tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35890430582240261032024-03-13T09:56:08.091-07:00THE DEMI-MONDETHE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.comBlogger303125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-67280962517698123012013-12-04T01:26:00.002-08:002013-12-04T01:30:45.453-08:00BAD EDUCATION TODAY, NO JAM TOMORROW<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">BAD EDUCATION TODAY, NO JAM TOMORROW<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The OECD has just released the PISA (Programme for International
Student Assessment) scores for 2012 (</span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25187997"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25187997</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">)
and as is to be expected England languished down in 26<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> place. This
caused some debate on FaceBook, reactions ranging from the usual ‘hang Groves’ to
the ‘well, all Asians are automata who’ve never had an original thought in their
head’ rationalisations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve always been of the opinion that in a meritocracy (even
a would-be one like the UK) the primary aim of the government should be to
provide kids with the very best education possible in order that he or she can
fulfil all their potential. And I don’t subscribe to this simply for altruistic
motives: I’ve always believed that the better we educate our kids today, the
wealthier we all will be tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A neat, logical idea, but one which I’ve never stopped to
prove.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So I got to thinking that a better educated population will
produced more good ideas and as these ideas are often protected by patents it
seemed logical (that word again!) to me that as a country’s education improved
so too would the pace at which it filed patents. Fortunately thanks to the US
Patent and Trademark Office (</span><a href="http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_all.htm"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_all.htm</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">)
it’s one that’s pretty easy to check.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I looked to see if the PISA rankings correlated with the
increase in patent filings 2012 vs 1999. I had to do a little shuffling around:
Macau which appears as number 6 on the PISA list is lumped in with China for
patent purposes and I eliminated Lichtenstein, Slovenia, Czech Republic,
Poland, Estonia and Vietnam because they file so few patents that one either
way skews things horribly. I also included the USA even tho' it came 34th on the PISA list. So this is the 22-country list (post amendments) I came up with:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">COUNTRY<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>PISA
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> RANK PATENT RANK</span></span></div>
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">CHINA<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>1<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">SINGAPORE<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>2<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">HONG KONG<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>3<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>9<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">TAIWAN<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>4<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">SOUTH KOREA<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>5<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">JAPAN<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>6<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>13<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">SWITZERLAND<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>7<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>17<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">NETHERLANDS<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>8<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>14<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">FINLAND<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>9<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>12<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">CANADA<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>10<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>10<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">BELGIUM<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>12<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>20<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">GERMANY<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>13<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>15<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">AUSTRIA<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>14<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>8<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">AUSTRALIA<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>15<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>7<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">IRELAND<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>16<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>4<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">DENMARK<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>18<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>11<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">NEW ZEALAND<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>19<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>6<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">FRANCE<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>20<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>18<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">ENGLAND<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>21<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>16<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">USA<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> 22</span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>21<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There seems to me to be a good correlation at the top and the
bottom of my 22-Country table (i.e. the better educated countries do well and the poorly educated countries do badly) though the Antipodes and Ireland seem to do much
better with regards to filing patents than I would have expected. Unfortunately
what this also tell me (if patents today = jam tomorrow) is that England’s woes
aren’t going to get better any time soon.<o:p></o:p></span>THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-34771080621204481892013-11-18T07:23:00.000-08:002013-11-18T07:23:25.765-08:00RECOGNISING PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS IN LITERATURE
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Interesting piece from a
Demi-Mode reader, Claire Loughran …<o:p></o:p></span></strong><br />
<br />
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<strong><u><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Recognising Psychological Conditions
in Literature</span></u></strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">There are a
great many novels and works of literature which deal with psychological
conditions. Many modern works, such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Girl,
Interrupted and The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time are attempts
to interpret and document psychological conditions suffered by the characters.
In these instances, the psychological conditions are among the chief concerns
of the piece and the novels are excellent means of understanding characters who
are somewhat defined by the conditions which they bare. But what of other
characters? Many of the greatest heroes and <a href="http://thedemi-monde.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/my-favourite-villain.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">villains</span></a> have possess some hint of a psychological
condition; it is often what makes them so compelling. More often than not, a
subtle facet of character can be an introduction into a psychological condition
which is only ever examined in the subtext. Whilst these novels rarely focus on
the psychological conditions of the characters, every characterisation and
subtlety goes another step towards creating and sustaining a real and
functioning personality. So what are some examples of psychological conditions
throughout literature?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">The
First Case</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">Psychological
conditions in literary characters can be traced back all the way to the very first
stories and myths. As such, it was these myths which first gave many of the
psychological conditions their names. When proposing theories, Sigmund Freud
would often <a href="http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Ebbinghaus/wozniak.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">use literary characters</span></a> as a reference point. Freud’s
Oedipus and Electra complexes both stem from traits recognises in people which
bore some similarity to traits shared by characters in classic Greek mythology.
As psychoanalysis was first becoming a formalised medical practice, it was the
characters themselves which leant their names to the numerous conditions. In
order to define and explain complex psychological conditions, doctors used
literary characters as explanative tools; their conditions were thought to be
pre-existing and universal as such that the characters themselves could come to
define the conditions. Freud’s Oedipus complex is perhaps as famous as the
story of Oedipus itself, and to some extent, the relationship which many
readers have with the character is viewed through the eyes of psychoanalysis.
Whether the theory itself is correct is irrelevant – the theory has had an
impact on the manner in which Oedipus as a character is read and understood,
and the character of Oedipus now carries a greater cultural baggage.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">Infiltration
and Understanding</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">Psychological
conditions have existed for as long as the concept of the self, but it was only
at the turn of the twentieth century that we began to document, name and
investigate these numerous conditions. Once the conditions themselves had names
and could be organised away into neat little character holes, they began to
emerge in recognisable personality traits in many of the great 20<sup>th</sup> century
characters. Yossarian, of Catch 22, and Holden Caulfield, of Catcher in the
Rye, both exhibit notable traits of one of the most scarring of psychological
conditions: <a href="http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsdisorders/posttraumaticstressdisorder.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">post-traumatic stress disorder</span></a>. PTSD can emerge in many
different contexts and as the result of any number of incidents; learning <a href="http://www.psychguides.com/living-with-ptsd-posttraumatic-stress-disorder/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">how to deal with PTSD</span></a> can be incredibly difficult.
What sets these characters apart is the subtlety in which it is woven into the
makeup of the personalities. In many respects, both Yossarian and Holden are
avatars of 20<sup>th</sup> century life: Yossarian is <a href="http://www.american.edu/cas/news/will-beaudouin-src.cfm" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">a
reflection of the horrors and idiocy of war</span></a>, while Holden is one of the
first major examples (however tragic) of that invention of the 1960s, the
teenager. That both have experienced tragedies in their past is a key aspect of
their character, and the traits of psychological scarring are often made
apparent. Throughout both Catch 22 and Catcher in the Rye, we witness the
subtleties of psychological conditions make themselves apparent without ever
being truly and explicitly mentioned.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">An
Addictive Plot Device</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">It is
dystopian fiction, however, that has perhaps best incorporated psychological
conditions into the framework of literary fiction. William Gibson’s famed novel
Neuromancer features a character driven by addiction. Case, the chief
protagonist, is a man hindered by addiction. As well as being a drug addict,
former hacker Case finds himself cut off from his ability to access the global
cyberspace network. Not only is his drug addiction driving him to commit
foolish acts, but his <a href="http://phys.org/news82749930.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">addiction to the cyberspace</span></a> network - and the
information and freedom it provides – becomes a compelling character
motivation. Gibson uses <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986282,00.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">addiction</span></a> not only as an understandable aspect of a
flawed protagonist, but uses the audiences engendered knowledge of the
psychological issues behind addiction in order to drive the plot forwards.
Similarly, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World features a society built on the
pillars of chemical addiction. Huxley examines and incorporates a great many
psychological conditions into the novel, but one of the major plot points
centres around an addiction to the hallucinogen Soma. Rather than a single
character suffering from addiction, Huxley proposes an entire society
suffering, their brave new world built on the back of a synthesised chemical
reaction. The society’s addiction, their psychological condition, is one of the
key concerns which must be overcome if they are ever to escape the dystopian
future. Rather than a single character afflicted by addiction, Huxley allows
psychological conditions – and the audience’s understanding of their perils –
to be the platform for his social commentary.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">What
Does it all Mean?</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;">Many novels
are written about characters struggling to come to terms with psychological
afflictions. But such is the diaspora and dissemination of public awareness
when it comes to mental health, we are able to recognise psychological traits
in character for whom mental health is not necessarily their driving force.
While all character are built on the back of personality and individuality, it
is now possible for the audience to recognise - and to some extent diagnose –
certain conditions within the world of fiction. Thanks to the heightened public
awareness, these facets of characters, and the manner in which an audience will
understand and comprehend them, is another tool at the author’s disposal.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-91228252957213777012013-11-17T08:52:00.000-08:002013-11-17T08:52:50.019-08:00INVENT-10N: GOOGLE GLASS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS A NICENIK SOCIETY
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">GOOGLE GLASS: THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS A NICENIK SOCIETY<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">An interesting article in this week’s The Economist’s entitled
‘Ubiquitous Cameras’ (</span><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21589863-it-getting-ever-easier-record-anything-or-everything-you-see-opens"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21589863-it-getting-ever-easier-record-anything-or-everything-you-see-opens</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">)
which discussed the implications of the widespread use of Google’s Glass
headset. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<a class="image" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition.jpeg"><img alt="Google Glass Explorer Edition.jpeg" height="123" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition.jpeg/220px-Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition.jpeg" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition.jpeg/330px-Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition.jpeg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition.jpeg/440px-Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition.jpeg 2x" width="220" /></a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition.jpeg"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Google Glass is a wearable computer with an optical
head-mounted display which can also take pictures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now most of the debate about Glass has centred around ‘oh, won’t
it be terrible all these Glass-equipped people going around taking
surreptitious photographs of us and invading out privacy’ this countered by the
inevitable, ‘if people don’t want their business archived in a photo, don’t do
guilty things in public’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To me what Glass exemplifies is the increasingly rapid miniaturisation
of surveillance equipment and the thought that in a few short years it won’t
just be photographs the Glass-of-the-future is taking but videos (and probably
constant-stream videos at that, then we’ll all be ‘life loggers’). And once
this is teamed up with facial recognition we will truly be in a PanOpticon
society, where everyone will be able to see what we were doing at any moment in
our public life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The result will be a radical change in how we disport
ourselves in public. Since the Rialto police in the USA began using body
cameras to record incidents in February 2012 public complaints against police
officers fell a staggering 88% and the use of force by officers by 60%. Body
cameras, it seems, incentivise people to conduct themselves in a more civilised
manner … nobody wants to see themselves looking and acting like a total prick
on YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But (and I think it’s a pretty big but) what this will
provoke is a massive experiment in social re-engineering with people being
obliged to act in a more censured way. They will know they are being watched
and will act accordingly. A good thing, you might suggest, but the upshot will
be that life, I suspect, will become even more boring than it is today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As Jenni-Fur says in Invent-10n:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
am fed up enduring the claustrophobic, cossetted tyranny of the nice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Fuck
nice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<s style="text-line-through: double;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">NICE<o:p></o:p></span></s></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-87170626941329964892013-11-17T04:46:00.000-08:002013-11-17T04:46:51.018-08:00AGENT ELLI AND THE TRICKY LANGUAGE THAT IS RUSSIAN (PART 2)<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 20pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agent Elli and the Tricky Language that is Russian <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 20pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">(Part 2)</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">(SORRY FOR THE MIXED-UP FONTS, BLOGGER IS PLAYING SILLY BUGGERS)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are four important points to note about
the manner in which Gouzenko came to learn about Agent Elli: one, Gouzenko and Luibimov
would have been speaking in Russian; two, in all probability their command of English
would have been basic at best (certainly Gouzenko’s was); three, these
conversations took place at night when people are tired (and maybe even a
little drunk?); and four, I suspect in a beleaguered and blacked-out Moscow the
lighting in their office (candles? oil-lamps?) would have been inadequate. The
upshot is that this is the ideal environment for mistakes to be made.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what did Gouzenko learn about Agent Elli
during these night time chats? Well, I guess the most basic is that the Agent’s
codename was ‘Elli’. Everyone has assumed that Gouzenko got this right: unfortunately
I don’t think Gouzenko (or Black) did!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1942 when
they were discussing ‘Elli’, Gouzenko and Liubimov would have been speaking in
Russian and when he came to be debriefed by the Canadian authorities three
years later it is highly likely that Gouzenko would have used the same Russian
pronunciation for the name he saw on Liubimov’s decrypts, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Элли</span></b><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">. In fact
this </span>is the Cyrillic rendering of the English word ‘Ally’ but as
Gouzenko’s English was poor he wouldn’t have known the word and would have
pronounced it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">phonetically</i> as Elli. This
mistake was not picked up by Black and is one which created a lot of subsequent
confusion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Professor
Christopher Andrew in his authorised history of MI5 (<i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Defence of the
Realm: The Authorized History of MI5</span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">) states that that
‘El’ is the Russian pronunciation of the letter ‘L’</span> (correct) and hence that
ELLI in Russian translates as the plural of the English letter ‘L’. I am
reliably informed by a native-speaking Russian linguist that this is ‘nonsense’:
no Russian would ever refer to double-L as Elli. Moreover, I doubt the Soviets
would have been so stupid as to give such an important agent a code-name made
up of his initials. Unfortunately Professor Andrew uses this ‘ELLI = Russian
double-L’ hypothesis to corroborate his contention that Leo Long (who I’ll
return to later) is the real identity of Agent Elli. Understandable I suppose:
without this supporting ‘evidence’ the Leo Long surmise seems somewhat
threadbare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, my
Agent Ally hypothesis might be wrong and there are other possibilities. If, for
instance, the decrypts shown to Gouzenko by Liubimov had been handwritten – a
strong possibility given that most of the documents Gouzenko took with him when
he defected were handwritten, making them difficult to decipher – and
remembering that this was taking place at night in an ill-lit room it could be
that the agent’s name wasn’t Elli (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Элли</span></b> ) but the similar-looking Eppi (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Эппи</span></b>). The one other possibility (the
one my own Agent Elli refers to in ‘Faktion’) is that Elli was simply a
shortened form of ‘Elijah’!<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However I am
as confident as anyone can be the Agent Elli was actually Agent Ally, a very
apt cryptonym for someone as highly placed and as committed to socialist
revolution as this spy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This ‘Agent Ally’ contention is reinforced by
there being <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">two</i> Agent Ellis. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elli is
recognised in Russian as being a woman’s name and, interestingly, the codename
‘Elli’ (sometimes rendered as ‘Ellie’) had already been assigned to one of the
Soviet’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">female</i> spies in Canada.
