Liberal Government

While I'm temperamentally uncomfortable with liberal government, I think it's time to take the opportunities it presents seriously.  I take the Liberal party positions as coming out of the idea that to have a self is an achievement, and to maintain the autonomy of that self is the foundation of all serious and responsible living. They see a lack of self -centeredness as a lack, an immaturity, and I have to say at least for myself they are (would be - I don't believe I've ever come up at Liberal party HQ) right.

While a lack of self-centredness is a lack and having a self is good, having a bad self is conceivable - the self should be defined by negativity about the right things. There are some things it is appropriate to be negative about - laziness is probably worst.

I'm going to take this three years as a season for self-serving industriousness, for taking opportunities to work and profit seriously.

Elysium

After District 9, Neil Blomkamp deserved my trust on his next film, and I took the mixed reviews on Elysium with a grain of salt.  Having seen it, I think I agree to some extent with Dana Stevens of Slate - a great premise that the story somehow fell short of. Not that it was at all a bad movie - solid 3.5 stars and I will certainly want it on DVD - but it was a 5-star premise.  Some of the protagonist's back-story was a little disjointed, a little obvious, a little perfunctory.  And, like Oblivion, every cross-reference that recalled that back-story should have been lighting up watchers brains, but was instead lighting up the screen spelled out and laboured.

What would I recommend?

1. Less back-story, more rage.  As a stripped down cyber-punk action film like Judge Dredd, this would rock.

2.  More moral murk.  People on earth have every chance (apparently) to practice restraint, to garden earth, but do not. Are they oppressed by the wealthy as part of a strategy or are they just bad? How could letting the whole earth have the Elysium lifestyle work?

3.  More anxiety about the body. Major interventions worked out pretty well throughout.  (I liked the body-mod shop as scariest-ever tattoo parlor scene - 'Yeah its gonna hurt, but it will look cool'). People should be subverted more viciously by this kind of intervention. E.g. Mat Damon's exoskeleton should have some wicked reflexes causing him to be danger to his friends.

4.  More time in this universe.  Sequels, Prequels.  It's a universe with issues.  It will take a few stories to work them all out.  Maybe start with President Spider despairing about overpopulation, their uselessness, the impossibility of education for many and the awful fact of being responsible for everyone.

Watching 'In the Night Garden'

Just a few scattered thoughts:
1. The pinky-ponk is a dirigible behemothaur (see Iain M Banks' Look to Windward).
2. Macca Pacca is like an ideal 457 visa holder seen from Liberal party HQ  - he has the stones for comforters, toils cheerfully at almost worthless tasks like cleaning and arranging stones, lives in a hole, is very small and non-threatening , lacks elbows and (I suspect) proper bicamerality.
3. Sir Derek Jacobi.  I like to imagine that, true professional that he is, he insists on recording the introductory songs for each character for each episode, rather than it being the same copy. So much low quality nonsense.
4. Fairly strong gender types in Upsy-Daisy and Iggle-Piggle, compared to the Teletubbies, for example.  Upsy-Daisy can't stop communicating her emotional state, has a large vocab and a certain proprietary huffiness.  Iggle-piggle is robustly cheerful but has a single squeak for vocab and tends to collapse if he finds himself socially embarrassed.

Although it's much loved, the boy is developing a severe dependency and I may need to break Mythtv.

Peppa Pig, on the other hand, is lovely for all.  'The Noisy Night' episode is the whole contemporary tragicomedy of raising a newborn.