Tommy Sheridan on Celebrity Big Brother: the Madness of George II

Oh. My. God. He actually did it. Tommy Sheridan leaps in where angels fear to tread and gets a new bail address.

After MP George Galloway’s performance in the 2006 Celebrity Big Brother season 6, where he took the awesome combat skills he’d wielded to such great effect in the US Senate on the issue of the Iraq war and used them on his sweet young co-contestants, you’d think politicians would give reality shows a wide berth. Shooting minnows with a bazooka is not something the British public considers endearing. Yet. What profit a man that he gain a radio show but lose the respect of the multitudes ?

Is Tommy, a former Scottish Socialist Party MSP and now Solidarity leader, like all politicians — so in love with himself he assumes that to see him is to love him? Well, he’s managed to get me calling him the more familiar “Tommy” instead of “Sheridan”, so there’s a start.

Last night Tommy risked all during a crucial period when he is under investigation for perjury, and entered the CBB house along with ten other “celebrities” (can socialists please unpack that term?). He got the worst reception of all with the crowd booing his entrance. Even the hardened Davina McCall called it, “Harsh”. Considering so few of the Big Brother audience even knows who he is, arousing so raucous a response took some doing.

Davina went on: “He thinks the Big Brother House will be more regimented than prison.” Ooh, there’s a swipe. Ratting on his claim to a “great friendship with George Galloway” probably did him few favours with this particular audience, either.

You have to admire his chutzpah for playing his hand like this with so much at stake. He is probably more desperate than any of the other contestants, and that's in a line-up that includes Ulrika Johnson. Tommy wants a wider audience as a Man of the People. Great. That’s the entire CBB audience who will now be finding out what it is, exactly, the perjury charge is about.

Mind you, he could come out of it better the way Robert Kilroy Silk did from I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, when he waded through crap and creepy-crawlies for our amusement and never complained. Do we think Tommy will likewise make us proud of him? What helped Kilroy, of course, was the addition of Timmy Mallet, the evil shrimp with the serial killer laugh, against whom even a steaming pile of poo would look good. But I’m not so sure there’s a villain in the CBB house who’ll make him shine.

Rapper Coolio’s temper and sexism (he doesn’t want any “ugly chicks” in the house) might afford Tommy the opportunity to show he has the Right Stuff. But remember how Galloway sucked up to Dennis Rodman in 2006? Will fear of conflict with an alpha male and the urge to male-bond override Tommy’s anti-sexist credentials? (Fnaargh! I just read what I wrote there!) It’ll be down to what’s expedient, what's principled, and won’t that give us lots of fun working out which is which?

Will he acquit himself? They’re all on their best behaviour now but will the dreaded finger-wagging creep into his interactions as conditioned by years on the left? He does have 20 years with Militant, remember.

The game will be to see who reverses expectations. Terry Christian has already impressed me with his observation that our political masters don’t want us participating in politics, and his story about the Lancashire publican during World War II who responded to the US officer’s demand that he instate a colour bar with a sign saying, “Black troops only”, was quite moving. Can Tommy do it? Can he repress the urge to blurt “And another thing, comrades ...”.

George Galloway gives his chum tips for success in The Daily Record: “Don't get involved in any arguments. Although history has absolved me re sleazy Michael Barrymore and sneaky Preston, at the time, I paid the ultimate price - eviction after 22 days.” George, you are delusional, mate. Did you not learn anything?

Poor George suffered mightily and cried all the way to a massive radio show. And now Tommy can count on the support of Galloway’s 800,000 listeners, plus The Daily Record, Tommy being their pin-up, a bit like Lucy Pinder in the Star.

It would be great to see him representing socialism at its best but I have a horrible feeling in my gut that has nothing to do with seasonal over-indulgence.

Madam Miaow says ... If he don’t act shit, you must acquit.

Also blogging on Tommy in CBB, AVPS and Splinty.

Let’s revisit some highlights.
Bewildered by a small puppy
Kitty love




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Tommy Sheridan on Celebrity Big Brother: the Madness of George II

Oh. My. God. He actually did it. Tommy Sheridan leaps in where angels fear to tread and gets a new bail address.