Gouzenko identified <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">two</i> agents called
Elli, the first of whom turned out to be a woman, Elli (or Ellie) being the
cryptonym of Kathleen Willsher, who worked as a confidential secretary to the
British High Commissioner in Canada, Malcolm MacDonald (Willsher was
subsequently identified and arrested). That the Soviets used the same code name
of two agents (one a man and one a woman) has generally been dismissed as ‘just
one of those things’, but I don’t think it was: the names <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">weren’t</i> the same. There was an Agent Ellie (female) and an Agent
Ally (male). Different names but rendered in exactly the same way in Russian.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The final piece of mal-translation confusing the search for Agent
Elli is the phrase </span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">used by Gouzenko: ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ou nego shto-to Russkoe</i>’ which Black translated as ‘having
something of the Russian about him’. This has been used to suggest that Agent
Elli had Russian antecedents, but in fact the phrase is so vague as to be
almost meaningless and should have prompted Black to ask for clarification.
Unfortunately he didn’t. Nelli’s translation would have been the much more
general ‘had a Russian connection’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The journalist Chapman Pincher presents a
coherent set of arguments when he suggests that Elli is Roger Hollis – Hollis
worked for MI5 from 1939, eventually becoming Director-General in 1956 (see
Pincher’s </span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and
Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> for details<i>)</i></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">. Pincher
refers to the ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ou nego shto-to Russkoe</i>’
description of Elli and suggests that it indicates that Elli had
pre-Revolutionary connections with Russia (Nelli disputes this: in her opinion
the phrase is so ambiguous as to invite several, equally plausible,
interpretations). Apparently the Hollis family is able to trace its lineage
back to Peter the Great. The difficulty here is that Hollis’s Russian
antecedents were tenuous to say the least and I am doubtful they would have
stimulated gossip in the GRU’s Moscow headquarters.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But my biggest problem with the ‘Hollis is
Elli’ hypothesis is that Hollis would have been too junior in the period
running up to 1942 (when Gouzenko first heard of Elli) to be regarded as the
Soviets’ most important intelligence asset in Britain. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">****<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These pieces of mis-translation and mis-interpretation have confused
the hunt for Agent Elli with none of the proposed candidates quite fitting the
description provided by Gouzenko: that he was a man; a committed Marxist; recruited
by the GRU not the NKVD; had a strong Russian connection; had, from early 1942,
access to Britain’s most sensitive of secrets; and was ready and willing and
able to provide the USSR with these secrets. A man who truly warrants the cryptonym
Agent Ally.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There’s only one man who fits the bill …</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-72658118340860434262013-11-17T04:39:00.000-08:002013-11-17T04:39:45.599-08:00AGENT ELLI AND THAT TRICKY LANGUAGE THAT IS RUSSIAN (PART 1)
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 20pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agent Elli and the Tricky Language that is Russian <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 20pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">(Part 1)</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘Faktion’, my alternate-history story set in
a very different world of 1947, went out to publishers last week. It uses as a
backstory the search by MI5 for the various ‘moles’ that the Soviets had
infiltrated into the British establishment and it was while I was doing my
background research I became fascinated by the mysterious Soviet agent, Agent Elli
whose information was of such importance that his messages were hand-delivered
to Stalin immediately they were received in Moscow. To add to the intrigue the
identity of Agent Elli has never been definitively established, the two leading
candidates being Leo Long (proposed by Professor Christopher Andrew) and Roger
Hollis (proposed by journalist Chapman Pincher). Despite the efforts of various
historians and journalists the question, ‘who was Agent Elli’ remains hotly
debated to this day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘Faktion’ delivers my own, somewhat
left-field, verdict on who was Agent Elli much of my surmising turning, as does
the plot of ‘Faktion’, on the difficulties faced when information is translated/interpreted
from Russian into English. This is based on my own experiences living and
working in Russia: really good translators are rare as hen’s teeth and most have
a real reluctance to raise their hand when they don’t understand what they were
being asked to translate. This caused no end of muddles though I was lucky to
always have Nelli by my side who is a fanatic for accuracy (and a highly qualified
linguistic to boot).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Virtually all our knowledge regarding Agent
Elli comes from the testimony of Igor Gouzenko, a 26-year old cipher clerk who was
posted to Canada in June 1943 to work in the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa. In
September 1945 Gouzenko gave himself up to the Canadians rather than be shipped
back to the USSR bringing with him a collection of files and code books and an
insider’s knowledge of the extent of the Soviet Union’s espionage efforts in
Canada, the USA and in Britain. Such was the brouhaha caused by Gouzenko’s
revelations (especially regarding Soviet Intelligence’s penetration of the
Manhattan Project) that he is often cited as the man responsible for initiating
the Cold War. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given how important he is to the story of
Agent Elli it is perhaps worth spending a moment considering just what sort of
a man Gouzenko was (for this I mostly reference Gouzenko’s biography <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This Was My Choice</i>). He was born in the
village of Rogachov, ‘not far distant from Moscow’. His father was killed soon
after his birth (in 1919) fighting in the civil war raging in Russia at that
time (for which side he was fighting remains tantalisingly unclear). His
mother, a teacher, seems to have been a woman of some influence because she
managed to move herself and her family to Moscow (moving towns in the Soviet
Union was a considerable feat which would have required the pulling of any
number of strings), Gouzenko entering the prestigious school named in honour of
Maxim Gorky and from there going to study at the Moscow Architectural
Institute. Whilst Gouzenko claims that his family had no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">blat</i> – influence – I doubt this is the case: his mother’s move to
Moscow and the quality of the schools where Gouzenko studied give the lie to
that. This is confirmed by his being transferred to the Kuibyshev Military
Engineering Academy in Moscow where he trained as a cipher clerk in
Intelligence Administration run by the GRU, a very cushy, a very safe and a
very well-paid job. Although ranked merely as a lieutenant his salary was an
astonishingly high 1,200 roubles (in 1940 the average salary of an engineer was
R696 and a worker R324).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By his own account Gouzenko was a dedicated
student, a diligent officer, a loyal Communist and a devoted husband to his
wife, Anna. He does, though, seem partial to a drink noting in his book that ‘I
never allowed an opportunity for obtaining vodka or wine to pass’ though whether
he was the alcoholic claimed by John Cairncross I couldn’t confirm. As a cipher
clerk most of his work seems to have been on telegrams from and to Germany and
Switzerland (again, given that Germany was invading Russia at that time, this
was a prestigious appointment). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In June 1943 (the pivotal time in the
fighting on the Eastern Front) he was transferred to the Soviet Embassy in
Ottawa, Canada. That Gouzenko had precious little English (he describes himself
as having only a ‘fair foundation in the language’) this seems an unusual
appointment, and being such a plumb (and very safe!) posting again smacks of
prodigious amounts of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">blat</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gouzenko quickly became enamoured of life in
Canada and when he was advised that he was to be transferred back to Moscow
decided to defect which he and his family did on 5<sup>th</sup> September,
1945, being taken into custody by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. (En
passant, I have my suspicions regarding Gouzenko and his motives for defecting.
This man wasn’t what he appeared. I just wonder …)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the Gouzenko who defected was young, of
junior rank (he was still just a lieutenant) and possessed of pretty shaky
English (despite twenty years of living in Canada, during the CBC television
interview of March, 1966 Gouzenko still answered questions in heavily accented
English). The upshot is that all of Gouzenko’s interviews with the RCMP had to
be made using an interpreter, which, I believe, accounts for some of the
problems historians have had in recent years. The interpreter the RCMP used was Special Constable Mervyn Black and, as with Gouzenko, it's worth taking a closer look at Black. According to Gregory S. Kealey who has made a study of the RCMP's Security Bulletins Black was born on 31st May 1890 in Petrograd (now St Petersburg) to Scottish parents, his father being Managing Director of the D.N. Lebedeff jute mill. After being schooled in Belfast, Dundee and London, Black returned to Russia in 1914 as manager of the Riga Textile factory. He left Russia in 1921finally coming to rest in Canada where he farmed in Saskatchewan until 1932. </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This doesn't seem to have been a successful endeavour because in 1933 he joined the RCMP as a civilian translator though his duties also included him working as an undercover agent spying on Communist agitators ... again not very successfully. As Black is reported to have said: <em>'My connections with the working class of various countries have been very close and intimate but always from the standpoint of the employer, not as a fellow worker on the same step of the social ladde</em>r'. Thus Black's background and feelings apparently deprived him of the ability to make a successful secret agent. Mervyn Black was obviously something of a snob who probably regarded his having to work as a translator (and as an agent rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi) as somewhat beneath him. He certainly railed about never being commissioned into the uniformed branch of the RCMP (apparently his age was against him) so I have the suspicion that Black was an embittered man. </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So we have a translator who although )probably) fluent in Russian is not a native speaker nor a linguist and whose snobbishness might have prevented him admitting he didn't understand what Gouzenko was saying. This is especially the case given that Black must have recognised the opportunity Gouzenko presented him with to impress his superiors.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My suspicions regarding the difficulties Black
faced in accurately interpreting what Gouzenko said when he was being debriefed
by the RCMP are reinforced by a letter written by RCMP Inspector George
McClellan and dated 11 October, 1945 which notes: ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I would like to point out that under the living conditions in Rexall
(Camp X) at the moment, Black (the interpreter) laboured under much difficulty
in obtaining the statement already submitted herewith … this is due to the fact
that Corby (Gouzenko’s codename) has somewhat of the dreamer mentality and it
is extremely difficult to pin him down to the business at hand</i>’ (Amy Knight:
‘How the Cold War Began’).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amongst the revelations Gouzenko made during
these somewhat tortuous debriefings was that there was a Soviet agent –
codenamed Elli – operating in Britain. Gouzenko had learned of Elli’s existence
when chatting with a fellow cipher clerk called Liubimov during the night-shift
at GRU headquarters in Moscow in 1942. Apparently Liubimov even went so far as
to show him deciphered messages relating to Elli. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(En passant, it should be noted that there
has been some suggestion that Gouzenko fabricated the existence of Agent Elli
simply to enhance his importance to the Canadians. I doubt this. On 24
November, 1945, the Soviet Commissar for State Security, Vsevolod Merkulov,
sent a personal message to Stalin and Beria confirming that Gouzenko had
betrayed the existence of the GRU agent inside British intelligence, Elli. The inescapable
conclusion is that what Gouzenko said was fact.)</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TO BE CONTINUED ...</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span>THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-58607157201841596992013-11-11T02:02:00.000-08:002013-11-11T02:02:43.571-08:00THE MUTABLE NATURE OF WRONG
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">THE MUTABLE NATURE OF ‘WRONG’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In reading the ‘Comments’ made following the report of the
BBC on the public interrogation of Britain’s three spy chiefs on 7 November (</span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24847399"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24847399</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">)
I was struck by how many times the adage ‘you’ve nothing to worry about
surveillance if you’re not doing anything wrong’ was brandished in defence of
what the British Security Services are doing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The problem with this argument is that ‘wrong’ is a very
mutable concept which is apt to change – often quite radically – over a surprisingly
short period of time. Considering that the last SUCCESSFUL prosecution for blasphemy was in 1977 (just thirty-six years ago!) tells me that the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(relatively) liberal country we live in is a recent
construct. Fifty years ago it was a crime to bad-mouth God or to be a practicing
homosexual, and the law (and much of society) was unconcerned about those who
penalised or persecuted others for being black or female. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fifty years ago what was considered ‘wrong’
was profoundly different from what we consider ‘wrong’ today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">'Wrong' is an ever moving target.
