Menzies’ leaving is not much of a surprise. The timing was probably not to his own plans though. But hey, if a general election is a year away, the Lib Dems probably want to get their leadership battle out of the way and all the nasty words forgotten by the time voters cast their ballot.
It was moving. Shocking. Gripping. And emotionally draining.
The National Theatre of Scotland brought their production of Black Watch to Los Angeles this month. 1. There wasn’t a chance in hell that I was going to miss it. And I dragged P along so he didn’t have to be the only Perthshire accent on campus for once.
Black Watch is a masterfully crafted piece of theatre. You’re sucked in instantly: fascinated by the potty-mouthed neddish lads and their casual sexism and sexual harassment. But they soon become more than stereotypical soldier-types. The playwright, Gregory Burke, didn’t feel the need to throw in the usual human-interest wife and kids angle to get us to see these guys as fellow human beings. None of the crap that the Sun and its like put out whenever they run those “our lads in Iraq” pieces. There’s not much point in putting in some spoiler space here. After all, this is inspired by recent history. There’s no need to explain to you that the media interest in the Black Watch started with the poor timing of the announcement of their regiment’s disbandment, which coincided with its deployment in Falluja. Poor PR by Her Majesty’s government on the one hand, but without which the world would be poorer by an excellent play. If anything, the loss of the Black Watch as an independent regiment has given us the chance to hear the collective voice of the soldiers who were interviewed for this to happen.
Political statements aside, the direction was superb. The choreography was unexpected and the fighting in balletic fashion somehow made it all the more poignant without romanticising the aggression. The physical nature of the acting somehow brought home the realisation that these are people who live their lives through brawn.
Among the reviews posted on the UCLA page and echoed elsewhere on the interwebs, there are opinions that viewing Black Watch should be compulsory. I would add my voice to this. It not only helps you start to understand why some men/women (but mostly men) enlist, but also some of the disillusionment that they must feel. As said several times in different ways, the “Allied” forces in Iraq had already “won” the “war”. It’s the peacekeeping that’s killing everyone now.
Funniest line of the night: [Description of what life in mortar-filled Iraq is like] “It’s like Perth Road [in Dundee] on a Saturday night.”
Slightly awkward moment in a mainly American audience: [When the squad was ambushed and stranded] “If we were Americans, we’d have been fucking airlifted out by now.”
1 And they’re taking it to New York after this weekend. Where it joins their production of Wolves in the Walls, which is as opposite a piece of theatre as I can imagine. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy it; being based on a Gaiman and McKean collaboration.
Nationalists triumph in the first of many contests for the current sitting at Holyrood.
More later when I’ve thought things through.
And beats Margo Macdonald by a landslide to secure the job of Presiding Officer.1
1 I know. I’m two days too late. My mind is temporally disengaged anyway. When are those Scottish elections starting?
2 And the names are not even spelled the same. Sorry. Barrel bottom scraped, scoured, scrubbed and white-washed.
What a dickadeedoodah the elections have been this year! I’ve missed out on all the fun. Followed doctorvee‘s twittering and subsequent indignation at the mess made by the decision makers:
I was feeling a small amount of sympathy for the poor electorate, expected to cope with oh-so-many ballot papers, until I saw a photo of the ballot sheet (or rather a photo of the poster explaining the ballot sheet). Honestly, it’s not that difficult.* Maybe they could have hired some expensive design agency to make the parliament ballot a little clearer (maybe some dozy-brains didn’t register the split arrow), but that poster is education enough not to screw up.If you’ve made the effort to go out and vote, surely you’re invested enough in the process to make the even smaller effort to read the instructions. I don’t think the blame can be laid on the Westminster or Scottish Parliaments (maybe apart from the decision to have both local and Holyrood elections on the same day). More and earlier voter education? Maybe not. A redesign of the ballot sheets? Ach, I hope they’re going to have a good look at the spoiled ballots and work out what went wrong or there’s no point in suffrage and we’ll have to start testing voters for mental competency before elections.** Ha.
*I would be interested to learn how many of those were true protest votes or if anyone scribbled stuff like “anyone but labour” or crap like that. Don’t waste your vote, dammit. At least vote for some small crappy party if you don’t like the major ones.
**Disclaimer. Joking, OK? Not proposing this or calling the electorate stupid. Maybe a little bit lazy or dozy or confused, but not stupid. I pretty much agree with what was said here.
Mair on the sorry tale. I like this interpretation :
Electoral systems suffer the same problems as bad software – they are dominated by geeks with no understanding that users have to be able to understand the system you are designing and bolt on a shoddy interface as an afterthought – and by marketing departments/politicians who have a very different agenda from the rest of the industry and force bad design decisions from the word go. (via)
The revelation that the Scotland Office were advised not to hold both elections on the same day is no surprise to me. A department controlled by a party that started its first few years in government spinning and managing the media will take any little advantage they can get to stay in power. Another example of disgusting NuLab behaviour.
Feeling bad. Not giving dog enough attention, not taking good care of P, not calling home enough, not IMing the bro for months, not sorting out the BnB website problem, not writing enough manuscripts for the lab, not producing enough data for the great and glorious leader, not doing my part for the environment by incapacitating every Humvee in sight (and that’s plenty round here), using too many plastic bags to pick up doggy poo, not keeping abreast of current affairs, not giving our governors hell over climate change and their bloody stupid self-defeating “war on terror”, and worst of all, not following the run-up to the upcoming SCOTTISH ELECTIONS.
One small thought on it though: Gordon Brown1 must be pissing his pants. If the Nationalists get their way (unlikely for the foreseeable future, but I’m no Sybill Trelawney), Westminster would have to reciprocate by kicking out the Scots. That would damn well screw his chances of being Great Grand Overlord of the British Isles, wouldn’t it? Unless he wanted to be English.
1Am currently fascinated with this Where’s Gordon? map.
