Sorry I haven't written in a while. Was on covert strike missions in deepest Bahrain, rooting out terrorists with a big stick I borrowed off Donald 'Duck' Rumsfeld. Will endeavour to keep more frequent postings from now on.

Incidentally, albums of the week are as follows:
A Rush Of Blood To The Head- Coldplay
Songs For The Deaf- Queens Of The Stone Age
Parklife- Blur (trip down memory lane)

G’DAY!!

10 pieces of Australiana:

1. Australian Rules Football
Sick of watching 90 minutes of grown men running around after a ball, only for the event to conclude scoreless? End those Nil-all blues with Aussie footie: No cross bar, no goalie, six points if you score and a consolation point if you miss. Still wouldn’t help West Ham, though
2. Kylie
Antipodean starlet turned stalwart of the pop scene, this diminutive diva dallies her derriere at the otherwise soft-rock fixated aussie music scene. Put some clothes on love! Etc,.
3. Holly Valance
Top draw tottie. Small. Can dance. Like Kylie, except shit
4. Big Day Out
Annual, Lollapalooza style jaunt around the nations capitals. Adjudged to be the best tour on earth by such luminaries as Dave Grohl and Liam Howlett. That’s because they’re not in the mosh pit, slowly dying in the 40º+ February heat. Survivors wear third degree sunburn like medal of honour for rest of summer
5. Liberal Government
Having stubbornly refused to learn lessons from Englands dabbling in black magic that was Thatcherism, Land Down Under now haven for conservative right wing despots whose hobbies include blowing ‘boatpeople’ out of the water, and public flailings of the poor (ie. you). Prime Minister gets away with it because John Howard looks less like spawn of Satan, more like Unlucky Alf from The Fast Show
6. Sand
Flying in the face of Blighty’s finest holiday spots, Australian beaches shun the traditional build up of pebbles, trollies and Golden Wonder crisp packets, instead covering the beaches with- sand!
7. Sea
Similarly, Australia forgoes usual oil, turds and ‘sailors soap’ composition to provide sea water that’s- gasp!- relatively clean. The odd ‘boatperson’ may wash up, but that’s what the Navy’s for
8. Queensland
The Land That Time Forgot: A place where it’s 1952 every day, latent racism is rampant, and even the Labour government are flag waving conservatives, the flag waving conservative’s having turned into The One Nation Party (See 9)
9. The One Nation Party
Led by fish-&-chip shop owner(!) Pauline Hanson, said party’s dominant policy seemed to revolve around infuriating students and non-whites. Hanson now facing jail for tax evasion, though not unfortunately, for her dress sense
10. Neighbours
Aussies always laugh at the English for being hopelessly addicted to adventures of Dr. Carl and the shit kylie impressionist. Obviously five nights a week prime time slot is gloriously tongue-in-cheek gesture by otherwise howlingly unfunny Aussie networks

GULF 2 : THE SEQUEL

Ten years on, and he’s back. And the only man that can stop him is the son of the guy who didn’t finish the job last time. An uninspired remake of 1990 blockbuster GULF!, GULF2 reads like the script of a thousand other rehashs: Get the original cast together (Who are now DEFINITELY ‘too old for this shit’), or, where that proves impossible, get their sons. Re-heat last film’s plot. Serve.
Which is fine, except it wasn’t that exciting first time round, with none of the vitality of other pieces in its genre. Sure, certain members of the supporting cast are in fine form: Colin Powell gives a towering performance as the man on the inside, in a race against time with his own people. And Donald ‘Duck’ Rumsfeld is simply electric, chewing up scenery at every opportunity, as the blatantly unhinged Secretary of Defence. The Academy should take note.
Problems? Well, the leads. Bush obviously doesn’t want to be there, at times appearing confused, fluffing his lines. A role like this requires a man to look like he is constantly debating the demons inside; but ‘Dubya’ just looks flummoxed, completely out his league. A one way ticket to obscurity beckons. Saddam is back, but now just looks like a grumpy man, more Walter Matthau than Jack Palance. The idea that this old duffer represents a ‘clear and present danger’ to the United Stat- sorry, the world- is frankly, hard to believe, even in a narrative that clearly has no qualms with distorting reality.
Which brings us to ‘The Dossier’. The smoking gun is provided by the British Prime Minister (Tony Blair in fine Peter Lorre aping form), a man with an obvious Churchill fixation and one eye firmly on the history books. But the audience doesn’t get to see it. Instead, we watch all the main characters beat their chest and stake their carreers on the veracity of it’s claims. Maybe in Hitchcocks hand this idea would work; With works like ‘The man who knew too much’ the director had shown he could string an audience along with, well, nothing. But this is not Hitch. By removing the proof, you remove motivation. If you remove the motivation, how worked up about Hussein do you expect the audience to get?
Setting is the only significant change this time around. Whereas the last one revelled in exotic scenery, wide open spaces, and Prince Charles in a tank, GULF2 considers itself something of a political potboiler; A kind of Twelve Angry Men-meets-The West Wing. GULF2 has delusions of grandeur, considering itself a far weightier tome than it actually is. If it were that smart, it would tie up more loose ends than it does: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is poorly handled and left unresolved, and Al-Qaeda Commander Osama Bin Laden has, due to some pretty hasty re-editing, been completely left out of the second half, giving the film a very disjointed feel: If Osama is as deadly as the politicians make out in the opening scenes, why do they give up going after him? Is Saddam merely an easier target?
Which reminds me: Why now? It’s nearly twelve years since GULF! It doesn’t fly that a government, even one containing Donald Rumsfeld, would simply decide, spur of the moment, that now is the time to hit Iraq. The only reason possible would be a concrete threat of weapons of mass destruction. Proof of which would have to be in ‘The Dossier’. Only it isn’t (Or if it is, we don’t see it). So they wouldn’t. It’s just bad writing.
The few pieces of good writing? One has to be the ‘He tried to kill my daddy’ speech. In the hands of Martin Sheen, the character would come across as a man teetering on the edge of mania, threatening to call down the vengeance of God Himself. Scary, but thrilling. Instead, Bush fumbles the ball, turning it into a rather pithy, feeble remark, that’s certainly no excuse for sending thousands of young men to their deaths. In the real world, the public would be outraged. Wouldn’t they?
Another is Condoleeza Rice’s comments that there are Iraqi links to Al-Qaeda. Again, in the hands of a better director this might come across as a government willing to do anything to get what it wants. But to pull that off you need to show the audience the link, or at the very least write Al-Qaeda into the second half. Instead it just feels like a flimsy clutching at straws, one the audience will laugh off.
So in short? A lacklustre attempt. Say what you like about Tom Clancy, at least there’s some plotting involved. Rumsfeld may steal the show, but when it’s this poor, who cares?

**
MARK REED