Blog – Jack Sanger

Better the Government We Deserve than the Government We Get

It is an anomaly as painful as it is real. Political leaders do not represent the cream of generations. They are rarely credible enough for their nations to feel even minimal respect. In most cases they would not rise to the top of a multinational company or professions such as medicine or philosophy or astro-physics.… Know More
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Of Capital NIghtmayors…

Having had a life spent in both the north and the south of England (and with a family in Scotland) and, latterly, living in East Anglia and Surrey but working in the north (Manchester, Sheffield etc) it has been borne home to me that there IS a divide in the country. When, finally, I come… Know More
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No Country for Old Men: the film of the book

I read Cormac McCarthy’s book of the same name, a month or two back, saw the Coen Brothers film yesterday and watched the Newsnight critics half-dismiss it the same evening. There was some praise but, in the main, they felt it was over-hyped. One found the psychopath, Chigurh, robotic, a mechanical killer and the whole… Know More
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Caution – Lust may not be erotic!

I saw Ang Lee’s latest film at the weekend. I had the same reaction to it as I did to Brokeback Mountain. A long, very stylish but somewhat vacuous film which depended on a single taboo to keep the audiences filing in. In his cowboy predecessor it was, of course, the love that could not… Know More
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Parents! Get a life and leave your kids alone…

I met a bloke once who got irate with me when I said all private schools should be abolished. He explained that he was (relatively) poor because he was sending all three of his children to private school, just like his parents did with him and his sister. There was no way he would entertain… Know More
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Season of discounts and discontent

The time is back with us when people scratch their heads and wonder why the not very great and not very good are on the Queen’s Honours list. Given my republican tendencies (well, leanings that have tipped me over into a horizontal defiance) it always surprises me when people conflate the need for royalty with… Know More
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Faggots and Maggots

Long in the tooth as I am – the first record I owned was a 78, Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley, the other side being Thirteen Women and Only One Man in Town – the various incidents of BBC intervention on the part of a minority (or majority) have always stood out as… Know More
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The browning of Britain

I read somewhere recently – I remember, it was in one of those answers-to-impossible-questions books that are piled up near the door in Waterstones; the sort that people buy for friends when they have run out of ideas – that the basic colour of the universe is brown. Examine all the colour spectra of everything… Know More
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The Assassination of Jesse James by Jack Sanger

Let me explain the background to this odd title. I saw a documentary on Jesse James recently and then went to see the film with Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, (excellent!). Both were reasonably well researched and showed Jesse James to have been a psychotic killer. Rather like Billy the Kid, he became the subject… Know More
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What a load of Bali nonsense

Whatever weak resolution comes out of the talks about the global environment, the fact remains that the US has become the caricature of a self-aggrandising bully. Whilst its history of ‘exporting democracy’ at the end of a gun over the last decades, whether in South America, the far east or the middle east has had… Know More
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