Another English Cricket Cock-Up

Kevin Pietersen is the most entertaining batsman in the world. He is also temperamental and actually mad. But so is every genius.

It is scandalous that he was pressured into relinquishing the England Captaincy after only 5 months on the job.

KP told the bureaucrats that the coach, Peter Moores, was useless. And they couldn’t handle it. Who’s more important in a team, the best player or the coach?

I thought he was hired for his direct approach.

It’s a shame he won’t lead England in the Ashes, but thank god he’s still in the team!

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January 2009: Rule of the Month

Happy New Year, readers!

Rule of the Month: each post will be less than 100 words long.

This is a new feature I'm introducing to spice up Spooner's Zeitgeist and get you lot out there coming back for more.

If you have an idea for February let me know!

SZ

Latest German History Movie A Violent Collage

Two and a half hours of endless violence, garbled ideology and much posturing. And I'm not talking about 'Quantum of Solace'. No, this is the latest film about modern German history. But it is not about the World Wars or the East German dictatorship. It is about West Germany's terrorist group of the 1960s and '70s: the Red Army Faction (RAF).

[Watch the trailer on the official film website]

'The Baader Meinhof Komplex' tries to sum up around 30 years of complex social tensions in West Germany: the post-war generation that had to deal with the role of parents and grandparents in Nazi Germany; the student movement and the reaction of older people to its liberalism; and the radicalisation of left-wing ideology that resulted in terrorist tactics.

What results is a collage of scenes that supposedly show 'what actually happened' at the time. We see a student demonstration brutally put down by police and of course the catalystic shooting of the student Benno Ohnesorg by a police officer.

The left-wing intellectual Ulrike Meinhof joins the extremist Andreas Baader and away we go. Political assassination follows bombing follows shooting.

The graphic depiction of violence in this film is shocking in itself, but does it really make one think about the social issues of the time. I left the theatre feeling numb. I can imagine others leaving the theatre feeling elated. For example, this movie would go down very well with any member of Antifa - a German group that sees a need to fight fascists hands on.

It made me more convinced than ever that the use of terror is wrong. What did these people achieve apart from expressing their anger in the most apalling way? The film provided no new clues or perspectives. Given the amount of time it spent looking at the terrorists after they were caught and tried, it's portrayal of them is rather too sympathetic.

German director Uli Edel might have been better off sticking to the realms of myth as in his last movie - 'Ring of the Nibelungs'. He's tried to create an epic, where a single story could have told a lot more. To prove my point, look at 'Downfall' by German director Oliver Hirschbiegel. He took Hitler as his material, but he did not make a film about the entire Second World War. His powerful drama plays out in a bunker in Berlin in 1945 and reveals a lot more about German history than Edel's violent collage.

That said, see 'The Baader Meinhof Complex' yourself and let me know what YOU think.

Dark Night at the Cinema

I recently watched 'The Dark Knight' at the English cinema called Turm Palast in Frankfurt am Main.

Maybe you didn't know, but in Germany subtitles are not common. On TV and in cinemas all English films are simply dubbed into German. So you get Bruce Willis, Nicole Kidman etc. speaking German. Of course, it doesn't make much difference for Arnold Schwarzenegger...

The new Batman film was released in August in Germany, so of course I saw it on one of the cinema's smaller screens. It was not a good cinematic experience.

The volume was lower than on my TV set. The seats were falling apart and the faded red upholstery was rotting off before my eyes. I doubt that this cinema has been refurbished since the end of the Second World War.

Just after the bit where the Joker gets put behind bars, there was the sharp 'clack' of a fuse blowing and the screen went black. Apart from disgruntled murmers from the small audience that was that. Film over. The cash machine was closed, but I got my money back the next day.

Obviously, this does not make me the best judge of the film. But what the hell was it actually about?!

The plot was, indeed, bat-like: erratic in flight and virtually blind. Would Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker really have attracted so much attention if he hadn't died shortly after filming?

The Joker was enjoyably psychopathic. But if you really want to be thrilled by a bunch of maniacs, try going to a Slipknot concert.

Christian Bale's performance as Batman was as stiff as his hard rubber suit. In fact, even the action scenes were boring.

I probably would have demanded my money back even if the projector hadn't blown up!