After MP George Galloway’s performance in the 2006 Celebrity Big Brother season 6, where he took the awesome combat skills he’d wielded to such great effect in the US Senate on the issue of the Iraq war and used them on his sweet young co-contestants, you’d think politicians would give reality shows a wide berth. Shooting minnows with a bazooka is not something the British public considers endearing. Yet. What profit a man that he gain a radio show but lose the respect of the multitudes ?

Is Tommy, a former Scottish Socialist Party MSP and now Solidarity leader, like all politicians — so in love with himself he assumes that to see him is to love him? Well, he’s managed to get me calling him the more familiar “Tommy” instead of “Sheridan”, so there’s a start.

Last night Tommy risked all during a crucial period when he is under investigation for perjury, and entered the CBB house along with ten other “celebrities” (can socialists please unpack that term?). He got the worst reception of all with the crowd booing his entrance. Even the hardened Davina McCall called it, “Harsh”. Considering so few of the Big Brother audience even knows who he is, arousing so raucous a response took some doing.

Davina went on: “He thinks the Big Brother House will be more regimented than prison.” Ooh, there’s a swipe. Ratting on his claim to a “great friendship with George Galloway” probably did him few favours with this particular audience, either.

You have to admire his chutzpah for playing his hand like this with so much at stake. He is probably more desperate than any of the other contestants, and that's in a line-up that includes Ulrika Johnson. Tommy wants a wider audience as a Man of the People. Great. That’s the entire CBB audience who will now be finding out what it is, exactly, the perjury charge is about.

Mind you, he could come out of it better the way Robert Kilroy Silk did from I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, when he waded through crap and creepy-crawlies for our amusement and never complained. Do we think Tommy will likewise make us proud of him? What helped Kilroy, of course, was the addition of Timmy Mallet, the evil shrimp with the serial killer laugh, against whom even a steaming pile of poo would look good. But I’m not so sure there’s a villain in the CBB house who’ll make him shine.

Rapper Coolio’s temper and sexism (he doesn’t want any “ugly chicks” in the house) might afford Tommy the opportunity to show he has the Right Stuff. But remember how Galloway sucked up to Dennis Rodman in 2006? Will fear of conflict with an alpha male and the urge to male-bond override Tommy’s anti-sexist credentials? (Fnaargh! I just read what I wrote there!) It’ll be down to what’s expedient, what's principled, and won’t that give us lots of fun working out which is which?

Will he acquit himself? They’re all on their best behaviour now but will the dreaded finger-wagging creep into his interactions as conditioned by years on the left? He does have 20 years with Militant, remember.

The game will be to see who reverses expectations. Terry Christian has already impressed me with his observation that our political masters don’t want us participating in politics, and his story about the Lancashire publican during World War II who responded to the US officer’s demand that he instate a colour bar with a sign saying, “Black troops only”, was quite moving. Can Tommy do it? Can he repress the urge to blurt “And another thing, comrades ...”.

George Galloway gives his chum tips for success in The Daily Record: “Don't get involved in any arguments. Although history has absolved me re sleazy Michael Barrymore and sneaky Preston, at the time, I paid the ultimate price - eviction after 22 days.” George, you are delusional, mate. Did you not learn anything?

Poor George suffered mightily and cried all the way to a massive radio show. And now Tommy can count on the support of Galloway’s 800,000 listeners, plus The Daily Record, Tommy being their pin-up, a bit like Lucy Pinder in the Star.

It would be great to see him representing socialism at its best but I have a horrible feeling in my gut that has nothing to do with seasonal over-indulgence.

Madam Miaow says ... If he don’t act shit, you must acquit.

Also blogging on Tommy in CBB, AVPS and Splinty.

Let’s revisit some highlights.
Bewildered by a small puppy
Kitty love




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400 dead in Gaza: stop the bombing

The “missiles” being loaded onto a truck by “Hamas” who are bombed and killed turn out to be gas cylinders. Gazans are forced to eat grass as UN relief transport runs out of fuel, and gas and electricity is cut off. Water is running out. The numbers of civilian dead are arrived at by excluding all males — if you are boy or man you can be murdered with impunity.

