Mad World

Another year, mostly awful as usual, is now almost over, and so it's time to set down a few reflections on it. Firstly, on this blog itself. In the last year, like my inspiration The Daily Sceptic , I've expanded my remit, focusing not just on the mad tyranny of the covid response but on the malignant 21st century version of communism, 'woke', to give it its most recognisable moniker (see bottom of page). Going forward, I am likely to offer up a similar subject mix, and as in 2022 I'm thinking that posts will be fairly irregular. I only try to write about things when I am really fired up, and feeling that I can add something to the conversation. I will not stray too much from the above subjects for fear of 'diluting' the original purpose of the blog. For this post, I'll confine myself to observations about the ongoing fallout from the most disastrous, scandalous and tragic policies ever enacted in the civilised world, the 'fight' against covid. M...

Sight and Sound magazine has announced the results of its latest poll of the greatest films ever made, and there is a new number one, a film with the inelegant title Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles , made in 1975 and directed by Chantal Akerman. Vertigo and Citizen Kane have been shuffled back a place. And at a stroke, the BFI’s mouthpiece has destroyed its credibility for at least the next decade, when the next poll will be published (there’s been one every ten years since 1952). I have in-depth knowledge of cinema* yet I haven’t seen Jeanne Dielman (though I now intend to). But I know it isn’t the best film ever made, and I doubt it is among the best 100 films ever made. On IMDb 9.4K viewers give it 7.6/10, although if you only count votes from IMDb’s Top 1000 voters it receives just 6.8/10. User reviews are wildly split between those proclaiming it a masterpiece (“The greatest film of all time”, “Hypnotic”) and damning it as boring and unfathomable (“I am...