne Bridge’s friendship.  

Ruthless Chelsea defeat Arsenal

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How it could all have been so different. Two moments of slack defending ruthlessly exploited by Didier Drogba condemned Arsenal to a defeat that dealt a crushing blow to their title aspirations. An otherwise promising performance ended in defeat because while we were slack at the back and anaemic in front of goal, Chelsea were quite the opposite.

What is disappointing is that we started so well. We were really harrying Chelsea in midfield, zipping the ball round with pace and creating genuine pressure. Yet as was the case at the Emirates in November, and even in the awful performance against United last week a bright start was undone with the opponents first genuine attack, and then dealt the killer blow with their second.

Both goals were utterly avoidable. For the first Vermaelan gave Terry far too much space to get his header in, and Alex Song drifted off as the ball looped gently to the back post for Drogba to smash home. Clichy, stationed on the post as the corner came in, inexplicably wandered to the centre of the goal as Drogba put the ball precisely where he should have been standing. The second was no better; as Chelsea broke Vermaelan and Clichy utterly failed to communicate, both moving into the same spot, allowing Drogba the space he needed to gallop forward before stepping inside both to smash home. Two errors, two momentary lapses in concentration and Arsenal had left themselves an insurmountable climb.

Much criticism will rightly be directed at Gael Clichy, a man in worryingly poor form. However it would be utterly fickle for us to lose faith with him. Injuries and a crisis of confidence have shattered his form, but his previous excellence should be enough to allow him time to improve. The same applies to Theo Walcott, again frustratingly anonymous, and clearly in need of time and a bit of luck to get back that all important self-belief.

Though criticism in general should be tempered by the fact that despite these lapses we really made a game of it. Last week we rolled over meekly in front of United, today we really fought hard and generally outplayed them in midfield. Around the hour mark especially we really threatened to get back in the game. This is of course slightly meaningless, because controlling the possession without scoring is rather Arsenal’s speciality, but it is nonetheless reassuring to see us at least trouble them.

The difference was, their late misses aside, Chelsea took advantage of what little they had. Arsenal on the other hand fluffed their lines. Arshavin’s first half volley was tricky, but a player of his class should have slotted it home. Similarly Samir Nasri, sent through in the second half, dallied as he repeatedly changed his mind between squaring to the unmarked Walcott, or taking the chance himself. As it was, his dithering cost him the chance. As with Rooney’s finishing last weekend, our opponents showed that cutting edge that can really make the difference in these tight encounters and we just didn’t.

Of course Chelsea’s defending was also excellent. They executed a simply game-plan to perfection; sneak a lead, defend it solidly, and then push for a late dagger. The little we created relied on our excellence, not their mistakes. Yet having played better to create your chances means little if you can’t put them away. Chelsea have that winning knack we, with our attack composed entirely of attacking midfielders, rather lack.

We can only see ourselves as out of it for now, but from here on in our task gets easier. All we can do is get back to winning ways against Liverpool and hope and pray the others drop needless points. To be honest, Arsenal winning the league would seem rather unjust, but if the miracle happens you certainly won’t find me complaining.

So near, and yet so far. Arsenal this season seem destined to waver in the gap between the true title contenders and the pack chasing fourth, but the consequences regardless, they can at least leave today’s game with heads held high.

Off on a slight tangent, wasn’t Eboue’s little cameo excellent? He didn’t receive the ball once without beating one man, and at times more. Hardly a solution to our problems, but it brought a smile to my face. 

Oxford’s intellectual monogamy

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Having previously graduated from Canadian universities, to me the following sentiment seemed right on the mark, “We [in Britain] really preach intellectual monogamy more and more in this day and age. That’s by necessity, but we’re overdoing it.” Thus spake Dr. Carl Djerassi, chemist, author, playwright, in Intelligent Life magazine. At North American universities, by and large, undergraduate programmes seek to provide a liberal education, where subjects from both arts and sciences are required of everyone. One does specialize, but not so much that a chemist, for example, could entirely avoid the humanities, or that a historian could complete her studies without some experience of the pure and applied sciences.

In contrast, specialization seems to be the order of the day at Oxford, and indeed throughout Britain, where it is possible to take nothing but maths or sciences, or humanities or social sciences, from as early as age 15. During undergraduate orientation, the international students were told that Oxford expects us to become “professionals” in our chosen field: to grasp the current state of learning, deploy it to answer topical questions, and identify the areas where more research is needed. Undoubtedly these are worthy and challenging ends, but what of the relation between one’s subject and all of the others? Surely that is also important.

