Crypto justice

March 29, 2024 by Leave a comment

I’m not sure whether Sam Bankman-Fried will be feeling that his 25 year sentence for authoring the FTX debacle means he has got off relatively lightly; it was suggested at one point that he might be looking at something closer to a full century, but with time off for good behaviour he might yet be out before he turns 50.

Bleeding-heart liberal that I am, I can’t really see the point in locking him up at all; there must surely be some way he could be obliged to work in the service of the community, though I guess it would take a lot of highway litter-picking to pay off a debt to society that runs into the billions. Perhaps it is for the best that he serves as a cautionary example to those tempted to accumulate wealth by any means, but, given that the financial world is otherwise entirely organised to incentivise such behaviour, I suspect the only lesson aspiring SBFs may learn is “Don’t get caught”.

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Oscar predictions 2024 revisited

March 12, 2024 by Leave a comment

So, the Academy agreed with two of my Oscar picks, which reassures me that I’m not entirely out of touch with popular cultural opinion, but, as expected, Oppenheimer was the big winner on the night. Anatomy of a Fall, my favourite film of the year, did at least pick up the award for Best Original Screenplay, and its canine star Messi was undoubtedly the star of the red carpet, so I’ll take that as further confirmation of my critical acumen.

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Oscar predictions 2024

March 8, 2024 by Leave a comment

It’s that time of year again; here’s how I would vote were I a member of the august Academy:

  • Best Actor
    • Jeffrey Wright
  • Best Actress
    • Emma Stone
  • Best Supporting Actor
    • Ryan Gosling
  • Best Supporting Actress
    • Da’Vine Joy Randolph
  • Best Director
    • Justine Triet
  • Best International Feature
    • Perfect Days
  • Best Picture
    • Anatomy of a Fall

Do I think any of my choices will actually win? Judging by what the critics are saying, and how the Golden Globes and BAFTAs turned out, I reckon Emma Stone and Da’Vine Joy Randolph have a pretty solid chance of picking up a statuette, and Ryan Gosling might just sneak in too, but otherwise it looks like Oppenheimer will sweep the board, with The Zone of Interest favourite for Best International Feature.

I have to say that I wasn’t that taken with Oppenheimer; I thought it was too long, and not as profound as it seemed to think it was. In my opinion Anatomy of a Fall, Perfect Days, and American Fiction were all much better, exploring universal themes while staying rooted in individual experience. That said, Oppenheimer does have the combination of grand spectacle and well-drawn characters that made it a genuine cultural phenomenon, so I guess Christopher Nolan deserves the accolades that seem likely to rain down on him come Sunday.

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Supreme Tuesday

March 5, 2024 by Leave a comment

I’ve been writing this blog for long enough to have covered four previous US Presidential campaigns, and while the 2024 edition of the contest is arguably the one with the highest stakes, it is also by some way the least intriguing.

Back in 2008, Super Tuesday saw the Democratic primary still finely balanced between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton; 2012 was a bit less interesting, since even in March it was obvious that whoever ended up as the GOP nominee would have no chance in November, but the squabbling among the candidates was amusing; in 2016 the Republican race was wide open, though Trump had put his stamp upon it; and in 2020 progressives were split on whether to go with leftist Bernie or centrist Joe.

This time around though there is no suspense at all; it’s going to be Biden versus Trump. There was a slight hope that the Supreme Court might inject some excitement into the matter by barring Trump from the ballot, but, predictably enough, they dodged the opportunity to get involved, and let him off on a technicality.

So the fate of the free world will be entrusted to one of two old white guys. What could go wrong?

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Leap of meaning

February 29, 2024 by Leave a comment

I’ve noted before my affection for the extra day in February which comes around every four years, and my feeling that I should spend it doing something special. Alas, as seems to have been the case for the last few decades now, the dull reality of my quotidian existence has ensured that I have done nothing of the sort, instead passing the day in numbingly routine activity.

That said, as I’ve grown older I’ve become gradually more comfortable with the idea that, in cosmic terms, everything I do is essentially purposeless, so I guess that some day I may look back and count today as momentous as any other.

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Superbowl LVIII review

February 12, 2024 by Leave a comment

So it turns out that San Francisco didn’t need any bad luck from us to lose the game; they were able to fuck it all up entirely on their own.

To be fair, there’s no great dishonour in losing to a side as useful as Kansas City, but the 49ers had multiple chances to put the match beyond even Mahomes’ ability to stage a last-minute comeback.

