Showing posts with label Nelson Mandela. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nelson Mandela. Show all posts

Friday, January 24, 2025

The Joy of Six 1316

Tom Forth asks why the North of England is so poor, and suggests a variety of reasons, including the historical lack of universities there and the way Westminster has deprived local government of its powers.

"If George’s world view, and his work, were shaped by the second world war and the postwar international order ... Alex’s has been most influenced by the struggle for civil rights and equality. His father’s philanthropy started in South Africa and the struggle against apartheid, and Alex met Nelson Mandela at a young age." Roula Khalaf meets Alex Soros, the son of George Soros and chair of the Open Society Foundation.

Low public trust in politicians places few constraints on their ability to wield power, so leading politicians may lack the motivation to take meaningful action to arrest low levels of trust among voters. Chris Butler, Will Jennings and Gerry Stoker present their research into how politicians cope with this lack of public trust.

Margaret Brecknell on the African American abolitionists who travelled to Leicester in the mid-19th century to share their stories.

"To Be or Not to Be is twisty, turny, filled with gags and smart writing and humorous quagmires our heroes must rely on their skills to escape from. But it’s also clearly poking fun at Hitler and his gestapo and their countless failings as ring kissers par excellence. Let’s learn a lesson or two from Lombard and gang and not blindly follow our leadership until we’re no more than history’s villainous punchline." Ed Travis, Elizabeth Stoddard and Frank Calvillo celebrate Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 film - one of the "funniest and most groundbreaking comedies ever made".

Graham Fellows has realised. after 40 years, that he likes John Shuttleworth. He talks to Brian Logan about him.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Moonraker, Dolly's braces and the Mandela Effect

Do you remember the scene in Moonraker?

Dolly helps Jaws out from wreckage of the ski-lift. He looks at her showing his metal teeth. She smiles back, showing the braces on her teeth.

His heart is softened and he is eventually redeemed by his love for her.

Except... that scene never happened. When Dolly smiles she shows nothing more than her teeth.

I thought I remembered seeing braces, but I was wrong.

Equally, I thought that Brian Dennehy, the American actor who starred in Peter Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect in the 1980s was dead. But he is still with us.

Both these are favourite examples of the Mandela Effect. This is the idea that our memories do not always fit the public record, not because they are faulty, but because that record is somehow falsified.

The Mandela Effect gets its name from the fact that many people were convinced that the death of Nelson Mandela had been announced many years before he was released from prison.

It seems pretty clear that this is because people's memories of the death of Steve Biko have somehow become muddled up with their memories of Mandela.

I suspect this is an American phenomenon. Opposition to Apartheid was central to the British left when I was young - I even heard Biko's friend Donald Woods speak when I was at university - and Britain has many historic links with South Africa.

Dolly's nonexistent braces seem to have lodged themselves in our minds because the scene would have been wittier if she had worn them.

And there was a false report of Dennehy's death in the US, though I have no idea how I came across it.

I have seen it suggested that the Mandela Effect is a creation of the internet. Once, if we looked something up and found our memory was wrong, we would probably have accepted it.

Today, we can go online and find a community of people who have just the same memory as us.

And that must prove something really weird is gong on, right?

Monday, January 12, 2015

Lembit Opik, Nelson Mandela and Jodie Marsh



Thanks to Nick Barlow for drawing this important development to our attention.

Wales Online reports:
Former Welsh MP Lembit Opik says he is backing bodybuilding glamour girl Jodie Marsh to enter politics. 
Opik, 49, says Marsh, who has made documentaries on plastic surgery, steroids, virginity, cheating men and mail order brides, would be a "breathe [sic] of fresh air" and a "sensible, alternative, important" voice in politics. 
Marsh announced she planned to become an MP in October 2013, saying: "If I ran the country it would be a lot better."
Ex Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire Opik, who met Marsh on Channel 4’s Celebrity Come Dine With Me, said: "She speaks her mind, has strong views, a campaigning instinct and can’t be bullied. 
"Those are four very valuable assets at a time when a lot of politicians just want to keep their heads down. She’d be very busy making noise for the things she believes in."
Eighteen months ago Lembit fancied himself as a pop impresario, announcing that he was to promote the Southampton starlet Rozii Chaos.

I can find nothing recent about her online. Let us hope Jodie Marsh gains more from his support.

But what of Lembit's own career? He tells Wales Online:
"Every major statesman needs the wilderness years. Nelson Mandela had them and I suppose that’s my lot, too, so I’m ruling nothing out at this stage."
Later. I suspect this is not the first time Lembit has drawn this parallel. Certainly, he said the same thing to Lord Bonkers in 2011.

Upon which his lordship remarked:
I may have been a little short with him after that, but who can blame me? 
My old friend Nelson Mandela spent his wilderness years imprisoned on Arjen Robben Island; he did not spend them appearing on "Celebrity Coach Trip" alongside Michael Barrymore, John McCririck and someone called ‘Wagner’ from something called "The X Factor".

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Lord Bonkers' Diary: “Free-ee Me-ee-ee-ee-ee”

Thursday

When Nelson Mandela was banged up I sent him a cake with a file in it, but I had not great confidence that the South African authorities would be sportsmen enough to give it him. So I decided to raise public awareness of his plight here in Britain by writing a song. I called it “Free Me”, but as fitting the words and music together proved harder than I had expected, it came out more like “Free-ee Me-ee-ee-ee-ee”.

The idea, you see, was that someone should sing the song while in the character of Mandela himself, and I wrote to both Harry Belafonte and Nat King Cole proposing the idea. When they failed to reply I had hopes of persuading a popular actor or entertainer of the day – say Bryan Forbes, Tommy Trinder or Dickie Henderson – to black up and sing it, but their people never rang my people back.

The good news is that the song was eventually taken up by some jolly young fellows from Coventry who made the bold decision to recast the lyrics so they referred to Nelson Mandela in the third person. I questioned the wisdom of this, but It turned out that they fitted the tune much better after this and the record became something of a hit. Perhaps you have heard it?

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Nelson Mandela's statement from the dock, 1964

Nelson Mandela has died.

Let us remember him through his words from the dock at the opening of his trial in 1964 - you can read the whole statement on the African National Congress site:
In my youth in the Transkei I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland. The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle. This is what has motivated me in all that I have done in relation to the charges made against me in this case. 
Having said this, I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites. ... 
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
Mandela's release from prison in 1990, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall they year before, marked the dawn of a hopeful decade in politics. Suddenly the good guys were winning.

That spirit did not survive 9/11, but that has more to do with the inadequacy of the West's leaders than it does with the objective threat from terrorism.

We must hope that South Africa's leaders will be up to maintaining Mandela's legacy.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Lord Bonkers Diary: Lembit Opik on Arjen Robben Island

Our week at Bonkers Hall continues...

Thursday

Who should I bump into today but Lembit Öpik? When I commiserate with him over his failure to become the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London (I tactfully fail to mention that he came bottom of the poll), he replies: ”I think like every great politician you have to have some wilderness years. Nelson Mandela had them. Many other people had them.”

I may have been a little short with him after that, but who can blame me? My old friend Nelson Mandela spent his wilderness years imprisoned on Arjen Robben Island; he did not spend them appearing on ‘Celebrity Coach Trip’ alongside Michael Barrymore, John McCririck and someone called ‘Wagner’ from something called ‘The X Factor’.

(That said, if any television producer wishes me to appear, a letter sent to the House of Lords will find me).

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary