Howard Jackson

The mens’ toilet at Wembley was crowded.  The bloke who stood next to me was tall, broad and loud. ‘Stewart Downing,’ said the large man in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘man of the bleeding match.  When I saw that I thought I was back on the drugs.’

I said nothing.

‘Let’s be honest, mate,’ he said.  ‘We were dogshit.’

‘We have played better,’ I said.

Bliss and disbelief occur often in football.   Liverpool had just won a penalty shoot out to clinch the 2012 Carling Cup Final despite missing their first two penalties.   Later, in the car, the disbelief and the bliss was compounded by the Analysis programme on BBC Radio 4.  The Trade Union economist, Duncan Weldon, demonstrated how, during the last ten years in the UK, wages had flattened for ordinary people.  He challenged the self-serving establishment view that it was an unavoidable consequence of globalisation and technology.   He compared countries with neo-liberal policies with the few remaining social democracies and stated that the latter had been far more successful at protecting the jobs and living standards of working people.   The penalty shoot out was bizarre by even the somewhat dodgy Cup Final standards of Liverpool Football Club.  Neither is economic heresy normal for the BBC.

The social democrats are fighting back and Richard Murphy, the number one economics blogger in the UK, is leading the fight.   He wrote ‘The Courageous State’ in three months.  This compares to Elvis producing the classic albums ‘Elvis Is Back’ and ‘Elvis Country’ in a matter of days or, for the more serious, Joseph Conrad writing ‘Heart Of Darkness’ in a month.    I have spent my life deferring to superior talent but this effortless mastery is definitely sickening.

In the week before the Cup Final, ex-cabinet minister, David Laws, wrote an article for The Guardian newspaper defending the chancellor, George Osborne.   Laws is the man who made fifty million in the City and who believes that the free market always produces the best possible outcomes.   He resigned from the Government because of expenses claims which culminated in him being paid money to which he was not entitled.   I have no way of verifying this but I am prepared to bet some of my own cash that he supports Harry Redknapp for the job of England football manager.  The article by Laws was short on analysis and quoted just one statistic, the rate of inflation.  Instead, he intimidated with a superior tone and used words like serious and informed.    He had the comfort of knowing that other people thought like him and that these people were invariably powerful.  That’s right, he agrees with the idiots who created the current economic mess.

Richard Murphy may not thank me for featuring him on an Elvis blog but it should not do him too much harm.  He is combative, confident and energetic enough to be everywhere.  He was interviewed today on Sky News about Barclays Bank and the £500m underpayment of tax.

‘We ain’t done anything wrong, mate.   It’s all legal,’ said a spokesman from the Bank.

Richard Murphy used to work as a tax consultant.  He knows the dirty secrets and the insatiable greed of the rich.  Indeed, his book has a good section on why they are so callous.   He is not a man who made a £500m fortune without a hint of personal doubt and subsequently felt obliged to claim expenses to which he was not entitled.   This merely makes him a better human being and is not the reason we should trust Richard Murphy rather than David Laws.  Murphy has qualities that make opportunists and networkers like Laws sneer.   He is capable of original thought and he is not afraid of facts.    The most alarming that his book ‘The Courageous State’ reveals is the £20bn unpaid tax, and the 97% portion of the UK money supply created by the private sector.   Before Thatcher, the State created most of the money, now it creates a mere 3%.  This 97% is debt disguised by the banks as assets (my words not those of Richard Murphy).   Debt attracts interest and this interest is paid to the rich and the bankers.   No wonder their bonus payments amount to billions.

Richard Murphy is right.  The State has been enfeebled and those economic libertarians who are joyfully welcoming this should consider an alternative history to their romanticised view of the industrial revolution.   The two leaps forward in human development were precipitated by the rise of Rome and Athens, and the emergence of powerful nation states in the 18^th Century.   (These are my words again.)

‘The Courageous State’ argues for the nation state to assert itself once more.   A civilised society is obliged to maximise the development of the potential of its citizens and to reduce the income gap between the very rich and the poor.   Richard Murphy is offended by an economy where the richest do not pay tax and the poorest pay more of their money in tax than those who have more.   Only in our crazed world of neo-liberalism are his views described as extremist.

