Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!

Six dead Romanians; a night out on the town with a beautiful floozy; a tattoo with a secret in it; a midnight kidnapping; a psychopathic Geordie; and Rex Hammer, a man so cool he once managed to sink the Lusitania and bang Rita Hayworth (I think) in the same afternoon – these are just a few of the fantastically loopy yet recognisable features of Humphrey Ker’s rocket-fuelled one-man show, Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher! at the Soho Theatre. It’s basically like the Eagle but with swearing and magical swastika jokes (don’t ask). And a talking dog.

The setting is the 1940s, and Ker plays the eponymous Watson, a soldier who is rather a likeable cove – both brash and vulnerable – sent by high command to tell the audience how he came to have his SS-smashing sobriquet. There are some well-observed asides, as when he’s in a cab (“And I knew it would be quicker to cut up Ladbroke Grove, but I didn’t say anything because he’s a cabbie and I’m posh.”)

There is a plot which drives the show like an amphetamine-crazed Vietnam veteran in a monster truck rally. The son of an architect, Watson’s the only Romanian speaker left in England after a spate of mysterious killings. The deaths jettison Watson into a lunatic world of double crosses and derring doers.

It’s a gallumphing ride, and Ker’s boisterous and best strength is the ability to bring to life the galaxy of characters that Watson meets along the way. There’s the aforementioned psychopathic Geordie, who trains Watson in the art of killing: “If someone comes up to you and says ‘that’s enough’, you’re doing it right.” Or you can slit your victim’s throat and whisper in his ear, “real creepy like.” There’s the marvellous Rex Hammer, who arrives after his weekend long leave still in white tie with a couple of female film stars making out in the back of his limo. “You’re all right, homo,” he says to Watson.

There’s Joanna, the Southern ingenue who might be hiding a terrible secret (who Ker brings to life with just a little skip of his combat-trousered legs.) And there’s the dog – Uncle Trevor – who would give the one in The Artist a run for his money. Best of all (to my mind) were the Nazi fans of a magician that Watson had to impersonate (it’s too complicated to explain) – Ker got perfectly the mixture of awe and embarrassment, made all the more piquant by the fact that the fans were savage jackbooted soldiers who’d kill at the drop of a hat.

Inventively silly, joyously ridiculous, and yet with a plot line that wouldn’t look out of place in an airport thriller, this is beautifully crafted and craftily bonkers, revealing both Ker’s obvious love of the genre and his playful twisting of it. And Stephen Fry was in the audience too. You’re all right, Ker!

This post first appeared on philipwomack.blogspot.com.

Trabzon is famous for its hamsi (pictured) and Russian prostitutes (not pictured). Photo credit: Gabrielle Jackson

When the beautiful woman in the long black coat approached me, the thought crossed my mind that she could be a Russian prostitute. I was in Trabzon, a port town on the Turkish Black Sea coast famous for its hamsi (Black Sea anchovies) and Russian prostitutes. I was here en route from Istanbul to Georgia and we were both waiting for the Tbilisi bus.

She didn’t speak much English, this beautiful woman named Fatma, but I discovered she was from Azerbaijan, has a Russian mother and an Azeri father. She was sweet, and keen to take me under her wing, and even while I scolded myself for wondering whether she was a Russian prostitute, a few things happened to make me not completely forget the idea.

First, she told me she’d been for a job interview in Trabzon to coach the Turkish national gymnastics team and said she was now going to Georgia to renew her Turkish work visa. Why Georgia, rather than Azerbaijan, went unexplained. And why the national team was based in Trabzon, I’ll never know.

Second, the bus manager pulled a face at me when she wasn’t looking that unmistakably said, ‘Stay away from her – she’s crazy!’

Third, she had no luggage. When I enquired as to why, she told me she had a bottle of champagne, some chocolate and three pairs of underwear. Apparently that all fit in the massive Louis Vuitton handbag she was carrying. Now, I don’t actually know any Russian prostitutes, but if I were writing a book that featured one, these are the kinds of things she might carry around in lieu of luggage.

But then again, she kept being incredibly kind to me. Fatma translated for me through the border, carried my bag and led me to the toilet. I put my suspicions aside again and instead stared out the window and dreamed about how lucky I’ve been with the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been.

