A TV spin-off of a successful film- it’s always going to set alarm bells ringing. That said, I’m glad Channel Four have commissioned this series, not least because This is England was one of the best films of the past five years and brought deserved mainstream praise to one of the most skilful and consistently brilliant directors in the country, but also because it allows me the opportunity to partake in my favourite past time- spot the East Midlands accent.
It’s not all “eh up, me duck” and “giz a cob”; cinematic history has taught us that even the greatest actors can’t master the subtleties and intricacies of the underrated dialect. Even the great Albert Finney couldn’t quite nail it with his otherwise flawless turn in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, throwing in a few too many dropped vowels and Yorkshire colloquialisms for my liking. This would’ve been all well and good if Arthur Seaton had been out living it up in the bars and working mans clubs of Leeds, but he wasn’t- it was Nottingham.
So I applaud Channel 4 for giving a soapbox for actors like Vicky Mclure and Andrew Shim, both Shane Meadows stalwarts, to give the accent a long overdue airing, it’s enough to give even the hardest-hearted of Notts exiles a severe kick of homesickness.
This is England ’86, after rescuing itself from a dodgy bit of slo-mo camera work in the intro and a Skins-esque playground tear-up, has the all the potential to become a top-quality show. However, to do so it must avoid the pitfalls of pastiche and actually say something- all that big hair and playful banter won’t hold the audiences’ attention for the duration.
The original was all mouth, making comment after comment about the increasing division of society under Thatcher, about the links between economic failure and racial unrest and, on a cultural level, the incongruence of racism within the skinhead movement- but it also had teeth. Two episodes in and TIE’86 is just beginning to find that bite, but it is the distinct feeling of more to come that can’t help but suck you in and keep you there for the long haul; a testament to the genius of Meadows’ creation. Let's hope it continues.
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Does the 25-man squad rule have a future?
With the dawn of another premiership season comes the familiar debate about the increasingly cosmopolitan make-up of our top teams, an issue so divisive that almost no one seems to be able to formulate a clear opinion on it. Of course there are the hardliners who would prefer a return to the glory days of brown lace-up footballs and Danny Blanchflower, and would happily see the Premiership as a foreigner free zone- then you have Arsene Wenger who decrees that the sheer mention of foreign players in the Premiership is tantamount to racism (although he has kept the old guard happy by ensuring that we have players with proper names, like Jack Wilshere and Henry Lansbury).
Such needlessly inflammatory statements aside, it should be noted that in recent years the FA and Premier League have been discussing options intended to nurture and safeguard “home-grown” talent whilst retaining the over-seas maestros that have helped cement the Premiership’s position as arguably the best league in the world. For this season the Premier League has unveiled the 25-man squad rule, which not only tackles this issue but also a the equally pressing issue of super rich clubs hording players that smaller clubs would give their right arms for.
Presumably accelerated by Manchester City’s 33-man squad of last season and by a desire to save Roberto Mancini the anguish of devising a system with 6 holding midfielders in it, the rule serves to limit squad sizes and promote a healthy youth academy. The main points of the ruling are outlined below.
· Basically, each Premiership club must have a registered squad of 25 players at the end of each transfer window, including at least eight ‘home-grown’ players.
· This 25-man squad can then be added to with an unlimited number of players under the age of 21.
· A ‘home-grown’ player may not necessarily be a British player. The official ruling is that a ‘home-grown’ player must “have been affiliated to the FA or Welsh FA for a period of three seasons or 36 months prior to 21st birthday". This is irrespective of age or nationality.
· Changes can only be made within transfer windows, excluding emergency loans.
So the new rules will increase the amount home grown talent gracing Premier league pitches each week, but I’m unconvinced whether such knee-jerkery will have much effect on the woeful performances of the national side. I think the problems of facing the Three Lions run somewhat deeper than Jonny Foreigner squeezing our up-and-coming talent out of the limelight, maybe the FA’s money would be better spent taking the national squad away on a team-building weekend, or enrolling them on a course in ego management.
