Ah, rowing on the OxStu front page.
Which reminds Aldate… wasn’t it roughly this time last year that a certain OUSU-sponsored paper pissed away a front page with the headline "UFOs give Summer Eights a go"?
Blog Page 2242
Interview: Tom Phillips
Name a famous British diplomat.
A Google search only turns out 354 responses – Viscount Grey, Sir Harold Nicolson, Gladwyn Jebb – none of whom are household names, despite having been extremely influential. Jebb, for example, acted as the first Secretary-General of the United Nations.
And Tom Phillips is no exception. Ambassador to Israel (an important, if not cushy posting), his job has taken him to Tel Aviv via Kampala, Washington and Harare. Now, he finds himself on the front line in a search for peace that has eluded the efforts of figures as recognisable as Clinton, Netanyahu and Arafat.
So why does he, like the rest of his colleagues, maintain such a low profile? When I ask Phillips about his job, he always prefaces his answers with a disclaimer. ‘My government’s role…’ he begins each sentence.
I press him for a more personal answer, and he pauses. ‘There are so many individuals involved. Tony Blair, for example, in his new role as Middle East peace envoy, has been instrumental in trying to build the civil institutions that the Palestinians so desperately need.’
The former Prime Minister, with whom Phillips’ relationship has not dimmed since he stepped down last year, seems to loom large on the Israeli horizon. His attempts to shore up the flagging Palestinian economy have recently been complemented by a £243 million pledge from Gordon Brown for UK investment in the Territories.
‘There was a really successful conference last week in Bethlehem,’ Phillips tells me, ‘involving 1,000 business leaders from across the region, and the UK has promised to match any funds raised by these individuals and their companies.’
His overall tone is optimistic. ‘Things are a great deal better than they were a few years ago,’ he says. ‘We’ve moved on from the entrenched, ideological debate of the early 1990s, and there is a far greater emphasis on finding a practical solution.
‘Particularly if you look at the voices of those on the right in Israel – people who insisted that the entire state must remain intact – those voices have relented.’
I ask Phillips about the balancing act he must perform with regard to criticism of Israeli domestic policy. ‘We have a frank bilateral relationship,’ he says firmly, ‘and the Israelis know full well that we have significant humanitarian concerns over how they, for example, respond to Hamas’s rocket attacks.’
I hover on the edge of my next question, but Phillips is quick to retrieve his impartiality: ‘of course, we understand Israel’s security concerns. And, whilst we’ve always had terrorism in the UK, recent events have made Britons far more aware of what it feels like to have suicide bombers in our midst.’
He is also keen to point out that for all its shortcomings, Israeli society is vibrant, democratic and self-scrutinising. ‘People back in the UK shouldn’t imagine that Israel carries on without reflection. It has a remarkable ability to take long, hard looks at itself, and it does so more often than many countries in the West. After the intifada restarted; after the 2006 war in Lebanon, Israel really needed a lively press. And it has one.’
His concern for freedom of speech continues as we move on to discuss the role of students with regard to the peace process. ‘Israeli academics often think that their British counterparts are biased towards the Palestinians. Personally, I’m delighted to see people like Shlomo Ben-Ami being invited to talk at Balliol, as he was a couple of weeks ago.’
Ben-Ami remains a controversial figure, even in his home country, for his role as Minister of Internal Security during riots in October 2000, which resulted in the deaths of 12 Israeli Arabs and a Palestinian.
Despite this, Phillips remains a vehement opponent of academic boycotts: ‘It is absolutely vital to keep all channels of communication open. Until one understands both narratives, it’s impossible to move towards that common ground where peace is forged.’
He wanders back mentally to his student days, during which he was ‘passionately engaged with issues like this.’ His early career as a journalist, which marks him out noticeably from his civil service colleagues, seems to have nurtured an infectious enthusiasm for the power of debate.
‘I’m all in favour of demonstrations – as long as they remain within the law – but honestly, I believe discussion is the best way that both students and academics can advance the process.’
And diplomats, perhaps? ‘My role,’ Phillips says, finally turning the conversation to himself, ‘is partly about finding creative paths to our goal of a two-state solution.’ But the UK also ‘has an incredibly detailed regional counter-terrorism strategy. It’s partly about reaching out to those in Islam who want to see…’
Phillips hesitates. ‘Different solutions from those which the UK believes will bring lasting peace. And it’s partly about a strategic dialogue with Israel that makes sure we’re prepared for anything.’