What is perceived to be ‘wrong’ today may not be ‘wrong’ tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And how quickly the mood and sensibilities of a country can
change is, I would suggest, illustrated by the growth of the ultra-conservative
Tea Party movement in the USA and the emergent of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in
Greece. These exemplify how quickly the political and moral outlook of a
country can alter (especially as a result of economic set-backs). To my mind
this is what makes the collection and storage of so much information by our
Security Services (and by other organisations) so worrying. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let us say that for some unknown reason Britain in twenty
years makes a sudden shift to the right or the left and a new, more draconian ethos
takes hold when homosexuality is seen as a bad thing or that Jews were once
again branded as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">untermenschen</i>. Then
it would be a relatively simple task for our Security Services to access their
databases and identify those who had bought Gay Times or Diva, or to make a
search for those who had attended a synagogue. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">THAT is what makes the collection and storage of
surveillance information so troubling: not how it IS being used but how it MIGHT
be used. It is not the present we should be worrying about but the future and
that is why the debate about what is collected by GCHQ, how long it is stored
and how it is managed is so important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-41493766926738488982013-11-10T23:53:00.000-08:002013-11-10T23:53:43.352-08:00SURROGATE SURVEILLANCE
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">THE RISE OF
SURROGATE SURVEILLANCE<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The recent appearance of the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ on television
has centred everyone’s attention on the scope and the dangers of State
surveillance, but what commentators have forgotten is that surveillance
conducted by those not belonging to the Secret Service community is much more
ubiquitous and, in many ways, much more disturbing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the reason for this is simple: we are willing
participants in this Surrogate Surveillance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Take, for instance, the loyalty card phenomenon. At first
glance the reason why Tesco and all the other big stores provide loyalty cards
is simply to reward those who shop regularly at their stores and by doing so to
encourage them to keep coming back. But there is another reason why these
stores are so keen on promoting their loyalty cards: the vast quantities of
information they acquire about their customers enables them to profile them. A
shopping cart reveals a great deal of information about you: whether you have
children or live alone; whether you drink (and how much); whether you have a
pet; how clean you are; whether you are environmentally conscious; and (from
the papers you buy) what your political views are likely to be. All these data
are stored (for how long?), analysed and used to develop a portrait of you
useful in tailoring adverts directed at you. Bespoke promotion … you can see it
on the side of your Facebook page.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not that the stores are stopping there. The news that Tesco
will be installing face-recognition equipment in its petrol stations (</span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10435521/Facial-recognition-inevitable-but-will-shoppers-approve.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10435521/Facial-recognition-inevitable-but-will-shoppers-approve.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">)
is just the next step: Tesco aims to put faces to data. I’m guessing that soon
we’ll be in a ‘Minority Report’ type world where adverts are tailor-made for
each potential customer passing them by. Of course, it will also enable Tesco
to refuse entry to known shop-lifters and serial-complainers but that’s
by-the-by (unless you happen to have the misfortune to look like a
shop-lifter!).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is important about this development is the vast amount
of data that Tesco have to store and process in order to make their face-recognition
initiative work. This is just a STORE when all said and done, not GCHQ or the NSA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which brings me back to my central point. Around the country
(and on-line, Amazon must be awash with data) there are hundreds of stores
doing pretty much the same thing as Tesco and warehousing copious amounts of
data. And these databases are supplemented by those holding the information hoovered
up by official surveillance devices operated by the police and local
authorities, and the information held by the Inland Revenue, local GPs, the
rating authorities, the police, by the Congestion Charging centre in London, by
the DVLA in Swansea and, of course, by the banks. Moreover if Tesco is using
facial recognition you can bet your bottom dollar that the police and GCHQ are
way ahead of them. Even the Inland Revenue is using Google Earth (</span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2494152/Now-taxman-spying-home-using-Google-Earth-Satellite-images-clues-wealth-lifestyle-youre-paying-enough.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2494152/Now-taxman-spying-home-using-Google-Earth-Satellite-images-clues-wealth-lifestyle-youre-paying-enough.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is what I call Surrogate Surveillance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Snowden brouhaha focussed attention on how the internet and
cell phone service providers co-operated (or didn’t co-operate, depending on
who you believe) with the GCHQ/NSA to facilitate their tapping into our e-communications
but what was forgotten was that there is this mass of Surrogate Surveillance data
collected quite openly that could provide very interesting information about us.
Nobody seems interested in it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nobody, I suspect, apart from GCHQ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now with all this data lying around neatly warehoused I
would have thought it beyond belief that GCHQ wouldn’t be accessing it. After all
it has been acquired quite legally (and often with the surveillee’s
co-operation) so no one can criticise GCHQ for using it. Now I’ve never made a
bomb but I suspect that the ingredients are pretty standard and need to be
bought by any would-be bomber. Analysing data held in a store’s databases would
reveal who was buying this stuff (presumably terrorists have credit cards) and
hence who was worth MI5 taking a closer interest in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Forget Tempora and worry about Surrogate Surveillance ...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-31153638588019846992013-11-09T01:42:00.001-08:002013-11-10T23:54:46.382-08:00BREAKING NEWS: SPIES SAVAGED BY TOOTHLESS DOG<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Thursday 7th November I invested ninety minutes of my life watching
the Intelligence and Security Committee grill (if that’s the word) the Heads of
GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 for the first time in public. Now I had no great hopes for
this televised interrogation (any Committee that includes Hazel Blears has no
right to use the word ‘Intelligence’ in its title) and it lived down to my low
expectations. The three being interrogated (Andrew Parker of MI5; John Sawers
of MI6 and Iain Lobban of GCHQ) were obviously well-rehearsed and had been
provided with a selection of sound-bites to recite. Worse, the questions posed by the Committee were
anodyne in the extreme.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeLTz1ZeXNxp2kqa0AMrvx_X-Fx6IEWDNFwFsdJqNAvpu3Ap8D4keXw3eNk8KangCpNXhJ8FZ2ArpVQAKC_g_e9-pbOMJYHHZ5PZXtcM8b5gi9IGtk7VrrUw-JGsNAvZHEAYPpk5UfXqQ/s1600/cartoon+independent.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeLTz1ZeXNxp2kqa0AMrvx_X-Fx6IEWDNFwFsdJqNAvpu3Ap8D4keXw3eNk8KangCpNXhJ8FZ2ArpVQAKC_g_e9-pbOMJYHHZ5PZXtcM8b5gi9IGtk7VrrUw-JGsNAvZHEAYPpk5UfXqQ/s320/cartoon+independent.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Independent 7th November, 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For example: there was no question as to why the existence
of the Tempora system (which taps into the transatlantic fibre-optic cables)
had been kept from the Committee; there was no question as to why GCHQ had to
monitor e-communications in Germany; and there was no question regarding the
extent of the monitoring of e-communications here in the UK. And there was most
certainly no questioning of if (oh yeah) GCHQ co-operates with the NSA to
circumvent UK law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So pretty much a waste of time but there were some points of
interest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">1. The body language of Iain Loggan (Head of GCHQ)
was that of a man under EXTREME pressure. Not a poker player methinks: he was just one mass of twitches and tics.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZZ8j7oWVBfBlYl0kiecapY1kBWkc9f17k0bqFuNMGy5sdfSDBthnzUOFaF3u9FDbc-CE00mEu7cDMF47Zq3OjBKKFRH_EQJd9R1R8ecfoxLyDXgnod4-SUo8bg1AXVW3VvCqs8X-r38/s1600/cartoon+the+times.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZZ8j7oWVBfBlYl0kiecapY1kBWkc9f17k0bqFuNMGy5sdfSDBthnzUOFaF3u9FDbc-CE00mEu7cDMF47Zq3OjBKKFRH_EQJd9R1R8ecfoxLyDXgnod4-SUo8bg1AXVW3VvCqs8X-r38/s320/cartoon+the+times.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Times 8th November 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lobban used the analogy that GCHQ’s task was
akin to finding a needle in a haystack. What he failed to mention was that to
build the haystack ALL the hay (or e-communications in normal speak) has to be
gathered. His claim that GDHQ does not spend its time listening to calls made
by the majority of the British population is simultaneous accurate but evasive.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTd4QOqEh2IEipar5guMQ3pUfFo22xDWFntplBLoRjQxfWQsAyQut1LxqwJxAebpFNyyqPx29ZpQBzDAerbxqYrDsYMqPc6ottRIMIo7QuK4n3oooNMMrBZRRLfgJMIXPguNQ6Fvikd4/s1600/cartoon+guardian.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTd4QOqEh2IEipar5guMQ3pUfFo22xDWFntplBLoRjQxfWQsAyQut1LxqwJxAebpFNyyqPx29ZpQBzDAerbxqYrDsYMqPc6ottRIMIo7QuK4n3oooNMMrBZRRLfgJMIXPguNQ6Fvikd4/s320/cartoon+guardian.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Guardian 7th November 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Andrew Parker’s admission that most of the terrorist
threats MI5 have dealt with since 7/7 in 2005 had been domestically organised
should have generated more interest from the Committee. Surely the corollary of
this is that GCHQ’s would be directing more of their resources
towards surveilling the UK and its citizens. None of the Committee seemed able to join up these dots.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can only hope the questioning during the
Close-Door sessions<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is more determined
than what was seen today otherwise we’re in big trouble.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-13031017252694486672013-11-07T02:20:00.000-08:002013-11-07T02:20:57.814-08:00RUSSELL BRAND AND ACTIVE APATHY<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">RUSSELL BRAND<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>AND ACTIVE APATHY<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I should begin with a confession: I loathe Russell Brand.
Ever since his juvenile antics on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Have I
Got News For You</i> a couple of years back I have made a point of avoiding him
and anything in which he is involved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">However, by accident, I saw his Jeremy Paxman interview and
had to admit to being impressed: he was articulate and, despite my natural
antipathy towards the man, persuasive. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those of you who missed the brouhaha
caused by Brand’s comments check out the article he wrote for The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/russell-brand-democratic-system-newsnight),
but in a nutshell what Brand is saying that the current political system in
Britain has failed, that our politicians are no longer representative of the
people, that the rich are becoming distanced from and contemptuous of the poor
and that as a protest people should no longer bother to vote.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now I haven’t voted for some considerable time and the
reason for this is simple. I look at the political parties and there’s barely a
cigarette paper’s thickness with regards policies between them. I look at the
parties and see that they are each led by men (and they’re all men) who have
the same backgrounds (public school/OxBridge) and who are bland, anodyne and
devoid of passion. I look at the parties and I see they are all enthral to the
Establishment and to big business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can’t be bothered with any of them. By many people’s
lights I have become apathetic and it took a conversation on FaceBook yesterday
to make me stand back and rationalise this apathy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All governments have to be legitimised and as best I can
make out there are three main ways this is achieved. There’s the Divine Right
or the Ordained by God tactic which seems to be making something of a comeback
lately especially in the Muslim world. There’s the Fear Strategy, which
involves terrorising a population into doing what they’re told to do. And then
there’s the Democratic Method where the government rules at the behest of the
majority of the people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What we have in Britain is democracy flavoured with fear.
Back in 1920, H.L.Mencken noted that: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence
clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them
imaginary</i>. That is still the case today. We are deprived of having a
meaningful debate about surveillance because of fear of terrorists and ‘National
Security’ concerns (now that’s a threadbare blanket used to cover a multitude
of sins!); we cannot effectively regulate the banks for fear they will transfer
their operations to another company; we cannot control tax avoidance because
those doing the avoiding have so much influence in government and our
politicians are scared of them. The upshot is that our democracy is being
distorted, skewed in favour of the rich and the powerful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We need change … fundamental change. But because the
political establishment is so entrenched causing such change is nigh-on
impossible. Which is why Brand’s idea not to vote is such a good one. It isn’t
apathy, it’s a BOYCOTT. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’d call it Active Apathy. Its aim would be to de-legitimise
the political status quo and by doing so provoke meaningful debate about
political reform.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now some of the comments I’ve read regarding Brand’s
interview and opinions have been high-on hysterical (one guy in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Independent</i> predicting fighting in
the streets) whilst others have criticised Brand for failing to come up with an
alternative to the present mess we’re in: both these are erroneous and both
smack of the Establishment circling the wagons against change. Active Apathy wouldn’t
involve violent revolution but rather stimulate a debate - an urgent and
meaningful debate - about the sort of society Britain should be and what its
priorities should be (my two-pennyworth: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scrap Trident and stop going to war for a
start). We are in the Internet Age and surely it can be used to enfranchise everybody
… and meaningful debate will provoke everybody into wanting to be enfranchised.
We don’t need to know the answer to ‘what next’: that would evolve from the debate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sounds good to me. I endorse Active Apathy!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-2879825248445232702013-11-06T05:09:00.003-08:002013-11-10T23:56:43.975-08:00INVENT-10N: MAYBE ANGELA MERKEL SHOULD TAKE UP POKER<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">SURVEILLANCE: AGELA
MERKEL DOESN’T PLAY POKER<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">John Rhys-Davies (who played Gimli in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lord of the Rings</i> trilogy) once opined that:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">‘Spying is like chess: sometimes you have to withdraw,
sometimes you have to sacrifice one of your pieces to win – preferably a knight
rather than a king or a queen.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Unfortunately Rhys-Davies was wrong on two counts.
The first is mechanistic: you can’t sacrifice your king in chess. But the
second is more philosophical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When you sit down to play chess you can see ALL the pieces – those
belonging to yourself <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> those
controlled by your opponent – and, moreover, you both know the rules governing
the playing of the game. This was not the case in the topsy-turvy world of espionage.