The new system has also come under fire from those who arguably stand to gain most from it; Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp, whose team are looking to galvanise their position as a top four club, expressed concern that the rulings may force injury prone players such as Jonathan Woodgate and Ledley King into retirement.
To an extent I agree with Harry here; with only 25 players at your disposal, what manager would take a chance on a player who may only play one game in five, or even spend the whole term on the treatment table? Even the massing Championship clubs eager to snap up a loanee from the Prem might baulk at that prospect.
We are still very much in the early stages of a new season, but it will be interesting to see how the new rulings stand up to the rigours of practical application. Come May, we could see the FA breaking out the red pen and making some amendments to stave off the flood of Bosman-esque ‘restriction of trade’ lawsuits. Or it could be the saviour of English football. Only time will tell.
Such needlessly inflammatory statements aside, it should be noted that in recent years the FA and Premier League have been discussing options intended to nurture and safeguard “home-grown” talent whilst retaining the over-seas maestros that have helped cement the Premiership’s position as arguably the best league in the world. For this season the Premier League has unveiled the 25-man squad rule, which not only tackles this issue but also a the equally pressing issue of super rich clubs hording players that smaller clubs would give their right arms for.
Presumably accelerated by Manchester City’s 33-man squad of last season and by a desire to save Roberto Mancini the anguish of devising a system with 6 holding midfielders in it, the rule serves to limit squad sizes and promote a healthy youth academy. The main points of the ruling are outlined below.
· Basically, each Premiership club must have a registered squad of 25 players at the end of each transfer window, including at least eight ‘home-grown’ players.
· This 25-man squad can then be added to with an unlimited number of players under the age of 21.
· A ‘home-grown’ player may not necessarily be a British player. The official ruling is that a ‘home-grown’ player must “have been affiliated to the FA or Welsh FA for a period of three seasons or 36 months prior to 21st birthday". This is irrespective of age or nationality.
· Changes can only be made within transfer windows, excluding emergency loans.
So the new rules will increase the amount home grown talent gracing Premier league pitches each week, but I’m unconvinced whether such knee-jerkery will have much effect on the woeful performances of the national side. I think the problems of facing the Three Lions run somewhat deeper than Jonny Foreigner squeezing our up-and-coming talent out of the limelight, maybe the FA’s money would be better spent taking the national squad away on a team-building weekend, or enrolling them on a course in ego management.
The new system has also come under fire from those who arguably stand to gain most from it; Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp, whose team are looking to galvanise their position as a top four club, expressed concern that the rulings may force injury prone players such as Jonathan Woodgate and Ledley King into retirement.
To an extent I agree with Harry here; with only 25 players at your disposal, what manager would take a chance on a player who may only play one game in five, or even spend the whole term on the treatment table? Even the massing Championship clubs eager to snap up a loanee from the Prem might baulk at that prospect.
We are still very much in the early stages of a new season, but it will be interesting to see how the new rulings stand up to the rigours of practical application. Come May, we could see the FA breaking out the red pen and making some amendments to stave off the flood of Bosman-esque ‘restriction of trade’ lawsuits. Or it could be the saviour of English football. Only time will tell.
Thursday 2 September 2010
San Jose's trapped miners: Psychological trauma
The San Jose mine in northern Chile has been under intense scrutiny over the past month as the world watches the painstaking rescue of 33 miners trapped half a mile below the earth’s surface.
The miners, trapped since August 5th, were discovered alive and well, or at least as well as can be expected, on August 22nd by rescue workers drilling a bore hole into the mine. However, experts have estimated it may be January 2011 before the stricken men can be returned safely to the surface. More recently, NASA scientific advisors have been drafted in to help prepare the men four their impending four months of isolation.
This latest incident has highlighted appalling safety conditions in Chilean mines, although it seems that the relatively small San Jose mine had fallen below par even by these low standard. Record’s show that San Jose has seen three fatal accidents since 2004, while Vincenot Tobar, a former risk management officer at the mine, has told press of 182 injuries in 2006 alone, 56 of them serious.