This reverie was interrupted by Fatma, now my seatmate, complaining about the woman behind us. Loudly. To be fair, she had been speaking on the phone for a fairly long time. And when she wasn’t on the phone, she was listening to loud music. So she was a bit annoying, but I was reading my book and not really noticing. Fatma, on the other hand, was trying to sleep and noticing everything.

At this stage, I thought I may be the only sane person on the bus and decided that I would not talk to anybody for the rest of the journey. It was about 6pm and we were due to arrive in Tbilisi at 8pm. I could stick that out.

Instead of arriving in Tbilisi at 8pm, however, we arrived at a bus stop café that looked far from fetching. It looked like a place they’d stop in a horror movie when one or more of the passengers gets decapitated by a lonely restaurant worker who then escapes on the bus. Left alone in the freezing night, the passengers turn on each other, and the heroine (ie me) has to escape into the snow-covered hills in inappropriate clothing only to be found, after a series of close encounters with a cliff, a bear and a mental villager, alive – but only just – by Interpol sniffer dogs.

None of that happened. Instead, I realised I had no money and Fatma paid for my dinner. Then, when I had to feign sickness as an excuse not to eat the cold fried kidney she dumped on my plate, she jumped out of her seat to fetch me a hot cup of tea. Even while she was performing this act of kindness, I was considering why I’d never before realised that the act of eating cold fried kidney was probably one of the essential characteristics of a serial killer, or at least with the tendency to be involved with serious criminal activity in the form of Russian prostitution gangs operating out of Azerbaijan.

But she can’t be planning to rob me, I thought – trying to be logical – because she’s just bought me dinner. Again, I relaxed and tried to be calm.

Back on the bus, I was enjoying my book in peace when the fight broke out. The noisy woman behind us was sharing a joke with the bus assistant and Fatma had lost patience. Fatma turned her head and started scolding her. Then it escalated. Fatma stood up and began yelling.

After quite a bit of shouting, Fatma turned back around and all was silent for a few seconds. Then the woman made a ‘tut, tut, tut’ sound. Not good. Fatma jumped out of her seat and reached passed me to lay a punch. By this time she had taken off her long black gloves to reveal a fistful of diamonds, which would hurt, I surmised, when used in a punch. Luckily some nearby men intervened and prevented an all-out brawl. I was unharmed in the incident.

After taking off her diamonds and putting them inside the Vuitton, Fatma made us move seats. By now, it was clear I was in her clutches. Nobody else on the bus spoke English and they all thought we were mates. I had to move with her. I had to stay on the good side of the crazy lady.

I again spent some time staring out the bus window, albeit with slightly less enthusiasm than earlier.

I tried to think rationally. I’d already established she wasn’t trying to rob me. She knew I had no money and the clothes I was wearing were a pretty good advertisement that I had nothing much of value to steal.

That’s when I realised: She was going to sell me into a Russian prostitution gang, probably working out of Azerbaijan!

I started to think of the ways she might lure me to the gang. In her charming, kind manner, she would insist I stay with her and that’s when I would be ushered into a black Mercedes with tinted windows and driven by a man in a black beanie with a gold front tooth and a big gun and smuggled off to Azerbaijan, where men with lots of oil income would pay BIG money for a red-headed Russian who spoke no Russian!

Why do I have to be a trailblazer, I asked myself? Why am I on a bus with no English speakers going to a country most Australians don’t even know exists? Well, you’ve always wanted to do things nobody else has done, I sighed to myself. This is what it feels like to go it alone. It’s lonely and scary! For a moment, I felt a teeny wave of self-congratulatory euphoria wash over me. That feeling didn’t last long, because I felt I needed to make a plan to get out alive.

How would I get out of this? Every time I thought I was on to her, she did something nice. What a professional! But punching another passenger was beyond the pale. While Fatma slept, I spent my time trying to get eye contact with other people on the bus and smile. Not one person smiled back. To be fair, I probably looked like some kind of loon, half standing in my seat, squished in between the sleeping assassin and the window, staring at people with a manic smile on my face. It was clear I had no friends on that bus.

When we got off the bus at 2.30am, inexplicably six hours late, there were a number of taxis waiting. I rushed to collect my bags and then bombarded the taxi drivers with the address of my hostel. One of them nodded. Excellent.

‘OK, bye,’ I said to Fatma, with slightly too much enthusiasm.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘I’m going.’

‘I’m coming with you. This is Georgia. I’m not leaving you alone with a taxi driver!’

Shivers.

