Benjamin Zepheniah - Genetics / The British (serves 60 million)

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures

And let them settle,

Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.
Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years

Add lots of Norman French to some

Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.
Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,

Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,

Vietnamese and Sudanese.
Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians

And Pakistanis,

Combine with some Guyanese

And turn up the heat.

Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians,

Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some

Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese

And Palestinians

Then add to the melting pot.
Leave the ingredients to simmer.
As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish

Binding them together with English.
Allow time to be cool.
Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future,

Serve with justice

And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important.

Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain.

Give justice and equality to all.

O. Wilde - The Ballad of Reading Gaol / Wilde - Part 11/12

'They' - Sigfried Sassoon

The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
In a just cause: they lead the last attack
On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
New right to breed an honourable race,
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'

'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find
A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.
And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'

G. M. Hopkins - The Windhover / Pied Beauty

D. Thomas - Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

E. Lee Masters - The Anthology of Spoon River: the Judge

The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford

The outlaw Jesse James was one of the first American celebrities, enjoying the fame that the printing press could deliver in the growing United States of the early 1880. His notoriety was laundered by romanticised tales that likened him to Robin Hood, washing away his murderous deeds and cruel, arrogant nature. He was a sum of his media parts as much as a feared bandit who robbed trains and banks with his gang.Casey Affleck delivers the film's most haunting performance as Robert Ford, the 19 year old hanger on whose brother Charley (Sam Rockwell in wonderful, complex form) is already a part of the Jesse James gang. But Robert is a little strange in his obsession with James, which makes James unsure about him. Brad Pitt paints James as an enigmatic, edgy, volatile and indeed sometimes vile figure, verging on mentally unstable.Andrew Dominik, clearly enamoured with Ron Hansen's much praised novel, adapts the book with intense attention to its rich, textured style. I haven't read it myself, but Newsweek's Peter S. Prescott describes it well: "The language of Hansen's novel is dense and textured, requiring careful reading. The pleasure of the book is in the eloquence of its dialogue and description, which are both literary and historically appropriate." The film reflects these elements - to a fault. The first two hours is diminished by a lack of clarity, a result of both the complexity of characters and relationships and a fearfully difficult dialogue - both in period style and in sheer audibility. The screenplay seems to have been driven by a desire not to miss any of the nuances and textures of Hansen's book, which is a problematic approach for cinema. The result seems like a meandering, unfocused screenplay that breaks down our willingness to be transported by it.In every technical detail (save the dialogue mix), the film is outstanding, with stunning cinematography and production design. The performances of the entire cast - and there is a large cast - is exemplary, and Dominik's ability to sustain tension in the latter scenes is admirable. While it is acknowledged that the exact details of the last days or months of Jesse's life will never be known, the film gives us an opportunity to appraise it as fictionalised biography - and at least as valid as the many others in that genre.

No country for old men

Over wide shots of desolate, expansive West Texas country in June 1980, local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) narrates his belief that the times are changing and that the area is becoming increasingly violent. As Bell's narration concludes, the film's antagonist, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), is arrested and taken into custody by a sheriff's deputy. The deputy scarcely has time to describe Chigurh's unique weapon, a captive bolt pistol, to authorities before Chigurh wraps his handcuffs around the deputy's neck -- strangling him to death, and allowing Chigurh to escape.
Miles away, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) hunts pronghorn antelope near the Rio Grande when he stumbles upon a group of corpses and a lone dying man: the aftermath of a drug deal gone awry. In addition to a shipment of heroin, Moss finds two million dollars in a satchel, which he keeps, leaving the lone survivor to die. Later that night in bed with his wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), Moss's conscience pushes him to return to the scene with water for the dying man, which shortly triggers a cat-and-mouse game between a gang of Mexicans, Moss, Chigurh, and Bell as they chase the money and each other across the West Texas and Mexico landscapes.
Chigurh, a professional hitman hired to retrieve the stolen money, tracks the satchel with a radio receiver corresponding to a small transponder hidden in the satchel. A meticulous, brooding psychopath, Chigurh does not hesitate to kill anyone impeding his mission; his victims range from Mexican gangsters and law enforcement officials to civilians he encounters by chance. Moss, unaware of the transponder's existence, sends his wife Carla Jean out of town while he darts from motel to motel in an attempt to elude both Chigurh and the Mexicans sent to retrieve the money. In the meantime, Bell focuses his efforts on locating and protecting Moss, following the trail of corpses left by Chigurh, while he tracks Moss and the money.
Chigurh tracks Moss through several Texas towns, climaxing in a border-hotel firefight that spills onto the streets. Narrowly escaping death by crossing the border, Moss wakes up in a Mexican hospital and meets Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), an assassin dispatched by the drug buyer. After Moss disregards his offer to save Moss' life, Wells returns to his hotel where he is ambushed and killed by Chigurh. When Moss has second thoughts about the offer, he calls Wells' room and Chigurh answers. Chigurh offers Moss a deal, if Moss forfits the money and his own life, Chigurh will not go after Carla Jean.
Moss rejects the offer and orders Carla Jean to travel to El Paso, where he intends to give her the money and move her out of harm's way. Carla Jean agrees, but timidly informs Bell of Moss' destination. Bell travels to the El Paso rendezvous point only in time to see the finale of a firefight between Moss, and some Mexicans who have tracked him there. When Bell reaches Moss, Moss is lying dead on the floor of his motel room. Later that night, Sheriff Bell returns to the motel crime scene, where he finds the lock of Moss' hotel room door blown out in a fashion similar to that of Moss' trailer. Entering with his gun drawn, he remains unaware of Chigurh, hidden in the shadows silently observing the cautious sheriff. Surveying the room, Bell discovers the vent cover of the air conditioner has been removed with a dime, with drag marks inside denoting the former presence of the satchel. Bell sits in the darkened room, staring at shadows, before leaving without encountering Chigurh.
Days later, a weary Bell visits his Uncle Ellis (Barry Corbin), a former sheriff now confined to a wheelchair. Announcing his retirement because of the changing, violent times, Ellis points out that the region has always been violent, accusing Bell of "vanity" in thinking that he could change the condition of the world. Miles away, Carla Jean returns from her mother's funeral, where she encounters Chigurh waiting for her in her bedroom. Chigurh, reminding her of Moss's willingness to risk her life to save his own, flips a coin for her life and asks her to call it. Carla Jean, disgusted with the gesture, refuses to call it, surprising Chigurh. As Chigurh leaves the house, carefully checking the soles of his boots, he is involved in a car accident, leaving him nursing a broken arm as he flees the scene before the police arrive.
As Bell sits at home reflecting on his life choices, he relates to his wife (Tess Harper) two dreams he had, both involving his deceased father, also a lawman. Bell reveals briefly that in the first dream, he lost "some money" that his father had given him. Bell says that in the second dream, he and his father were riding horses through a snowy mountain pass. His father, who was carrying fire in a horn, quietly passed by Bell with his head down. Bell then relates that his father was "going on ahead, and fixin' to make a fire" in the surrounding dark and cold, and that when Bell got there, his father would be waiting. Bell closes the dream narrative, and the film, with the final words: "And then I woke up."