If there can be one positive from this situation it is that the Chilean authorities can no longer turn a blind eye to the conditions that their miners must endure. On August 11th Chilean president Sebastian Perina very publicly flexed his political muscles by sacking the heads of the national mining regulator Sernageomin. This followed rumours of countless incidences of negligence on the part of Sernageomin including the allegation that an escape ladder that could have initially led the trapped miners to freedom was only installed one third of the way up.
Injuries and even fatalities may be nothing new in Chile’s mines, but this latest accident is unprecedented in its nature and has left authorities woefully under-prepared. It is this lack of preparation that led to the bizarre situation of a group of men trapped half a mile away from their rescuers is being kept alive by scientists trained to deal with ultra-long-distance space flights. As we set foot into the unknown severel troubling questions are posed; how likely is it that rescuers will be able to keep these men alive for four months in isolation? And what long term trauma will this isolation cause?
Speaking to the Guardian newspaper Chilean health minister Jaime Manalich told of how his team was dealing with the challenge of keeping the men alive and well for as long as it takes for them to be rescued; “We have been preparing for possible medical emergencies, "How do you treat appendicitis without surgery? Our staff is scouring the old medical texts to find ways these kind of conditions can be treated without intervention, only using painkillers and other remedies."
One of the miners has also been designated as ‘doctor’ and will carry out minor treatments and health-checks on his fellow miners. However one problem that has been encountered is how to effectively deliver medication and other medical equipment to the miners through such a small aperture.
"[12 centimetre in diameter] is the size of the tube by which we can supply them," said Mañalich. "Everything we develop must be this size or smaller."
A team of doctors is also on hand on the surface to study images relayed back to them by the camera and check remotely for any physical or mental abnormalities.
Psychologically, however the miners and their rescuers are in uncharted territory. Rodrigo Figueroa, a leading Chilean psychiatrist, compared the men’s plight to a space mission or being trapped behind enemy lines, before admitting that he had scoured the medical text books and found “no similar situations like this, they simply don't exist." All this is indicative of a team pushing the frontiers of rescue operations and of human psychology.
Throughout the operation the rescuers have striven to keep the 33 men’s minds active and stimulated, whether it be by setting daily tasks such as the cleaning of the refuge or the arbitrary dismantling and re-assembling of mining machinery, or by giving the miners individual roles, such as the aforementioned doctor role given to one miner. Michael J. Poulin PHD is a published authority on human responses to stress and adversity- he has been following the case and believes that up to now the psychological well-being of the miner has been successfully safeguarded.
"There are few direct parallels to their experience," he says, "but we know, first of all, that the have been greatly deprived of control over their environment, which laboratory and field research indicates is highly stressful. Media reports suggest they are coping with this in some effective ways -- by taking control of what they can: organizing their living space, choosing leaders, relying on their religious faith and fashioning games and toys out of the materials available to them,"
But what of the lasting effects of this drawn out trauma? Will the miners be able to re-adjust to normal life on the outside after their ordeal? Scientists training astronauts for prospective Mars missions have identified that the only key to surviving such prolonged periods of isolation mentally intact is to maintain a healthy psychological routine; basically, rigorously acting out mundane tasks, such as those listed above, day in day out. In doing so the miners will retain a sense of purpose and, above all, hope. This will stave off depression and despair and keep tensions within the group to a minimum. However, unlike a Mars mission, these men have not been specifically selected for their psychological resilience and compatibility with one another as a unit and as the months unfold it will be up to them to keep up morale both individually and as a whole. This will be the key to coming out the other side unscathed.
The miners, trapped since August 5th, were discovered alive and well, or at least as well as can be expected, on August 22nd by rescue workers drilling a bore hole into the mine. However, experts have estimated it may be January 2011 before the stricken men can be returned safely to the surface. More recently, NASA scientific advisors have been drafted in to help prepare the men four their impending four months of isolation.