Or is it? In talking to students around Oxford, a common theme that emerges on this question is paternalism, with the case for breadth amounting to little more than vague assertions that “your life will just be better if you’ve read Shakespeare and Plato”. (Or, less frequently, “Your life will just be better if you understand organic chemistry”.) Indeed, the diversity of student interest here makes it difficult to get beyond such vague assertions: how can we specify a few subjects or authors that are universally relevant? Moreover, practical considerations seem overwhelmingly to favour specialised study: it is expensive to study at Oxford (or any undergraduate university), and specialists are more readily employable than generalists; the sea of human knowledge is so vast that just coming to grips with what’s been done takes years; and if the goal of university education is to deploy one’s mind in serious, rigorous study, surely in-depth reading is superior to so many “Introduction to…” courses, the sort of intellectual tourism that North American universities audaciously brand as “liberal education”.

People also seem to think that the case against specialization falls hardest on scientists. This is partly the result of caricature: people envision scientists discovering new worlds within worlds with every increase in magnification of the microscope. (Perhaps it really is ‘turtles all the way down’.) A more realistic claim might be that scientists require a broader base of knowledge because the fruits of their specialization will have the greatest impact on human society. Think of the Manhattan Project, which had devastating consequences, or take your pick of medical miracles, the consequences of which are often heroic. Or, perhaps the real problem is that the consequences of scientific endeavour are inherently uncertain, as last term’s Oxford Today magazine readily illustrates: the cover story investigates ongoing research into “human enhancement”, with one Oxford scientist speculating that his children “will live beyond the age of 120”.

While these examples are compelling, they are also, of course, incomplete. We should not forget that the Manhattan Project was carried out by scientists but directed by politicians, most of whom were not scientifically trained. Virtually all medical research is sponsored by private or government initiative that is directed by professionals or bureaucrats. Now that you know about human enhancement research at Oxford, you are at least partially complicit in whatever its consequences.

When Chancellor Patten was installed in 2003, he observed, quite rightly, that “it is probably the case that our lives in the future will be even more dependent on what emerges-taught and researched-from our universities”. All too true, and entirely at odds with the notion that Oxford (or any other university) should endeavour to produce “professional” undergraduates, little masters of their particular disciplines. Such a project bespeaks a vision that is both parochial and unambitious; even reckless,

if we concur in the Chancellor’s expectation. The case for specialized undergraduate study ultimately fails because the immediate concerns of personal interest or circumstance pale in comparison to the serious consequences that some will be instrumental in producing, and that all of us will in some way enable, condone, and endure. How easily we forget the caution of John Henry Newman, son of Trinity College and Fellow of Oriel College, who, in his famous lectures on The Idea of a University, observed that “Men, whose minds are possessed with some one object, take exaggerated views of its importance, are feverish in the pursuit of it, make it the measure of things which are utterly foreign to it, and are startled and despond if it happens to fail them.” While a system of residential colleges does much to discourage such feelings, and joint schools can do this even more directly, the basic programme here remains fundamentally directed towards specialized study. What Oxford, and indeed all undergraduate universities need is an academic programme constructed around serious cross-disciplinary study. Only this will ensure the sense of proportion, of wonder, that is necessary for us to bear the Chancellor’s burden.

 

The Open Heart of Colin Thubron

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We all have a little of Alexander the Great in us. That same insistent flame that drove one Macedonian across half of Asia in search of new worlds to conquer burns in everyone. We are all capable of seeing the whole world about us as an artwork to be coveted, an enigma to be solved, a question to whose answer we could devote all of our life and energy. It is just that most of us often need to be reminded of what is out there.

And so I am standing in an elegant study in west London, swaying slightly from motion sickness. A moment later, a man enters with a glass of water and a smile. He has a face made for smiling with, and it’s infectious. Colin Thubron is a people person: he has made the infinite strangeness and charm of the human race his concern for five decades. In a lifetime of travel he has passed through some of the world’s most dramatic landscapes and most magnificent cities, but time and again his narratives will stop for the whims of a child or the hopes and dreams of a young man.

This is a man for whom the world is a perpetual adventure. He grew up travelling back and forth between Britain and North America in the footsteps of his father, a military attache. Life was a great kaleidoscope: ‘I had hardly seen a river larger than the Thames, and then I was in the eastern lake country of Canada. I just remember the great excitement of the sheer fact of moving.’ After an Eton education that bequeathed him a headful of poetry and history, he went straight into publishing, and wound up in Damascus at the age of twenty-two, speaking no Arabic and with ‘no real sense that I knew what was going on.’

‘I was fascinated by what I didn’t understand,’ he remembers. In his mind’s eye, he threads a dust-paved street near the Bab Sharqi in Damascus’ old city, and a half-open door flashes a glimpse of a basalt courtyard with a secret fountain, ‘set up to invite your curiosity.’ He has spent his life going through such doors. Four years later he published his first travel book, Mirror to Damascus, which he describes as ‘simply a work of love.’ Blending history, poetry and above all a sympathetic interest in ordinary people, it set the tone that would characterise much of his travel writing. It is a book that carries the impress of the city as a bed retains its lover’s form. Thubron is adamant that it should be the pure experience of travel that moulds writing, not any grand theory or romantic idealisation. ‘You are responsible to what is out there.’ His books, he says, write themselves after the journey: ‘you just bum along, have all these meetings, and that’s the book.’