I ask how he feels about the stability of the Middle East at present. ‘We’re always looking over our shoulders when engaging with the Palestinian issue. We look across at Lebanon, which had a pretty worrying few days recently – and of course the shadow of Iran’s nuclear ambitions hangs over us all.’
Phillips’ deep antipathy towards nuclear weapons, whoever’s hands they may be in, gives me another reminder of his unusual path to the civil service. He doesn’t like to talk about his personal political beliefs, but it strikes me that he is very much a child of the sixties: socially and economically liberal, and serious about ‘world peace.’
But unlike the loud activism of the 2000s, which preaches environmental protection from concert stages illuminated by thousands of floodlights, Phillips’ quiet voice is committed to consistency, and sees links between everything.
I ask him about the effect of Israel and the Palestinians’ relationship on everyday life in Britain. ‘This is one of the central conflicts of our age,’ he says, ‘and there is clearly some kind of a link to our present experience of radicalism in the UK.’
He puts the emphasis on ‘some.’ For Phillips ‘doesn’t buy the argument that “if there wasn’t a crisis in Israel, Al-Qaeda wouldn’t exist.” It’s much more complicated than that.’
A devotion to dialogue, therefore, seems the overarching – and rather unsurprising – impression that Phillips leaves me with. I’m still not sure exactly who he is, but what I am sure of is that his low profile is a cultivated one. He keeps quiet so that others can talk; he facilitates dialogue by stepping back.
After the interview has finished, I wander into a bookshop and glance at the poetry shelf. Save the Last Page for Me, a collection of poems that include ‘troubled private reflections on the public world in which the author operates,’ sits to one side of a vast stack of Carol Ann Duffy volumes.
Its author is ‘Tom Vaughan, a British diplomat who has served in Africa and the US, and who is currently stationed in the Middle East.’ The cover photo impresses on me the anonymity of its figures, cropped from the neck up, and as I turn to the first poem I wonder whether these, perhaps, are the pages he has reserved for his own voice.
South America’s Cash Crop
The world’s drug problem, ’declares the latest UN World Drugs Report, ‘is being contained.’ A truthful statement, if a touch optimistic – but the use of the present continuous is telling. There continues to be a huge market for cocaine, cannabis and heroin, among other drugs, particularly in Western Europe and the USA.
And South America finds itself with the dubious accolade of being the principal global producer of cocaine. Recent UN estimates suggest that 0.3% of the global population use cocaine.
That may sound like a negligible fraction, but it represents a formidable 143 million cocaine users. With users in the US regularly paying $100+ for a gram, it’s not hard to see why coke production continues to flourish.
The extent of the drugs problem varies wildly from country to country. Some South American nations, such as Uruguay, are host to neither narcotics-producing nor transit.
Other nations, like Venezuela and Brazil, are key drug-transit stops, due in part to intense corruption at the highest levels of government and in part to extensive borders which prove impossible to control. Yet they do not produce coke on a large scale.
And then there are the true movers and shakers of the coke world – Columbia, Peru and Bolivia. Last year Peru and Bolivia produced, respectively, 280 and 94 metric tons. But Columbia remains by far the world’s most significant cocaine producer, churning out an estimated 610 metric tons last year, representing over 60% of global supply.
The recent conflict between Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador over the latter two’s alleged support of the FARC (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces), a Marxist militia owing much of its influence to the very un-Marxist means of drug-trafficking, arms-selling, and ransom-kidnapping, demonstrated the influence of the substance in the country’s politics.
Narcotics production has devastating effects, not only within the countries where the end product is consumed, but in the countries where it is created. Drugs mean power. A local drug baron essentially operates above the law, taking it into his own hands should his trade be threatened.
Between 1989 and 2007, 140 journalists were killed in Colombia, approximately seven a year, often because of their decisions to report on drug trafficking or corruption. Drug sales frequently go to subsidise armed groups, further destabilising the country and increasing those groups’ regional control over South American slums.
As always, there’s one nation which just can’t resist getting involved – the USA. Its extensive involvement is hardly surprising given that the States remains the world’s largest cocaine consumer.
