HISTORICAL ACCURACY (2)
DR's historical drama about 1864 finished this evening, so it is time for a judgment. Not about the historical accuracy (that one will run for a while), but whether it's any good as television drama.
Not very, is my view. The man who both wrote the script and directed the series was given far too much money and (even worse) far too much slack. The formula which has served DR Drama so well in recent years (a main writer supplemented by episode writers) collapsed when the director fired the episode writers. The result is one man's work, and he messed up.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 30 November 2014
Saturday, 29 November 2014
SQUASH (2)
This post is about squash the racket sport, not squash the vegetable. Today I played it for the first time in about 12 years. Squash is not very popular in Denmark, where badminton is king. But I know someone who is keen on it, and he asked me to play a game, even though we had to drive to Odense, which is about 30km away.
After learning to play in my late teens, I played squash for about 20 years as my main form of exercise. In Tanzania, it was regularly three times a week. Yet since I came to Denmark in 2000, I have played just once.
Tonight I am both knackered and sore in the whole of my upper body. It's amazing how you can get out of the habit of something. My positioning was poor, I didn't watch the ball enough (in badminton, it's always coming from in front of you, whereas in squash, it is often coming from behind you), and I had no power or timing. Worst of all, I tweaked a muscle in the back of my thigh when lunging for a forehand down the line.
Still, I loved it. I had to work a lot harder than in any badminton game, and that can only be good.
Walter Blotscher
This post is about squash the racket sport, not squash the vegetable. Today I played it for the first time in about 12 years. Squash is not very popular in Denmark, where badminton is king. But I know someone who is keen on it, and he asked me to play a game, even though we had to drive to Odense, which is about 30km away.
After learning to play in my late teens, I played squash for about 20 years as my main form of exercise. In Tanzania, it was regularly three times a week. Yet since I came to Denmark in 2000, I have played just once.
Tonight I am both knackered and sore in the whole of my upper body. It's amazing how you can get out of the habit of something. My positioning was poor, I didn't watch the ball enough (in badminton, it's always coming from in front of you, whereas in squash, it is often coming from behind you), and I had no power or timing. Worst of all, I tweaked a muscle in the back of my thigh when lunging for a forehand down the line.
Still, I loved it. I had to work a lot harder than in any badminton game, and that can only be good.
Walter Blotscher
Friday, 28 November 2014
U.K. IMMIGRATION (3)
David Cameron has finally admitted that the aim (stated in the Conservative Party manifesto of 2010) of reducing net immigration from 252,000 in 2010 to the "tens of thousands" in 2015 will not be met. That is a sensible admission; provisional figures for the year to June show that net migration was 260,000! And it shows no sign of coming down.
Given the threat of UKIP, which (having won two by-elections) now has two MP's in Parliament and is likely to win more at next year's general election, Mr. Cameron has changed tack. In a major speech today, he outlined plans for curbing E.U. migrants' rights to in-work benefits (eg tax credits), social housing and child benefit (for children still living back home) until they have been in the U.K. for four years. The idea behind the policy is that by reducing the financial benefits of being in the U.K., people will not come.
I don't believe in that underlying idea. But even if I did, there are considerable problems with Mr. Cameron's proposals, and not just that he will have to win that election if they are going to become official Government policy. The bigger difficulty is that they would require changes to the treaties underpinning the European Union, over which all of the other 27 Member States have a veto. Why wouldn't one of them (Poland, for example) not exercise that veto?
Britain is fast boxing itself into a corner with respect to immigration and E.U. matters from which it will be very difficult to escape. Meanwhile, net migration will continue to be high, however much Mr. Cameron huffs and puffs.
Walter Blotscher
David Cameron has finally admitted that the aim (stated in the Conservative Party manifesto of 2010) of reducing net immigration from 252,000 in 2010 to the "tens of thousands" in 2015 will not be met. That is a sensible admission; provisional figures for the year to June show that net migration was 260,000! And it shows no sign of coming down.