The taxi driver was now asking for a phone number for my hostel, clearly not understanding the address I had written down in Latin text. I didn’t, but Fatma grabbed the address from me and was translating it to the taxi drivers. The street she was saying sounded like the one I had written down, I told myself, and reluctantly got in the taxi with her. I had some landmarks written in my notepad of what the hostel was near and I looked out for them with desperation. The cinema was one such landmark and as we passed it, I yelled like a mad woman that we had to turn. Fatma told me to be quiet. The taxi driver ignored me. He stopped, consulted another taxi driver, then did as I had suggested and turned at the cinema.

She escorted me to the door of my hostel, and as we knocked, casually said, ‘I may as well stay here if there’s a bed for me. It’s too late to go to my hostel.’ For the love of God, she’s thought of everything!

Of course there was a bed for Fatma – we were the only customers. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night. I kept waiting for the Russian gangsters to show up.

The next day, Fatma showed me around Tbilisi. She changed my Turkish lira because the banks wouldn’t. She showed me where to go to eat. She showed me some photos of her gym team and offered to host me in Baku. Even if she wasn’t there, she said, I could stay with her parents, and she showed me their photos too. It was now starting to seem like a pretty elaborate plan to get me into a prostitution gang. I wondered how late she was waiting to make her move.

Later, when I grilled the multilingual hostel worker, who had spoken to Fatma extensively in Russian, I discovered there were pretty credible explanations for the all the gaps in Fatma’s story. It was just Fatma’s lack of English that had left all those gaps, not a Russian gang operating out of Azerbaijan but in Tbilisi just for one night to pick up some Russian-looking Australian prey.

I started to think that maybe Fatma wasn’t the crazy lady. I started to think that title pretty much belonged to me. When I went back over all the slightly mental things I’d done, including sneaking off to another hostel while she was finishing her drink in a restaurant (to book for the following night so she wouldn’t know where I was), I wondered why she was even hanging out with me.

I never got to the bottom of the fist fight, but we enjoyed our last evening together and I started to think we could be friends if we spoke the same language. When I said goodbye and tottered off to my new hostel, however, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. I needed to leave the crazy behind, even if it was all mine.

When I arrived at the new hostel, it wasn’t just with a bit of embarrassment at my assumptions about Fatma. There, I was confronted with another Australian, an American and a Spaniard. It turned out I was no trailblazer, after all, just a suspicious racist (against Russians) with a rather wild imagination.

A version of this story first appeared on KebabQuest.

Prison: Solitary confinement is maddening. Photo credit: Aapo Haapenen, http://www.flickr.com/photos/decade_null

“Some words are uncomfortable to write,” Susan Greene acknowledges in “The Gray Box,” a multimedia project on solitary confinement just published in Dart Society Reports.

“Trauma is one of them, especially when used about people who have traumatized others. Torture is another. In the moral balance between crime and punishment, the word risks discounting the suffering convicts have brought their own victims.

“Nothing is black and white in a gray box. Lines can blur between the good guys and the bad ones. It’s far easier to label the secret police in some foreign dictatorship as torturers than to lob the word at prison guards in the next county.”

Is it torture to keep a prisoner in an isolation cell for years or even decades at a time? Is it trauma to endure such large spans of one’s life with no meaningful human contact? These are the questions posed in Greene’s article and accompanying video documentary.

Considering how much we as a nation have debated the morality of capital punishment, we’ve hardly discussed what happens to the 99.9 percent of major-crime convicts who aren’t sentenced to death.  The use of solitary confinement on an estimated 80,000 people in federal penitentiaries, state prisons and local jails has gone unexamined far too long.

Greene looks at the genesis of penal isolation as a morally progressive social experiment in the 19th century by Quakers hoping that long periods of solitude would help prisoners repent. Most prisons suspended the practice by the late 1800s once it became clear confinement was having the opposite effect. “It devours the victims incessantly and unmercifully,” Alexis de Tocqueville reported from a prison in New York. “It does not reform, it kills.”

“It does not reform, it kills.” Alexis de Tocqueville on solitary confinement.

Then, a century later, came a bloody day in 1983 when two corrections officers were killed in separate incidents at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill. Those killings marked a tipping point, prompting efforts by Reagan-era law-and-order types to build dozens of federal and state supermaxes – prisons designed for mass isolation – in the name of officer safety.