The level of US financial and tactical input in South America is formidable. The aptly named ‘Plan Colombia’, for example, was established to help the Colombian government combat the drugs industry and promised $5 billion worth of US Aid.
In addition, US Government produces an annual ‘International Narcotics Control Strategy Report’ each year, outlining the extent of American aid to each country and how effective it has been in containing drug production and trafficking.
Yet despite extensive UN and US aid, the cocaine industry in South America remains steady, if not flourishing. Where exactly are they going wrong?
For a start, the vastness of the continent alone makes it very difficult to monitor the trade. With a total area of 17,840,000 km² spread over 12 countries, each with its own anti-drug laws and strategies, South America finds forming a united front to combat drug-trafficking nigh on impossible.
Whilst countries are beginning to form agreements with one another, including exchanges of intelligence between security forces, they have a long way to go before they find themselves capable of infiltrating organised and well-funded narcotic-producing organisations.
The geography doesn’t help much either. The rainforests and rivers which delight tourists provide perfect cover for cocaine production and transportation.
The border between Brazil and Colombia stretches across 1000 km, and much of it is made up of dense rainforest or large river systems, with countless minor waterways along which to smuggle drugs. Unsurprisingly, police presence in such hostile conditions is limited, and local drug barons, with extensive knowledge of their surroundings, will always have the advantage.
Then, of course, there’s the tourists. Were the cocaine market a purely domestic one, for consumption by locals, narcotics production would never have reached today’s dizzying levels.
Unfortunately, the presence of tourists eager to sample purer, cheaper coke ensures that the market remains lucrative. An inordinate number of average gap year kids will certainly be heading south to sample the continent’s most infamous product – cocaine.
The typical tourist attitude to the drug is increasingly flippant and thus damaging. Tourists at Colombia’s Ciudad Perdida now have the option of stopping off at a ‘cocaine factory’ for a photo opportunity. As one travel writer puts it, ‘it seems the drug is becoming a tourist attraction in itself. Just as you try steak in Argentina and caipirinhas in Brazil; in Colombia, you sample the coke.’
Agencies hold guided tours of the same favelas (Brazilian slums) in which addiction and drug-related gang warfare are decimating a generation of young men. Glamorising the drug in such a way goes against any effort made by the host countries to combat the industry.
Perhaps most crucially, anti-drug efforts fail because they fail to capture the loyalty of the local people, often damaging their lives rather than improving them. In particular, the mass destruction or seizure of land on which coca leaves are cultivated hurts a trade on which hundreds of South American families depend. Interviews with coca growers highlight the uselessness of such unsympathetic measures.
‘Coca is a means of survival for us,’ said one farmer interviewed by the Guardian, ‘because the soil is very tired, very eroded. Coca leaves are the only option we have for earning a living to feed ourselves and our families.’
The problem, such farmers would argue, lies in the northen hemisphere. Without American and European demand, there would be no market for the product. The Americans should deal with their own people, discouraging citizens from turning to drugs recreationally, rather than intervening in the politics of other countries.
The countries of South America need to re-examine how they conduct their fight in the battle against cocaine. Wiping out coca fields is not enough – they need to provide those same farmers with another equally profitable product to survive on.
To ensure the co-operation of local people, US assistance must be downplayed and eventually rendered unnecessary. For our part, the message must be reinforced that casual holiday drug binges have a far more sinister effect on the country in question than users ever imagine.
Review: Ocean Devil
James MacManus’ Ocean Devil is a biography on George Hogg, a graduate of Wadham. Hogg’s achievements as a journalist, writer and headmaster of a school in China are entrenched in the minds of those who are acquainted with his story.
It is a great pity that their number is so small. But I do not recommend Ocean Devil on its informative value alone. It is an extremely engaging read, and especially so for the Oxford student.
Hogg’s Oxford harks back to a time now idealised and no Oxonian (let alone Wadhamite) could fail to feel nostalgia at the description of Maurice Bowra’s ‘high table humour’; declaring himself ‘anti-elitist, anti-prig, anti-solemn and very anti-Balliol’.
The dreaming spires are soon dispersed, however, and the reader finds himself in the midst of an entirely alien culture; China in the late 1930s.