‘The Courageous State’ is a 300 page book and the future of the world is a big subject.  There are omissions.  Faith in his future is undermined by the knowledge that too much economic power has shifted to outside the nation state.   Richard Murphy admits this but we need another book to convince politicians that it is in their interests to cooperate with each other rather than their financiers.  Also, within the left, somebody needs to talk about the tyranny of government AND the tyranny of the market.  I have no doubt that Murphy will rise to the challenge.

Murphy is right to argue that we should use a different language for tax. We are citizens and we do not give money to the Government in the way the British press describes.  We pay the Government what we owe it for services such as roads and hospitals.   But when Murphy says that it is the money of the Government and not ours he does not help the argument.

The book offers clever alternative circular economic models to the familiar co-axial graphs of economic theory.  In some, the circles are too conveniently concentric but the underlying assumptions are valid.   Diagram 10.14 sums up brilliantly what is wrong with neo-liberalism and its sole emphasis on money and is a fabulous moment of epiphany that demonstrates how lives are wrecked and distorted by narrow economic ideology.

I hope this inspiring economist is not offended by being included on an Elvis blog.   60 years ago the establishment argued that Elvis could not sing but he prevailed and now people realise he could warble better than the rest of them.  He also inspired other rockabilly singers such as Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.    These men were not prepared for the world to stay the same.   Like Richard Murphy, Elvis was not alone.  Murphy has Ann Pettifor, Paul Krugman, Roger Bootle and Robert Skidelski for company.   He is not the only brave economist talking sense.   I am a pessimist by nature but on Sunday I enjoyed bliss and disbelief for almost the whole 200 mile journey back to Liverpool.   With heroes like Richard Murphy around we may yet be pleasantly surprised.

If you want to read about Elvis, rock and roll and much more click here

It may not be the ultimate expression of misanthropic despair, the competition is very tough, but the phrase ‘And so it goes’ that

'And so it goes.'

was coined by Kurt Vonnegut in his novel, ‘Cat’s Cradle’ has enough acid to challenge the rivals.  Nothing sums up better the contempt for the human race that Vonnegut felt and never overcame.   The conviction within the phrase and the short but diamond clear novel is obvious.  Humans have an unmatched ability to persist infinitely with self-serving and self-deceiving absurdity.

Oddly, this ability exists alongside a reverence for the last word and for those who utter it.   Sometimes, our admiration is inspired merely by an individual sounding as if he has concluded an argument.   Stalin was blessed with this gift.   Cynics assume he was simply a dictator who ruthlessly used power but he was more than that.  After his death, his bureaucrats expressed bewilderment at how they found it impossible to claim the moral high ground against a man who both accidentally and deliberately caused the deaths of millions.    We value the last word and those who have the gift of expressing it.   Too often we assume it contains a truth when usually it is no more than a consequence of an emotional force or will.

Famous Flames Records have released a compilation of 3 CDs called ‘The First Rock And Roll Record’ which is intended to be definitive.   This debate has existed for some time and is likely to remain in the future.   The chosen name Famous Flames fits well the giants of the past.   But I would rather argue with Joseph Stalin than have to persuade James Brown that the title of his backing group always had retrospective overtones.  Maybe a James Brown record will eventually appear on the label.  Perhaps he will have the last word and why not?   His emotional force and willpower bested many.

‘The First Rock And Roll Record’, though, is where the Famous Flames label begins.  And, as Elvis once famously said to a fourteen year old girl who he kissed as she stood by the stage, ‘Well, you gotta start somewhere.’   The concept behind the CD is taken from the book, ‘What Was The First Rock And Roll Record?’ written by authors Jim Dawson and Steve Propes.   The lists of songs on the CD collection and within the book are different but not by much.  The same areas of music are mined.   As the headline quote on the CD booklet and the introduction to the book make clear, the title is disingenous.

‘Rock and roll was an evolutionary process – we just looked around and it was here ….   To name any record as the first would make any of us look a fool.’

This was said by songwriter, Billy Vera.   Now, there is a man who is comfortable with independent thought.  He may have even stood a chance with Uncle Jo, on second thoughts, possibly not.  Billy Vera understands that rock and roll had too many strands to be invented by one man.   The notion that Elvis or anyone else invented rock and roll emerged well after the time it enjoyed its peak in popularity.  The idea of a first rock and roll record exists as an abbreviated explanation of what happened.   Elvis was important for various reasons but not because he invented rock and roll.  He did, though, make records that distinguished him from others and he did make the leap from roots music to something modern. This was greedily grabbed by a new generation needing an alternative aesthetic.  This is why his double A sided single ‘Hound Dog’/ ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ was so important.

