What if the Brexit vote had never happened?

Today’s headlines…

Cameron To “Step Down As PM in 2020”

Prime Minister, David Cameron today gave his strongest hint yet that he intends to step down as Prime Minister within two years of winning the forthcoming General Election. Speculation has been mounting that Mr. Cameron is close to announcing the date of the next election as May 22nd. This would coincide neatly with the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament.

The last General Election in May 2015, resulted in a surprise overall majority of 12 for the Conservatives. This has since fallen as a result of recent by-elections although Mr. Cameron has resisted calls to strike any sort of deal with either Tim Farron’s Liberal Democrats or the similarly-sized Democratic Unionist Party.

Having entered Downing Street in June 2010, Mr Cameron is now the third longest serving Prime Minister since 1945, after Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. At 52, he remains younger than Mrs Thatcher when she became Britain’s first (and to date, only) woman prime minister in 1979.

According to a report in the London Evening Standard, Mr Cameron’s cabinet colleagues, George Osborne, Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Michael Gove are expected to join the race to succeed him.

Labour’s Jo Cox has been amongst those urging unity in her own party, ahead of the expected election announcement. UKIP has, meanwhile, renewed calls for a referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union. Opinion polls currently indicate support for a UK exit from the EU, but also that it is low on the list of voter priorities at this time, ranking way below concerns over the NHS and education.

Opponents of a vote suggest it would be a colossal waste of time, money and energy, inviting economic uncertainty, political uncertainty and disunity at a time of growing prosperity.

Meanwhile, in New York, maverick billionaire and 2016 Republican Party nominee, Donald J. Trump has announced plans to challenge President Hillary Clinton for the White House in 2020. Trump, who will be 74 by the time of next year’s election has made repeated claims of foul play surrounding his 2016 defeat although no evidence has thus far emerged.

In 2017, Trump resumed his role on the US version of TV’s ‘The Apprentice’.

 

 

 

ComicScene Issue 3 Preview

ComicsFlix.org

Issue 3 of ComicScene comes out 25th April and you can pre order it now (along with Issue 4) at http://www.comicscene.tictail.com

There is a sale on and if you spend over £20 and use the discount code CS2 you will get an additional £5 off your order.

In Issue 3 you can expect John Freeman on comic sales figures in the U.K. , your letters (write to comicsflix@gmail.com), ComicCons and as Batman celebrates 80 years we take a closer look at the Caped Crusader in the 1950s.

The third and final part of Marvel UK is a six page doozy (featuring the Hulk who gets quite a few mentions on forthcoming ComicScene Podcasts) and alongside our Avengers Endgame coverage we take a look at War of the Realms and speak to Roy Thomas.

New comics featured also include The Six Million Dollar Man, Chris Baldie on Space Captain and we…

View original post 182 more words

DVD review: Just Like Heaven (2005)

Chris Hallam's World View

The following review was first published in DVD Monthly magazine in 2005.

Sub-heading suggestions: Reese almighty/High spirits/Spirited away/While she was sleeping.

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo, Jon Heder, Donal Logue, Dina Spybey, Ben Shenkman

Director: Mark Waters

Distributor: DreamWorks Pictures Original Release: 2005

The Lowdown: When ER doctor Elizabeth’s overworked, socially undernourished existence is brought to an abrupt halt by a wayward truck, she soon finds her spiritual form sharing her flat with lonely semi-alcoholic, widower architect David. But is Elizabeth really dead? Why can only David see her? And can stoner bookshop employee Darryl help?

Review: While few men would balk at the prospect of suddenly discovering Reese Witherspoon was their room-mate, Just Like Heaven is a rom-com with a supernatural twist. For as with Brad Pitt at the start of Meet Joe Black, here we’ve barely had a chance to get familiar with the overworked singleton lifestyle of…

View original post 596 more words

Book review: Sherlock Holmes, The Complete Collection

Chris Hallam's World View

Carlton Publishing Group. RRP: £30. 1,096 pages. Approx 40 black and white illustrations. Out now: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Thirteen decades after he first appeared, Sherlock Holmes is alive and well. The 21st century has already seen the arch sleuth successfully reviving director Guy Ritchie’s career with two enjoyable, if not too faithful films (there is soon to be a third) while the BBC’s modernised slick version of the stories made stars of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Then, there’s the long-running US series, Elementary starring British actor Jonny Lee Miller which transposes Conan Doyle’s concept to 21st century LA. And that’s not even mentioning ‘comic’ interpretations such as Sherlock Gnomes and the truly disastrous “what on Earth were they thinking?”recent parody starring Will Ferrell and the usually excellent John C. Reilly.

It’s good to see amidst all this, that the original stories still hold up very well and remain…

View original post 295 more words

Book review: Napoleon. His Life, His Battles, His Empire

Chris Hallam's World View

Napoleon. His Life, His Battles, His Empire. By David Chanteranne and Emmanuelle Papot. Published by: Carlton Books, March 7th 2019

I know almost nothing about Napoleon Bonaparte.

I studied International History up to postgraduate level. Despite
this, I don’t remember being taught anything about him during my entire twenty
years in education.