Greene’s project looks at the effects of those decisions after decades of supermax-style isolation. Through letters with dozens of prisoners and interviews with men who’ve been released, she relays what it’s like spending long spans of time in a space the size of two queen-sized mattresses. We hear from the prisoners themselves about the numbing tedium of solitary. We learn about creative ways they devise to pass their time. We see the artwork they’ve created and the letters they’ve written. And we glean – maybe for the first time in a piece of journalism – how they lose themselves and their identities.

“The world outside is like another planet,” writes Jack Powers, a prisoner at the ADX federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo. “I feel like I am trapped within a disease.”

Hours before Greene’s project went live on Dart Society Reports, a stunning news story unfolded in federal court in New Mexico. A jury there awarded $22 million to Stephen Slevin, who was held for 21 months in solitary confinement in Dona Ana County on a DUI charge that ultimately was dropped. Like many prisoners in isolation, Slevin had lost touch of time and reality. Alarming photos of him before and after his confinement appear in Greene’s documentary.

“I had no grip on what was happening to me,” he told her. “I was like an animal caged in a zoo.”

The 8th Amendment of our Constitution ostensibly protects prisoners from torture. What constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” pivots on “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.”

“The Gray Box” questions how much we’ve matured as a society since suspending the use of solitary confinement in the 19th century. The project reminds us that the time has come to contemplate our standards as they pertain to long-term isolation, and to shine as bright a light into prisons right here at home as we did, say, at Abu Ghraib.

Short-term solitary confinement may make sense for the most violent prisoners, and only for short periods. But isolating people for years and even decades shocks the conscience, especially as illustrated by the men who keep writing Greene and screaming for someone to hear them.

Winter sunset over Tel Aviv

Right at the heart of one of the most politically heated and conflict-prone areas of the world is a one-of-a-kind city that certainly knows how to party in a very “creative” way. With a population of less than a million people, but with a lot of attitude, Tel Aviv has rightly earned a reputation as one of the most appealing party and artsy capital cities of the world.

Israel is often unfairly pigeon-holed as a religious destination for spiritually-keen tourists from the three monotheistic faiths, or as a completely avoidable and no-go zone because of the constant security threats and sporadic terrorist attacks derived from its geographical situation and its political context amid the never ending conflict with its immediate neighbors. But Israel is much more than what spiritual preachers and the media or politicians say about it – especially when it comes to its entertainment, cultural and artistic offerings.

“I could not even conceive living someplace else. Life in Tel Aviv is simply as good as it gets,” affirmed Dan Grossman, a 30-something American expatriate who has called Tel Aviv home since his early 20s. And most Tel Avivians, at least those around Dan’s age, agree with him. They not only adore their town but are, in a way, infatuated with it. And many of them – Dan included: he owns a vintage haute couture shop on Shenkin Street, exactly at the epicenter of Tel Aviv’s happening scene – are part of why Tel Aviv is such a vibrant and exhilarating city. They are visual and conceptual artists, sculptors, painters, writers, designers, actors, architects, dancers, musicians, artisans, dj’s, iconoclasts, creators, curators and, above all, entertainers and entertaining, just like their town.

“This is a place that triggers inspiration. It provides joie de vivre and lives under the laissez passer motto. Tel Aviv is groovy and hipster, it’s all about now and here. It’s got a lot of mojo, if you know what I mean,” Dan added, smiling.

Tel Aviv, founded by some of the first European Jewish settlers arriving in historic Palestine at the end of the 19th century, is not only the biggest and most affluent city in Israel, but is also its cultural melting pot. Its native Muslim and Jewish Arab inhabitants generally live elbow to elbow with a lot of the creative and bohemian crowd in the old ramparts of historic Jaffa, just south of downtown Tel Aviv. The city also has a vibrant community formed up by Jewish from the diasporas, Argentineans, Russians, Ethiopians or French, you name them and a colorful and quite active expat community, from Filipinos to Sinhalese and Sudanese, all allured by the city’s vibrant economy and the country’s porous Southern border with Egypt in the Sinai. This rich mixture, seasoned by a beautiful Mediterranean coast, spotted with sandy and low tide beaches and a year-round pleasant weather, make Tel Aviv simply irresistible.

