days of glory

This film by French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb was highly rated by Time Out London when I was visiting a couple of years ago, and has been on my to-see list even since. I finally found it on DVD and one night at the cabin after dinner we all settled down to watch it.

The lame English title doesn’t really do justice to an excellent war film with a colonial twist. Four Algerians enlist to fight for France in World War II but soon discover that the promise of liberty, equality and fraternity doesn’t hold for them neither on the larger scale nor small – tomatoes at dinner only if you were white. As they make their way with their regiment though Italy to Alsace and Provence, fighting the war takes on an extra hollowness given the way La Patrie views and treats them. Dying for a country that doesn’t see you as a true child made winning the war just seem depressing and sad.

In its closing credits, the film noted that pensions to African soldiers were stopped after independence of their countries. As a coda, President Chirac reversed this after a private screening of the film and raised their allowance to equal that of their French counterparts. Algerian-French culture has since developed its own strong identity, but acceptance by mainstream still remains a large problem, as the writer Faïza Guène describes.

Her first book, Kiffe Kiffe Demain, is written in verlan, back-to-front Arab-influenced slang about life in the Courtillières high rise estate of Paris has been a storming success, yet in this angry interview she describes the stark reality of discrimination in France today. I’m very sorry I can’t read her book in the original verlan, as it seems like the English translation would take so much away from it.

lol bush

George Dubya got the LOLcats treatment for photos taken during his trip to Beijing, and I dare say it works even better on him than on little kitties.

his years on film

I thought my year online was a big enough undertaking, while Little M is taking a photo every day with her digital camera, but it seems like Jamie Livingston had resolve on a completely different level. He took a Polaroid shot every single day between March 1979 and October 1997. The one above is from the 23rd of August, 1989.

There were a couple of close shaves for the collection, involving eviction from an apartment and sifting through a rubbish truck. The later pictures of violent scars and hospitals foretell their own ending, with Livingston’s death from a brain tumour. A friend put all of them up online for other friends, but the message has leaked. Go here for the full story but most of all flip through the pictures themselves. Have you ever wondered what a series on your own life would look like?

tulipgirl goes oppdal

It took a while but we got Tulipgirl over and up to the cabin! Lots of relaxing, chatting, wine and good food interspersed with lungfuls of fresh mountain air. This shot was taken up at Vora, inspiration to go there from the Oppdal Trip Bank.

svele

Sunday morning at the cabin means svele, the thick fluffy Norwegian pancakes Mr. Snow made for us on our takke. They are made to rise with hjortetakksalt or hornsalt, literally salt from deer antlers, in fact ammonium carbonate which used to be extracted from the antlers. Today you can replace it with baking powder but the authentic recipe calls for that slight whiff of ammonia!

tom daley

Yesterday Tom Daley, the 14 year old British diving prodigy, came eighth out of eight with his partner in the synchronized 10m platform dive, much to both their disappointment. I had forgotten just how beautiful diving can be, until I saw this video of all his 10-scored dives from 2007. Every one was over in a flash, but breathtaking and controlled. He’s still got a chance in the individual events at this year’s Olympics, but surely very many more in the years to come too.

and the gold medal for national anthem goes to…

Some 205 countries are competing in the Olympics as I write for medals in all manner of sports to be presented to the country’s national anthem. But based on music alone, whose anthem is the best? Alex Marshall went on a hilarious month-long quest to listen to every single one, from Guinea’s 10 second polka break tune to Burundi’s Bruce Lee film soundtrack. Here are the top 10!

Be Upstanding: The ten best national anthems

Uruguay: National anthem

One of the most euphoric pieces of classical music I’ve ever heard. Banks of trumpets play crescendos to false endings – for five minutes. But somehow it works.

Bangladesh: My Golden Bengal

A wonderful anthem that sounds like it was written for a stroll along the Seine. It really needs Jacques Brel. Which is probably not what the Bangladeshi composer had in mind.

Tajikistan: National anthem

Written when the country was part of the USSR, it sounds like the music that plays in James Bond films when a Russian spy is about to cut off Bond’s manhood. It doesn’t try to soar, but frighten, and it’s all the better for it.

Mauritania: National anthem

A trip into the heart of the souk, albeit a menacing one. The melody is so unusual that most Mauritanian’s can’t sing along to it, so pretend it doesn’t have any words.

Dominica: Isle of Beauty, Isle of Splendour

A simple, spiralling melody stuck on repeat for 47 seconds, but there’s such movement and elegance to it. Don’t confuse with the Dominican Republic’s, which is wretched.

