We're flat out wrong, Freddie says so.

A saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln is that you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
I firmly believe that America’s delusional President Donald Trump believes he is proving Lincoln wrong on that last point. However, I have now clear evidence that President Lincoln is right on his second point: you can fool all of the people some of the time.
I have that on no lesser authority than former English cricketer Freddie Flintoff.
Mr Flintoff believes that NASA and hundreds of scientists have fooled us all into believing the Earth is round. It is not, according to Mr Flintoff. According to him, it is either flat or at most bulbous “like a turnip.”
As if making the claim on a British radio wasn’t already enough to make the former fast bowler and England captain look like a turnip himself, he then went on to compound it by stating that the Moon landings were faked.
Allegedly, according to Mr Flintoff, NASA and government agencies—along with, of all organisations, Disney—are involved in the cover up.
Mr Flintoff presents no real evidence to support either of his claims. But, he is not alone in making them. Hundreds of flat-earthers attended a sell-out conference in November 2017.
The annual event is held by a community who rejects the idea of “a heliocentric globe-earth model” in favour of a flat, stationary Earth.
FEIC said on its website: “After extensive experimentation, analysis, and research, we have come to know that the truth of our cosmology is not that which we’ve been told."
The website explains the community suspects the planet is a circular disk shape that relies on Antarctica to provide an icy wall barrier.
The ice barrier is supposed to prevent humans walking off the edge of the Earth.
So, if Mr Flintoff and his fellow flatearthers are right we are drawn to the inevitable, though sad, conclusion that Robert Falcon Scott and his companions were on a hiding to nothing. After the disappointment of reaching the South Pole after Amundsen, they turned back and died; if they had gone on—according to the flat earth theory, they would have fallen off Earth anyway…and died.
Maybe that is what happened to Scott’s companion, Captain Lawrence Oates when he bravely said, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” Maybe he just fell off.
Or is that just a step too far?
Our own Sir Edmund Hillary must have indeed counted himself fortunate not to have arrived at the same fate.
However, what intrigues me most about the hypothesis, particularly Flintoff’s pronouncement, is his allegation of Disney involvement.
Really?
It sounds a bit Mickey Mouse to me.
Not unlike the English cricket team when Freddie was its captain.

Where nobody can sell a pen

I have long been a huge fan of Martin Scorsese. However, this is not entirely unqualified; like any director his work is uneven and classics such as Goodfellas can be followed in time by failures (in my view) such as The Departed. Nevertheless, I personally owe him a debit of gratitude for directing The Last Waltz, which many consider the greatest of all live concert films.

Mr Scorsese is known for his consistent collaborators. One is Robbie Robertson from The Band who is the music director on many of Scorsese’s films; the other is Leonardo DiCaprio. Scorsese and DiCaprio have collaborated on five films; none, in my view, of great quality, though The Departed won a Best Picture Oscar.

However, I remain a fan of both Scorsese and DiCaprio.

At least I did until last night.

And that was with the stroke of a pen.

Last night I watched The Wolf of Wall Street, which is directed by Scorsese and stars DiCaprio. It is the “true-life” story of the rise and fall of erstwhile Wall Street stockbroker Jordan Belfort. At his height, Belfort attained incredible levels of income, expenditure and decadence—all of which are captured in the film by the incredibly gifted writer Terence Winter of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire fame.

Where Winter and the film fail for me, though, is not in the portrayal of Belfort’s fame but in his fall. And this is where it gets personal and it involves a pen.

You see, early in the film when Belfort/DiCaprio/Winter are boasting that Belfort can sell anything, Belfort invites stockbroker recruits to sell him a pen. Of those asked, only one succeeds by, after taking the pen from Belfort, asking him to sign his name. Of course, Belfort cannot and has to buy back the pen.

Simple, but brilliant. And we will come back to that pen.

Roughly all but the final five minutes of the film is about Belfort’s success in duping naive and not so naive investors and making millions doing it.

Scorsese and no doubt DiCaprio revel in portraying the resulting decadence—it is omnipresent and explicit. It is when they turn to showing Belfort’s contrasting fall from grace (after a prison term) that the film fails for me.

Why? Because, as the film shows it, Belfort’s fall from grace and consequent disgrace is, in the view of the film-makers, best portrayed by Belfort conducting an investment seminar in Auckland, New Zealand.

Yes, I know Belfort did in fact do that. But he also conducted those seminars in numerous sleepy hollows of the United States, and Australia (where he now lives). Why could the film have not used some of those places to portray the depths to which Belfort has fallen? Why treat Auckland as a financial backwater—as the very obverse of Wall Street and New York?

Has Scorsese/DiCaprio/Winter even been here? And if they have, did they not visit Hamilton?

Now, let’s get back to the pen. In the final scene Belfort/DiCaprio use the same device/question, inviting “Auckland” investors—four of them, and only one with a distinguishable Kiwi accent—to sell him a pen. None can. So, the implication that can be taken from this one scene that plagues the entire film for we New Zealanders is that not only is Auckland a backwater, it is also inhabited by morons.

Thanks Martin.

Incidentally, DiCaprio won a Golden Globe for his acting performance in this film. I personally would have given it to that one American extra who managed a kiwi accent.

Corker, mate!

Feminine fixations, foibles and phobias

This may offend some. I don’t apologise; your offence offends me. Besides, you are wrong, and I am right.

First, international darts, and now Formula One, have dropped the women who add the glamour to their events.

They are the models who accompany the darts players to the rostra, and hold flags or umbrellas on the starting grids. They look glamourous. They look great. They look happy.

So, why have they gone?

Because it is no longer politically correct and in the view of whom, God knows why, these organisations listen to, it is demeaning to women.

FU.

Did you feminazis take the time to ask the women themselves? I know you didn’t, because from what I am reading the women who do/did those jobs, liked those jobs and earned good money doing those jobs.

So, here we have one group of women telling another group of women what they can’t do—all in the name of female empowerment. Could someone please tell me how that works?

And here is where I get really offensive…

It seems that this year feminism is the new black. I thought it was dead and buried. Women had taken it as far as they could and had effectively shattered the glass ceiling. So, why the resumption? Why the interference? Why are feminists taking jobs away from women who want to do the jobs?

Are they bored or, spoiler alert: really offensive, simply envious?

And, while I am on the subject, are we also so bloody bored with life and talking about Donald Trump that we need to raise issues such as this?

The awards season appears to be the catalyst and the vehicle for getting “political”. Last year it was the lack of ethnic minorities nominated for Academy Awards. This year it was the Me-Too movement and sexual harassment in Hollywood.

Setting aside the fact that I don’t give a rat’s a***s about celebrities’ opinions, I question why these occasions have turned from being celebrations (and fashion statements) to political statements.

What is going to be next year’s issue de jour? I am certain there will be one.

Nothing I have written is intended to demean or diminish the core issues, though I do take issue with other people telling other people how they should act and think and work—as is the case with the Darts and Formula One.

No, my issue is with having an issue—or more particularly the manner and vehicle in which the issue is issued.

It shouldn’t be an issue, but it is.

That is my issue.