The perfect weekend in town should start right there by the light blue sea. A jog or a bike ride along the Corniche, maybe some beach volleyball or racquetball (a local favorite). If you are more of a late sleeper, nothing compares to a light or heavy brunch (depending on your drinking the night before) along with a beer or a simple juice at one of the many stalls and restaurants along the coastline.  Next in your schedule should be a visit to Jaffa’s street market, for art shopping between the Ottoman-built walls, followed by a stroll along Rothschild Boulevard to see the UNESCO World Heritage Listed Art Nouveau buildings. Take frequent breaks for a light coffee on one of the numerous terraces, where people watching could keep you entertained for hours.

Later on or maybe the day after – since in Tel Aviv, being in a hurry is simply not part of anyone’s plan – be sure to visit the extended new wing of Tel Aviv’s Museum of Art and the superb Holon Design Museum, both recent additions to the town’s cultural scene. Try out Dizengoff Street and the new port, where you will have enough options to sate your shopping and eating cravings. And try to stop by the Suzanne Dellal Center to catch one of the many awe inspiring dance performances. Get yourself lost in the vast array of galleries and never ever miss the chance to go out at night, maybe even every night. Go have dinner and then some drinks, listen to some of the best jazz and dance to some terrific music. Say hello to the Sun as the day starts again by the Mediterranean and start all over again.

Flags at the European Parliament's Robert Schuman building. Photo credit: Tristam Sparks

On a train journey between two European capitals, I came across a newspaper supplement in Le Monde newspaper (yes, apparently there are still some uses for print newspapers). The supplement is called europa and is a coordinated effort by six national papers to create a jointly-edited publication that tells the ongoing narrative of what unites European nations. In a sea of negativity and with no shortage of naysayers, it was refreshing to see some people putting their heads above the parapet in support of the European dream that I unashamedly support.

Whilst there are obviously difficulties with the European Union’s fundamental structure – as highlighted by its current, world-impacting financial crisis – it’s worth remembering that there are also some pretty good reasons for wanting to preserve the union. The most important reason is the deterrent against war that a unified Europe provides. By establishing shared goals, by establishing commercial trade relationships, and by supporting one another in times of need, the incentive to kill each another necessarily dwindles.

There are commercial incentives for preserving the Union as well: By staying together we maintain economic ties amongst ourselves and with the rest of the world. Like companies in free markets, when countries are free to trade with one another and permit their citizens to move freely for work, those countries tend to do both of those things. Similarly, a unified European currency has greater buying power than do divided currencies – I’m pretty confident that all those Porsche Cayennes sold in Greece and that German manufacturers made so much money from would never have been purchased in drachmas. Surely the years of wealth creation seen in Western Europe since the establishment of the European Union – as well as the panic that its breakup is today engendering in markets around the world – must be evidence of these commercial advantages.

Fighting to preserve a unified Europe is also to recognize an increasingly entrenched reality: more and more people are international citizens. To use a now dated term, globalisation has become the norm. It is no longer unusual for people to marry different nationalities, to live in countries other than where they were born, and to have children with multiple nationalities – let alone multiple cultural backgrounds. Much of the Western world is becoming one big New-York-style melting pot, and I for one think that’s no bad thing.

Europe may be an old world culture, battered and bruised, with little more than the vestiges of long-gone glory days, but it’s my battered and bruised Europe and I’ll defend it to the end.

Finally, as no argument worth its weight would be complete without full disclosure of the totally selfish, personal reasons for supporting it, here are mine. Mainly, I hope Europe survives as a Union because for all its flaws I love it, and hope always to move freely around it. Europe may be an old world culture, battered and bruised, with little more than the vestiges of long-gone glory days, but it’s my battered and bruised Europe and I’ll defend it to the end.

Yes, the Greeks enjoy the good life more than austerity; yes, the Italians take cheesy romanticism to new levels; yes, the Spaniards are passionate to the extreme; yes, the stereotypes of symmetrically perfect Swedes and ultra-efficient Germans are probably true; and yes, the French can enjoy food and drink like few others in the world. All those cliches are probably true and all those characteristics – along with the ones I haven’t the space to bore you with – are what makes Europe such a pleasure. Moreover, as someone who has always described himself as “half French, half Greek, brought up in London, and 100 percent confused,” it would be so nice to one day say “I’m European,” and for that to mean something.

Maybe they're talking to each other? Photo credit: Jamesmellor http://flic.kr/p/2WixLY

Imagine if you actually gave a damn. No, honestly, think about it. If you were in a business meeting, or trying to impress a girl, or in an interview, what are the odds you would wander off mid-conversation to look out the window? Or start doodling? Or change the subject and person to whom you were addressing that subject? Pretty slim, I’ll wager.