Here each side does its damnedest to hide its pieces from the opposition and
the breaking of rules was not only expected but positively encouraged. Further,
in espionage there is never only one opponent: a nation’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>enemies are numerous and even those who evince
friendship might, if push comes to shove, reveal themselves as in league with
the bad guys.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Espionage is a game of bluff and counter-bluff.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thus espionage is more akin to poker than to chess with every
player desperately trying to keep his opponents from having a peek at the cards
he or she is holding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Of course, as in real-life<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>poker, everyone is trying to get an advantage (fair or otherwise) and
religiously searches their opponents for ‘tells’,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the signals regarding the strength </span>or
weakness of a player’s hand that are sent by the player’s body language or by
changes to their physiological condition. How a player holds himself, how he
stacks and plays with his chips, the way his hands move, his facial expressions
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>all these and many, many others can give clues
as to the player’s state of mind and what their intention is vis à vis their
hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I suspect that the reason why in the last twenty
years we’ve seen such a blanding out of our politicians (in Britain,
post-Thatcher, all the leaders of our political parties have been youngish,
white, sport a full head of hair but no beards or moustaches, have an athletic
frame, are neatly if conservatively dressed, have a family life of yawning
conventionality and speak in a neutered, indeterminate accent. Only one
deviated from that template, Brown, and look what happened to him!). The reason
isn’t wholly to do with this being the ‘image’ of a leader opinion polls tell
the party gurus will best secure victory in an election but also because it is
indicative of a person who is willing to sublimate his personality to the political
process <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>… a person who can maintain an impassive
poker face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But there is another aspect of poker playing which
has a wider relevance to the espionage world-at-large: card counting. Card
counters in poker keep a mental record of all the<span lang="EN" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> high and low valued cards played and
this allows them to assess the probability of a high or low value card being
played next (for anyone interested I recommend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bringing Down the House</i> by Ben Mezrich). </span><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Surveillance is card counting writ large, the means
by which espionage agencies seek to tip the cards in their favour. The problem
is that to do this surveillance must be directed at ALL the players, friendly
and unfriendly alike, because their actions are intertwined and what one player
does influences what other players do and so on. Thus it is no surprise that
America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ have been eavesdropping on the German
government. Germany is a powerful nation and what it does has major international
political and economic repercussions, therefore for Angela Merkel to say
(following the disclosure that the NSA had accessed her ‘phone records) ‘Spying
on friends is not on at all’ is breathtakingly naïve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For her to say she didn’t know what was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>going on is pure bullshit. Back in 1998 the
European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee commissioned a report which
advised ‘The European Parliament should reject proposals from the United States
for making private messages via the global communications network assessable to
US intelligence agencies’. The report urged the NSA’s activities in Europe be
scaled back or be made more transparent. They did neither, so for Merkel to
pronounce ignorance is hokum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The report also castigated Britain’s involvement in
this snooping. Just as NSA and GCHQ have circumvented domestic controls by
indulging in reciprocal surveillance in order that they can monitor (all?) their
country’s citizens (‘Hi there GCHQ!) so they have done the same thing in
Germany (and Spain and Italy …).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Methinks that Merkel’s outrage wasn’t triggered by moral
indignation but rather by the thought that she wasn’t one of the Watchers but
one of the Watched.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Welcome to the club, Angela. Maybe you should take up
poker?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-19056274091337199592013-11-05T02:23:00.000-08:002013-11-05T02:23:15.904-08:00INVENT-10N: THE 7 TRUISMS OF SURVEILLANCE
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion"; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 150%;">SURVEILLANCE
IN BRITAIN: THE 7 TRUISMS<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In researching my
book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> it quickly became
apparent that it wasn’t the surveillance side of State intervention in our
lives – the employing of cameras and digital-communication intercepts to
collect data about us – that we should be worried about but the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">use</i> that is made of that data. And this,
in turn, led me to the belief that there are now seven truisms regarding the
surveillance-pervasive Britain of 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Truism 1: We’re being watched.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Although statistics
on the subject are difficult to pin down, the consensus seems to be that, by
some margin, the British are the most watched people on the planet, with there
being one CCTV camera for every fourteen of us (a conservative estimate, by the
way). Now that’s an awful lot of surveillance and as none of these cameras are
regulated, there is no information regarding the data they collect, for how
long it’s held or who has access to it. The reality is that no matter where we
are, we’re being watched.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What this also
signals is how obsess the British authorities (be they police, security
services or local councils) are with CCTV surveillance: they have become the
most avaricious voyeurs in history. The British authorities like to watch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Truism 2: Our e-communications are being
monitored.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What commentators
seem to have missed in the brouhaha following Edward Snowden’s revelations
regarding GCHQ’s Tempora system – the hacking into the transatlantic
fibre-optic cables by the British security services – was that Tempora is only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one</i> of the programs our spooks are
developing to better access, store and analyse our e-communications. It seems
to me naïve in the extreme to imagine that they – through some newly-discovered
sense of fair-play and restraint – have been able to resist the temptation to
create programs which are equally effective in tracking the calls you make on
your cell-phone, in reading the e-mails you send and receive and in monitoring the
social media comments you post. The assumption must be that all our
e-communications have been (or soon will be) compromised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The British
authorities don’t just like to watch, they like to listen too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Truism 3: Soon GCHQ will know us better
than we know ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The aim of
information gathering is prediction, to be able to identify the bad guys and to
interdict them – Minority Report-style – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">before</i>
they create trouble. The only way to be able to do this is to have access to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i> personal data relating to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everybody</i> in the UK and to be able to
manipulate it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This nexus point –
the time when the security services have the ability to collect, store, collate
and analyse the tsunami of e-data produced on a daily basis – is fast
approaching. The ever tumbling cost of data warehousing makes it financially
and technically feasible to store the mass of information hoovered up daily by
the plethora of cameras and e-survillance gizmos which GCHQ operates or to
which it has access. This has been shadowed by the development of ever more
sophisticated algorithms, the enormously complex decision trees used to solve
breath-takingly difficult problems by breaking these problems down into a long
string of binary choices. They operate much like the neurons powering our brain
which is a good analogy given that they have become so damned sophisticated
that they can now imitate thought processes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Infinitely large
data storage coupled with the use of unfeasibly powerful algorithms means that
soon (a couple of years?) our security services will have a real-time 360⁰
portrait of each and every one of us. They will know what we did, who we
interacted with, what we said, what we wrote: in short, they will know
everything. All of these data will be poured over looking for patterns that
might suggest we’re thinking of doing something of which the government doesn’t
approve. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion"; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 150%;">Truism 4: There’s nothing we can do to
prevent the spread of surveillance.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scott McNealy’s
famous maxim ‘Privacy is dead; get over it’ becomes more pertinent by the day.
The demands from the liberal press that ‘something must be done’ to curb the inclination
of the security services to dig and delve into our lives are, ultimately,
futile. Knowledge is power and politicians (the putative masters of the
security services) are in the business of acquiring and wielding power. The
upshot is that any ‘controls’ imposed will have only a temporary effect: as
soon as the next 9/11 comes along that great get-out-of-jail-free card
‘National Security’ will be played and off we’ll go again. We will NEVER be able
to put the surveillance genie back in the lamp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The recent
revelation that the Foreign Office is withholding over one million files which
should have been made public under the Public Records Act demonstrates the
arrogance of the powers-that-be when it comes to complying with the law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion"; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 150%;">Truism 5: It isn’t surveillance that is
the problem, it’s the use made of the information collected by surveillance.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Okay, so trying to
limit or curtail surveillance is a fatuous endeavour and one which is destined
to fail. The problem is that the availability of this surveillance-collected information
puts democracy at risk. This is what I call the ‘J. Edgar Hoover Syndrome’,
where the power derived from having access to so much (often very sensitive)
information has a corrupting effect on those accessing it. In an
information-driven society it will be oh-so-easy to follow the declension that
reads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion";">Yesterday
the Government was serving you ...…<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion";">Today
the Government is surveilling you ...<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion";">Tomorrow
the Government will be controlling you.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As Paul Valéry
said, ‘politics is the art of preventing people taking part in affairs which
properly concern them’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Truism 6: Forget about controlling
surveillance, control the fruits of that surveillance.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So what is to be
done? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are told constantly that GCHQ’s
surveillance systems are necessary to protect the British people from terrorists
and others who wish to do us harm. The danger is, of course, that this purpose
becomes blurred and that surveillance becomes a means of control and of social
engineering. The total automation of surveillance will protect us from this
sort of function creep.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We must remember
that it is not the computers that threaten our freedoms, but the use made of
that computer-harvested information by their human masters. Therefore, to
protect ourselves, we must take the human element out of the surveillance matrix:
we must use the computer to protect us from ourselves. The danger of
surveillance is that the information it gathers can be used by an
authoritarian-minded regime to subvert/subjugate a population. So it would be better,
in my opinion, not only to automate the collection and storage of surveillance
derived information – which is, broadly, where we are today – but also its
analysis. The computers that drive the algorithms analysing this data must be
divorced from the direction of the security services: the hunt for the bad guys
must be made totally automatic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not as far-fetched
as it might sound. Algorithms can be written which screen all the information
collected by surveillance looking for connections and trends and then the
system would act – automatically and independently of human intervention – to
thwart any identified threats. Any attempt to use the information for a purpose
other than protection of the British people from a terrorist threat would be
rejected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The J.Edgar Hoover
Syndrome would be cured simply by ensuring that any would-be J.Edgars would be
refused access to the information collected by surveillance by the computers
controlling it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Underwood Champion"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Truism 7: Only when the human element is
taken out of surveillance will we be safe from surveillance.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Back in 1977 Lord Denning upheld
the deportation of Mark Hosenball who disclosed the existence of GCHQ – then a
state secret, saying:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">‘There is a conflict here between
the interests of national security on the one hand and the freedom of the
individual on the other. The balance between these two is not for a court of
law. It is for the Home Secretary. He is the person entrusted by Parliament
with the task. In some parts of the world national security has on occasions
been used as an excuse for all sorts of infringements of individual liberty.
But not in England.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We need to change things such that
Denning’s assertion is as valid today as it was forty-six years ago.<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-49630390737922896842013-10-22T02:59:00.001-07:002013-10-22T03:12:17.068-07:00'RUSH': A REVIEW<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">RUSH: A GREAT MOVIE (AND NOT JUST FOR PETROLHEADS!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All film plots are premised on duality – the struggle of
good against evil, hope against despair, and honour against duplicity – and I
have trouble thinking of a film where this is more starkly portrayed than in ‘Rush’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rush tells the story of the epic confrontation between the
brash, hedonistic and passionate James Hunt and the sober, calculating and
oh-so-disciplined Nikki Lauda when the two vied to win the Formula One
championship in 1976. That this is a film based on real-life events makes the
contrast between the two lead characters all the more vivid and all the more
fascinating. And ‘vivid’ and ‘fascinating’ are exactly the two adjectives needed
to describe ‘Rush’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Director Ron Howard (with the assistance some great
cinematography, tremendous editing and a terrific soundtrack) has managed to
capture the visceral quality of F1 in the ‘70s and to convey just how dangerous
it really was. The final race scene – at a waterlogged Japanese Grand Prix – is
a masterpiece both technically and emotionally: it is one of the few movies
where I actually felt I was part of the action. Vivid indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it’s often the case in today’s movies that strong visuals
are often accompanied by a flaccid script and one-dimensional characters. This
is not the case with ‘Rush’. The central performances – Chris Hemsworth as Hunt
and Daniel Brühl as Lauda – were excellent, both actors managing to nuance
their characters to suggest depth and doubt. The development of their relationship
as it segued from intense dislike to grudging respect is what makes the movie
such a fascinating watch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Criticisms are minor. I thought Lauda’s repetition of the
morbid statistic that every time he raced he had a 20% chance of dying was
larding the danger on a little (apart from being mathematically inaccurate) and
perhaps the final scene was a tad schmaltzy but other than that … nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A great movie and one that I would highly recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rod:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>8/10<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nelli:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>9/10<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-66168481692671711732013-10-19T02:35:00.002-07:002013-10-19T02:36:06.049-07:00FAVOURITE 100 FILMS<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ROD’S FAVOURITE MOVIES<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">These are
the movies which, if they come up on TV, I will make time to watch (even though I’ve seen
most of them dozens of times!)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Top Ten Movies in order are:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some Like it Hot (perfection!)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">High Noon (perfection!)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dr Strangelove (perfection, strange how
often Peter Sellers and Kubrick are on my list)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Top Hat (perfection)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hostile Hostages (aka The Ref) – the most
under-appreciated comedy of all time!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Fracture – the most under-appreciated
how-did-he-do-it of all time!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Commitments <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Clockwork Orange<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">9.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Bruges<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Lady Killers<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Rest, in no particular order:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Illusionist <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kiss Kiss Bang Bang<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">13.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Babe<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">14.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Chorus<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">15.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Croupier<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">16.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kick-Ass<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">17.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12 Angry Men<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">18.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Apartment<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">19.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Long Riders<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">20.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Prestige<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">21.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Spinal Tap<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">22.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Full Metal Jacket<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">23.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seven Samurai<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">24.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">High Fidelity<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">25.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Grosse Point Blank<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">26.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Incredibles<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">27.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cabaret<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">28.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Good Morning Vietnam<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">29.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lavender Hill Mob<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">30.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Italian Job (Original)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">31.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Truman Show<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">32.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">True Romance<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">33.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Das Boot<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">34.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Groundhog Day<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">35.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Blues Brothers<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">36.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All That Jazz<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">37.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Singing In The Rain<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">38.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Leon<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">39.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jurassic Park<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">40.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Get Carter (the original)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">41.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Life of Brian<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">42.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Big<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">43.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Toy Story<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">44.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tootsie<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">45.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Unforgiven<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">46.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">French Connection<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">47.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Amadeus<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">48.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Sting<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">49.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Withnail and I<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">50.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">American Werewolf<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">51.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Grifters<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">52.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ferris Bueller’s Day Off<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">53.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Graduate<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">54.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Close Encounters of the Third Kind<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">55.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kind Hearts and Coronets<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">56.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Matrix<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">57.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Blade Runner<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">58.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Shawshank Redemption<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">59.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">An American in Paris<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">60.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Shall We Dance?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">61.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It Came from Beneath the Sea<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">62.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">King Kong (original)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">63.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Angel-A<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">64.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nikita (Luc Besson version)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">65.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thomas Crown Affair (original)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">66.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> Voyage of Sinbad<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">67.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scott Pilgrim (well someone’s got to like
it!)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">68.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sucker Punch (well, someone’s got to like
it)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">69.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the Loop<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">70.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Man on Fire<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">71.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Déjà vu<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">72.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Man for All Seasons<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">73.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Minority Report<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">74.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Spartacus<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">75.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Vikings<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">76.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Emmanuelle<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">77.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Straw Dogs (original, not the terrible,
terrible re-make)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">78.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Room at the Top<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">79.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Gunfight at the OK Corral<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">80.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She Wore a Yellow Ribbon<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">81.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Airplane!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">82.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Shining<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">83.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Enter the Dragon<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">84.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cool Hand Luke<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">85.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Dirty Dozen<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">86.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Pink Panther<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">87.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">True Grit (1969)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">88.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">True Grit (2010)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">89.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Point Blank (1967)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">90.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Payback (someone’s got to like it!)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">91.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Borat<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">92.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Back to the Future<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">93.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m Alright, Jack<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">94.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Sixth Sense<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">95.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Fish Called Wanda<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">96.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Heat<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">97.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Shrek<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">98.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Remains of the Day<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">99.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Casablanca<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 54pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And finally, 100: The Color of Money<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-23495842520179634722013-10-17T05:02:00.000-07:002013-10-17T05:02:50.438-07:00INVENT-10N: THE INVERSE-FLYNN EFFECT
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">INVENT-10N: DUMB AND DUMBER OR THE REVERSE-FLYNN EFFECT<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of my protagonists in Invent-10n, Anna Nitko, is of the
opinion that the citizens of the Western world are less intelligent than their
forebears. The reason she cites for this diminution in intelligence is the
triviality of much of the Net’s content causing a general erosion in the
cognitive abilities of humankind, this signalled by a reduction in attention
span and the facility for deductive reasoning. According to Anna, netizens –
denizens of the Internet – have evolved a butterfly mentality, flitting from
idea to idea, only able to think of the here and now and not of the future.