That’s my deeply uninformed opinion anyhow, possibly not enhanced by sleep deprivation, as I stayed up to an ungodly hour to catch the game live. It was the first time I’d watched a full American football match for years, and I have to admit that, even with the high stakes, I found it a bit dull. I guess a true aficionado might have appreciated the efficiency of the defensive play, but it was too stop-start for me. My experience of US sports generally is that they are best watched in company, so there is some distraction when things get slow on the field, but I don’t really know anyone else who has more than a passing interest in anything other than Association football, so I might have to stick to just reading the match reports from now on.

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Superbowl LVIII preview

February 11, 2024 by Leave a comment

Just a few hours to go before we discover if my confident prediction that San Francisco would prevail in Las Vegas will be borne out, or whether the curse of SLS will doom another hot favourite to ignominious failure.

The 49ers faltering performances in the playoff rounds had given me some doubts, but I had more or less convinced myself that they had enough to overcome Kansas City, until I read about the Deep State plot to ensure that Travis Kelce’s team come out on top, in order to boost the profile of the obscure singer-songwriter he is currently dating, which will apparently help Joe Biden get re-elected. I guess if it keeps Trump out then it’s a price worth paying.

In other Trump-related news, my forecast that the Supreme Court would body swerve the question of the ex-president’s eligibility, or lack of it, under the 14th Amendment seems set to be confirmed, as oral arguments in the case revealed that just about all the Justices wanted nothing to do with such a potentially explosive decision. So, assuming that both of the elderly gentlemen make it to November, it looks like the Biden-Trump rematch is very much on.

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New Hampshire 2024

January 24, 2024 by Leave a comment

This time four years ago we were surveying the field of Democrats vying to challenge President Trump in the fall; our pick was Bernie Sanders, so at least we spotted it would be an old white guy.

No such excitement in this cycle; any hope that the GOP contest might spark into life after the procession in Iowa was extinguished by Nikki Haley’s failure to enthuse a sufficient number of moderate Republicans to stall Trump’s progress, more or less guaranteeing a Biden-Trump rematch in November.

I’m not enough of a student of US politics to know the last time that both parties had their presidential candidates in place this early in an election year; probably something like the Polk-Clay showdown of 1844. I have mixed feelings about the prospect of a ten-month campaign; there are sure to be some entertaining moments, but it seems likely to get even uglier than the 2020 race, and a happy ending is far from assured. Still, I’ll try to follow it assiduously, and keep up a steady commentary; I’ll let you know if I start to doubt my forecast of a Biden victory…

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Hawkeye Trump

January 16, 2024 by Leave a comment

To the great surprise of nobody, Donald Trump swept to victory in the Iowa caucuses, with Republican voters in the socially conservative state apparently willing to overlook his various legal entanglements. There is some suggestion that Nikki Haley may run him a little closer in more cosmopolitan New Hampshire, but to all intents and purposes the race seems to be over.

Interestingly, Iowa was apparently once thought of as a bastion of progress; it desegregated schools in 1868, and gave married women property rights in 1851. How times change.

The Biden camp seems to be welcoming the prospect of a rematch, on the basis that independents and moderate Republicans will turn away from Trump’s proto-fascism despite their misgivings about Biden’s handling of the economy. That makes sense I guess, so barring a Supreme Court intervention obliging the GOP to nominate a more sensible candidate, it’s looking like Uncle Joe might be good for another four years.

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Election anticipation

January 7, 2024 by Leave a comment

So, only a week into the new year, and already one of my 2024 predictions has turned out wrong, as Rishi Sunak seems set to delay the general election until the autumn, rather then gambling on a spring poll as I forecast. His strategy to avoid certain defeat seems to be limited to hoping that something will turn up, though for good measure he is evidently planning another round of harsh austerity, presumably calculating that reducing potential Labour voters to a state of immiserated despair will sap their motivation to turn up and vote the Tories out.

At least the US presidential election is hotting up, with just over a week to go until the Iowa caucuses. The broad outlines of the campaign are fairly clear already – Trump will double down on 2020 election denialism and associated conspiracy theories, while Biden will run partly on his record, but mostly as a defender of democracy. (If I was in charge of the Democratic media strategy, every ad would simply feature a picture of Trump, with ominous music in the background, and the caption “Seriously – this fucking guy?”) Of course everything could be upended if the Supreme Court follows the Constitution and bars Trump from the ballot, but that seems like an unlikely outcome, since the Justices are presumably reluctant to be held responsible for the mayhem that would follow.

I’m still optimistic, perhaps delusionally so, that the end result of the electoral process in both countries will be relatively sensible centrist government, which may not solve any long-term problems, but will at least be a break from the immediate madness.

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