If I’m right about you being at least marginally polite, Dear Reader, then you must agree that it’s surprising how many people succumb to the supremely rude habit of consta-checking – perpetually checking their smart-phones for messages every few seconds whilst in the company of others. Unless it’s just that I’m just hanging out with the wrong sort people, but I like to think that’s not the case, as I rather like (most of) the people I spend time with.

In fact, it’s because I like those people that I’d far prefer to actually spend time with them than to watch them tethered to a blinking light screen. For the record, I’m 36-years-old and so a little too young (or at least un-old) to qualify as an old fashioned relic in denial about technological advances. All this begs the question, why? Why do we feel this compulsion to check messages at the expense of the people in whose company we spend our time?

Perhaps people feel the need to check e-mails in the context of their work. The problem with this theory is that it seems in most professions you’re either in front of a laptop with internet access (i.e, working) or you’re moving from one place to the next. In the case of the latter, unless you’re a traveling salesman or a junior associate in a law firm, checking messages every five minutes probably won’t do you much good. One always hears people talking about smartphones freeing people from the office and letting them work remotely, but those people may want to consider whether their mobiles are a release or a leash.

If checking your smartphone so often is not really a work advantage, then maybe it’s something more romantic; maybe you’re checking BBMs or texts or e-mails for a response from someone you’re courting (or, fancy, married to). Just as in pre-mobile days when lovelorn romantics might wait anxiously by the phone (or the mailbox) feverishly deconstructing every word or lack thereof, perhaps this is the modern equivalent: Did she read the text? What does it mean if she’s online but didn’t reply? Will she or won’t she BBM back to my joke? It’s like an earlier age but on steroids. And across at least four different media. Is that really such a healthy thing?

Even people who consta-check when on their own have a negative impact on those around them; nowhere is this more apparent than in the context of travel. Whether it’s pre-take off on a plane, or throughout a train journey there are few things more annoying than hearing the one-way conversation of a person going through a seemingly endless list of speed dial contacts who are apparently desperate to know that “I’m on a train . . . no, it’s just for work . . . yeah we’re leaving now.” Just because the technology exists to communicate always and from anywhere, doesn’t mean there’s always something worth communicating.

So the next time you’re with a loved one, or with a group of friends, or on a train and you find yourself consta-checking, ask yourself: Is this really a polite way to treat someone I care about? What information could I possibly have failed to communicate or will so dramatically affect me since the last time I checked messages or made a phone call? And if you still feel the need to consta-check, well, maybe you should ask yourself why you made the appointment in the first place.

Shoes.

Shoes. I am really, truly not the sort of girl who is that bothered about shoes. I know everyone says that, but you can tell I’m not lying because I’m not saying it in a high-pitched voice while tossing my hair around and giggling like a weirdo.

In fact, the shoes I am wearing today (left) are basically the same pair of shoes that I had when I was about eight: flat, black patent leather with a grosgrain ribbon bow. They may not actually be Start-rites, but they may as well be. Contrast these with the killer heels worn by someone who works in the fashion department of the magazine that I work for (right) and you will see that I tell the truth.

But there is something about accessories in general that has got me recently. I have bought three – THREE! – pairs of shoes in the last month (and am now ‘hoisting the black flag of impecuniosity’ as Trollope puts it). And a handbag. And several packets of kirby grips. And one pair of ridiculous earrings. Maybe it’s my way of coming to terms with the January economy drive (‘But these shoes are only £85! Why, if I bought a dress it would be at least twice that. Therefore I have definitely saved myself money by buying these shoes’). Maybe it’s because the last time I bought any shoes it was a pair of Converse All Stars in 2009 and I just needed some. Or maybe it’s that there are, in fact, whole hosts of new, somehow better shoes than there have ever been before, and I have subconsciously tapped into this zeitgeist despite knowing absolutely nothing about fashion.

Actually, though, I think it’s because accessories are lovely and that they make one feel cheerful and they are easy and – wait for it – accessible. A good pair of shoes is to a girl what a floozy on the arm is to a man: unnecessary and silly, yes, but pretty and confidence boosting and a good conversation starter when you’re feeling shy.

A version of this post first appeared on Violet Hudson’s blog.