According to her the Net hasn’t sponsored the emergence of what Pierre Levy
called ‘a collective intelligence’ – the development of a well-informed world
of netizens – but rather a ‘collective stupidity’ where people are driven to
believe nonsense by the pressure exerted by social e-networks. They had come to
fulfil Galton’s prediction that humanity would regress towards mediocrity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Further, Anna contends that without the constant – but demanding
– striving of humankind to improve itself intellectually the process of discovery
had stalled and with it the development of the new technologies and ideas which
fuel productivity growth. Her proposition is that this IQ-regression is the
real cause of Solow’s productivity paradox (the observation made by US
economist Robert Solow that the computer can be seen everywhere but in the
productivity statistics, this intimating that the Digital Revolution had failed
to provide the positive impact on economic growth and productivity experts had
expected). Her proposition was that the so-called Flynn Effect – the long-term
improvement in humanity’s IQ – had gone into reverse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Pure fiction, of course, and I have to admit that I wrote it
somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Sure I was aghast by how ill-informed my daughters’
generation was but this I put down to the rotten state of British schools.
Then, early in October, the OECD released its report on adult literacy,
numeracy and problem-solving skills where English 16-24 year-olds performed so
abysmally (ranked 22<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">nd</span></sup> out of the 24 countries tested).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Consider first that FOR THE FIRST TIME the 16-24 year-old
cohort performed worse than the 55-64 year-old cohort (the younger generation
had ALWAYS out-performed the old). Consider second that the 16-24 year-old
group is the most e-savvy and the most e-obsessed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Could these two be linked? There has been some speculation
that the Flynn Effect was running out of steam but I never thought it would have
this sort of impact or have it so quickly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe Anna Nitko was right!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-59288694093770504952013-10-12T07:16:00.000-07:002013-10-17T05:03:35.753-07:00INVENT-10N: THOSE PESKY ALGORITHMS<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">THOSE PESKY ALGORITHMS<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In researching my book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> it quickly became apparent
that it wasn’t the surveillance side of State intervention in our lives – the
use of cameras and digital-communication intercepts to collect data about us – that
we should be worried about but the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">use</i>
that is made of that data. And here we enter the decidedly creepy world of the
algorithm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I guess (and it is just a guess)
most people if they think about surveillance at all see the spread of CCTV
cameras and the like as really quite benign, that someone is looking out for
them. This is reflected in the slogan used by the fictional National Protection
Agency in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i>: ‘watching out
for the good guys by watching out for the bad guys’, my idea being that they
would sneakily emphasise the ‘watching’ aspect of surveillance. But that’s not
the most important aspect … that’s the ‘collecting, storage and analysis’ part
… especially the ‘ana<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">l</b>ysis’ bit and
this is where algorithms come in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Algorithms are basically enormously
complex decision trees which can be used to solve breath-takingly difficult
problems by breaking down these problems into a long string of binary choices.
They operate much like the neurons powering our brain which is a good analogy
given that they have become so damned sophisticated that they can now imitate
thought processes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Algorithms have been with us a
while now, their use being especially prevalent in the world of banking and
finance where their ability to grunt in real-time through an amazing amount of
data makes them par excellent in discerning trends and making correct buy/sell
decisions. In the US the ‘high-frequency trading’ firms utilising algorithms
account for at least half of equity trading volume, but it isn’t just in
finance where they’re making their presence felt. They’re being increasingly
used as diagnostic helpmates in medicine, in the interview process (remember
that funny on-line test your company made you take?), in traffic management, in
the optimising of the deliveries Tesco et al make to their supermarkets and in
the area of law-enforcement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This latter area I find
particularly interesting as it gives (I believe) an indication of the shape of
things to come. In a terrific article (‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Penal
Code</i>’ New Scientist, 7<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> September, 2013) Katia Moskvitch opines
that automated, algorithmic-directed policing ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could lead to a world akin of Kaka’s novel The Trial, in which a man
stands accused but has no opportunity to defend himself</i>’. But in my view
it’s even worse than Ms Moskvitch envisages. My belief is we’re entering a
world to that envisaged by Philip K. Dick in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Minority Report</i>, a world beset by predictive law-enforcement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prediction is the pot of gold at
the end of the surveillance rainbow, but to accurately predict human actions
surveillance systems have to be pan-surveillance: they have to know everything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am always amazed by the
disingenuous way politicians talk about surveillance systems being so very
selective about the information they collect, looking so very aghast when
there’s any suggestion that they might be trawling up stuff which isn’t related
to terrorism or evil-doing (the prime example of this is the denial made by Sir
Andrew Parker, Head of MI5 see http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/08/gchq-surveillance-new-mi5-chief).
This, of course, is a crock. The whole point of data-mining is to make
connections – to identify seemingly unimportant behavioural relationships
between two or more variables and the only way to do this is for the computer
driving the algorithm to have access to ALL the data. Which is why algorithms
(and the computers that platform them) have such a voracious appetite for trivial
information (and why the surveillance systems just keep on growing).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And grow they have. Surveillance
captures simply HUGE amounts of data, and security agencies are spending a
fortune to construct computer facilities that can handle it. The Utah Data
Center built for the National Security Agency in the US has been dubbed ‘the
second Manhattan Project’ which gives some idea as to both its importance and
its cost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now why, you might ask, are the NSA
– along with Britain’s GCHQ, Russia’s FSB, China’s MSS and other security
agencies around the world – going to all this trouble and expense to process,
store<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and analyse the chaff of human
existence and the answer comes in their ambition to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">predict</i> our actions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Security services aren’t interested
in what people did (that’s history and the reactive stuff they leave to the
police) but in what people <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i> be
doing as that offers a chance of interdicting the bad guys before they get
dangerous. A la <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Gottfried </span>Leibniz,
those designing and operating the computers that run the security-orientated data-mining
systems and the algorithms that direct them believe that how human beings act can
be predicted by the forensic examination of the minutiae of our lives. By
knowing (and analysing) a person’s DNA, the details of their upbringing, what they
say, what they read and listen to, how they think, who they talk with … all
this makes easy to predict what exactly they’ll be up to in the future … and
how those they interact with will act. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have to admit that I found it
difficult to get my head around a machine predicting what I would do in any
given circumstance having always believed that human actions, being so
whimsical and emotion-driven, were impossible to predict. But non-linear or not,
given enough data (hence the growth of the surveillance culture) it can be
done. And don’t think this is something for the future. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
uses algorithmic analysis combined with game theory as a template to predict political
events (the development/non-development of the Iranian H-bomb is the one most
usually cited) and, apparently, he’s been so successful he now advises the US
government on international policy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There’s a great line in Ian Ayres’
book ‘Super Crunchers’ (highly recommended, a fascinating read) where he says ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We may have free will, but data mining can
let business emulate a kind of aggregate omniscience</i>’. I would only add
that for ‘business’ we should now read ‘security services’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As Jenni-Fur says in Invent-10n: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then all of us will be reduced
to remote-controlled puppets, and there will be no chance of being able to zig
when they say zag, or to beep when they say bop. Post-Patriot we will not be
able to think, to act, to speak or to move without the spirit-sapping
realisation that the ChumBots know everything’</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-2342069066699476982013-10-12T06:54:00.001-07:002013-10-12T06:56:26.475-07:00INVENT-10N: A FUNNY OLD WEEK FOR THE SURVEILLANCE DEBATE IN THE UK<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Funny old week for the surveillance debate in the UK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sir Andrew Parker, the new Head of MI5, gave his first
public speech and used it to rail against the nerve <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i> newspaper had to release details contained in the US
intelligence files pinched by whistleblower Edward Snowden.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The nub of what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Guardian</i> revealed was that GCHQ (the UK’s surveillance centre) was
operating a system known as Tempora, a secret electronic surveillance program accessing
data carried on transatlantic fibre-optic cables. Apparently the data collected
is immense (21 petabytes a day) this being stored for three days (though
related metadata is stored for thirty days). According to Snowden Tempora had
made the UK into a ‘surveillance superpower’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now when I read this I can’t say I was particularly
surprised. To my mind it is obvious that as computers become more powerful,
e-storage becomes cheaper and cheaper and the algorithms manipulating said data
increasingly sophisticated that security services would become more-and-more addicted
to the acquisition, warehousing and analysis of the information flying around
the e-universe. And this would be especially the case in the UK: you have only
to look at how enthusiastically Britain has embraced the CCTV camera (there’s
one for every 14 people!) to see that ours is an e-surveillance paradise. We
love being watched!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which makes it all the more amusing when the week began with
Chris Huhne, the disgraced former Liberal-Democrat MP, claiming that during his
time in cabinet he was told nothing about GCHQ’s Tempora or the NSA’s PRISM or
about their ‘extraordinary capability to vacuum up and store personal emails,
voice contact, social network activity and even internet searches’. And worse, the
National Security Council (attended by ministers and the heads of the security
services and GCHQ) of which Huhne was a member was never briefed regarding
Tempora. The answer to the question ‘who watches the watchers’ is ‘not Chris
Huhne’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, back to Sir Andrew Parker. One of the points he made
in his speech was that, ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We only apply
intrusive tools and capabilities against terrorists and others threatening
national security. The law requires we only collect and access information that
we really need to perform our functions, in this case tackling the threat of
terrorism</i>’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The weasel-words here are ‘only apply intrusive tools’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sir Andrew went on: ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In
some quarters there seems to be a vague notion that we monitor everyone and all
their communications, browsing at will through people’s private lives for anything
that looks interesting</i>’. This is, he added ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">utter nonsense</i>’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So while GCHQ doesn’t monitor and apply intrusive tools to everyone’s
communication there is no denial that they COLLECT such data and run it through
their algorithms checking for any correlations with known badniks. And to make
such correlations GCHQ has to collect (or have access to) ALL the data and that
includes the data held by the banks (including that relating to debit/credit
card transactions), Inland Revenue files, CCTV cameras, medical records (if the
DoH can ever get the thing to work!) etc. etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So I think it’s a fair assumption to make that:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1)</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">GCHQ e-intelligence gathering goes far beyond
Tempora;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2)</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">GCHQ will continue to develop its e-intelligence
gathering capability;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3)</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There ain’t nothing we can do to stop this
