Sweet Nothings

I love the fact that the government has just revoked export licences for arms to Bahrain, because they're worried that any weapons sold might end up being used for slightly unsavoury purposes, like, oh I don't know, the gunning down of anti-government protesters perhaps. I'm sure up until now all munitions purchased by the Bahrainis (Bahrainers? Baha Men?) from ourselves have been put to nice, friendly uses. The revolutionary events taking place in the Arab world have been quite an eye-opener really. Before this year I didn't really have a clue as to the political situation in these countries. Having read a lot more about Mr Mubarak and his ilk lately, it's easy to see why the Western powers had been quite happy for folk to remain in the dark. Egypt, for example, was regarded as a tourist hot spot who were nice to our friends the Israelis - not like those nasty other Arab types in Lebanon, Iran and suchlike. Now we know that it was a repressive dictatorship all...

After seeing The Fighter  the other day, I realised I've now seen nine of the ten Best Picture nominees for the upcoming Oscars, which has given me a thoroughly undeserved sense of smugness. Six of these have been covered in one form or another in earlier ramblings - ok, technically five and a half due to the Winter's Bone  fiasco . And I have no intention of seeing the tenth, True Grit , because - CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT - I'm not a fan of the Coens. But still - check me out, eh? Herewith some thoughts on the other three: 127 Hours has done pretty good box office considering the tough-sell subject matter, all of which is down to the tremendous reserves of public goodwill for Danny Boyle. These lay somewhat dormant for a while, perhaps down to his restless flitting between genres and consequent diminishing returns. Even so, it sounds incredible now that Slumdog nearly didn't get a theatrical release. It's much easier to see why Boyle didn't stay on the e...