Blog – Jack Sanger

In praise of NCIS

I don’t like fictional programmes based upon current or recent events. I squirm from a disgust at what we humans do and also because these productions feel like exploitation. Dramatisations of 9-11 or soldiers lives in Iraq or Afghanistan, for example. I wonder about family, friends and acquaintances of those who have suffered. When it… Know More
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Im-Putin-g the Russian Bear

The appalling death of Alexander Litvinenko, amid a trail of polonium-210 residues has led many commentators to talk of a new Cold War. Fortified by its gas and oil, Putin’s Russia is chesting it out with all its clients, neighbours and global partners. Its hard-nosed attitudes and complete lack of empathy for other traditions is… Know More
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Carbon guilt

Is it just me or is this continual barrage of guilt-making publicity about how each of us is killing the planet beginning to pall? The ordinary person appears to have become the major target and repository of cause and effect syndrome. I catch a plane. Have I planted a tree as a consequence? Do all… Know More
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Banksy and George Melly

There is much debate about Banksy in the Art World. In today’s Guardian, the critic Jonathon Jones gives a somewhat sniffy and disparaging account of Banksy’s work and its place in the territory that the apparatchiks of high art assume for themselves. He mentions the fact that young people rated Banksy third in the list… Know More
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Tony Blair: the last days

So, the guitar and all the other bits of glitz are leaving Number Ten. Greyer, no wiser, and underlining his status as a populist Prime Minister, Tony exchanged his last major PM photo-calls and sound bytes with Arnie Schwarzenegger. No doubt they discussed their respective roles in the Terminator films and how closely life has… Know More
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Brasyl

On a lighter but much happier note, I”d like to recommend a book to all readers of this blog! Brasyl is science fiction and high literature and contains pleasing explorations of quantum physics, parallel universes, many selves and three narrative timelines. Ian MacDonald should be revered here because, as in his last book, Rivers of… Know More
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Is the Pope a Catholic?

No more than Tony Blair, apparently. Our almost late Prime Minister has been genuflecting in public and then private for maybe thirty years. Why didn’t he make it a public talking point? After all he does that with most things, doesn’t he? Actually, no. I remember now. He uses every means to conceal, selectively promote,… Know More
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The operation was a success but the patient died…

The chances of becoming more diseased in UK hospitals has increased, according to hospital self-assessments released today. MRSA and its fearsome ilk propagate virulently, in unwashed corners of wards, equipment and hands. Why? It goes like this. Once, hygiene was recognised as the major combatant against diseases spreading. Bugs could be, literally, washed down the… Know More
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Simone Signoret: Smoker

I was struck by a photograph of Simone Signoret by Jane Bown in the Observer this morning. She reminded me of my Auntie Eva at a particular point in her life. Signoret is smoking. She is not smoking in a post-modern way. The cigarette is planted sternly between her lips, firm, part of her face.… Know More
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Four legs good, two legs better

Watching a satirical programme the other night about Britain’s new anti-terror and public order laws brought home to me how insidiously they creep into the legislation. It is as if the Government is trying to validate the whole premise of George Orwell’s 1984, voted this week as the book that best sums up the last… Know More
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