Time plays havoc with original judgements and the danger is that our revised opinions and impressions are no more reliable than what we originally thought.   Listen to ‘That’s All Right’ by Arthur Crudup in the context of this collection.  Fifty years later it no longer feels like a simple gut bucket blues that Elvis transformed into something revolutionary.   Charlie Patton may be the exceptional talent and master but Crudup sounds more modern.   The Elvis record is powerful and breathtaking but was he actually doing anything that original?   Well, he did something because it created imitators.   So many years after the event, we not only expect innovations and transformations to be significant for the people who were there at the time, we need it to sound radical for those who have been programmed with subsequent innovations.

Ultimately, the collection is obliged to mislead.  Historical accuracy is desirable but the past can never be understood by those tainted by what was once the future.  Of course, the more successful last worders often exploit viciously the elusiveness of history.   The headstrong listener, though, will acknowledge both the vital and thrilling roots of rock and roll and the seminal contributions of the exceptional.   Elvis, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Ike Turner, Bo Diddley or Ray Charles may not have invented anything but their classic contributions stand out from the rest.   They pierced the airwaves or they did for those who were listening back then.

The compliation although impressive and essential is not perfect.  Too often records are included because they merely include the words rock and roll.   The first track ‘The Camp Meeting Jubilee’ which was recorded in 1916 mentions rock and roll but is a conventional example of the gospel music of that period.   The record will be treasured by music fans but its inclusion ignores how gospel music and rock and roll not only followed separate paths but also existed in opposition to each other.   This opposition was not resolved (or blurred) until the arrival of Ray Charles.   And, if the mere mention of rock and roll makes a record eligible, consideration should have been given to ‘Now You Has Jazz’ by Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong.   This record swings far more than the Judy Garland offering ‘The Joint Is Really Jumpin’ Down At Carnegie Hall’.   Crosby and Armstrong delivered a great example of how even the distinction between rock and roll jazz is confused when the latter is danceable.  Neither is the chronology exact and Elvis has been deferred so he occurs behind Carl Perkins.   This is a deceit that offends this particular fan but the weirdest chronological judgement is the Hank Williams 1947 recording ‘Move It On Over’ which finds itself inexplicably sandwiched between two 1929 recordings.   It is also surprising that Jerry Lee Lewis is not included although ‘Hot Rod Race’ by Arthur Shibley and his Mountain Dew Boys anticipates The Killer brilliantly.   The carps are more than compensated by the glories.  This is a stunning collection that mixes R&B, country, hardcore blues, gospel and Benny Goodman.   It also includes the truly exquisite ‘How High The Moon’ by Les Paul and Mary Ford.   So I forgive its ideological sleight of hand.   Uncle Joe, though, would have expected untampered dates.   He would have not been quite so forgiving.

To read more about Elvis, the creation of rock and roll, American music and much more, click here

Only the possibility that the England national team will be battered in the European Nations Cup can stop the movie being made.   The characters are irresistible, the tale is heartwarming and the climax fabulous.  There is also something that the experts call a narrative ark and last week all suddenly became available to the aspiring scriptwriter.

First, there is Milan Mandaric, a billionaire who has lived in exceptional comfort in the Western World since 1969 but who resembles the tortured character Ivan Denisovich Shukov in the novel by Solyzhenitsn.    The suit may be expensive but his face has wrinkles that qualify as contours and there is a remote expression that insists upon an absence of comfort.   Mandaric looks as if he is on a weekend break from a Gulag.   He is an emaciated version of the chess playing wrestler in the Stanley Kubrick movie, ‘The Killing’.   This Russian bore, who was not one of Kubrick’s better moments, spent most of his time quoting third rate know all philosophy.   The doleful perplexed eyes of Mandaric threaten equally awful dialogue.