The brutally clear account of the ‘Rape of Nanjing’ shows us that MacManus is perfectly at home with tackling the greater themes of war. Moreover, aside from the main narrative highlight of the book; the depiction of Hogg leading his students across 700 miles of perilous mountain track, the book is filled with charming vignettes which betray MacManus’ ability as a writer.
For a historical work on Hogg’s life, a suitable number of sources are drawn upon. Quotations from Hogg’s letters home include his impressions on a war-torn village; ‘It was at once too near the ordinary, and too beyond the limits of ordinary experience to bring horror.’ To add another perspective, evidence is drawn from interviews with his students.
It is of course inevitable that MacManus should try to engage with some of the broader historical events surrounding Hogg’s life. Here the historian will perhaps be a little disappointed as the author tantalisingly raises questions about the nature of Japanese brutality only to leave them relatively unresolved.
However, MacManus does not aim to give a detailed analysis of China in the 1930s nor should we demand it of him.
I would recommend Ocean Devil to any one with an interest in an enigmatic yet relatively unknown figure and to all those who appreciate good writing.
Four stars.
Review: The Tempest
Drumbeats pound, the rain whirls across the lush green landscape and shadow-figures crouch by foreboding trees.
Director Toby Pitts-Tucker has decided to stage a journey around the gardens, inviting the audience to delve deeper into the drama by walking from scene to scene. This involves the audience in the play itself, as there is no separate stage and the action takes place all around them.
This drama-on-your-doorstep thing is quite fun, but sometimes oversteps the mark. At one point the powdered-white face of a nymph appeared before me, eyes gleaming; a little too close for comfort.
Pitts-Tucker’s production transforms Worcester’s gardens into a dreamworld of magic and spirits; drumbeats and eery singing abound, while half-animal creatures prowl the landscape. My British sense of decency may have been offended by the giggling drunken Trinculo (played by Sarah Cook), but my sense of excitement was piqued.
Ariel (Maanas Jain), whizzes around like a whirling dervish performing Prospero’s wishes. Meanwhile Caliban (Sam Kennedy), makes audiences recoil with his half-human splutters and dribbles. At the centre is Prospero, portrayed as a tyrant by Colin Burnie.
What of the lovers, Miranda and Ferdinand? Instead of a stormy romance we have little more than a teenage crush. But this play is full of spells and curses, and Toby Pitts-Tucker’s cast has made it as powerful and enchanting as any one of them.
Three stars
Review: An Englishman Abroad
‘He was English, he was upper-class, and he was drunk’: director Alev Scott’s production promises forty minutes of relentlessly dry, wry and witty observations of the English upper-classes.
A meeting is imagined between Guy Burgess – the infamous member of the ‘Cambridge Five’ – and Coral Browne – actress and socialite. Bennett’s script is soaked with social paradox, criticism and hilarity. Exiled to Moscow at the end of his life, Burgess is plagued by alcoholism and regret.
Browne becomes his link to London high-society. Alice Glover’s realisation of the character is utterly superb. She fluctuates between beautiful soliloquising, which draws a contested line between theatre and life, and a quick wit which undermines English and Russian society in turn – ‘If this is Communism, I don’t like it. It’s dull.’ She is the highlight of this production.
Tom Richards’ Burgess is the epitome of Englishness. With a voice as rich and robust as good port, his languid movement and relentless joviality finely captures his background – yet watching Hamlet, he admits that he did fall asleep. ‘Englishness’ is effectively mocked and celebrated.
It is only lamentable that such a performance comes at the expense of enough focus upon Burgess’ character. The ambiguity of his relationship with a young, male, Russian ballet dancer – ‘Am I a reward or a punishment?’ – was awkward and reluctant, whilst Frankie Parham, playing the lover, bordered dangerously on crude parody rather than subtle satire.
Several opportunities for affective realisation of Bennett’s dark social commentary upon the post-Cold War state were lost under the inanity of socialite dialogue. Yet the image of Browne taking Burgess’ suit measurements, his arms outstretched – a crucified martyr to his love for ‘Englishness’ – is particularly touching.
Four stars
Theatrical Thrills
If I have to go see you act, there had better be a red carpet involved.’ Like Sex and the City’s Samantha, I am a theatre-sceptic (sorry boys, that’s pretty much all she and I have in common).