Over 400 are dead. As a proportion of the 1.5 million Gazans, that’s the equivalent of 16,000 British. More than 2,000 have been injured. Hospitals are overwhelmed.

This is life under attack 41 years after Gaza was captured and occupied by Israel.

The last few weeks of the Bush presidency has given Israel a window to carry out its atrocities against a defenceless population weakened by months of a blockade, with the possibility of a ground invasion to follow.

No wonder they were too ashamed to allow in the press. A groundswell of revulsion even within Israel itself has led to a court ruling that they must let the media into Gaza.

It’s thought that, just as they destroyed Al Fateh as a significant fighting force and built up Hamas, Israel now wants to clear the ground of Hamas and let Al Qaeda in. That way the world would be united behind Israel and legitimise all its acts of brutality as it completes the destruction of the Palestinians.

Media Workers Against The War points out: “Israel is in breach of many Geneva Conventions and international laws amounting to war crimes, including, wilful killing, extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity and collective punishment.”

Doesn’t that make Israel a rogue state?

A demonstration to demand a halt to the bombing is scheduled in London for tomorrow (Saturday 3rd January), 12:30 at Embankment.

There are local protests in Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Norwich, Portsmouth, Preston, Southampton, Swansea and even Tunbridge Wells. I mean, Tunbridge Wells, fer cryin' out loud!?

FURTHER READING
Jews For Justice give some historical background.
Obama’s take on Gaza here.
Rachel Shabi in the Guardian: Special spin body gets media on message, says Israel
Seumas Milne on Israel's onslaught, in the Guardian
Mark Steel asks, "What have the Palestinians go to complain about?" in the Independent.
Robert Fisk here, here and here in the Independent.
The Israeli propaganda war, BBC
Organised Rage says:

According to the latest figures the Israeli armed forces has 5000,000 men and women under arms, Hamas has approx. 600-6000. Israel 3,501 tanks, Hamas 0. Combat aircraft, Israel 393, Hamas 0. Israeli defense budget, 9.5 Bn, Hamas total annual funding, 50 million for civilian and military projects. Israeli dead since bombardment began, military 0 civilians 5, Palestinian total, 408 dead, 44% of whom were women and children.

From Richard Falk, United Nations Human Rights Council:

“The Israeli airstrikes, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel's violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.

“I remind all member states of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law - regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.”

Madam Miaow says ...Just where is glorious peace envoy Tony Blair in all this? Has he visited, yet?



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The Good Earth review: Anna May Wong and Chinese in Hollywood

Luise Rainer in The Good Earth

Every so often I get together with friends for a day of culture. This generally entails snuggling up in my flat over a movie, a bottle (or more) of cava and munchies. Chocolate will invariably make an appearance, as sometimes does proper Jewish cheesecake from the bagel bakery, far superior to the ersatz frozen slabs of synthetic goo which should only be eaten as emergency therapy after the tragic break-up of a love affair, and straight from the freezer.

Last night CSM, a couple of friends and I dug in for a night of cinematic frolix. Several bottles of cava may have been involved. Still, what better way to settle down to all 143 minutes of a Hollywood classic, the “last great achievement” of renowned film producer, Irving Thalberg, before he passed on to the Great Cinema in the sky?

I finally got to see The Good Earth, of which I’d been vaguely aware all my life but which surfaced again during my research into my BBC Radio 4 profile of the Hollywood screen-legend, Anna May Wong (to be broadcast 13th January 2009). This was the black & white MGM spectacular made in 1937, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller by Pearl S Buck about the turbulent fortunes of farmer Wang Lung’s family — a sort of Chinese Grapes of Wrath meets Gone With The Wind.

You’d think the biggest ever film role for a Chinese should be played by the biggest ever Chinese star. Ever since publication of the book in 1931, Anna May Wong had lobbied hard for the starring role of O-Lan, Wang Lung’s long-suffering wife. Fed up with being cast as either dragon ladies or prostitutes, this character meant a proper starring role at last for Anna and entry to the A-list.