Next we have Fab Fabio Capello, the man who resigned from the job of England manager while Harry was simultaneously escaping being sent to prison.  Even his friends would struggle to describe this chap as handsome.  A man who looks like Desperate Dan after a lobotomy must have really struggled for admiring looks in Turin, a city known for more exacting physical standards than those encountered by Mandaric in Portsmouth.   At the beginning, Capello was actually popular with the English press.  They discovered Capello, when he was not sticking his sausages upright in his mashed potato, collected fine art.   ‘Look, he is intelligent,’ cried the English football writers.  They made the same mistake with Sven Goran Erikkson.  They assumed he had brains because he wore glasses and was Swedish.  ‘He has to be, doesn’t he?’ they said.

Finally, amongst our charismatic icons we have ‘our ‘Arry’.   Surely, the England football team has to be successful with a manager called Harry.   And there are precedents, as the French can testify from the last time they argued with one of our Harrys.   Everyone is agreed that this Harry has a way with people and it can be seen in his face.   He uses half a dozen expressions in a millisecond.  Harry says hello in the way most of us have a conversation.  It is the most active face in football and it makes you wonder if he is using an alternative to skin, some kind of synthesised rubber.   There is also the mystery of why the handsome son, Jamie, can look so much like his father and yet be so much better looking.  Maybe this is the existential mystery that haunts Mandaric so much.

Better than our screen gods, though, is the tale itself.   This is a heartwarming, no, we must not be modest, this is a supreme story about kinship between men separated by background, (Harry originally wanted to be a second hand car salesman and honest I am not laughing), culture, country, wealth (but not for long if Harry can help it) and language.  The last barrier was eventually bridged by Mandaric helping Harry with his English.   The two men became so close, Milan lent Harry £157,000.  We will never know if Harry accepted the money with tears in his eyes but in the movie tears will be mandatory.   Harry needed this money quickly which was why his spiritual partner responded with a selfless rescue.  The money was put where it would be safe, somewhere that they call a tax haven.  Unfortunately, not everyone understands kinship and mutual devotion.   There is an organisation called the HMRC.  This attracts obsessed zealots who, when they are not ignoring £20.5 billion of unpaid tax, ruthlessly persecute innocent individuals.  These innocents sometimes put money that they know is not taxable into an account where the holder does not have to pay tax.   I know, I can hear the odd mind beginning to whirr as I type.  If it’s not taxable why would …..?   Shame on you.  This is a tale about kinship and spiritual unity.

Then, we had the climax.  The last twenty four hours were told breathlessly by newscasters.   Harry was set free and Capello refused to manage the England team any longer.  ‘No, I’m not running away because the English team is rubbish.’   And he probably was not.   He missed his fine arts and he was well disillusioned with the modern English sausage.    

Capello will receive a £1.5m pay off which is not bad for supervising the most abject World Cup performance by an England team.   He was actually paid £6m a year which is an awful lot of gourmet sausages and a truly incredible amount of mashed potato.   Fortunately, Fabio works hard for his £6m.  The FA released a film of a recent training session.   Fabio can be seen clearly in the video.  He stands and watches.  All right, watching does not sound a lot but to paraphrase an old joke, it’s a dark and lonely business and somebody has to do it.

And the narrative ark mentioned earlier?   This will definitely appeal to the patriotic Englishman.  They had wotcha to gotcha all in one day.   The watching was the once aspiring second hand car salesman warily listening to what was happening in court and the getting was Harry desperately being shoehorned into the job of England manager within minutes of leaving the courtroom.  The same media that is aghast at Suarez refusing to shake the hand of Evra has no qualms about our Harry, a man whose nickname is Readies Redknapp,* and who said, ‘At the end of the day no one gives a monkey about you once your career’s over so in my view you should make the bucks while you can.’*    Fortunately, our sports journalists do not take everything our ‘Arry says at face value.  They have the skill to put in context his remark, ‘if there’s a chance to earn a few quid, take it because it doesn’t last for ever’*.  The press were vindicated because Harry soon confirmed he was the ‘least greedy person on the planet.’+

Meanhile, the FA is thinking and until the media confirm Harry has the job the media will fret.   Some have suggested Harry plays himself in the movie.  They quote the advert for the Wii game when the least greedy person on the planet was paid to make a fool of himself and his family.  Harry is versatile.  He does not just do dignity.