I know roughly what he looked like, that he was born in
Corsica and that he married Josephine. I know he rose very fast through the
ranks after reviving France’s fortunes following the bloody chaos of the French
Revolution. He became very powerful and very important, very quickly but, like
Hitler later, came badly unstuck trying to invade Russia. He died in exile, at
a relatively young age (51).

I don’t get the impression he was anything like as bad as
Hitler, Stalin or Mao in the 20^th century. He didn’t unleash
genocide and probably did some…

View original post 161 more words

Book review: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow, by Lucy Worsley

Chris Hallam's World View

Book review: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow, by Lucy Worsley.

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

There is now no one on Earth who was alive at the same time as Queen Victoria. Her long life began nearly two centuries ago in 1819 when Napoleon was still alive. By the time of her death in 1901, her funeral procession was able to be filmed, bringing it to a wider audience than all previous royal funerals combined. Her reign, now the second longest in British history now was hugely important, marking the peak of British imperial power and the industrial revolution and the literary careers of Charles Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy.

Victoria’s reign has been very well documented, however, so it is refreshing that Lucy Worsley has managed to find a fresh perspective on it through choosing to focus on 24 key days in her long life. Through…

View original post 25 more words

Film review: Vice

Chris Hallam's World View

Director: Adam McKay Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry

The office of US Vice President was for a long time commonly overlooked. The position was deemed “not worth a pitcher of warm spit” by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first Vice President, John Nance Garner while as Lynne Cheney (Amy Adams) points out here, the job is essentially based around the principle of doing nothing other than waiting for the president to die.

Dick Cheney was a different sort of Vice President, however. Whereas some leaders, such as the late George H.W. Bush have been fully aware of the potential opportunities afforded by the position, (Bush had, after all, spent two terms as Veep himself) and have thus deliberately picked non-threatening buffoons like Dan Quayle as their Number 2, Bush’s own son (played here by Sam Rockwell) recognised he was hopelessly out of his depth and thus…

View original post 409 more words

Book review: Sherlock Holmes, The Complete Collection

Carlton Publishing Group. RRP: £30. 1,096 pages. Approx 40 black and white illustrations. Out now: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Thirteen decades after he first appeared, Sherlock Holmes is alive and well. The 21st century has already seen the arch sleuth successfully reviving director Guy Ritchie’s career with two enjoyable, if not too faithful films (there is soon to be a third) while the BBC’s modernised slick version of the stories made stars of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Then, there’s the long-running US series, Elementary starring British actor Jonny Lee Miller which transposes Conan Doyle’s concept to 21st century LA. And that’s not even mentioning ‘comic’ interpretations such as Sherlock Gnomes and the truly disastrous “what on Earth were they thinking?”recent parody starring Will Ferrell and the usually excellent John C. Reilly.

It’s good to see amidst all this, that the original stories still hold up very well and remain popular. They are all presented in a high quality package here, in a fine cover with occasional illustrations throughout.

What else is there to say? Watson first meets Holmes in A Study In Scarlet, one of four long Holmes stories (including The Hound of the Baskervilles) amongst many short ones, themselves all spread across five books, all included in this one volume. Holmes frequently demonstrates powers of deduction so acute, that it seems unlikely they would work in real life. “I see from your steamed up glasses and muddy shoes, that you have a sister-in-law called Elsie who enjoys Gilbert and Sullivan and that your dentist once lost his hat to a swan in Stibbington,” is just one example, which I made up.

But these are great stories. Cocaine, violins and Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft appear very infrequently: the deerstalker and the phrase, “elementary, my dear Watson” never at all. One story relies on the reader not knowing what KKK stands for. But generally, they’ve aged well.

Hercules Poirot. Jane Marple. Lord Peter Wimsey. Father Brown. Reg Wexford. John Rebus. Endeavour Morse. Perhaps they all owe their existence to Sherlock Holmes?

Holmes’ creator, Arthur Conan Doyle famously tired of his most famous character who he felt distracted from his other accomplishments. These included his attempts to prove conclusively that two Bradford schoolgirls with a pair of scissors and some copies of magazines with holes cut out of them, had uncovered the existence of fairies. Spoiler alert: they hadn’t.

One wonders: if Conan Doyle really wanted to destroy his hero forever, why did he “kill him off” in such an inconclusive way? Perhaps he couldn’t really bear to get rid of him. Millions of readers have felt similarly affectionate about his marvelous creation in the years since.

The 80s: The ultimate exam

Chris Hallam's World View

So you think you know the 1980s. But could you pass a full blown exam on the subject? Take a look at the questions below and if more than half of them even make the slightest bit of sense to you, you may consider yourself a true aficionado of the decade that brought us break dancing, Bermuda shorts and Bergerac. Ready? You may turn over your papers now…(And no, it’s not a proper quiz. Sorry).

1. You are sitting at home in front of the TV. Why don’t you…

a) Just switch off the TV set

b) Go out

c) And do something less boring instead?

2. Complete the phrase: “You can’t get quicker than…”

a) Maximum velocity.

b) The speed of light.

c) A Kwik-Fit fitter.

3. Philosophy. Consider the following…

a) How soon is now?

b) What is love anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?

c) Do you…

View original post 520 more words