This latest incident has highlighted appalling safety conditions in Chilean mines, although it seems that the relatively small San Jose mine had fallen below par even by these low standard. Record’s show that San Jose has seen three fatal accidents since 2004, while Vincenot Tobar, a former risk management officer at the mine, has told press of 182 injuries in 2006 alone, 56 of them serious.
If there can be one positive from this situation it is that the Chilean authorities can no longer turn a blind eye to the conditions that their miners must endure. On August 11th Chilean president Sebastian Perina very publicly flexed his political muscles by sacking the heads of the national mining regulator Sernageomin. This followed rumours of countless incidences of negligence on the part of Sernageomin including the allegation that an escape ladder that could have initially led the trapped miners to freedom was only installed one third of the way up.
Injuries and even fatalities may be nothing new in Chile’s mines, but this latest accident is unprecedented in its nature and has left authorities woefully under-prepared. It is this lack of preparation that led to the bizarre situation of a group of men trapped half a mile away from their rescuers is being kept alive by scientists trained to deal with ultra-long-distance space flights. As we set foot into the unknown severel troubling questions are posed; how likely is it that rescuers will be able to keep these men alive for four months in isolation? And what long term trauma will this isolation cause?
Speaking to the Guardian newspaper Chilean health minister Jaime Manalich told of how his team was dealing with the challenge of keeping the men alive and well for as long as it takes for them to be rescued; “We have been preparing for possible medical emergencies, "How do you treat appendicitis without surgery? Our staff is scouring the old medical texts to find ways these kind of conditions can be treated without intervention, only using painkillers and other remedies."
One of the miners has also been designated as ‘doctor’ and will carry out minor treatments and health-checks on his fellow miners. However one problem that has been encountered is how to effectively deliver medication and other medical equipment to the miners through such a small aperture.
"[12 centimetre in diameter] is the size of the tube by which we can supply them," said Mañalich. "Everything we develop must be this size or smaller."
A team of doctors is also on hand on the surface to study images relayed back to them by the camera and check remotely for any physical or mental abnormalities.
Psychologically, however the miners and their rescuers are in uncharted territory. Rodrigo Figueroa, a leading Chilean psychiatrist, compared the men’s plight to a space mission or being trapped behind enemy lines, before admitting that he had scoured the medical text books and found “no similar situations like this, they simply don't exist." All this is indicative of a team pushing the frontiers of rescue operations and of human psychology.
Throughout the operation the rescuers have striven to keep the 33 men’s minds active and stimulated, whether it be by setting daily tasks such as the cleaning of the refuge or the arbitrary dismantling and re-assembling of mining machinery, or by giving the miners individual roles, such as the aforementioned doctor role given to one miner. Michael J. Poulin PHD is a published authority on human responses to stress and adversity- he has been following the case and believes that up to now the psychological well-being of the miner has been successfully safeguarded.
"There are few direct parallels to their experience," he says, "but we know, first of all, that the have been greatly deprived of control over their environment, which laboratory and field research indicates is highly stressful. Media reports suggest they are coping with this in some effective ways -- by taking control of what they can: organizing their living space, choosing leaders, relying on their religious faith and fashioning games and toys out of the materials available to them,"
But what of the lasting effects of this drawn out trauma? Will the miners be able to re-adjust to normal life on the outside after their ordeal? Scientists training astronauts for prospective Mars missions have identified that the only key to surviving such prolonged periods of isolation mentally intact is to maintain a healthy psychological routine; basically, rigorously acting out mundane tasks, such as those listed above, day in day out. In doing so the miners will retain a sense of purpose and, above all, hope. This will stave off depression and despair and keep tensions within the group to a minimum. However, unlike a Mars mission, these men have not been specifically selected for their psychological resilience and compatibility with one another as a unit and as the months unfold it will be up to them to keep up morale both individually and as a whole. This will be the key to coming out the other side unscathed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)