Mitt Romney - what were you thinking? Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, http://flic.kr/p/9itUtP

We have been waiting for some time now for the IRS to produce the promised regulations for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Some (quite sad) people expected a bumper package, from the IRS, in their Christmas stocking, but it didn’t arrive and is now expected next week, at the end of January.

As a piece of legislation ostensibly created to fund the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) act, FATCA has always been a bit of a winner in the popularity stakes in the US. It was, apparently cleverly, designed to bring money back into the US to fund tax breaks for employers, which will enable them to give jobs to the long term unemployed. It will do this by sniffing out higher earning (over $50,000 per annum) overseas tax evaders and force them to pay what is due to the IRS.

There has been some speculation recently, possibly due to the tremendous global outcry to the IRS over the enormous amount of work and cost that FATCA is going to cause (to seemingly everyone in the corporate world) that the legislation may be toned down. Could the lateness of the regulations be a glimmer of hope in the horror of the monumental FATCA burden that looms before us?

Then this week (at the time of writing, it’s only Wednesday) we are greeted with two news stories that undo any twinkling hope left. The State of the Union Address and Mitt Romney released his tax returns. Can I just say “Mr Romney, what were you thinking?”? Not that he’s doing anything illegal, but perhaps in the light of FATCA, he could have held himself up as an example of how to behave as a responsible citizen, as, although he is taking advantage of offshore tax efficient accounts, which he is completely entitled to do, might it have been advantageous to bring this to light earlier?

FATCA will demand that all Foreign Financial Institutions report to the IRS on any accounts with specified connections to the US, for example US passport holder or green card holder. Romney’s accounts will be reported under FATCA, as they already are reported under existing tax reporting requirements. FATCA’s intention to worm out those who aren’t reporting to the IRS already, thus not paying tax to the US, gets muddied when the world focusses its attention on cases like Mr Romney’s.

And so to the State of the Union Address. President Obama’s speech did feature many references to tax and the equity of its payment and mention was made of financial institution misbehaviour and the rules that have been passed to prevent such further occurrences. Hope for the easing of FATCA requirements sank completely at the point that “Tax reform should follow the Buffett Rule” appeared. FATCA is an onerous, US imposed piece of global legislation and it is going to cause, much reported, huge amounts of work for any institution within the world of finance, whether they have US connections or not, if they want to be able to continue to do business with the rest of the world. Any easing of the requirements or deadlines would probably be welcome at this stage, as not having the regulations defining the actual interpretation of the legislation is causing some consternation.

My main issue, after studying FATCA in some depth and listening to, and reading, the State of the Union Address, is that the US are dictating to the rest of the world about how they need to behave in business, while they do not adhere to the same principles themselves (see Buffet comment above). President Obama talks about American values of fair play and shared responsibility that will help protect the US people and economy, yet this sense of fair play does not seem to extend entirely to the way that the US practices its own business. As it happens, we’re still waiting for the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act to move forward – maybe that could help the new Financial Crimes Unit, mentioned in President Obama’s address, to fight fraud at home, as well as abroad.

Daughter, by Alexandra Zhymailova

Ukrainian contemporary art has been generating some of the most exciting work in Europe in recent years, with the new generation of contemporary artists exhibiting in such prestigious international venues as the Venice Biennale and Art Basel.

The impetus for this projection onto the international art scene began in the 1990’s, when institutional support of contemporary art in Ukraine began in earnest, with organisations such as the Soros-funded Centre for Contemporary Art in Kyiv and the PinchukArtCentre, which opened its prominent gallery in the centre of Kyiv in 2006. These institutions have more recently been eclipsed by the Mystetskyi Arsenal, a huge national museum and art complex in the centre of Kyiv, housed in a garrison dating back to the 18^th Century.

Director Nataliia Zabolotna, together with prominent curator Oleksandr Soloviov have been working tirelessly to transform Kyiv into one of Europe’s top art destinations, and former president Victor Yushchenko has been appointed chairman of the advisory board. Mystetskyi aims to hold frequent and regular art events and bring into international view talented Ukrainian artists from the various schools of contemporary art.