happening, MI5 having that wonderful get-out of jail-free card called ‘national
security interests’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 18pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now the big threat of this isn’t,
as The Guardian and others fret about, the erosion of civil liberties and of
privacy, those are abandoned every time you sign up to FaceBook or begin
Tweeting. No, the real threat is that governments and the digerati (the people
with access to the information held by GCHQ) will use it to begin manipulating
the people of Britain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 18pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As Jenni-Fur says in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">YESTERDAY THEY WERE
SERVING YOU …<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 72pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TODAY
THEY’RE WATCHING YOU …<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 180pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TOMORROW THEY’LL BE
CONTROLLING YOU!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-34458474912191496632013-10-11T10:35:00.001-07:002013-10-11T10:35:35.241-07:00INVENT-10N: LIFE IMITATES FICTION 1
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">GREAT MINDS AND ALL THAT …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I was first developing the surveillance-heavy
world of 2030 that Jenni-Fur, my lead protagonist in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i>, would be living in I spent a while musing on the
various youth tribes that might be populate the Britain of seventeen years
hence. And one of them was the Slappers, made up of those who were resolutely
anti-surveillance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9KT5Wh82JHG9tAOe5sos8Cb71A-U2cO1XciYCf6E5EjpevrwxR0G5s2evNUpuuFf_qVPujlrumnsXa-JwlBF7ypx7Lcw8LqqCgHsh67Ccn9Jn4O-Iiq7Y6YmRmpxnCJT36LveHMqrAto/s1600/Slappers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9KT5Wh82JHG9tAOe5sos8Cb71A-U2cO1XciYCf6E5EjpevrwxR0G5s2evNUpuuFf_qVPujlrumnsXa-JwlBF7ypx7Lcw8LqqCgHsh67Ccn9Jn4O-Iiq7Y6YmRmpxnCJT36LveHMqrAto/s320/Slappers.jpg" width="187" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SLAPPERS</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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style='position:absolute;margin-left:3.25pt;margin-top:121.05pt;width:106.8pt;
height:182.6pt;z-index:251660288;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square;
mso-wrap-distance-left:9pt;mso-wrap-distance-top:0;mso-wrap-distance-right:9pt;
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o:title=""/>
<w:wrap type="square" anchorx="margin" anchory="margin"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> S<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">lappers are a disaffected and generally pretty inarticulate bunch,
vehemently against PanOptika (the all-embracing surveillance system of the 2030
British government), Tête-à-Tête (don’t ask) and an ordered society. In order
to frustrate PanOptika’s facial-recognition ability they favour wide-brimmed
hats (to cover the face), unfurled umbrellas (even when it isn’t raining),
ankle-length deconstructed plastic raincoats, hoodies by Dead in the Water and
(of course) wobblers, shoes with a-symmetric heels which change the way a
person walks and thus thwart Gait-ID systems. The picture above is how
Nigel Robinson, the guy who did the design work on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i>, pictured my Slappers (and remember he drew this back in 2009!).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, I did this tongue-in
cheek, never suspecting that the real world would catch up with my fictional
whimsy so quickly. So when I was trawling the web looking for magazines which
might review <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> I was amazed
when I stumbled over this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.75pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #3399cc; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 9pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_i1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="Stealth Wear: Countersurveillance 2013"
href="http://ahprojects.com/wp-content/uploads/look-book-contact.jpg" title=""Stealth Wear: Countersurveillance 2013""
style='width:205.5pt;height:153pt;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square'
o:button="t">
<v:fill o:detectmouseclick="t"/>
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\rod\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image003.jpg"
o:title=" Countersurveillance 2013"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><span style="mso-ignore: vglayout;"><a href="http://www.primitivelondon.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/stealth-wear-burqa2-multi1.jpg" title="stealth-wear-burqa2-multi"><img alt="stealth-wear-burqa2-multi" class="attachment-medium" height="160" src="http://www.primitivelondon.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/stealth-wear-burqa2-multi1-640x320.jpg" title="stealth-wear-burqa2-multi" width="320" /></a></span><!--[endif]--></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.75pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Presented by Primitive at Tank Magazine these are a series of
‘Anti-Drone’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stealth Wear</i> outfits by
Adam Harvey (produced in collaboration with NYC designer Johanna Bloomfield)
intended to thwart surveillance cameras. My Slappers would have LOVED them. The
interesting thing for me was that these designs build on previous work by Adam
Harvey – he calls it CV Dazzle – which is face camouflage aimed at negating
face recognition. Now <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> I never
thought of!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 9.75pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="Picture_x0020_3" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="http://cvdazzle.com/assets/images/comparison_lg.jpg"
style='width:210pt;height:210pt;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square'>
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\rod\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image005.jpg"
o:title="comparison_lg"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><a data-ved="0CAgQjRwwAA" href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=qMRZNCiALR31bM&tbnid=6rJgCmPeOG3QCM:&ved=0CAgQjRwwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcvdazzle.com%2F&ei=tzVYUtKFBoeN0AX7yoDAAQ&psig=AFQjCNEWAPHdG5Z_QFzXraBc-vRAjt7nqA&ust=1381599031168080" id="irc_mil" style="border: 0px currentColor;"><img height="320" id="irc_mi" src="http://cvdazzle.com/assets/images/comparison_lg.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="320" /></a><!--[endif]--></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think if <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> ever goes into a reprint I’ll ask Mr Harvey if I can
feature his CV Dazzle. My Slappers wearing CV Dazzle warpaint would be terrific.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-43477938546353486472013-10-09T01:27:00.000-07:002013-10-09T01:35:27.997-07:00INVENT-10N NEWSRUSH<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m putting together
the material that will go on the Invent-10n website and one idea was to do a
news feed for the events in the six months leading up to the opening scene in
the book (Jenni-Fur beginning the typing of her journal). It turned out to be a
lot more difficult (and a lot more depressing) than I’d envisaged.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">DigmStore e-News<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">NewsRush<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 SEPTEMBER 2029
09:18: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR AUGUST 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 103 MM <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 SEPTEMBER 2029 12:54:
STATISTICS RELEASED BY NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY NAME SCARBOROUGH ‘CRIME
CAPITAL OF BRITAIN’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 SEPTEMBER 2029
16:27: CRUDE OIL TOPS $425 PER BARREL +++ PRICE OF GAS TO RISE 30% ‘WITH
IMMEDIATE EFFECT’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">09 SEPTEMBER 2029
07:57:</b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ANDREI LAZAREV HEAD OF RUSSIA’S MINISTERSTVO ENERGETIKI
DENIES PRICE FIXING COLLUSION WITH OTHER OPEC STATES +++ RISE IN CRUDE PRICE ‘WHOLLY
A CONSEQUENCE OF DESTRUCTION OF MIDDLE EAST OIL FIELDS IN ONE-DAY WAR’</span> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">09 SEPTEMBER 2029
15:47: PRIME MINISTER TELLS COMMONS ‘GEES RESPONSIBLE FOR ALMOST THREE-QUARTERS
OF ALL RECORDED CRIME IN THE UK’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10 SEPTEMBER 2029 09:28:
WILLIAM MORRISON HEAD OF NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY URGES ‘COMPULSORY USE OF
TETE-A-TETE IMPLANTS AND REPATRIATION OF GEES’ AS SOLUTION TO THE SURGE IN UK
CRIME<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10 SEPTEMBER 2029
11:07: AA REPORTS THAT NUMBER OF CAR JOURNEYS AT A FIVE-YEAR LOW +++ ‘OUTRAGEOUS’
COST OF PETROL BLAMED <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11 SEPTEMBER 2029
13:07: FOUR MEN ARRESTED FOR ‘GEE-BASHING RAMPAGE’ IN BLACKPOOL IN WHICH TWO
GEE TEENAGERS KILLED<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11 SEPTEMBER 2029
15:12: HENRY TOWNSEND LEADER OF REVISEDLABOUR PARTY CRITICISES PRIME MINISTER
FOR HIS ‘CALLOUS, INHUMANE AND RACIST’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS GEES<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11 SEPTEMBER 2029
15:36: PRIME MINISTER PETER ASHE BLAMES REVISEDLABOUR FOR PERMITTING ENTRY OF 5
MILLION REFUGEES FROM GREATER RUSSIA +++ ‘IT IS THE IRRESPONSIBLE AND IMBECILIC
POLICIES OF THE PREVIOUS REVISEDLABOUR GOVERNMENT WHICH HAS CREATED THESE GEE-RIDDLED
HAVENS OF CRIME AND VICIOUSNESS KNOWN AS THE GEEBURGS … AND IMPOVERISHED THE
COUNTRY IN THE PROCESS’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12 SEPTEMBER 10:21:
RED CROSS WARNS THAT 5 MILLION PENSIONERS AT RISK OF DYING THRU HYPOTHERMIA THIS
WINTER AS A RESULT OF ‘OUT-OF-CONTROL’ ENERGY PRICES PREVENTING THEM HEATING
THEIR HOMES<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">13 SEPTEMBER 2029 17:34:
JENNI-FUR AND THE JOY POPPERS NAMED ‘NUBOP BAND OF THE YEAR’ IN OFF-BEAT
E-MAGAZINE POLL +++ JENNI-FUR THANKS ‘CATS AND KITTENS WHO VOTED’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">15 SEPTEMBER 2029 12:45:
CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER SAMUEL TURNER ANNOUNCES THAT WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT
STERLING WILL NO LONGER BE FREELY CONVERTIBLE *** SUCH ACTION ‘VITAL TO AVOID
MELT-DOWN OF UK ECONOMY’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">17 SEPTEMBER 2029
13:09: FOOD RIOTS IN BIRMINGHAM +++ FIFTY INJURED AND TWO REPORTED DEAD<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">17 SEPTEMBER 2029
18:03: NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY TO ASSUME CONTROL OF BRITISH GEEBURGS –
SCARBOROUGH, BLACKPOOL, CLACTON, CLEETHORPES AND SOUTHEND – IN ORDER TO
MAINTAIN ORDER AND ‘TO MINIMISE INTER-RACIAL AND INTER-RELIGIOUS CONFLICT’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">18 SEPTEMBER 2029 09:27:
BRITREAD OPINION POLL SHOWS 78% OF BRITISH VOTERS SUPPORT COMPULSORY REPATRIATION
OF GEES BACK TO RUSSIA<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">20 SEPTEMBER 2029 18:37:
SLAPPERS/UNITE CONDEMNS PLANS TO EXTEND USE OF TETE-A-TETE IMPLANT AS ‘UNDEMOCRATIC’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">23 SEPTEMBER 2029
23:39: SLAPPERS/UNITE LEADER CARL RUTHERFORD ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF ‘FERMENTING
UNREST’ AND ‘SEDITIOUS ACTIVITIES AGAINST UK GOVERNMENT’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">27 SEPTEMBER 2029
12:12: ‘BLACKPOOL FOUR’ RELEASED WITHOUT CHARGE +++ GEE LEADERS EXPRESS OUTRAGE
AT ‘MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">27 SEPTEMBER 2029
14:45: LEADER OF BRITISH NATIONALIST PARTY, EDMUND SMALL, ADVISES THOSE GEES
WHO DON’T LIKE BRITISH JUSTICE TO ‘GO BACK WHERE THEY CAME FROM’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">01 OCTOBER 2029 18:57:
TRAFALGAR SQUARE DEMONSTRATION IN PROTEST AGAINST RELEASE OF ‘BLACKPOOL FOUR’ DECLARED
ILLEGAL +++ THREE HUNDRED ARRESTS MADE<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">02 OCTOBER 2029
19:42: CHINESE AND RUSSIAN TROOPS ARE IN A STAND-OFF IN THE ARCTIC AS BOTH
COUNTRIES JOSTLE FOR OWNERSHIP OF MINERAL RIGHTS <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">03 OCTOBER 2029
07:13: INDIAN PRIME MINISTER VIKRAM GUPTA DEFENDS USE OF BATTLEFIELD NUCLEAR
WEAPONS AGAINST ‘TSUNAMI’ OF BANGLADESHI REFUGEES FLEEING FLOODS AS NECESSARY FOR
‘NATIONAL SURVIVAL’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">07 OCTOBER 2029
12:56: HOME OFFICE REPORTS USE OF CLASS A DRUG ‘PING’ HAS REACHED AN ALL-TIME
HIGH<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 OCTOBER 2029
09:15: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR SEPTEMBER 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 105 MM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">09 OCTOBER 2029
09:08: CHERY HOLDINGS COMPLETES THE TAKEOVER OF GENERAL MOTORS THE LAST REMAINING
INDEPENDENT US VOLUME CAR MANUFACTURER<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11 OCTOBER 2029
10:37: THE MET OFFICE ANNOUNCES THAT THE RECENT FLASH FLOODS WHICH INUNDATED MUCH
OF EAST ANGLIA WERE CAUSED BY A COMBINATION OF RISING SEA LEVELS AND CHANGES TO
RAINFALL PATTERNS +++ SHADOW ENVIRONMENT SPOKESPERSON DEBORAH ARNOLD COMMENTED ‘NO
KIDDING’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">13 OCTOBER 2029
15:24: PROPOSAL BROUGHT BEFORE PARLIAMENT TO BAN THE USE OF OPAQUE UMBRELLAS ON
THE GROUNDS THAT THEY ‘DISRUPT THE EFFECTIVE USE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION SURVEILLANCE
EQUIPMENT’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">15 OCTOBER 2029 09:18:
‘TAKE THAT’ ANNOUNCE PLANS TO REFORM FOR ANOTHER FAREWELL TOUR<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">17 OCTOBER 2029
14:10: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH SEVERLY CRITICISES THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FOR ITS
TREATMENT OF REFUGEES FROM GREATER RUSSIA<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">19 OCTOBER 2029
20:34: PRIME MINISTER ASHE REJECTS CRITICISMS BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ACCUSING
THEM OF BEING ‘NAMBY-PAMBY DO-GOODERS ADRIFT IN SOME FANTASY LIBERAL UTOPIA AND
HENCE UNABLE TO APPRECIATE THE CHALLENGES OF THE REAL WORLD BEING FACED BY
GOVERNMENTS’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">25 OCTOBER 2029 15:07:
PRIME MINISTER ASHE ANNOUNCES PLANS TO HOLD A REFERENDUM ON 24<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">TH</span></sup>
