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| Used and abused by Boris Johnson – what did Kipling do to deserve that? | Used and abused by Boris Johnson – what did Kipling do to deserve that? |
| (4 months later) | |
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| Thu 5 Oct 2017 06.00 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 15.56 GMT | |
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| Coincidences don’t get queasier. The Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, centre of the horrific shooting, was named in 1998 in honour of Rudyard Kipling’s poem Mandalay – which the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, was recently shown on television reciting on a visit to Myanmar. The reason for this is that the hotel owners liked the classy, cod-colonial associations. | Coincidences don’t get queasier. The Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, centre of the horrific shooting, was named in 1998 in honour of Rudyard Kipling’s poem Mandalay – which the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, was recently shown on television reciting on a visit to Myanmar. The reason for this is that the hotel owners liked the classy, cod-colonial associations. |
| Perhaps they also liked the idea of Las Vegas as a connoisseur sensualist’s playground, to be dreamed about when stuck back in the workaday world of home. (“Tho’ I walks with fifty ’ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,/An’ they talks a lot o’ lovin’, but wot do they understand?”) A new film by Myanmar director Midi Z, The Road to Mandalay, is also intended to reference Kipling, although in terms of bleakest irony. Well, I don’t think there’s anything evil about liking Kipling – it’s impossible to read, say, his Plain Tales From the Hills without seeing his brilliance. | Perhaps they also liked the idea of Las Vegas as a connoisseur sensualist’s playground, to be dreamed about when stuck back in the workaday world of home. (“Tho’ I walks with fifty ’ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,/An’ they talks a lot o’ lovin’, but wot do they understand?”) A new film by Myanmar director Midi Z, The Road to Mandalay, is also intended to reference Kipling, although in terms of bleakest irony. Well, I don’t think there’s anything evil about liking Kipling – it’s impossible to read, say, his Plain Tales From the Hills without seeing his brilliance. |
| But it was pretty crass of Johnson to declaim this poem so proprietorially, so complacently, like a lovelorn backpacker in Paris putting a padlock on the Pont des Arts. I very much suspect he was inspired by William Dalrymple’s classic travel work, In Xanadu, in which the author describes retracing Marco Polo’s path from Jerusalem to Shegdu in Inner Mongolia in China, and finally on that spot, in a state of utter exhaustion, attempting to recite Coleridge’s Kubla Khan. Dalrymple had earned that privilege. I’m not sure Johnson had. | But it was pretty crass of Johnson to declaim this poem so proprietorially, so complacently, like a lovelorn backpacker in Paris putting a padlock on the Pont des Arts. I very much suspect he was inspired by William Dalrymple’s classic travel work, In Xanadu, in which the author describes retracing Marco Polo’s path from Jerusalem to Shegdu in Inner Mongolia in China, and finally on that spot, in a state of utter exhaustion, attempting to recite Coleridge’s Kubla Khan. Dalrymple had earned that privilege. I’m not sure Johnson had. |
| Thumbs down for Felipe | Thumbs down for Felipe |
| With mounting incredulity, I watched King Felipe’s unprecedented address to the Spanish nation, broadcast live on BBC News 24, with simultaneous translation. It was stiff, cold, distant – with no conciliatory tone, no real gestures of sympathy or concern for the unarmed civilians being savagely beaten and attacked by police. | With mounting incredulity, I watched King Felipe’s unprecedented address to the Spanish nation, broadcast live on BBC News 24, with simultaneous translation. It was stiff, cold, distant – with no conciliatory tone, no real gestures of sympathy or concern for the unarmed civilians being savagely beaten and attacked by police. |
| Perhaps his majesty was not fully informed of how brutal and one-sided this situation was, or perhaps he thought that “rubber bullets” are just fun pellets like the ones fired by kids’ Nerf guns. Or perhaps he can’t hear the phrase without sentimentally hearing 10cc’s classic, jaunty hit: “Load up, load up, load up, with ruh-her-hub-ber bullets …” | Perhaps his majesty was not fully informed of how brutal and one-sided this situation was, or perhaps he thought that “rubber bullets” are just fun pellets like the ones fired by kids’ Nerf guns. Or perhaps he can’t hear the phrase without sentimentally hearing 10cc’s classic, jaunty hit: “Load up, load up, load up, with ruh-her-hub-ber bullets …” |
