Mad Dogs And Englishmen

[poliphilo]

When I was at prep school in the early 60s we used to be treated to film shows once or twice a term. The films were mostly produced by big corporations like Shell and they were about how big corporations were improving the lives of colourful but backward native peoples by establishing rubber plantations and building dams and oil rigs. The abiding image is of cheerful chaps in dhotis shinning up palm trees.

The headmaster and deputy head were both old Indian Army men; Col Gracey, Col Easton (good kind men- I don’t mean to mock.) So I suppose the object was to get us to consider taking up the White Man’s Burden as a career.

This was before colour TV. The films were mostly in colour. Therefore they were wonderful. QED.

I was reminded of this formative experience while watching Michael Palin’s new series about the Himalaya. It is instructive to note that, in spite of the best efforts of Shell et al, the world is still full of colourful, native peoples. You should see the huge moustaches they wear in the tribal lands of Pakistan! Tee-hee! And they race bulls because they haven’t invented horses yet.

How good of Michael to go out in the midday sun to film these simple people for our entertainment and edification!

Comments

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

The Prince's moustache (I think he was a prince) was particularly splendid. I'm very very tempted to buy the book.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Clearly you liked it. I'm fond of Michael Palin, the scenery is very splendid, I learned things I didn't know, but I find the light entertainment ethos more than a little patronising.

Palin used to send up the Big White Bwanas. Now he's dangerously close to being one himself.

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

I found it nice and easy to watch, very pretty to look at. Not a patch on Around the World, imho.

The books are invariably better in my experience, though I've not finished Sahara yet.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'll just hang on to my memories of Monty Python :)

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

When the white man rides every native hides in glee,
Because the simple creatures hope he will impale his solar topee on a tree...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes! Dontcha just lurve Noel Coward!

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Why, of course... I would not want to live in a world where Private Lives had not been written!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And all the songs, and Brief Encounter and- well- in certain (fairly silly) moods I think he was the greatest Englishman of the 20th century.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in crying over my bridge before I've eaten it... -Now there's a worthy contender to the greatest line ever written in the English language! (At silly times...)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've not come across that one before. Is it from Private Lives?

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Yes, from the scene where Amanda and Elyot are roaringly, screamingly drunk in her loft in Paris... (It's Amanda's line.)

-I used to know great parts of it by heart and perform it with my then boyfriend whenever we got drunk (or had lunch with friends or went camping or had a quiet evening in, actually...); many couples have "their song", but not many have "their play", which they recite at will...

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had some interesting experiences at the prep school. Lol, I happen to really like those big moustaches!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was at two different prep-schools. One was nasty and one was nice. This was the nice one.

I was raised to run an empire- but by the time I got to the end of my education there was no empire left to run!

[archyena.livejournal.com]

Come to America, we're busy building one of our own and could use an extra set of hands. All you need is a good pair of cowboy boots....

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't have the energy any more- or- to judge by Deadwood- a sufficiently colourful vocabulary.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

But if you came here your English accent would merge with the local drawl and be ever so nice.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of my trip to Indonesia. I was there playing tag-a-long with a Phillips Petroleum Company delegation to negotiate drilling and transport rights. Technically my job was to watch and then fax paperwork to the head office, but mostly it was to absorb the idea of what high-level negotiations looked like. I had a fascination with corporate power and my stepfather, being assigned at the time to negotiations (a path he tested when they subcontracted his favorite part of his own department, leaving him with little interest in work), had decided to indulge me. I looked about the right age for an intern and as long as I kept my best formal attitude about me, I blended into the delegation well enough. At any rate, it was just before the fall of the Suharto government and I was saying much the same sort of thing as the film did, that this deal will bring prosperity and progress to the people. I was kindly humored by everyone but another member of the delegation who informed me that this project will mean little to these people, Phillips will take its fair share but Suharto and his circle will keep most of the rest. My own dream that the proceeds would fund schools and libraries and clinics evaporated. According to him, this is why many oil companies are engaged in less notable charity work and why many of the delegates had their own life-improving charity projects, there is a certain guilt involved in being an accessory to the theft of people's futures. The rest of the time was spent in ever more nervous negotiations, ever more strident demands for up front payments (ie bribes). On the third day, Suharto was gone.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's interesting.

All those wealthy philanthropists- basically what they're doing is paying blood money.