Alisa Lozhkina, editor of Art Ukraine magazine, describes the trends in contemporary Ukrainian art thus: The modernist wave – those leaning towards abstractionism – Tiberius Silvashi, Anatolii Kryvolap, Aledsandr Zhivitkov and others; The postmodernist wave – artists who began producing work in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and who are currently at the peak of their art market and and gallery popularity – Arsen Savadov, Illya Chikan, Oleksandr Roitburd, Oleg Titsol, Maksim Mamsikov, the late Oleg Golosiy, and Aleksandr Gniltsky; The generation that emerged during the ‘Orange Revolution’ and which reflects the interest towards political activism and ‘critical’ art – artists groups such as ‘REP’, ‘SOSka’, and other artists whose creative formation occurred in the late 2000’s; The newest generation of young artists, who have come to the forefront of the Ukrainian art scene over the last decade and may be considered the ‘hope’ of contemporary Ukrainian art – Dobrynia Ivanov, Nikita Kravtsov and others.

With the ‘Independent’ exhibition in September and the 6^th edition of ‘Art Kyiv contemporary’ art fair in October behind them, the Mystetskyi Arsenal are now looking forward to hosting Ukraine’s biggest and most prestigious art event to date, the inaugural ‘International Biennale of Contemporary Art’ (named ‘Arsenale,’) to be held in Kyiv in May 2012. British curator David Elliott (curator of the 17^th Biennale of Sydney, and founding Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo),  who will be the artistic director of ‘Arsenale’ said, “In my opinion, the international art community’s perception of Ukraine as some kind of a post-Soviet hinterland has changed. It is therefore a great challenge for me to organise the first Ukrainian Biennale, that not only opens the unique space of Mystetskyi Arsenal to the world, but also offers a new vision of the country, its art, and its place in the world.”

Preparations are also busily underway in Kyiv as it has been selected to host part of the European Football Championship in 2012, and as this will coincide with the Biennale, the infrastructure for tourism is quickly and radically being transformed to welcome a whole host of new visitors to Kyiv. Alongside the Biennale, Kyiv will be enlivened with a multifarious and diverse program of parallel events. With Lonely Planet listing Ukraine in its ‘Best in Travel: top 10 countries for 2012’, and as  the Sunday Telegraph’s recent article about Kyiv averred, “…. it’s not just its architecture for which Kiev is celebrated: It’s an arts destination, with enough cultural treasures to ensure – even when the sun’s not shining on its golden-domed buildings – that the city can still glitter and sparkle”, the city is set to become one of Europe’s top cultural destinations.

The Inaugural Kyiv Biennale – The Best of Times, the Worst of Times – runs 17 May – 30 July 2012 at Mystetskyi Arsenal, 10 Lavrska Street, Kyiv, Ukraine, 01010. www.artarsenal.in.ua

The elusive and much-disputed idea of the “public interest” will play an important part in Leveson’s deliberations. Public interest defences – such as exceptional justifications for intrusion, for example – are written into the Press Complaints Commission’s code of conduct and into several laws. Back in the middle of last year, public interest was an important issue in one of the cases which triggered several public rows and court cases over privacy injunctions.

One of these cases involved Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced ex-head of the Royal Bank of Scotland. While in charge of the bank, Goodwin had had an affair with a female colleague. Injunctions were granted to prevent the disclosure of the names of either party. Despite the injunction, Goodwin’s name was freely bandied about on Twitter and he was named in the House of Commons by an MP. A judge, Mr Justice Tugendhat, eventually cancelled the order concealing Goodwin’s identity but kept in place the one preventing the naming of his lover.

The Daily Mail did not approve of the judge’s decision, running as many details (“the mistress on a six-figure salary”) about the woman as it thought it could get away with. Or so it appeared. A number of different court hearings were held on this case and this is the judgement covering what the Mail had said. It repays careful reading.

The Mail’s lawyer discloses that one item of information about the woman was false and known to be so when published. The woman’s lawyer said that another “fact” about her was wrong and wasn’t contradicted. Both of these pieces of information were about her job, including the claim that she had been promoted during her affair with the bank’s head. The Mail’s lawyer suggests that these falsehoods were planted to put people off the scent and make the woman’s identification less likely. Mr Justice Tugendhat wasn’t having any of this implausible nonsense: “As I remarked in court in response to that submission, another effect of the false information is that it would tend to mislead the reader into believing that it would be in the public interest for the identity of the lady to be disclosed. In other words, it laid the supposed factual basis for the public interest argument advanced by Mr Hemming…and the editorial on page 14, as well as of the headline on page 1.”

Put into plain English, the judge was accusing the Mail of lying about the facts which lay behind its argument for disclosure in the public interest. Read it for yourself, but that seems worth asking about on February 6th.

This piece first appeared on GeorgeBrock.net.