| Actually, they are baton rounds, and even if they are fired at the ground to cause a lesser ricochet impact, they can cause serious injury or death – and that’s certainly a possibility if the victims are not kitted out in the protective armoury the police have. | Actually, they are baton rounds, and even if they are fired at the ground to cause a lesser ricochet impact, they can cause serious injury or death – and that’s certainly a possibility if the victims are not kitted out in the protective armoury the police have. |
| Give the people selfies | Give the people selfies |
| Instagram is at the centre of a row this week for attempting to shut down US accounts run by “CopyKates” or “RepliKates” – young women who post photos of themselves in outfits that reproduce the Duchess of Cambridge’s willowy sartorial look with considerable care and admiration – and at a fraction of the cost. | Instagram is at the centre of a row this week for attempting to shut down US accounts run by “CopyKates” or “RepliKates” – young women who post photos of themselves in outfits that reproduce the Duchess of Cambridge’s willowy sartorial look with considerable care and admiration – and at a fraction of the cost. |
| These superfans were furious at this suppression of their freedom of expression. Now Instagram has relented in some cases, though not all. Was it the duchess herself who was displeased at this sincerest form of tribute-band flattery, and gave a royal order to Instagram to crush them? | These superfans were furious at this suppression of their freedom of expression. Now Instagram has relented in some cases, though not all. Was it the duchess herself who was displeased at this sincerest form of tribute-band flattery, and gave a royal order to Instagram to crush them? |
| No. I suspect that Instagram itself, all too aware of the huge ad revenues that attach to fashion, style and influencers, got very nervous indeed about the idea of the common folk diluting a brand and setting a precedent. That was very silly of them. The CopyKates and RepliKates are just having fun. The duchess herself should now pose for selfies with them. | No. I suspect that Instagram itself, all too aware of the huge ad revenues that attach to fashion, style and influencers, got very nervous indeed about the idea of the common folk diluting a brand and setting a precedent. That was very silly of them. The CopyKates and RepliKates are just having fun. The duchess herself should now pose for selfies with them. |
| Saint Theresa: the ordeal | Saint Theresa: the ordeal |
| I thought Warren Beatty was the reigning champ of the horrendous public speaking fiasco. And I thought that individual letters falling off signs was a comedy routine that went out with the BBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, in that notorious proto-Corbynite decade the 1970s. | I thought Warren Beatty was the reigning champ of the horrendous public speaking fiasco. And I thought that individual letters falling off signs was a comedy routine that went out with the BBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, in that notorious proto-Corbynite decade the 1970s. |
| But that was before we saw the prime minister’s speech to her party conference, and there was something there for any cinephile to savour, if only masochistically. There is a film called Stations of the Cross (or Kreuzweg) by the German director Dietrich Brüggemann, which shows the progressive agonies of a sensitive, intelligent woman from a Catholic background who suffers from an eating disorder. | But that was before we saw the prime minister’s speech to her party conference, and there was something there for any cinephile to savour, if only masochistically. There is a film called Stations of the Cross (or Kreuzweg) by the German director Dietrich Brüggemann, which shows the progressive agonies of a sensitive, intelligent woman from a Catholic background who suffers from an eating disorder. |
| Her story is interspersed with titles recounting the successive moments in Jesus’s progression to the crucifixion: his stations of the cross. I think of that film every time I see a new Theresa May speech or a new Theresa May interview. Her latest performance is the most unendurably protracted stage in her – and our – ordeal. Why is she going through this? What is she proving? When is it all going to end? • Peter Bradshaw is the Guardian film critic | Her story is interspersed with titles recounting the successive moments in Jesus’s progression to the crucifixion: his stations of the cross. I think of that film every time I see a new Theresa May speech or a new Theresa May interview. Her latest performance is the most unendurably protracted stage in her – and our – ordeal. Why is she going through this? What is she proving? When is it all going to end? • Peter Bradshaw is the Guardian film critic |
| Boris Johnson | |
| Notebook | |
| Las Vegas | |
| Rudyard Kipling | |
| Catalonia | |
| The Duchess of Cambridge | |
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