James Delingpole's Blog, page 42

Cult splatter flick director Richard Curtis talks about the film that made him famous

You thought that renowned writer/director/comic Richard Curtis was keeping schtum over his recent internet viral "hit". But blogger Grumpy Old T— has been given exclusive access to an interview in which… (to read more, click here)

'Anyone who thought Love Actually was a bit crap please leave…'

It's here. The long awaited and entirely inevitable Downfall parody of the Richard Curtis 'No Pressure' snuff video. And it's a good 'un. (H/T Eugenia Tweed) (Congratulations to Boiling Frog who made it)

My favourite line is…

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Splattergate: 'Oh well, we live and learn….'

 

Here's the film Richard Curtis might have preferred to make for the 10:10 campaign, if only his exquisite sense of and good judgement hadn't got in the way. Personally I think it's a big improvement on the original. At least it doesn't make any bones about what it is the green movement really wants.

Oh, and do read the comments at the 10:10 website. The venom is something else…

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Richard Curtis's snuff movie: A joke? A canny marketing strategy? I don't think so.

Richard Curtis's eco-fascist snuff movie was a disaster for the green movement, I think we can all agree.

Well, not quite all of us to judge by one or two bizarre comments and newspaper responses I've seen today. Let's just dispense with a few of them.

1. It was an internet "hit."

Yes, it surely was. In much the same way that the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand 'Sachsgate' tapes were a hit or the Paris Hilton sex tapes were a hit or Britney Spears shaving all her hair off was a hit. Not all publicity is good publicity. Duh.

2. It was all part of Richard Curtis's "cunning plan".

Yeah right. Because, of course – see above – the 10:10 campaign really wanted everybody screaming, even green commenters on the Guardian's pages, about what a despicably misguided exercise it was to show people who don't being believe in Man Made Global Warming being blown to smithereens like Islamist suicide bomb victims. Yes, that's just the way to win over the undecided to your cause: threats, bullying and emotional blackmail.

3. Richard Curtis is a secret "denier" and devised the project as satire.

I think the psychological term for this is "projection." Curtis has scripted many good films over the years – well, one, anyway – plus of course he co-wrote Blackadder. Ergo, in some people's minds, a guy who can be so funny could never actually have been responsible for such car-crash propaganda without meaning it to be car-crash propaganda. Well, I'm sorry Curtis fans, but this doesn't wash. As exhibit a) I present The Girl In The Cafe – whose liberal, anti-capitalist, anti-globalist sentiments were painfully of a piece with the kind of Weltanschauung exhibited in No Pressure and as b) I offer 4. below.

4. This was an unfortunate accident. It isn't representative of the green movement.

Er, actually, tragically, this is exactly how the green movement thinks. I refer you to my piece James Lee is Al Gore is Prince Charles is the Unabomber.

Eat local organic food if you like, but don't kid yourself that it's 'green'

Don't get me wrong, I love farmers' markets. I love going to the fashionable one in Borough, London, and that wonderful rich feeling you get whenever you don't buy anything. And I love going to the one near me in south London and bantering and haggling with the fish man till he succumbs to giving me some amazing bargain like five decent-size Dover sole for a tenner.

I also really like the idea of putting money direct into the farmer's pocket rather than helping finance yet another bloody...

In search of lost time

My friend Mickie O'Brien, late of 47 and 44 RM Cdo, died the other day. I'm not sure how old he was — late 80s, I would imagine — but, whatever, it was good going for a man who should have been killed at least twice in the 1940s, once at the Battle of Kangaw when the Japs shot away half his stomach and once when he walked deliberately into a minefield to rescue a French farmer. For one exploit or another Mickie won an MC.

The question I used to ask Mickie most often was how he managed to cope ...

Global warming is dead. Long live, er, 'Global climate disruption'!

President Obama's Science Czar John Holdren is worried about global warming. Having noticed that there hasn't actually been any global warming since 1998, he feels it ought to be called "global climate disruption" instead. That way whether it gets warmer or colder, wetter or drier, less climatically eventful or more climatically eventful, the result will be the same: it can all be put down to "global climate disruption."

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The real reasons why one billion go hungry: wind farms, biofuels, sustainability…

A great post from Roger Pielke Jr. (H/T Roddy Campbell)

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has just released a preview of its flagship report The State of Food Insecurity in the World. And guess what?

The preview has some good news: the number of people worldwide in chronic food shortage dropped 10% over the past year to "only" 925 million.

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Opiate for the masses

One of the few things I respect about mainstream TV is how utterly shallow and addictive it is. In many ways it's like crack: it doesn't pretend that it's good for you but it gets you to where you want to go way more effectively than tofu or wheatgrass juice or organic dolphin-friendly tuna caught with rod and line. Sometimes it achieves high artistic standards too, but this is usually a fluke, which happens despite the medium rather than because of it. TV isn't like film or opera or theatre ...

'Cut government spending and cute kittens like this will die!' says hard-hitting, unbiased BBC 'report'

It's not often I feel much sympathy for Dave "Grocer" Cameron's dismal, grubbily compromised Coalition government. But when you see leftist propaganda as blatant as this on the BBC website, you do begin to appreciate the scale of the challenge ahead of them as they try impose their "cuts" – (which aren't actual spending cuts at all; rather they are decreases in the increase of public spending) – on the bloated public sector. (H/T Sheumais)

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