Given the threat of UKIP, which (having won two by-elections) now has two MP's in Parliament and is likely to win more at next year's general election, Mr. Cameron has changed tack. In a major speech today, he outlined plans for curbing E.U. migrants' rights to in-work benefits (eg tax credits), social housing and child benefit (for children still living back home) until they have been in the U.K. for four years. The idea behind the policy is that by reducing the financial benefits of being in the U.K., people will not come.
I don't believe in that underlying idea. But even if I did, there are considerable problems with Mr. Cameron's proposals, and not just that he will have to win that election if they are going to become official Government policy. The bigger difficulty is that they would require changes to the treaties underpinning the European Union, over which all of the other 27 Member States have a veto. Why wouldn't one of them (Poland, for example) not exercise that veto?
Britain is fast boxing itself into a corner with respect to immigration and E.U. matters from which it will be very difficult to escape. Meanwhile, net migration will continue to be high, however much Mr. Cameron huffs and puffs.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 27 November 2014
A HELPING HAND
I would like to think of myself as someone who gives a helping hand. But I am not sure I would have done what some Siberian oil workers did. Their plane got stuck on the runway when temperatures fell to -52C, and the brake pads on the aircraft froze. So they got out of the plane and gave it a push.
It was probably not good aviation practice to do that. But the threat of being stuck in Siberia in those temperatures must have been a powerful incentive.
Walter Blotscher
I would like to think of myself as someone who gives a helping hand. But I am not sure I would have done what some Siberian oil workers did. Their plane got stuck on the runway when temperatures fell to -52C, and the brake pads on the aircraft froze. So they got out of the plane and gave it a push.
It was probably not good aviation practice to do that. But the threat of being stuck in Siberia in those temperatures must have been a powerful incentive.
Walter Blotscher
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
MILK
Milk is one of those products that we tend to take for granted. We drink at least some every day, it doesn't cost much, and it's probably only when we don't have any in the fridge that we give it more than a passing thought. Yet the milk market is a market like any other, and it is currently going through a bit of an upheaval.
In Denmark, when you talk of milk, then you talk of Arla; the dairy giant has a huge share of the domestic market and is big in other countries such as the U.K. It also has a slightly unusual share structure for a big company, since it is owned by the farmers who supply it with its raw material.
Those farmers are hurting at the moment, since the price Arla pays them has fallen from kr.3.14 a litre in April to kr.2.41 today. That has reduced turnover for the average dairy farm by kr.88,000 (around £9,000) a month. Since they were barely making money at the higher price, it means that many farmers are under water, and could well go bust this winter.
Nor is this phenomenon confined to Denmark. The Global Dairy Trade index stands today at around 750, what it was at the beginning of the noughties, having been up over 1,600 in the middle of the decade and also a year ago. A major reason for the fall in prices this year has been the withdrawal of China and Russia from the world market. They represented 28% of world dairy imports in 2013, and their absence has created a big hole.
Cheap milk is good for consumers. However, sustained low prices will inevitably lead to bankruptcies, reduced supply, and rising prices later. Milk is a market like any other.
Walter Blotscher
Milk is one of those products that we tend to take for granted. We drink at least some every day, it doesn't cost much, and it's probably only when we don't have any in the fridge that we give it more than a passing thought. Yet the milk market is a market like any other, and it is currently going through a bit of an upheaval.
In Denmark, when you talk of milk, then you talk of Arla; the dairy giant has a huge share of the domestic market and is big in other countries such as the U.K. It also has a slightly unusual share structure for a big company, since it is owned by the farmers who supply it with its raw material.
Those farmers are hurting at the moment, since the price Arla pays them has fallen from kr.3.14 a litre in April to kr.2.41 today. That has reduced turnover for the average dairy farm by kr.88,000 (around £9,000) a month. Since they were barely making money at the higher price, it means that many farmers are under water, and could well go bust this winter.