The word innocent has been used a lot this week.   Innocent was how Elaine Dunphy described Elvis.  His openness and innocence were what made him unique she claimed.   Perhaps Harry and Elvis have openness in common and, although he was a victim, Elvis could on occasions be a rogue.  But Elvis paid his 90% tax and he never had one scheme to avoid paying tax.   Not one cent of his fortune left the country and none of those around him gave Elvis gifts.   Neither did they acknowledge his vulnerability.    Greed consumed them all.   Harry has had a second chance and needs to take it.   I am not talking about the England job or the money.

* Broken Dreams – Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football.   Tom Bowyer Pocket Books

+ Police records.

In which speech did Margaret Thatcher say this?

‘The old days of grab and greed are on the way out.  We are beginning to think of what we owe the other fellow, not just what we are compelled to give him.  Time is coming when we shan’t be able to fill our bellies in comfort while other folk go hungry, or sleep in warm beds while others shiver in the cold, when one shan’t be able to kneel and thank God for blessings before our shiny altars while men everywhere are kneeling in either physical or spiritual subjection.’

Okay, you soon spotted the deceit.   Margaret Thatcher never did say that or anything like it.   The speech was uttered by Basil Rathbone at the end of the Universal movie ‘Sherlock Holmes Faces Death’.   No doubt many have heard the speech and dismissed it as no more than cheap Hollywood tripe.  The stirring music certainly makes it sound corny.   The movie, though, was made in 1943 which is why the speech is significant.  It captured well and accurately the mood that was emerging from the experience of a World War.

Around the same time that the old movie was beginning to appear on TV, the cinemas in Britain were showing ‘The Innocents’, the film version of ‘The Turn Of The Screw’, the classic novel by Henry James.   The movie was a sophisticated entertainment and it was impossible to watch it back then and not be conscious of the patriarchal civilisation that inspired the movie and had welcomed Henry James and Joseph Conrad.    There is a long standing cliché about the underbelly of the American and British left.   Americans of all political persuasions are patriotic and believe America is the ‘promised land’ and the British, even on the left and sometimes more so, are snobs who think that Britain represents a superior civilisation.

The post war consensus that supported social democracy in Britain is referred to as Butskellism.  Prior to Thatcher, both political parties believed the state and its elite had responsibilities to its citizens that included food in the belly, a warm bed and freedom to be different.   This consensus required not only post-war ambition and purpose but also a sense of decency, responsibility and patriarchal largesse.  We should not romanticise the past but between 1945 and 1973 there was little faith in neoliberal ideology.

For various reasons, social democracy did not unite Britain like it did other European countries.   Sweden has its own unique history and, if we exclude it from the comparisons, we realise that the countries that have been mostsuccessful at sustaining social democracy are those that were conquered or beaten in the Second World War.   They also had to avoid the Russians, of course.   In Britain, our version of social democracy created tensions and the sympathy for the working man soon became, as Joseph Cotton had famously predicted in the classic Orson Welles movie, ‘Citizen Kane’, resentment of organised labour.   Many yearned for the past and those that did voted for Thatcher.

This time her appearance has been quite brief and is of less consequence.    The movie, ‘The Iron Lady’ is, despite the performance by Meryl Streep, no more than tenth rate ‘King Lear’.   The film reveals how dementia and old age has confused Thatcher but the Iron Lady was always more blunt instinct and prejudice than reason.   She thought that a national ecnonomy could be managed like a shopping bill and argued that the Government could control inflation by restricting the supply of money, even though it only partially created that supply.   Thatcher did not need dementia to leave her looking addled.  In her prime, she may have intimidated the left but there were few who thought her intellectually superior.

The beguiled voted for Thatcher thinking she would make British industry competitive.   This was what she promised.   As today, the pain was supposed to be worthwhile.   Instead, British industry perished and Britain now survives on financial services and debt – public and private.   The manufacturing that remains is still as uncompetitive as before.  Productivity increases have shrunk since social democracy was dismantled.