Anna May Wong. The wrong sort of Chinese

But vicious race laws meant that you couldn’t have mixed race romance on the screen. Once a white actor, Paul Muni, was cast in the lead his wife would have to be played by a white actress in yellowface.

And what better choice for a strugglng Chinese peasant than the German actress, Luise Rainer? Luise did achieve an other-worldlyness and won an Oscar for her portrayal of O-Lan which has been described as “luminous” and “magical”. But, as film historian Kevin Brownlow says in the programme, “she wasn’t Chinese”.

Acting styles have changed over the years but key roles were played with a distinct absence of gorm. Poor Luise had hardly any lines but a lot of screen-time to fill. Mostly she filled it with an open mouthed passivity reminiscent of Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls. The dialogue she did speak was delivered with a thick Germanic accent but who cares? It was foreign, wasn’t it?

Would Anna May Wong have made a better O-Lan than Rainer? Ever since Garbo stared into the cosmic distance on the prow of her ship in Queen Christina and achieved demi-god status, actresses have been trying for the same effect with differing results. No inner life but a beautiful, blank canvas onto which the audience projects the best of itself. It’s a seductive image. Who wouldn’t want to look like they have a hotline straight to god? Even I’ve tried it but failed to keep the requisite immobile face, not being particularly inscrutable, see? Rainer does this to perfection. For 143 straight minutes.

So this is how good Chinese women were portrayed during the heyday of Hollywood, when its movies described the world, laying out its cultural templates, and woe betide anyone who strayed from the Grand Design. I must have been asleep when they gave those lessons coz look at me now.

Anna May Wong was beautiful and authentically Chinese but she had far too much going on inside. Unless she blanded herself utterly, her natural charisma and thought-processes would have upset the symmetry and harmony of white folk’s art.

That‘s not to say the film isn’t worth seeing. If you can suspend disbelief at the racial origins of the actors, you can marvel at the sheer gorgeousness of Hollywood cinematography at its height. Something else Kevin Brownlow told me but we didn't have time to include in the final cut: how did the director achieve the amazing effect of vast clouds of locusts swarming across the Chinese landscape at the climax of the film? They turned the film upside down and placed a tank of water in front of it. Then, as the film was running, they poured coffee grounds into the tank so they swirled in dark clouds. Then they turned the film the right way and it looks as if tonnes of locust biomass is rising above puny humanity. Fantastic!

Madam Miaow says ...The Good Earth. Gorgeous looking but another set of invisible chains I can do without, thank you very much.

The Good Earth — directed by Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming (uncredited) and Gustav Machaty

Anna Chen writes and presents Anna May Wong: A Celestial Star in Piccadilly, broadcast BBC Radio 4 11:30am Tuesday 13th January 2009. Listen again online for seven days after transmission.

Israel massacre in Gaza: 270 dead and rising

Not content with trying to starve out an entire population with the blockade on Gaza, Israel has now used the cover of the Christmas period to attack the Gazan people directly with massive air strikes.

Since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, 9 Israelis have been killed, while 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces during the same period. But casting all sense of proportion aside, Israel is the terror state that slams missiles into blocks of flats, killing civilian residents just because it believes an enemy is living there. It is now using US supplied F-16 fighter aircraft and state of the art technology to further crush civilians who voted in a way that displeased it.

The death tally is pushing 300 including 40 police cadets at a passing out parade (picture below).



Their excuse is that, since the end of the six month truce on December 19th, Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel territory. Reports vary with up to three Israelis killed. While any innocent death is one too many, there’s something pathetic and symbolic in these attacks. Yet every day Gazans are dying from lack of medicine and food denied them by the Israeli siege.

One Palestinian voice quoted at Socialist Unity website points out:

“Any response to Israeli attacks — whether peaceful protests against the apartheid wall in Bilin and Nilin in the West Bank is met with bullets and bombs. There are no rockets launched at Israel from the West Bank, and yet Israel’s attacks, killings, land theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never ceased for one single day during the truce. The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has acceded to all of Israel’s demands, even assembling “security forces” to fight the resistance on Israel’s behalf. None of that has spared a single Palestinian or her property or livelihood from Israel’s relentless violent colonization.”

Another post at SU reminds us:

"A sobering thought to consider that 60 years ago 530 Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated and destroyed, and that 750,000 men, women, and children were forcibly expelled by Zionist terrorist organisations like the Stern Gang and Irgun in the process of 78 percent of historic Palestine being expropriated."

Israel has turned from David fighting Goliath into Godzilla, mindlessly smashing through a people already weakened by a two-year blockade preventing deliveries of food, fuel, printed materials and medical supplies. There are battery chickens treated better than this.

BTW, you know who created Hamas? Israel did as a religious counterweight to the secular Al Fatah. A bit like when the US backed the Mojahadeen against the Russians in early 1980s Afghanistan and sowed the seeds of Al Qaida.

STOP PRESS
Israel broke ceasefire 5th November. Story here
Obama on holiday in Hawaii says, "No comment".
Iranian leader Khamenei tells all Muslims to defend the women and children of Gaza against Israeli raids. More here.
Times online article on Hamas
Israeli trade unions protest against the bombardment.
"We know from our members that they have to travel 200 kilometers each day, like the nine who were injured in Ashkelon , just to find a place that is willing to hire them. ..."




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Harold Pinter's dead. So is Eartha Kitt

Harold Pinter’s dead.

And so is Eartha Kitt. Two heroes in one day.

This is a shout out to my home boy, Harold Pinter, playwright, screenwriter, actor and political activist, who died on Christmas Eve aged 78.

We were very proud of Harold Pinter in Hackney. Everyone knew that Harold and an actor, once called Maurice Micklewhite but now renamed Michael Caine, had gone to Grocers School at Hackney Downs, the “Eton & Harrow for clever working-class boys” in east and north London. From my bedroom I could see it nestled in the cleavage of the Liverpool Street line where it splits to go to Chingford or Enfield. Before it was "failed" by the Tories and then turned over to some millionaire entrepreneur friend of Labour for his plaything, that school was once a hotbed of cultural talent, with another smart Jewish lad, Steven Berkoff, also going on to great things in theatre (although never an “A” lister like Harold and Michael).

The 1950s and 60s being the era when a bright working-class male could soar up the society food-chain on his own wits with none of the old-school-tie networks sitting heavy around your throat like a hangman’s knot because privilege was a right turn-off, a time when every Baronet’s daughter wanted to sleep with the barrow boy, Harold made good.

His most famous breakthrough plays were The Caretaker, The Dumb Waiter and The Birthday Party, all guaranteed to épater le bourgeoisie. But my current favourite which cracks me up is No Man’s Land. (I yam Spooner.)

While tailors and hairdressers were determining the look of the 1960s, Harold shaped the very language, adding “Pinteresque” to the dictionary. He changed our perceptions and preoccupations, writing about power balances and the hypocrisy wielded by those in power. He wrote about the microcosmic power abuses at the personal level between individuals, which helped us understand what we were looking at when they were writ large in the world by our warmongering leaders. (The same lefties who squawk about bourgeois individualism, comically unaware of their own contraditions, also like Pinter.)

He never abdicated his responsibility as a member of the human race. Never a mere observer, he was brilliant on the war and never lost his sense of outrage and horror, unlike the cool and the hip and the plain bloody callous who mocked him for having a conscience. And using it.

Fucking Pinter’s fucking dead. Now for a fucking long Pinteresque pause …



Eartha Kitt, she of the amazing voice like melted 85 per cent chocolate, has also passed on this Christmas. Eartha made one of the best Catwomen ever and had Orson Welles on his knees, calling her, “the most exciting woman in the world”. Listen to her sing the double-entendre “Let’s Do It” in her trademark single-entendre style. Her “Just An Old Fashioned Girl” was my hymn in childhood. “ ... I want an old fash-i-oned mill-yona-a-a-aire” ... where did I go wrong? (Oh, yeah! New Labour got them all.)

Harold and Eartha — RIP

Also badly missed, poet Adrian Mitchell.






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