Nor is this phenomenon confined to Denmark. The Global Dairy Trade index stands today at around 750, what it was at the beginning of the noughties, having been up over 1,600 in the middle of the decade and also a year ago. A major reason for the fall in prices this year has been the withdrawal of China and Russia from the world market. They represented 28% of world dairy imports in 2013, and their absence has created a big hole.
Cheap milk is good for consumers. However, sustained low prices will inevitably lead to bankruptcies, reduced supply, and rising prices later. Milk is a market like any other.
Walter Blotscher
Tuesday, 25 November 2014
STILLE HJERTE
Stille Hjerte ("Quiet Heart") is the latest film by the acclaimed director Bille August, and deals with voluntary euthanasia. The wife of a doctor has an incurable disease, which will eventually paralyse and kill her. He knows how it will end, and together they decide to end her life through sleeping pills, while she is still able to make it look like suicide.
The film takes place during a last weekend with the family. There are doubts about whether it is the right thing to do, there are conflicts and tears, there are reconciliations. I thought it was rather good.
One group of local people thought it was good too, namely pensioners. The Tuesday morning showing at the local cinema was absolutely packed, with not a seat to be had. I suppose that pensioners have more interest than most in such matters. Whatever, it was good for the local cinema's coffers.
Walter Blotscher
Stille Hjerte ("Quiet Heart") is the latest film by the acclaimed director Bille August, and deals with voluntary euthanasia. The wife of a doctor has an incurable disease, which will eventually paralyse and kill her. He knows how it will end, and together they decide to end her life through sleeping pills, while she is still able to make it look like suicide.
The film takes place during a last weekend with the family. There are doubts about whether it is the right thing to do, there are conflicts and tears, there are reconciliations. I thought it was rather good.
One group of local people thought it was good too, namely pensioners. The Tuesday morning showing at the local cinema was absolutely packed, with not a seat to be had. I suppose that pensioners have more interest than most in such matters. Whatever, it was good for the local cinema's coffers.
Walter Blotscher
Monday, 24 November 2014
CONVENTION RIGHTS
There are nowadays a lot of conventions designed to protect the rights of various groups; children, refugees and so on. The content of most of them is unobjectionable, so countries are keen to sign up to them, and to pledge to uphold them. The question then becomes whether a convention right is the same as a legal right.
Sometimes it is. Some countries have a rule whereby a convention signed by the Government automatically becomes part of domestic law. In others (the U.K. for instance), conventions have no domestic legal effect at all, though there is a presumption that they will be upheld. In a third group, the domestic legal effect is somewhere in between.
In Denmark conventions have no domestic legal effect. So at regular intervals, politicians suggest incorporating them into Danish law. The latest of these attempts took place this week, but the suggestion was rejected by the Government. Their justification is that Danish Governments all commit themselves to uphold the conventions, so no more is needed. Commentators and legal experts are not convinced, and say that only formal incorporation into Danish law will guarantee the rights in question.
My guess is that the conventions will eventually be incorporated. Just not yet.
Walter Blotscher
There are nowadays a lot of conventions designed to protect the rights of various groups; children, refugees and so on. The content of most of them is unobjectionable, so countries are keen to sign up to them, and to pledge to uphold them. The question then becomes whether a convention right is the same as a legal right.
Sometimes it is. Some countries have a rule whereby a convention signed by the Government automatically becomes part of domestic law. In others (the U.K. for instance), conventions have no domestic legal effect at all, though there is a presumption that they will be upheld. In a third group, the domestic legal effect is somewhere in between.
In Denmark conventions have no domestic legal effect. So at regular intervals, politicians suggest incorporating them into Danish law. The latest of these attempts took place this week, but the suggestion was rejected by the Government. Their justification is that Danish Governments all commit themselves to uphold the conventions, so no more is needed. Commentators and legal experts are not convinced, and say that only formal incorporation into Danish law will guarantee the rights in question.
My guess is that the conventions will eventually be incorporated. Just not yet.
Walter Blotscher
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