An open road

Today's blip a reflection of my thoughts coming out of writer Paul Mason's presentation today: no clear way forward for the economy on growth, jobs, equity.

Another fascinating evening of presentations.  Paul Mason talking on Post-Capitalism:  his thoughts on how information technology has changed the pricing mechanisms in the economy (for example, who pays for information with Wikipedia out there) and many other issues.  Every time a question was asked it seemed to lead on to more questions.  I understood his points but found it hard to connect them.  In hindsight, it's a challenge to say the least to try and explain something as complex as his topic in 40 minutes.  It's worth reading up on in the link.

Marianne Elliott traced the history of the northern Irish conflict over the past 6 centuries and the role that myth and 'selective history' has and continues to play in sustaining grievances and other motivations on both sides of the conflict. Additionally, how the segregation has become institutionalised in the political process and that this is in the interests of the parties to keep it that way as anything else might threaten their very existence.  One of the consequences is that no one can agree on who constitutes a victim (apart from the very obvious ones).  As an aside, it was concerning to hear that the peace process is funded by the EU and that Brexit impacts this in ways as yet unknown and has of course the potential to restore a political border between north and south. 

Andrew Davies, screenwriter for the BBC's production of War and Peace, and many other works, ended the day with a delightful presentation on his experience with that production and other works. He mentioned that he almost never attends filming (too tedious, 'so much time wasted changing lightbulbs' and moving gear around), but did attend a hunting scene which was filmed in Lithuania.  The producers had to find Borzoi dogs as those were what they hunted with in Tolstoy's days.  They ended up with about 40 dogs accompanied by and suitably mollycoddled by their owners. The dogs were gathered into a pack and then run down a slope 5 or 6 times until the cameras got the scene right.  The dogs apparently loved it and behaved like a pack of 8-year old schoolboys on a similar outing. The fictional Rostovs were there in full riding gear as was an equivalent-looking stunt team from Lithuania.  Andrew mentioned how he kept mixing up the two groups and being apologised to in Lithuanian.

Back for more tomorrow.