Happy New Year!

Wherever you are in the world, I'd like to wish all readers of this blog a very happy, healthy and peaceful 2009.

Take it away, Kyu!

"A Crime that cannot succeed"

Consider what sort of western response there would have been to an attack on Israel, or the US or Britain for that matter, which left more than 300 dead in a couple of days.

You can be certain it would be met with the most sweeping condemnation, that the US president-elect would do a great deal more than "monitor" the situation and the British prime minister go much further than simply call for "restraint" on both sides.

You can read the rest of Seumas Milne’s brilliant piece on Israel’s brutal assault on the people of Gaza- and the western double standards towards it- here.

But while most normal moral people around the world have been appalled at Israel’s actions- there are some who think differently.

Israel’s best selling newpaper Yediot Aharonot says that the devastating attacks have been "a stroke of brilliance" - and crowed "the element of surprise increased the number of people killed". Defenders of Israel like to portray the country as a kind of Belgium/Austria/Switzerland of the Middle East. It isn't. 14 people have been killed by rocket atacks in Israel in the last seven years-, yes that's right, 14- and Israel has responded by killing 5,000 Palestinians. Is that the way Belgium, Austria or Switzerland would react? And can you imagine a leading Belgian, Austrian or Swiss newspaper crowing about the number of people killed?

p.s. there’s a great comment after Seumas’ piece from ‘ luna 17', which I'm pleased to say has had 78 Guardian readers recommending it.

It is sickening - if tragically unsurprising - to read of the inhumane gloating by the Israeli press. Dehumanisation of the 'enemy' is part and parcel of any military assult, especially when civilians are deliberately and indiscriminately targeted on a large scale.

Israel's actions are unjustifiable by any criteria. How can it be acceptable, for example, to attack a university? It's ironic really: if people here argue for a boycott of Israeli universities they are vilified, but Israel using American weaponry to assult a university? Apparently that's OK. I'd have thought bombing somewhere was more controversial than boycotting it.

I would have thought so too. But somehow I don't think that those people who created such a fuss over the planned boycott of Isreali universities by the university lecturers' union will be quite so concerned by Israel's bombing of a university in Gaza.

Merry Christmas!

Keep in mind the fact that the Son of Man, the Christ who lived and was executed by the government of His day, was a great leader, and leader of the common people. It was his great message of Love and Brotherhood which brought him to his death. He knew the poor of the earth were oppressed by the rich and wealthy, and in scathing terms denounced the money changers and all those who defiled the Temple and brought suffering to starving humanity.

George Lansbury, 1926.

A very Merry Christmas!

Fifty Years on South Pacific is still terrific

Amid the dross, there are some great programmes on tv this Christmas- with BBC2 showing classic episodes of Dad's Army on most days. Another highlight is a rare tv showing of the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical 'South Pacific' on Boxing Day at 1.25pm.

Here's my Daily Express tribute to 'South Pacific', which was released exactly fifty years ago in March. The show featured several unforgettable songs, including the wonderfully upbeat 'Happy Talk', which you can watch being performed above. Enjoy!

NOWADAYS we have grown used to the phenomenon of the movie blockbuster.
Weeks of pre-release publicity. Interviews with the stars on the Jonathan Ross show. A red carpet launch at Leicester Square.

But even the attention given to today’s most hyped-up films pales into insignificance compared to the enormous public interest generated by the release of the film version of the musical South Pacific, 50 years ago this month.

“Try combining all of the media fuss surrounding a present-day Hollywood blockbuster, the British Royal Family and Christmas and you’ll come pretty close to understanding the frenzy surrounding South Pacific,” says film historian Robb Marsh.

The original soundtrack, released at the same time that LPs first became commercially available, soon became a bestseller – it was said that by the end of 1949, everyone in New York had bought a copy. The South Pacific phenomenon quickly spread to Europe. In London, the show opened to sell-out audiences in 1951 at Drury Lane.
After years of war and privation, colourful, upbeat musicals were lapped up by the public on both sides of the Atlantic.

And the kings of the musicals were undoubtedly Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The first show they wrote together was the groundbreaking Oklahoma! which had its Broadway premiere in 1943. It was the first musical that integrated songs, lyrics and dance into the storyline. In 1945, Carousel, which includes the rousing You’ll Never Walk Alone – a song that became an anthem for football fans – opened on Broadway.

But as popular as these shows had been, Rodgers and Hammer­stein’s greatest success was yet to come. Set on a tropical island during the Second World War, South Pacific tells the story of a romance between high-spirited US Navy nurse Nellie Forbush and middle-aged French expatriate plantation owner Emile de Becque, a widower with two mixed-race children. A parallel romance is between US Marine Joe Cable and Polynesian girl Liat.

When news came out that a film version of South Pacific was being planned, there was intense speculation as to who would be cast in the main roles.

While several leading stars were tipped to play Nellie Forbush, including Doris Day and Elizabeth Taylor, in the end the part went to the relatively little-known actress Mitzi Gaynor. The Italian heart-throb Rossano Brazzi was chosen to play Emile de Becque. They were to prove inspired choices.

No expense was spared to make the film one of the most lavish and most technically advanced ever seen. It was one of the first to be shot in Todd AO, an extremely high-definition wide­screen film format. In addition, special colour filters were used by director Joshua Logan for dramatic emphasis.

South Pacific was released in America on March 19, 1958, and had its UK launch a month later. The public’s response could not have been more emphatic. At the Gaumont in Manchester, South Pacific played continuously for two years and two months.

At the Dominion Theatre in London’s Totten­ham Court Road, the film ran for an incredible four years and 22 weeks – a total of 2,551 performances. It was a huge international success: in Sydney it enjoyed a 180-week run and it played to packed audiences across Europe.

The public weren’t only queueing up to see South Pacific in their millions but were also rushing to buy the soundtrack. The album of South Pacific, featuring Gaynor and Brazzi in a romantic embrace on the cover, was the first No1 in the album charts, which were launched in Britain in November 1958. It stayed at No1 for 115 weeks – which remains a record to this day. It was also the first album to sell one million copies in Britain.

The sheet music of South Pacific also sold in record numbers. There were other spin-offs, too: the name South Pacific was licensed for cosmetics, dresses and lingerie.

How can we explain South Pacific’s extraordinary appeal?

First and foremost, it was one of the greatest musicals of all time. “South Pacific has the lot – memorable songs sung by real people, embedded in a coherent plot; music, lyrics and book [the script],” is the verdict of music critic Mark Steyn.

South Pacific contains some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s greatest work: romantic ballads such as Some Enchanted Evening, and Younger Than Spring­time, upbeat songs including Happy Talk and Cockeyed Optimist and exuberant chorus numbers such as There Is Nothing Like a Dame.

Although Rodgers and Hammerstein did portray characters with darker sides, South Pacific, like all of their work, is tremendously uplifting: just the tonic for audiences in the immediate post-war era.

“I see plays and read books that emphasise the seamy side of life, and the frenetic side, and the tragic side. I don’t deny the existence of the tragic and frenetic. But I say that somebody has to keep saying that isn’t all there is to life,” said Oscar Hammerstein, explaining his positive outlook.

Rodgers and Hammerstein transported the public away from their humdrum lives to magical and colourful worlds, where romance was always in the air and where even the wildest of dreams could come true.

Fifty years on from the film’s release, and nearly 60 years since it opened on Broadway, South Pacific is still enchanting audiences. A major touring production of the show opened in Blackpool in August and will finish in Cardiff in July. A Broadway revival opens in New York early next month.

After writing South Pacific, the duo created two more unforgettable musicals: The King And I and The Sound Of Music.

Because of their tremendous and enduring popularity, it’s fashionable in certain circles to sneer at Rodgers and Hammerstein. Yet their work has brought more happiness to more people than any other 20th-century song-writing partnership.

Wally of the Week: 'Neo' Con Coughlin

Up to 1m people dead. 4m refugees. The infrastructure of the country destroyed. Many areas of the country without supplies of clean water and electricity. A massive decline in public health. Women's rights put back centuries. A total breakdown of law and order.

And what does 'Neo' Con Coughlin think about the situation in Iraq? He thinks that "British forces leave Iraq a far better place than they found it".