Why did so many people think this film was the best thing since sliced bread?

'Gaslight' at The English Theatre in Frankfurt

Seeing a good play 'live' at the theatre can be exhilarating. 'Gaslight', a tense psychological thriller, had me gripped from the start.

You see a strict husband psychologically abuse his distraught wife in a high-ceilinged dark Victorian sitting room. 'Sounds like fun!' I hear you say sarcastically. Seeing this less than a few meters away from me, I felt very uncomfortable too. The way in which Mr. Manningham reprimanded his wife for being forgetful and pale was horrific.

He accuses her of taking paintings down from the walls and hiding them when he is out. Mrs. Manningham cannot for the life of her ever remember having done such a thing. But of course, she must have hidden the paintings, because neither her husband nor the two servants have. As a result, Mr Manningham is convinced that his wife is going mad and is at little pains to carefully, if not patiently, explain this to her.

But then a jovial old detective by the name of Rough pays Mrs. Manningham a visit whilst her husband is out one night and the plot literally thickens by the minute from then on in. A dark history of murder and deception is gradually unravelled.

If you have chance, go and see this play. The acting is exemplary and the plot is magnificent in its suspense and clarity. Even after some sort of resolution at the end of the play, the utterly harrowing expression on Mrs. Manningham's face does not allow you to leave the theatre feeling relieved (see picture).

Looking forward to exploring the work of Patrick Hamilton further.

Kundera's integrity under threat

Dissident Czech author Milan Kundera was yesterday accused of denouncing a Western spy in the 1950s.

Kundera who is famous for satirizing the Czechoslovak Communist regime in novels such as 'The Joke' vehemently denied the accusation. Now aged 79, he has lived in France since 1975.

The institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes which collects and publishes Communist secret police files, claimed that it had found documents which proved that Kundera had informed on a fellow student. Part of the Czech state, the institute is widely regarded as credible.

One speculates whether the Communist secret police named Kundera in the document as a way to smear him at a later date. If you were found out as an informer you became a social outcast. In any case, more research will be needed to judge the authenticity of the accusation.

One thinks back to the revelation that Gunter Grass was a member of the Wehrmacht during World War Two and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's latter-day support for Russian President Putin. Author's hailed for their work in defending human liberties are often found out to have a dark past.

Read more here: The Independent

Art?

Is Kate Moss an artist? Of course she is, all the tabloids and free rags shout. She is 'it' - the golden girl that everyone wants to feel connected to.

Oh, isn't it scandalous that that picture she drew only sold for £33,600 at auction last Saturday? I mean, come on, it was a self-portrait with her own lipstick and... Pete Doherty's blood! Expected to fetch £40,000 - peanuts! I would have bought it for half a million! (If I was made of money, at least).

The title of Kate's masterpiece alone is a piece of art 'Who Needs Blood When You've Got Lipstick'. Yeah, what if we all had lipstick in our veins - no one would ever bleed to death again. And everyone's lips would be lovely and red the whole time. Wow! Or maybe she's talking about Pete's blood. Like: 'Pete, you're a wanker! I've got the best lipstick in the world!' Look, I can draw with it. 'Wow, Kate, that's wicked!'

But you gotta feel for Kate, dontchya? She must have been looking at Hirst's auction and thinking - I don't need a dead cow, I've got Pete's blood and my lipstick. Up your's Hirst! I should be the most expensive living artist in the world, not you!

But at least, Banksy's work took a bashing at the auction too. Really, though, what could he expect? He refused to authenticate the authenticity of his authorship. 'Yeah, bollocks, art world I don't care if you poncy pricks don't buy my work? It's not mine.' How cool and postmodern. No worries that his mural on the side of a van 'Fungle Junk' only went for half the expected £150,000?

So Hirst sold some of his work for £111 million on 15 September. Not bad. All those animals and formaldehyde must cost a bit anyway.

It is surely a step forward for civilisation that top artist's these days don't have to die in poverty and disgrace before they achieve fame and certain players start selling their works for heaps of cash. If only Van Gogh had pickled his own ear in a jar and set up his own auction instead of descending into madness and eating his own paint. But then the art world, now, would be light years ahead of its time. Hirst would be a drunken farmer and Kate would be a checkout assistant. And today's artists would be conducting the world economy!