On a bad day, I’ll be heard condemning the theatre as a world of unreal melodrama, postulating classicists and ‘short man syndrome.’ Its audience fares marginally worse. So Oxford’s drama scene has quite a task on its hands with me; think converting Alan Sugar to arthouse advertising.
I see you rolling your eyes at my pretentious and deliberately subversive attitude – totally unwarranted. I am that rare thing; a theatre critic whose priority is audience gratification. If more pleasure is to be derived from spending the ticket price on a Gü pudding lovingly devoured in the company of The Apprentice, then the performance has failed. A tough, if not not unattainable standard.
In my Oxford theatre-going career, just one show has made the grade. There is no better indicator of a production’s success than feeling a post-performance need to relive its greatest moments to long-suffering friends and family. And there is no better test of great comedy writing than seeing your makeshift audience doubled up with laughter, despite one’s clumsy delivery and sporadic fits of giggling.
Judged by these criteria, Trinity Term’s The Oxford Revue and Friends at the Oxford Playhouse was one seriously Güd show. Not perfect, no, but there was more than enough brilliance to outweigh the bad, and the home team unquestionably stole the show.
The audience was treated to a medley of sketches showcasing comedy talent from Oxford, Durham, and that lesser-known ‘university’, Cambridge. The material ranged from poetry to politics via the Famous Five, with J.K. Rowling’s sorting hat topping the bill. Magic.
Fortunately I am not guilty of committing the most unforgivable of journalistic acts, that is, singing the praises of a treat which can not be sampled by my readers. Far from giving a one-off performance, The Oxford Revue spoils us with fortnightly sketches at The Wheatsheaf.
What I will say, is that the theatre setting makes the whole experience more special, more memorable, better at showing off the prodigious acting talent. The stars unquestionably hold their own on stage.
One quibble – scrap the final sketch of the show. I’m afraid war-related humour should be left to Blackadder. After all, it is what remains with the audience; and it is a great pity if an otherwise delicious offering leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste.
Royworld – Man In The Machine
Royworld – bit of a boring name, isn’t it?
In fact, it’s the kind of name that would put someone off a band. It conjures up images of fat bearded men in their mid-thirties, living in Milton Keynes and making inoffensively dull music. I have no idea if the band members actually fit that description, but their music certainly does.
Man In The Machine is an album of ‘nice’ music. But being nice is bad. ‘Nice’ is the word that people use when they can’t think of any other description. If you introduce someone to your friends and all they can come up with is ‘yeah, he seemed nice…’ then that means your friend has the personality of a goldfish.
Just look at the ‘nice guy’ phenomenon, or Harry Enfield’s ‘Tim Nice-But-Dim’. They’re really not things that you want to be aspiring to, are they? Royworld is the musical equivalent of the nice guy who sits back, being nice, and watches as the girl he loves is swept away by the confident and suave jock, perhaps represented in this analogy by Razorlight.
This CD is the kind that you put on, and then instantly forget about. Nothing but silence-filler. I can’t really pick out many tracks which have any kind of distinguishing, stand out features. Title track ‘Man In The Machine’ is notable for having a really creepy voice in it, but I don’t think that was really the intention.
At times they go for an epic sound similar to Sigur Rós, but inevitably fail miserably. ‘Astronaut’ starts with a glimmer of possibility, which is then cruelly extinguished by horribly synthesised voices, the kind of thing that Air or Björk would go in for during one of their more deranged moments.
So give yourself up to Razorlight’s advances, even though the guilt will set in with the first post–coital cigarette. At least it’ll be more interesting that this album.
Two stars
Interview: The Ting Tings
I’m meeting the Ting Tings at their finest hour. Last night, after their success at the Radio 1 Big Weekend, their single ‘That’s Not My Name’ reached Number 1. They seem unable to believe it has actually happened.
At seven in the evening, they are also still impressively hung over from a night of celebrating back home in Manchester. Katie White, the lead singer and guitarist, explains that it still doesn’t seem real; they don’t feel any different in themselves from last week or even last month.
The Ting Tings were first unleashed on the Introducing Stage at the Glastonbury Festival last year. Both played in smaller bands before finally teaming up in early 2007.
Working in other bands was an unpleasant experience, but learning to ignore other people’s advice seems to have been the lesson. ‘We knew we didn’t want any producer telling us what to do,’ says Jules, ‘because to us, that’s killing it.’