JUNE 2030 ON THE ADOPTION OF THE PATRIOT PROJECT WHICH WILL OBLIGE ALL UK
RESIDENTS TO WEAR A TETE-A-TETE IMPLANT AND FOR ALL REFUGEES WHO ENTERED
BRITAIN UNDER THE UNITED NATIONS EVACUATION PROGRAM TO RETURN TO THEIR COUNTRY
OF ORIGIN<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">26 OCTOBER 2029
09:23: PATRIOT PROJECT CONDEMNED BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AS ‘FASCIST IN INTENT’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">26 OCTOBER 2029 10:54:
PATRIOT PROJECT CONDEMNED BY UNITED NATIONS AS ‘UNFORTUNATE’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">26 OCTOBER 2029 11:16:
PATRIOT PROJECT CONDEMNED BY HENRY TOWNSEND LEADER OF REVISEDLABOUR PARTY AS ‘UNDEMOCRATIC
AND UNBRITISH’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">26 OCTOBER 2029
12:16: BRITREAD OPINION POLL CONDUCTED ON BEHALF OF THE E-MAIL SHOWS 86% OF
BRITISH VOTERS SUPPORT THE PATRIOT PROJECT <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">27 OCTOBER 2029
18:57: RUSSIA SUSPENDS OIL EXPORTS TO CHINA IN RETALIATION FOR ITS ‘FLAGRANT,
ILLEGAL AND BELLIGERANT’ OCCUPATION OF RUSSIAN-CLAIMED ARCTIC <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">28 OCTOBER 2029
23:19: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED AS A TERRORIST ORGANISATION BY UK
GOVERNMENT AND ITS LONDON OFFICE CLOSED<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">29 OCTOBER 2029
08:27: ANNUAL REPORT OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CONSORTIUM STATES THAT THE 10 CM RISE IN
SEA LEVELS AND THE 1.5⁰C RISE IN GLOBAL TEMPERATES OVER THE THIRTY YEAR PERIOD
TO 2028 IS ‘A BLIP’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">29 OCTOBER 2029
05:34: 101<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">ST</span></sup> ACADEMY AWARDS HELD IN BEIJING SAW SIR BENEDICT
CUMBERBATCH WINS BEST ACTOR OSCAR FOR HIS ROLE IN CHARLIE FARADAY’S ROMANTIC
COMEDY ‘SUICIDE IS A BLAST’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">01 NOVEMBER 2029
20:43: TWITTER ANNOUNCES THAT SIR STEPHEN FRY IS THE FIRST CELEBRITY TO BOAST
ONE BILLION FOLLOWERS<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">03 NOVEMBER 2029 11:25:
HOME SECRETARY FRANCES PACKHARD REJECTS OPPOSITION AMENDMENT TO ‘SUS LAW’
CLAIMING THAT ‘STOP AND SHOT’ IS VITAL FOR THE EFFECTIVE POLICING OF BRITAIN<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 NOVEMBER 2029 09:11:
RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR OCTOBER 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 125 MM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">13 NOVEMBER 2029 19:18:
INSURANCE CLAIMS RELATING TO THE APOPHIS ASTEROID NEAR-MISS IN APRIL 2029 TOPS
TEN BILLION DOLLARS <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">14 NOVEMBER 2029 05:41:
GLOBAL CLIMATE CONSORTIUM IS FORCED TO VACATE ITS NEW YORK OFFICES DUE TO
FLOODING <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">17<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></sup>NOVEMBER 2029 14:53: AT A PRESS
CONFERENCE TODAY THE ALL-ENGLAND CLUB ANNOUNCED IT WILL ROOF IN ALL ITS COURTS
BEFORE THE 2030 WIMBLEDON CHAMPIONSHIP AND SWITCH TO CLAY +++ THE LEVEL OF
RAINFALL IN THE UK IS CITED AS THE REASON BEHIND THIS MOVE<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">23 NOVEMBER 2029
19:42: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT PETR SHOVIN CONFIRMS THAT ALL RETURNING GEES MUST
CONVERT TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY +++ ‘WHILST RUSSIA REMAINS A LIBERAL,
DEMOCRATIC AND TOLERANT COUNTRY IT CANNOT PERMIT THOSE HOLDING SUCH PERNICIOUS
AND DELIQUENT BELIEFS TO RESIDE IN OUR COUNTRY. THIS WOULD VIOLATE THE CODE OF
ONE NATION, ONE BLOOD AND ONE GOD WHICH GUIDES THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 DECEMBER 2029 09:19:
RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR NOVEMBER 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 111 MM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11 DECEMBER 2029 20:45:
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT PETR SHOVIN CONFIRMS THAT ALL JEWISH AND MUSLIM GEES
RETURNING TO GREATER RUSSIA AS A RESULT OF THE UK ADOPTING THE PATRIOT PROJECT
WILL INITIALLY BE HELD IN ‘RE-EDUCATION CENTRES’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">14 DECEMBER 2029
08:14: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL DESCRIBES THE LEVEL OF SUICIDES IN THE GEEBURGS –
RUNNING AT FIVE-TIMES THE NATIONAL AVERAGE – AS A SCANDAL<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">17 DECEMBER 2029
11:00: BRITAIN HOLDS A THREE-MINUTE SILENCE TO COMMEMORATE THE TWO-HUNDRED
THOUSAND WHO DIED IN THE DIRTY-BOMB ATTACK ON LIVERPOOL IN 2021<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">20 DECEMBER 2029
19:02: UK’S JESUS FACTION IN ITS XMAS MESSAGE DEMANDS THAT ALL RUSSIAN REFUGEES
BE DEPORTED AND THAT THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT PURSUE A POLICY OF ‘SALVATION
THROUGH RACIAL PURITY’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">24 DECEMBER 2029 10:14:
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY ANNOUNCES THAT THOSE WHO PROTEST THE USE OF THE
PANOPTIKA SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM ARE ‘MISGUIDED’ +++ ‘THE DESIRE FOR PRIVACY IS A
SIN’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">01 JANUARY 2030 13:18:
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED AS A TERRORIST ORGANISATION BY UK
GOVERNMENT AND ITS LONDON OFFICE CLOSED<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">05 JANUARY 2030
08:09: ON THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ONE-DAY WAR WHICH DESTROYED MOST OF THE
MIDDLE EAST IN A NUCLEAR CONFLAGRATION UN SECRETARY GENERAL MOSES OWOLOWO URGES
WORLD LEADERS ‘TO LEARN THE LESSONS SO DEARLY BOUGHT AND TO TURN AWAY FROM WAR
AS A MEANS OF SETTLING INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">06 JANUARY 2030
18:52: CHINA AMASSES TEN DIVISIONS ON THE SINO-RUSSIAN BORDER IN RETALIATION
FOR SUSPENSION OF OIL DELIVERIES FROM RUSSIA<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 JANUARY 2030
09:15: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR DECEMBER 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 101 MM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">09 JANUARY 2030 08:21:
MET OFFICE ANNOUNCES THAT 2029 WAS THE UK’S WETTEST YEAR ON RECORD <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">09 JANUARY 2030
07:12: US PRESIDENT KIM SAUNDERS OFFERS TO MEDIATE IN SINO-RUSSIAN ARCTIC
DISPUTE<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10 JANUARY 2030
03:53: US ARBITRATION OFFER REJECTED AS RUSSIA AND CHINA AGREE THAT ‘MINOR
NATIONS’ SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN THE DISCUSSION PROCESS <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12 JANUARY 2030
05:47: UN SECRETARY GENERAL MOSES OWOLOWO AGREES TO CHAIR CONERENCE TO SETTLE
SINO-RUSSIAN ARCTIC DISPUTE<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">18 JANUARY 2030
04:17: UK’S BID TO HOST THE 2038 WORLD CUP HAS BEEN REJECTED BECAUSE OF
CONCERNS REGARDING ‘POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INSTABILITY’ <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">24 JANUARY 2030
07:21: IN GENEVA RUSSIAN AND CHINESE NEGOTIATORS AGREE THE AREAS OF THE ARCTIC
WHICH WILL FALL UNDER THEIR ‘ZONE OF INFLUENCE’ +++ PROTESTS BY THE US, NORWAY
AND CANADA ARE DISMISSED AS ‘INCONSEQUENTIAL’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">28 JANUARY 2030
10:47: WILLIAM MORRISON HEAD OF NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY ANNOUNCES UPGRADING
OF GCHQ’S QUANPUTERS PLATFORMING PANOPTIKA SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">01 FEBRUARY 2030
19:56: WWF ANNOUNCES THAT ‘POLAR BEAR EXTINCT IN THE WILD’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">02 FEBRUARY 2030
05:13: UN SECRETARY GENERAL MOSES OWOLOWO ANNOUNCES THAT THE MALDIVES HAVE OFFICIALLY
‘CEASED TO EXIST’<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">04 FEBRUARY 2030
10:53: GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL CRITCISES GOVERNMENT FOR IGNORING UPSURGE IN
CHILDREN PRESENTING WITH RICKETS +++ GMC DEMANDS RETURN OF FREE SCHOOL MILK AND
VITAMIN SUPPLEMENTS<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 FEBRUARY 2030 09:12:
RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR JANUARY 2030 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 105 MM<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">08 FEBRUARY 2030
13:53: BAQTRAQ CYBERSYSTEMS UNVEILS THE ‘NEW IMPROVED’ VERSION OF ITS
BEST-SELLING ‘EYEFLY’ NANODRONE.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">09 FEBRUARY 2030
10:20: JENNI-FUR SITS DOWN TO WRITE HER JOURNAL TIPPY-TIP-TYPED MOST LABOURIOUSLY
ON AN UNDERWOOD CHAMPION CIRCA PRE-GAS THIS TO ENSURE HER THOUGHTS ARE NOT ANALYSED
IN THE MOST INTIMATE OF FASHION BY THOSE NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY SCUMBOIDS …<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-86220966097714725762013-10-09T01:20:00.001-07:002013-10-09T01:29:01.572-07:00INVENT-10N: THE START<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">INVENT-10N: IN THE
BEGINNING<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> is my
latest book (I call it a semi-graphic novella, that’s a novel of 60,000 words
augmented with illustrations) which is due to be published by Alchemy Press in
November. It’s a dystopian story, following the travails of my heroine – twenty-year
old nuBop singer and angry young lady, Jenni-Fur – as she struggles against the
suffocating strictures of the surveillance society that is Britain 2030.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> began
life a long time ago – in 2009 to be exact – when I was playing around with the
idea of writing a story about a world where the full implications of living in
a pan-surveillance society were being played out. To do this I wanted to create
a feeling in the mind of the reader that they were actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in</i> that world so I came up with the idea
of combining faux-factual material supposedly published in the e-media of 2030
(the year the story is set) this interlaced with the extracts from the diaries
of the two chief protagonists, jive-talking, nuBop rebel, Jenni-Fur, and
National Protection Agency apparatchik, Sebastian Davenport. Jenni-Fur is the
angry young thing determined to screw-over the PanOptika Surveillance system
run by the National Protection Agency … the MI5 of the UK of 2030. To do this
she teams up with mysterious übergeek, Ivan Nitko, inventor of the eponymous
Invent-10n.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Given that there would be significant design element in the
book I collaborated with a friend of mine, Nigel Robinson, who did the artwork
for my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Demi-Monde</i> series. And realising
that the format would be unusual we went to the trouble of mocking-up what it
would look like and having twenty-five copies printed. Even so the response
from mainstream publishers was unenthusiastic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">That was when I got distracted writing the four instalments
of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Demi-Monde</i> series and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> lay on a dongle gathering
dust. Then in March this year a friend of mine – Peter Coleborn – who I knew
from the Renegade Writers’ group in Stoke sent me an e-mail asking if I had
anything, novella-sized, I might consider publishing through his imprint,
Alchemy Press. I remembered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i>
and sent one of the mock-ups to Peter. Peter liked it (what a sensible lad!).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now I was
faced with finishing the bloody thing … and up-dating it. In this day and age four
years is a technological eternity and reality had already caught up with some
of the ideas I’d dreamed up back in 2009. The most alarming was that in the
original <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> my characters
used a thing called a Polly (a Poly-Functional Digital Device) to e-interact
with each other and Nigel had designed a Polly (in 2009) to look like this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm5pGFVeu8bWOmB9YzfV3JjeJjXpRYbMzR_Yn00-cOBlnXShpB7rpiDn8YfzFhMYtkxQHnOUeMkvzhiWfxNf2A80tdG54Hx8Yx12LHDMzAHtEJlG42dZCB-a-lWFtS6qZb64WScuLZ-ME/s1600/polly.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm5pGFVeu8bWOmB9YzfV3JjeJjXpRYbMzR_Yn00-cOBlnXShpB7rpiDn8YfzFhMYtkxQHnOUeMkvzhiWfxNf2A80tdG54Hx8Yx12LHDMzAHtEJlG42dZCB-a-lWFtS6qZb64WScuLZ-ME/s320/polly.JPG" width="226" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seem familiar? One year later Apple came up with their iPad!
Bollocks!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For this and other reasons I had to rework/remodel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invent-10n</i> which took longer than I
supposed – two months in fact – and then I had to hand it over to Nigel to work
his design magic. The interesting thing was while Nigel beavered away the world
became increasingly aware/interested in surveillance and its implications for
society. The Edward Snowden brouha and the realisation (pause for gasps of
surprise) the NSA was actually e-monitoring everybody and his brother via its
PRISM system made me more determined to finish Invent-10n while the subject was
hot. When I had written it in 2009 I had been writing a fantasy, now it was
more a piece of social commentary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, what with the design requirements of the book and
Peter’s various editing suggestions Invent-10n wasn’t finally finished until
early September. Then I had to write the blurb which would go on the back of
the book and wanting something suitably Jenni-Fur-esque I came up with this (presented
à la Jenni-fur on a typewriter, which she uses to avoid the e-wigging of the
National Protection Agency):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Greetings Gate, let’s Agitate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Look over your shoulder. Do you see the camera? Then dig
that even as you read these words of sedition and denial you are being watched
by the ever e-quisitive National Protection Agency. The National Protection
Agency </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">–</span><span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
omnipresent, omniscient and most ominous </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">–</span><span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
which runs PanOptika, the spider at the centre of the Web.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 19.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">PanOptika.
What’s the slogan: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">watching out for the
good guys </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">by watching out for the bad guys</span></i><span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.