He is never bored. ‘I always feel that I haven’t got enough: I’m always on the outside trying to get in. Even when you’re on a train, there’s the landscape to understand, you’re constantly trying to get it, or else there will be somebody to have a conversation with.’ Nor is he ever lonely. No two people are ever alike, and he has a universal empathy that could draw a novel out of the poorest specimen of humanity. ‘Superficially, everybody seems alike – it takes time for you to differentiate.’ But he always does: he invariably finds exactly what makes every person and place he encounters special.

The entire continent of Asia unfolds with a crackling of incense and laughter from his books. He was one of the first Englishmen in Siberia and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia after they opened up to foreigners, and he was there to catalogue the Six Day War from Beirut, and the Cultural Revolution from rural China. The latter seems to have been the single most moving experience in his career. There, in spite of all his objectivity, he was appalled at the ‘denial of individual conscience,’ the way that ideas became more important than people. ‘I didn’t attempt to deny a sense of cultural superiority.’ One day, however, he came across a Chinese professor who had suffered intensely, but told Thubron that he was astonished that such barbarity had happened in an ancient civilisation like China and not in the brutal world of Europe, the world of Hitler and Stalin. ‘I was brought up short,’ says Thubron ruefully. The travel writer always finds the telescope turned back upon the observer.

His most recent – and favourite – book, Shadow of the Silk Road, draws all of these themes together. He made a gruelling voyage from central China to Antalya in Turkey overland alone, including a leg through an Afghanistan sundered by war; and the lesson he learned from this book – and from his career – is clear. Man is a chaotic phenomenon, and you underestimate this at your peril. Never, ever mistake him for something simple and easily defined. Travel writing, he believes, is there to cross borders and smash up preconceptions. ‘One can theorise to the end of time, but individuals are irreducible. The subversion of theory is one of the great joys of travel writing,’ he tells me with a puckish grin.

Now in his eighth decade, he is writing a new book about his journey up the Karnali river in Nepal – the highest source of the Ganges – to Mt Kailas in Tibet, ‘the holiest mountain in the world, I suppose.’ He interleaves his travel writing with successful short novels, which he sees as a kind of therapy, ‘a reaction to travel.’ Often they are set in claustrophobic, frenetic environments – a lunatic asylum, a prison, the head of an amnesiac – but, paradoxically, he describes such writing as ‘very liberating.’ Inner and outer life are, after seventy years, still just as much of an exuberant challenge as they ever were.

As our conversation draws to a close, he speaks of the writers and human beings whom he most admires – among them the great travellers Freya Stark and Patrick Leigh Fermor – with an immense affection. ‘Some people you meet and come away feeling the world is a grander place.’ I leave his house, and on either side of me the streets stretch away to infinity.

Guilty Pleasures

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Time travel is a topic which fascinates us all. It has captured the minds of many directors who have produced some thoughtful and intriguing takes on the subject in the last decade. We confronted the disturbing possibility of splintered reality in Donnie Darko. Makers of rom-coms have also jumped on the bandwagon as we saw the release of 13 going on 30 and The Time Traveller’s Wife. But I don’t want to talk about these films…

I want to talk about the tacky, low budget, slapstick time travel films which never quite made it on to our radar. The premise for these films tends to follow one of two strands: premise one, in which a slightly dumb American gets transported to another time, wreaking havoc in the process (A Kid in King Arthur’s Court anyone?!) and premise two, in which characters from another time are transported to modern day America in the style of Les Visiteurs. There are ample opportunities for shots of Vikings climbing the Empire State Building and for knights to be seen strolling around Hollywood Boulevard having a hot dog. They are the kind of films which make historians weep and cause the general public to be grossly misinformed. 

The best film in this category has to be Black Knight. The tag-line is: ‘He’s about to get medieval on you.’ How could it possibly be bad?! The story follows Jamal who, whilst working at an American theme park ‘Medieval World’, finds a magic medallion that transports him back to 14th century England (still with me?). Because of his unfamiliar ‘ghetto’ clothing the courtiers assume he’s French. Having infiltrated the court of an evil usurper Jamal discovers his calling is to restore the rightful heir to the throne.

Perhaps you have to be in the right frame of mind for this to be enjoyable viewing. The first time I happened upon it was after a night out. I came home with the munchies, grabbed a snack and switched on the TV. I read the synopsis for Black Knight: ‘theme park worker goes back in time to 1328.’ Oh God, I thought, it’s one of those films. However, I got sucked in and actually found it refreshingly goofy. It isn’t trying to be meaningful or even vaguely historically accurate; it’s almost like a spoof of itself. So next time you need a pick me up and some cheap laughs, reach for the remote and ‘joust do it!’