The movie has been an odd phenomenon.  The cinemas in the South have been busy and audiences chortle with satisfaction as they recall her triumphs.  In the North, the cinema seats have remained largely empty.   Any Northerner who watches ‘The Iron Lady’ needs only to observe the empty seats and feel the silence to understand the anger and hatred that exists outside the cinemas.    ‘Go and see that film.   Not likely.  I had to live through it and the first time was bad enough.’   In London, the buses that advertise the film pass by frequently

But all this only describes the grievance of the Northern working class.  In the eighties, I was obliged to visit the industrial estates in and around Merseyside and observe the For Sale signs multiply and scar the region.  Although the pig headed persecution of ordinary people is the greatest of her crimes, the tragedy of Thatcher, or what followed her, is greater again.   I think of myself watching ‘The Innocents’.  I was a teenager on a council estate outside Liverpool.  It was not called a sink estate because then our estates were something different.  The fathers had jobs and their children were better educated than their parents and all received free health care.  Young Britons could watch ‘The Innocents’ and respond to its subtle messages about self-control and civilisation, feel as if they were being invited by their superiors to share their doubts and inadequacies.

Eventually, neo-liberalism arrived and everything was supposed to be resolved by the decision making of the market.    We soon understood it was a fancy name for survival of the fittest.   Once that became the creed, there was no civilisation to inspire pride in anyone.   Cheers have been replaced by jeers.  Today, Thatcher looks less important to neo-liberalism than the sixties that preceded it.  In that decade, the British too often confused mature restaint with repression.  The sixties did represent progress for previous casualties but neoliberalism would not have been possible without the self indulgence that many assumed to be freedom.    Neoliberalism gave what the worst of my generation wanted most of all.  It sanctioned their appetites.

All of which leads to the ultimate irony in Thatcher.   She would have hated modern Britain, its non-judgemental attitudes and devotion to gluttony.  Others have made the same point about Elvis, that he facilitated a generation whose behaviour shocked him.   There are more comparisons between Thatcher and Elvis to tempt us.  The argument about whether Elvis invented rock and roll is similar to the debate about Thatcher.  Was she no more than a mouthpiece and was it really sixties libertarianism and the receding memory of war that undermined social democracy?   But, the lady and her memory are wearisome.  I was obliged to write this Challenge because that is the nature of these Challenges but, of all of them, this is the one I resent the most.  Elvis had his faults but comparing Thatcher to him really sticks in my throat.   She offends not just the normal loyalty to class and birthplace but also any sense of what once made Britain half decent.   The advert will soon disappear from the the buses.   Soon is not soon enough.

*Tamara Drewe – Spoiler alert*

Pretension, cinema and posterity rarely prevail as bedfellows.   Look at the history of movies.  The classics that we watch repeatedly are sophisticated entertainments, usually but not always, loaded with hidden meanings.  The movies of Hitchcock are a good example.  Praise has been heaped upon ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, ‘The King’s Speech’ and the films of Steve McQueen – ‘Hunger’ and ‘Shame’.  Compared to them ‘Tamara Drewe’ is light but like the classic Howard Hawks movie ‘Bringing Up Baby’ it will have more appeal for audiences in thirty years time than puffed up efforts that are determined to be recognised as profound.

The plot of ‘Tamara Drewe’ is a modern version of the Thomas Hardy novel, ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’.  This was not his greatest book but it did have the best title because it referred to a lot more than rural retreat.  The story is simple.  A woman has three men in her life – a dashing soldier, an older but dependent man and finally a practical man that will be supportive.  The ending is ambiguous and we read it knowing that Bathsheba has found someone whom she needs to help her survive but not the man who will make her feel fulfilled.

This plot serves ‘Tamara Drewe’ perfectly because it allows the film to entertain and amuse whilst providing a chilling view of human nature.   Tamara reconciles herself with Andy, the practical man, by telling him, ‘I need a friend’ so we know that the plot has a romantic conclusion as dubious as that written by Hardy.   The movie has had mixed reviews, probably because the happy ending does not reveal moral progress or confirms a heroine who has made decisions rooted in understanding.    ‘Tamara Drewe’ is great, though, because it consistently refuses to believe in the worth of human beings.   In these days of positive thinking, empathy and emotional intelligence it really is quite refreshing to relax and enjoy nearly two hours of mean spirited misanthropy.