In Coughlin's Daily Telegraph article there is not one mention of Iraq's (non-existent) WMD programme. Interesting that, given that before the war, Iraq's phantom WMDs is all that Coughlin and his fellow neocons wanted to talk about.

Instead, we are told that the war was about overthrowing "Baathist gangsters" and bringing "democracy" to Iraq.

All neo-cons are conspiracy theorists, and Coughlin is a conspiracy theorist of the highest (or rather, lowest, order).

He's peddled the untruths that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, that Iraq had WMDs that could be assembled within 45 minutes- and he's also published a false claim re Iran's nuclear energy programme- which has led to him being reported to the Press Complaints Commission. Now he's peddling the lie that the invasion of Iraq has made the Iraqi people better off.

There are plenty of scandals regarding the Iraq war. But not the least of them is that those who propagandised for the war and who in doing so, printed blatant falsehoods are still, five and a half years on, up to their old tricks.

I've labelled Coughlin a 'wally', but of course he is far worse than that. He is a pimp for war, propagandising for military conflicts in which other people- but not of course himself or his family- will do the dying.

Iraq: "A Human Catastrophe on the Grandest Scale"

More than 4,000 Americans have been killed and perhaps 20,000 wounded. The British loss is 178.

But statistics are one thing, while the spectacle of limbless young men and women at the Headley Court rehabilitation centre in Surrey is quite another.

As for the Iraqis, their loss and suffering as a direct consequence of the Anglo-American occupation has been appalling.

To begin with, there was the colossal physical damage and civilian casualties inflicted by the initial ‘shock-and-awe’ bombardment of Baghdad and other cities.
Since then, the total number of civilians killed in the crossfire between the bombs of the insurgents and the inaccurate U.S. firepower on land and from the air stands between 100,000 and 600,000, depending on the guesstimate.

When we add to this tally of death the known total of Iraqi refugees at four million, the bottom line is a human catastrophe on the grandest scale.

Brown will tell the House that Britain can withdraw its 4,100 troops because we can leave the peace and security of the Basra region safely in the hands of the Iraqi government and its British-trained army.

But this, too, is a lie. The truth is that we will leave Iraq at a time when the Iraqi people are immeasurably worse off than under Saddam’s tyranny.



writes the historian Correlli Barnett in today's Daily Mail.

I am proud that I was among the small number of British journalists and media commentators to unequivocally oppose the Iraq War- and to openly ridicule, in print, the neo-con claims that Iraq possessed WMD. I am proud too to have taken part in the large anti-war demonstrations which took place in London in September 2002 and February 2003.

But I am very sad that we on the anti-war side were unable to stop the neocons from getting their evil way and that we failed to prevent a "human catastrophe on the grandest scale".

"Off with the heads of all City types!"

I want to see hedge-fund managers tipped into cage fights with naked Gypsies; bank managers wrestle with lions in the O2 arena; failed regulators thrown to alligators in the Royal Docks; short sellers in pits of snakes; and distinguished City economists try their luck with sharks. They've had their heyday, their bonuses, their Porsches, their fine wines and oafish ostentation - they've had their fun. Now for ours.

To the guillotine!

Who wrote these stirring words in his newspaper column today?

Seumas Milne in The Guardian? Robert Griffiths in the Morning Star?

No. It was Matthew Parris in The Times.

That's right: Matthew Parris, the former Conservative MP and right-wing political commentator.

It shows you how far the pendulum has swung when we have conservatives like Parris calling for 'City types' to be marched off to the guillotine for the destruction they have caused to the world's economy.

The hatred and anger towards 'City types' felt by the public at large is only going to intensify in 2009. Yesterday, the Daily Mail- yes, The Daily Mail- reported on its front page how 'Goldmine (Fill Your) Sachs' was awarding its staff bonuses totalling £4.3bn - a large chunk of the £6.5bn it received from US taxpayers.

There's a revolutionary air in Britain, America and in Europe at present and if the socialist left cannot forge the alliances (including with decent 'old' conservative factions represented by the likes of Matthew Parris) that are necessary to sweep the corrupt, globalist regimes from power, then they'll only have themselves to blame.