US Virgin Isles: Virgin Islands March

It’s Mary Poppins! One of the few anthems to literally pull out all the bells and whistles. This should be a soundtrack to a kid’s film.

Senegal: Strum Your Koras, Strike Your Balafons

How can an anthem that name checks two local instruments in its title – a harp and a xylophone – be any less than brilliant? It’s really two tunes – the first twinkles, the second strolls. But both are amazing.

Nigeria: Arise O Compatriots, Nigeria’s Call Obey

Written in 1978 by the Nigerian Police Band, this should be an awful march. Fortunately it features relentless afrobeat percussion, which makes any tune outstanding.

Nepal: Hundreds of Flowers

Adopted last year, when Nepal’s House of Representatives threw out the old, western-style anthem. This folk melody on strings and hand drums sounds like slowed-down bhangra. Shame it’s probably unplayable by brass, so unlikely to be heard outside Nepal.

Japan: May Your Reign Last Forever

Solemn. So much so, it’ll have you thinking of everyone you’ve lost for its duration. Rarely does an anthem carry such weight.

the dark knight

The latest Batman movie has lots of Wham!s and Pow!s which you could almost see, testosterone pumped as it was (refer motorcycle above!). So much so that when the action exploded on the screen, I didn’t know whether to cheer or to laugh, and often did both together. A couple too many twists and turns perhaps but again an accomplished piece of filmmaking by Christopher Nolan of Following and Memento fame.

Despite growing up with quite a different version of Batman on Sesame Street, all the characters were at least familiar, but it was so much fun to see the spin both Nolan and the actors had put on them. Heath Ledger’s Joker was even more disturbingly well played as all the reports I had read, while Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine did fine if a little unimaginatively as Lucius Fox and Alfred. Maggie Gyllenhaal just annoyed me to no end with her tragedy face and cliche-ridden lines.

Finally, Gary Oldman was great as the brush-moustached Commander Gordon, but Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne/Batman was the real surprise for me, strong, convincing and surprisingly dashing for the boy I first saw in Empire of the Sun. Somehow he didn’t make quite the same impression in Batman Begins. The adrenaline overdrive takes a little depth away from the story, but if it’s entertaniment you are after, this is a rolicking good option.

bird’s nest

Now that the Olympic games have started in Beijing, it is difficult to miss seeing the event’s stunning new stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest. Its deconstructed order made it love at first sight for me, as opposed to its neighbour the Water Cube. The stadium is the work of the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron, with the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei as its artistic consultant, a term he does not like, according to the report below by Ed Vulliamy.

In fact, he has never visited the stadium he designed, and says he never will, preferring instead to stroke his cats and have a bit of lunch. This very mild explanation from a usually confrontational artist was eventually expanded on here, with Ai explaining why he would not attend the opening ceremony held there. Read on to follow someone who went in seach of the real Ai Weiwei.

‘On my final day in Beijing, I go in search of the Bird’s Nest’s creative origins, which entails a journey beyond the depressing Lego-brick city to a very intriguing quarter. ‘Arts Zone 798′ and the series of studios beyond it constitute a rather lovely corner of Beijing, where old streets and buildings have been spared the bulldozer and turned into a kind of trendy theme park in which the authorities seem not only to permit but encourage cultural activity.

bright sparks

Malaysia is far from being the roaring powerhouse of new (English language) writing that India is, but there are sparks flashing in the tinderbox. This post was brought on by the news that Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain was longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. That reminded me of Tash Aw’s fantastic The Harmony Silk Factory, longlisted for the same prize in 2005 and winner of 2005 Whitbread Book Awards First Novel Award.

Both books are set in and around the Second World War in Malaysia; I’ve not read the first but have the second and enjoyed it tremendously. The story has three narrators, the son, the wife and the friend of Johnny, a Chinese businessman in smalltown Malaya. Each tells Jonny’s – and their own connected – story at three different times and in very different voices. The third of the book told by Snow, his educated, sophisticated wife, was my favourite.

All this led to an old friend alerting me to another new Malaysian writer on the scene, Preeta Samarasan who has just published her first book, Evening is the Whole Day, on Indian Malaysian family life. It’s another to add to my wish list. She’s talking at the Edinburgh Book Festival this weekend, so if you’re there you could always swing by.

Now I’ve shared all my local book tips, do you have any for me?