The duo are itching to do everything themselves, from tinkering with the instruments, to taking their own promotional photos, to creating their own vinyl sleeves. ‘We created these playful, customised sleeves from older ones, so people could compare and see what they got, like oh, I’ve got Elvis, what have you got? Depeche Mode.’
I ask if this is a backlash against the way pop has been going for the past decade. They agree, with another invective against producers, before adding that it’s also of a move away from the typical four–piece Manchester sound, where everything was created and marketed along similar lines.
‘Everyone makes music in Manchester, probably ’cos it’s such bad weather all the time, people spend loads of time in their bedrooms,’ laughs Katie, ‘but we’ve really tried to move away from that whole Smiths thing. I think we sound the least like a Manchester band!’
In fact, their whole rise to fame has come about in the least traditional way possible. Their success has largely been due to the internet, where their songs were available for free long before their first single was released.
Katie is an inveterate MySpace user, who takes feedback from fans and even virtually DJs on her nights off – like last night, playing unsigned records she’d been sent from Berlin. ‘That kind of contact is phenomenal, breaking down the barrier that producers put in your way.’
I sense trouble for producers in the future, particularly since the Ting Tings have conclusively proven that you don’t need a hired suit to make it in the music industry. But what about the Radiohead approach? Is taking away the price–tag really the way forward?
Katie hesitates before answering: ‘I think it’s fine for those bands to do that sort of thing, but if you’re a small band, with a smaller fan–base, you don’t really have the clout to do that.’ Or the money to fall back on if it goes wrong, I suggest.
But their appearance on the lucrative festival circuit may change all that. Apart from Glastonbury, they’re appearing at Benecassim, various smaller festivals in Japan, and the United States.
All very exciting, but what are they aiming for after that? Neither of them really knows. ‘The music you make is part of one period,’ says Jules, ‘maybe six months of your life. You can’t go back to it. But we know we want to keep on connecting with a wide range of people and making our own stuff. We want to change the way people think about pop, so it’s a creative kind of music again.’
Raw, unpolished, infectiously catchy – the Ting Tings have definitely got the new pop sound sewn up.
Review: Jules et Jim
Jules et Jim presents perhaps the epitome of Nouvelle Vague (or New Wave) film: unknown actors, real-life sets, natural lighting, and bags of improvisation – all in all (and very much in the student spirit) a low-budget production. As such, it’s a brilliant effort.
Leg-fetishist director and producer François Truffaut wished to move away from the artificial, grandiose tradition of le cinéma du papa to create something a little closer to home. Based on Henri-Pierre Roché‘s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, Jules et Jim takes an unconventional stance on what could otherwise have been a horribly cliché love-triangle.
Set around the First World War, with authentic wartime footage and newsreel-style voiceovers, you can‘t help but admire Truffaut‘s stylistic choices: he was a firm believer in the notion of le caméra-stylo, the idea that cinematography isn’t just art for art’s (and entertainment’s) sake, but a means of expression for the writer himself.
On a more technical note, however, the concept of the caméra léger (or light/travelling camera) meant that Truffaut could shoot longer detail-based scenes on the move (very hi-tech for 1962), most notably in a ‘search for signs of civilisation’ shot.
And of course, a Truffaut is not a Truffaut without a freeze frame (or four) thrown in for good measure – beautifully done; and if you don’t have your wits about you, you might just miss the most subtle one of them all (I’ll give you a clue: it’s of Jules and Jim…).
Oscar Werner, Henri Serre and Jeanne Moreau who play the roles of Jules, Jim and Catherine respectively, impressively capture the essence of each character and, given Truffaut’s hands-off approach to directing, deliver many a poignant scene in a spectacularly befitting manner that makes for a lasting impression on the audience.
And, if you can’t quite get enough of this fabulous trio, Truffaut’s other Nouvelle Vague films include the semi-autobiographical Les Quatre Cents Coups said to have launched the French New Wave, Les Mistons, a parody short-film of The Misfits, and the legendary A Bout De Souffle co-written with Jean Luc Godard.
Despite its age, Nouvelle Vague remains as fresh as its first conception, allowing Jules et Jim’s endurance and re-release.
Four stars.