The film has been compared to the novel ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ by Stella Gibbons.  This also satirised Thomas Hardy but the aim of the satire by Gibbons was narrower.  She lampooned Hardy and our romantic notions about rural life.   ‘Tamara Drewe’ has the human race in its sights and it excuses no one.  It does not need to offer a landscape with a brutal aspect.   The shots of the English countryside are relentlessly beautiful.  The people, though, are the same as they are anywhere, inadequate and self-deceiving.  Ingmar Bergman has indulged similar ambitions but not with quite so many jokes.  Oddly, the humour is not cruel; it merely shows how we are ridiculous.  If the movie says anything positive, it is that we all provide amusement for others.

The characters can be criticised as stereotypes but their symbolism confirms that the movie is a satire.  The location consists of a writers’ retreat where all the creative talents are narcississtic fantasists.   The one successful author describes writers as ‘thieves and liars’.  If the creative are hopeless and invariably immoral the practical are boring.  The wife of the successful writer who owns the retreat runs an organic farm but this is not an honourable woman who is seeking pastoral integrity.  Instead, the movie takes a wide swipe at organic farmers.  They may be rural idealists but they are dismissed as isolationists unable to deal with reality, people obliged to seek consolation in industry and imagined purpose.  The organic farmer has chickens that are ‘ornamental’ but cannot lay eggs.

Like Bathsheba, Tamara eventually chooses a man who is capable and probably even self-sufficient.   He lacks pretension but is an emotional primitive whose youthful sex with Tamara once earned him the accusation of baby snatcher.   On bad days, and we all have them, he couples with the local barmaid.   She pulls pints like someone milking a sheep. This earthy creature is the alternative to ambition but if ambition is self-deluding so is its alternative and it is clear that the staunch yeoman exploits her as he does his other animals.  Anybody who believes the yeoman is the hero needs to think about the scene when he prepares to kill the troublesome dog of his rival.  This does not happen but only because twenty yards above him the other loyal member of the village does just that.  This aggressive land blessed phoney is what the yeoman will become when he becomes older and stays in the village, narrow and vindictive.

The romantic rival to the yeoman in the novel was a soldier.   Sergeant Troy was charismatic but irresponsible.   In ‘Tamara Drewe’ the equivalent character plays in a rock band.    Tamara thinks he is unusual because he is a drummer who writes songs.   Again, as with the writers, this alternative to conformity is no more than an inadequate adolescent with an exaggerated sense of entitlement.    Throughout the movie, the alternatives are as awful as what they oppose.   The drummer is just one more self-appointed spokesman, another ‘gob on sticks’ as we now say except in his case he is a gob with sticks.    Tamara abandons him and because the yeoman is the best of a bad lot there will be some in the audience who mistake the ending but when she says she had to stay in the village because he has ‘made the house so nice’ and the yeoman replies he will now get his ‘old bedroom back’ we know we are watching a clueless couple retreat into childhood.

The conclusion for the drummer is even bleaker.   It is his dog that has been killed and this has upset him.  The graveyard scene that follows evokes a similar moment in ‘Flaming Star’ when Elvis and his family bury his Native American mother.   The drummer has two sociopathic schoolgirl fans and these offer consolation to a hero trapped in an adolescence that mirrors Tamara and her yeoman.    The rock star has found his Priscilla and if anybody wants to know why a famous singer would pick a fourteen year old school girl as his soul mate watch the movie.  The connection is made even stronger because in an earlier scene the drummer destroys his career when he rages over his rejection by the girl member of the band.    He sacrifices his potential because he is unable to retain his lover.   These references to Elvis should not be a surprise.   The movie is directed by Stephen Frears whose CV includes ‘Long Distance Information’, the BBC film about an Elvis fan which was mentioned on a previous blog.

None of the characters in ‘’Tamara Drewe’ handle rejection well.  They fray, find somebody on the rebound or pretend it has not happened.  Relationships are begun by sexual predators or those recovering from failure.   This is the grim truth. We are as hopeless at love as we are incapable of handling abandonment.    ‘Tamara Drewe’ may not be Luis Bunuel or Jonathan Swift but it has a merciless perspective and the laughs never undermine that view.   The reference in the film to Hardy as the sexual predator obsessed with young women throughout his life is vital.  It suggests Hardy condemned Alex d’Uberville so easily because he was writing about himself.   The seduction of Tess is not just a tragedy for Hardy but an irresistible moment.   ‘Tamara Drewe’ is a dark film and, if what it says about human beings is true, no wonder Elvis destroyed himself so easily.