Gary Monro’s blog

Seems that Disney is closing down its last remaining hand-drawn cartoon facility and concentrating wholly on computer generated imagery (CGI) instead. Traditional cartoons are now dead.

Of course, future Disney features will not be made by robots but by skilled human animators working with a different kind of tool. But the demise of hand-drawn animation at Disney is a sad and significant cultural watershed that deserves a proper mourning rather than a brief P.R. notice.

For it was at the Disney studio that hand-drawn personality animation–an indigenously American contribution to the international art form of animation–soared to its greatest heights.

I really don’t know how skilful you have to be to use CGI. I write code for a living and maybe my view is therefore tainted but I’m not at all impressed with technical wizardry. But drawing - creating lines, shades, texture, expression, movement and mood all with the nib of a pen or pencil… Ah, now that’s skill as I understand the word.

Somehow you know a person has laboured over a drawing. You realise he or she worked patiently and endlessly on the result that you’re now enjoying and that every single bit of it had to be manually created. I can picture a person working - alone - at his desk, hour after hour, skilfully altering an image tiny bit by tine bit until the combined effect of sheets of paper is life.

I just cannot equate that with someone sitting at a computer as I am now.

(more…)

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell

Further Guardian reports on the Muslim Council of Britain’s (MCB) diminishing reputation in the UK. Picked by Blair as his favourite Muslim organisation its most prominent spokesperson, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, has already been recently dismissed by Salman Rushdie with these words:

If Sir Iqbal Sacranie is the best Mr Blair can offer in the way of a good Muslim, we have a problem.

Now the MCB weighs in against the BBC accusing it of having a pro-Israeli bias. The basis of this accusation is an edition of Panorama to be aired next week.

According to The Guardian the MCB has

…its roots in the extremist politics of Pakistan. Its secretary general, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, and media spokesman Inayat Bunglawala have both expressed admiration for the late Maulana Maududi, founder of the radical Jamaat-i-Islami party, which campaigns non-violently for an Islamic state in Pakistan.

Maududi, a prominent figure in the 20th century Islamic revivalist movement, was a virulent anti-feminist who believed Muslims should struggle to rid their countries of Western influences.

Amongst the MCB 400 or so affiliates some are more extreme than others.

A second affiliate, the strictly orthodox Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith, based in Birmingham, practises a form of Islam which demands strict separatism from mainstream society. Its website describes the ways of ‘disbelievers’ as ‘based on sick and deviant views concerning their societies, the universe and their very existence’.

The BBC’s Panorama documentary will challenge the MCB on several issues:

The BBC programme is thought to be highly critical of some MCB affiliates for their links to extremist Islamic ideology. Panorama, reporter John Ware is thought to challenge Sacranie over his boycott of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, his attendance at a memorial service for Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin and his equivocal stance on Palestinian suicide bombers.

In an understatement The Guardian says

The BBC has not been known for its pro-Israeli stance. In July 2003, Danny Seaman, the Israeli government’s head of press, accused it of ‘demonising and vilifying’ the state of Israel.

And other Muslims are also not enamoured of the MCB:

Some leading Muslims are also critical. Abdul-Rehman Malik, of the Muslim magazine Q-News, said MCB leaders should clarify its position on suicide bombers. ‘You cannot be equivocal about innocent people. An innocent person in Tel Aviv is the same as an innocent person in Baghdad or London.’

Suspicions about the Muslim Council of Britain have led to the set-up of a blog devoted to investigating the organisation. MCB Watch should find plenty to blog about over the coming weeks…

Another one just in from our ‘If you don’t laugh you’ll cry’ team…

Binge drinkers will be targeted by a government advertising campaign attempting to shame them out of overindulging when pub opening hours are extended this autumn.

Sometimes fisking is just so easy…

1. Binge drinkers aren’t watching tv ads. They’re out binge drinking.

2. Anything you learn from the ad will be forgotten by the time you’ve drained your second pint.

3. Binge drinkers have no shame anyway.

It follows research suggesting one of the reasons Britain does not have a relaxed, Mediterranean-style ‘cafe culture’ of drinking is because there is little stigma now attached to being drunk in public.

Are you kidding me? The press and television are full of stories, opinion pieces and lurid stories of binge drinkers and their habits. The reason why binge drinking is escalating out of control is because there’s not enough pain attached to it.

Here’s the ‘Gary Monro formula for dealing with binge drinkers who disturb the peace’.

1. Lock them up for 48 hours.

2. Fine them 250 pounds.

3. For a subsequent offence, double points 1 and 2.

4. And so on.

5. That’s it.

The pain of imprisonment will deter most from unrestrained alcohol consumption. Escalating fines will leave the rest too skint to buy the booze in the first place.

Honestly, rocket science this isn’t.

UPDATE

From the BBC:

The number of alcohol-related deaths has increased by nearly a fifth in four years, figures show.

The Liberal Democrats, which obtained the data, said people were “literally drinking themselves to death”, but the government said it was taking action.

Indeed it is. Longer opening hours and tv ads.

Bravo New Labour!

If you’ve read William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’ - which I’m currently in the middle of - you’ll know why this story caught my eye:

An international research team has proposed new techniques that may lead to the mass production of meat reared not on the farm, but in the laboratory.

Developments in tissue engineering mean that cells taken from animals could be grown directly into meat in a laboratory, the researchers say.

It could be the answer to a number of problems:

“With a single cell, you could theoretically produce the world’s annual meat supply. And you could do it in a way that’s better for the environment and human health.

If it involves no actual animals, no cruelty and no killing could vegetarians eat it?

The new techniques could also provide a dilemma for vegetarians.

Some may feel able to eat meat that has been grown without an animal being harmed.

Others feel that question marks remain about the way the cells would be taken from animals.

“It won’t appeal to someone who gave up meat because they think it’s morally wrong to eat flesh or someone who doesn’t want to eat anything unnatural,” Kerry Bennett of the UK Vegetarian Society told the Guardian newspaper.

I asked my wife - who is vegetarian - whether she’d eat meat that was produced in this way. She would not. The habit is lifelong and meat - however it’s produced - is meat.

I’m in Boston visiting my new nephew, Yash. He’s beautiful and just 4 weeks old. He has been born into a wonderful family and will be dearly loved.

And he’s been born in a beautiful city too. Anybody who’s spent any time in Boston will know exactly what I mean.

The Guardian reports on the shortage of sperm donations in the UK and its negative effects on government policy:

Government plans to make fertility treatment more accessible to single women and lesbian couples are likely to be ineffective because of a severe shortage of sperm donors, a leading fertility expert has told the Guardian.

Such people miss out because, with sperm in short supply, mainly heterosexual couples are receiving the limited supplies. One of the main ‘culprits’ in this choice of recipients is the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority Act which requires clinics offering fertility treatment to consider the welfare of the child - including the need for a father figure - before offering treatment.

This Labour government’s obsession with rights for individuals over the well-being of the most vulnerable in our society has inspired a Commons select committee to regard the 1990 Act as being ‘offensive’ to unconventional ‘families’ like single parents and single sex couples.

The government intends to encourage clinics to abandon any principles of care for the children they produce in favour of pursuit of its libertarian and insane drive for so-called equality. The drive to recreate children as lifestyle products continues.

New Labour’s Marxist contempt for family - one of the few true expressions of anti-government freedom - advances unabated and unchallenged.