But what did that Roman word-slinger, Juvenal say</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">?</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes</span></i><span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: who watches </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the
watchers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So dig this to the extremity, cats and kittens: if we do
nothing soon we must kneel, digitally-dutiful, before National Protection, and
then there will be no chance to zig when the ChumBots say zag, or to beep when
they say bop. Realise thou that PanOptika triumphant means we will not be able
to think, to act, to speak or to move without the spirit-sapping realisation
that the badniks know everything </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">…</span><span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
everything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We are circling the drain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Mom´sTypewriter; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This
is my warning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And now it’s all wrapped up it’s just a question of selecting
a launch date (sometime in November is the banker).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-39891247023426631152013-09-30T07:28:00.000-07:002013-09-30T07:28:58.134-07:00UTOPIA VS DYSTOPIA: A WRITER'S DILEMMA
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">UTOPIA VS DYSTOPIA: THE SF WRITER’S DILEMMA<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was asked to speak at the Zagreb Literary Festival last
week and as a result found myself on a panel discussing the subject ‘New
Utopias’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have to say it was a subject that left me a little
flummoxed and the reason was simple: I had never thought about writing a story
that had anything other than a dystopian setting. Utopias seemed … boring. Sitting
in one of Zagreb’s wonderful open air cafes enjoying a beer and the late summer
sunshine I got to wondering why this should be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I suppose the obvious answer is that a dystopia offers much
more plot traction than a utopia – I mean a world where everything is
hunky-dory is hardly one to get the adrenaline pumping – but maybe there’s more
to it than that. Maybe humanity (and despite what they might believe, SF
writers are at least part human) is frightened of utopias, a contrary thought
especially when I find myself living in a world obsessed with global warming,
rising sea-levels, terrorist atrocities, melt-down in the Middle East to name just
a few of the current disasters de jour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But this alarmist tendency is in itself odd especially as,
since the Second World War, things have taken a distinct turn for the better:
there have been no world wars (and the casualties sustained in the ‘regional
wars’ are as nothing when contrasted to their pre-war equivalents), the
standard of living of most people has improved beyond recognition (check out
India and China as examples of that), contagious diseases like smallpox and
polio have been mastered, and the world (on balance) is a much more tolerant
place free of maniacal dictators. But pessimism is still rife.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the more I considered this conundrum the more I came
back to the idea that humanity is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">frightened</i>
of living in a perfect world. So what are the features of a utopia that
frighten people? These are my thoughts on the subject aka Rod Rees’ Vision of Utopia:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A utopia would be a perfect meritocracy where
talent and effort are the sole determinants of success and of position in
society. Not something most of society would embrace. I suspect (and I’m no
biologist) that humankind has a pre-disposition to promote the pan-generational
success of the family for the simple reason that by doing so the long-term propagation
of the family’s DNA is enhanced. This is why inheritance of wealth and status
looms so large in human history (most wars have been fought to ensure the
survival of one ruling clan or another). A utopian society would render this scramble
to hereditary success obsolete. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A utopia would be a society where you could
believe and act in whatever way you chose as long as these do not impinge on
any contrary/conflicting beliefs or actions espoused by other members of
society. Of course, this is flies in the face of politico-religious reality. <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Politico-religious systems are evangelical
in nature: you’ve only to see how avidly elections are fought to recognise
that. A politico-religious system wants/needs adherents and the more of them it
can get, the better. There’s a competitive aspect to all this too: all politico-religious
systems are triumphalist … half of the joy of winning is the sight of the other
party losing. A utopia would see the peaceful co-existence of all belief
systems, an idea which is, well, utopian in its stupidity. Everyone loves a
winner … draws are boring.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A utopian society would be one where there was
no privacy. Of course, to ensure the perfection of a utopian world everything
must be known, there can be no secrets and no privacy – and why should there be
any when there is no criticism or condemnation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But privacy and secrecy is the bedrock of
society …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reading this I am struck by the thought that, believe it or
not (like it or not) the world is en route towards a utopian existence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The rise of the cyber-algorithmic manipulation of human
affairs <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i> inevitably mean that
jobs based on rote-learning and experience (doctors, pharmacists, truck drivers
etc.) will be made redundant and only those of us with a mathematical bent will
have any real influence (the Pareto Principle applied to society). This would
create the ultimate meritocracy: inherited wealth/power would be trumped by
brain power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The world <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has</i>
become a more tolerant place, this attested to by the burgeoning <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>acceptance of gender equality, of gay rights
and the increasing secularisation of society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And finally, the increasing and increasingly pervasive
nature of surveillance means that privacy is, to all intents and purposes,
dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yeah, utopia here we come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was on my third beer when the answer to my puzzle
suggested itself. SF writers steer clear of utopias because they’re a damned
sight more frightening then dystopias … and a damned sight more likely to
occur.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-68081610671227596592013-09-29T02:11:00.000-07:002013-09-29T02:11:18.788-07:00THE DEMI-MONDE INSPIRES ART!It seems that the Demi-Monde has inspired and artist. When I attended the Zagreb Literary Festival there was some artwork on display by a Croatian artist , Martina Grlic. Here are a couple of Martina's works:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIW7Muel2PBuJwlUmDohofekq1xtqTup5em0x5pkJTWuzM2U7exZ_bv0r0pkrHI66yZyuLCm9jWfgEtmyOFaBO_D6NOZBpEBVPp1tKGBzQTJcN-99Lnng47IZDvcePxIwxEFCRc0DliU4/s1600/Martina+Grli%C4%87_PoluSvijet_823095107.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIW7Muel2PBuJwlUmDohofekq1xtqTup5em0x5pkJTWuzM2U7exZ_bv0r0pkrHI66yZyuLCm9jWfgEtmyOFaBO_D6NOZBpEBVPp1tKGBzQTJcN-99Lnng47IZDvcePxIwxEFCRc0DliU4/s320/Martina+Grli%C4%87_PoluSvijet_823095107.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<br />
This shows Norma trapped in the basement hideaway during the battle for Warsaw. I really think Martina has caught Norma's feeling of hopelessness and vulnerability. A terrific picture.<br />
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Similarly, Marina coneys the misery associated with fighting in a bitterly cold winter. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGePrIEy_RdEjI9tdmXOzogCr1I_tc83xkE5t5bf0IzZ6IvEn7pNy3uGBUHe7f1pFphCjQ7E7_YfiTbJWPbrQG5qcptxDjW2JpmLCpAG1W8tWfVAN3HoYBhk2BzB1P-MGfthWwxr6B3xk/s1600/Martina+Grli%C4%87_PoluSvijet_823095122.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGePrIEy_RdEjI9tdmXOzogCr1I_tc83xkE5t5bf0IzZ6IvEn7pNy3uGBUHe7f1pFphCjQ7E7_YfiTbJWPbrQG5qcptxDjW2JpmLCpAG1W8tWfVAN3HoYBhk2BzB1P-MGfthWwxr6B3xk/s320/Martina+Grli%C4%87_PoluSvijet_823095122.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
And, I pleased to note, that eminence noir, ABBA, is duly inspirational. A perfect rendition of a machine with human ambitions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA26WLoYQ4jqFezHKseii_XEQoiTSreijyXmYX_8I8mlAeoCW54-w0fv9kd2BaMpeXSkiq4bj8eFgNShMKYmY-HDOYCFQHTUNPOaZa25KyahAKNyGtXr7LlqG4lpRjTS6aiFKQwczkK4U/s1600/Martina+Grli%C4%87_PoluSvijet_823095017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA26WLoYQ4jqFezHKseii_XEQoiTSreijyXmYX_8I8mlAeoCW54-w0fv9kd2BaMpeXSkiq4bj8eFgNShMKYmY-HDOYCFQHTUNPOaZa25KyahAKNyGtXr7LlqG4lpRjTS6aiFKQwczkK4U/s320/Martina+Grli%C4%87_PoluSvijet_823095017.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-74256306198623354712013-09-29T01:54:00.000-07:002013-09-29T01:54:06.849-07:00ZAGREB LITERARY FESTIVAL
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">ZAGREB FESTIVAL OF WORLD LITERATURE<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was invited to attend the Festival of World Literature my
Croatian publishers, Fraktura, were organising. Never having been to that part
of the world before, the answer was obviously ‘Yes’ and I am very pleased that
I went. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
Fraktura is owned and run by Seid Serdarević and, as quickly
became apparent, he sees Fraktura as something more than a business. Seid has a
real <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">passion</i> for books, hence, the
Literary Festival, which was as well-organised and as well-attended as any I’ve
been to in the UK. As an indication of the care Seid and his staff had gone to,
the programme was embellished with line drawings of all the thirty-odd writers
who were speaking at the festival. This is mine (the work of Danko Friŝĉiĉ).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHqTuiIkKIZuqbei3oyzNngoVBxwBhoMRHNg3Ko9v5VdfX-p1ik6hX1P9d59mO9xjmnu87x-nu3bicefHJl7DcfxhFTmGmS_P5i7yZHi57OfL4b1fqK14B8_Eg2TAkFyUyVRvj7Fx0bY/s1600/Rod+Rees_1_Danko+Fri%C5%A1%C4%8Di%C4%87.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHqTuiIkKIZuqbei3oyzNngoVBxwBhoMRHNg3Ko9v5VdfX-p1ik6hX1P9d59mO9xjmnu87x-nu3bicefHJl7DcfxhFTmGmS_P5i7yZHi57OfL4b1fqK14B8_Eg2TAkFyUyVRvj7Fx0bY/s320/Rod+Rees_1_Danko+Fri%C5%A1%C4%8Di%C4%87.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rod Rees à la pointillism! I think it’s great. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I did one interview before the festival audience (conducted
by a very sharp lady, Tanja Tolić) which I think went pretty well and then a
panel discussion with two Croatian writers Franjo Janeŝ and Edo Popović. Here I
was asked what I was working on next. My reveal that it’s an SF story featuring
Nikola Tesla caused something of a reaction … I hadn’t realised that the theatre
where I was speaking was on Nikola Tesla Street. Tesla is something of a
national hero in Croatia (and in Serbia!) and I suppose there’s a worry that I
might treat him with a lack of respect. As an indication I was approached after
the panel discussion by a professor at Zagreb University enquiring if I had
portrayed Tesla as homosexual: my answer that he is shown to be asexual seemed
to put the guy’s mind at rest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All-in-all three days well-spent. I loved Zagreb – a beautiful
city which put me in mind of Paris – and the people were astonishingly
well-read (they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i> spoke English
too!). I’ll be going back but next time I’ll take Nelli along.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Many thanks to Said, all the staff at Fraktura, my
interviewers Tonja and Iva and to a simply wonderful simultaneous interpreter whose name I
didn’t catch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-91974868304545448142013-09-12T07:36:00.001-07:002013-09-12T07:36:22.672-07:00
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">THE DEMI-MONDE: FALL<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The last of the Demi-Monde series, The Demi-Monde: Fall, has
now been published. It seems remarkable that that’s it, journey’s end, five
years of researching, writing and editing 650,000 words over. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2yxEaoEGvug0fK-sPhJh8B_AuHkqTkGt0rT197Gxgq2TclGKKrBalnYB6RhJlNXEseZharvdXAAYuawf2iQFyjyZi7xLOhniLxh_SJk1H_NoQRvMvMF00Wop-Ovsuqry7nNG7QyuWJkY/s1600/Demi-Monde+Fall+HB+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2yxEaoEGvug0fK-sPhJh8B_AuHkqTkGt0rT197Gxgq2TclGKKrBalnYB6RhJlNXEseZharvdXAAYuawf2iQFyjyZi7xLOhniLxh_SJk1H_NoQRvMvMF00Wop-Ovsuqry7nNG7QyuWJkY/s320/Demi-Monde+Fall+HB+cover.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Two questions need to be asked. The first, was it worth it?
And the second, given the time over again would you have done anything
differently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Was it worth it? Yeah, of course. It’s quite a buzz to have
your work ‘out there’ and being shelved alongside some of the authors admire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Would I do it differently? Yeah, most definitely. I was much
too ambitious especially with regards to the structuring of the books. What I intended
was the four books to be one long narrative (a little Lord of the Rings-esque) with
each volume having its own flavour to ensure that the reader had something new
to pique his or her interest as he/she moved from Winter, to Spring, to Summer
and finally to Fall. That’s why I ended each of the books on a cliff-hanger this
to try to stimulate the reader into looking out for the next in the series. What
I forgot was that by doing this it’s difficult for a reader to start anywhere
but at the beginning because otherwise they would be lost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, if I could timewarp back five years I’d probably have
made each of the books a stand-alone adventure and brought it all together in
the final book of the series. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I didn’t, so tough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, the books are finished and it’s time to move on.
Tesla, anyone?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-90577899823738198642013-07-03T11:11:00.000-07:002013-07-03T11:11:05.271-07:00SURVEILLANCE: EDWARD SNOWDEN
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The saga of Edward Snowden the whistleblower who dished the
dirt about Prism and who has spent the last couple of weeks looking for
somewhere/anywhere that will allow him asylum continues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reading the papers and the various blogs on the subject I
get the impression that there is a lot of sympathy for Snowden and that the US
administration’s attempts to have him extradited back to the States are
considered a trifle excessive. This has been compounded by the nonsense when
the jet carrying the Bolivian president was refused permission to enter the
airspace of <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">France, Italy, Spain and Portugal this on the
grounds that there was a suspicion that Snowden was aboard the plane.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But is the reaction –
the over-reaction – of the US authorities so surprising? They have invested
billions in creating the most pervasive covert surveillance system in the
world, one which seems to skirt the edge of legality and good-neighbourliness
(at least as far as the Germans are concerned). Now the weak link in this
system ( in all systems for that matter) is the people running it so when one of them goes AWOL (as Snowden has)
it is essential that those running the system move heaven and earth to bring him to 'justice'. Not
because he might have done something wrong (the morality of whistleblowing has
to be judged on a case-by-case basis) but because of its deterrent effect on those
toying with the idea of following the whistleblower's example.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">It is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sine quo non</i> of those organisations that
have been betrayed that they bring the miscreant to ‘justice’ otherwise the old
adage ‘who watches the watchers’ will be answered with ‘by the watchers with a
sense of morality’ and that would never do. Surveillance and morality are the
oil and water of the modern world.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3589043058224026103.post-59039608415027540022013-07-03T10:12:00.000-07:002013-07-03T10:12:19.114-07:00INVENT-1ON COVER IDEASStarted to play around with ideas for the cover of Invent-10n. As the novella is concerned with the effects surveillance can have on society Nigel (Nigel Robinson, the designer I work with) thought that a series of monitor screens might be the way to go. We knocked the concept around a little and that's when I remembered the montage painting called 'Myra' created by the artist Marcus Harvey so I pitched the idea to Nigel of forming the image of an eye from a collage of monitor images showing pictures of one of the novella's principals, a singer called Jenni-Fur.<br />
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Fortunately I had a whole raft of photographs of Nelli (my jazz-singing wife) in performing mode so we used those. The result is this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPKuO7d6Ic7Jawxfkq1RYrfVl4Fp8rUwr9ARt9J8KaVlFburGzY24J6NNmckbu6h9dkcYQvCOUC8bN_I00pi68ED2if53CADmQrxbSnm1fqsMNb7buHqENCnhA8FpcjUbxRWrOWmtSAZA/s1180/Eye3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPKuO7d6Ic7Jawxfkq1RYrfVl4Fp8rUwr9ARt9J8KaVlFburGzY24J6NNmckbu6h9dkcYQvCOUC8bN_I00pi68ED2if53CADmQrxbSnm1fqsMNb7buHqENCnhA8FpcjUbxRWrOWmtSAZA/s400/Eye3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I'm really quite pleased with it. The debate now is how best to show the Book Title/Authors' Name. the radical approach would be just to have the 'eye' on the front cover but it's early days yet.THE DEMI-MONDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062402251051414578noreply@blogger.com0