The aforeblogged television interview about Amy Winehouse I gave in Hollywood in October will be shown on American TV tomorrow night. It will eventually be shown over here, too. ‘Citing.
I was glad to see a brand new paperback of my Amy biog stacked high by the counter in HMV today. I even saw someone consider buying it, but then decide not to. The cow! Apparently they’re shifting like proper little sods, though. So that’s good.
Meanwhile, I hope this guy enjoys prison because it’s just where he should be.
When I blogged about the former Gush Katif residents, a guy called Avi Abelow got in touch and told me about a film he produced about the days leading to the disengagement. It’s called Home Game, and it’s one of the greatest documentaries I have ever witnessed.
I couldn’t see how anything I watched on the topic of the disengagement could be more heartbreaking, more gut-wrenching, than the news footage of the evacuations: Jews dragging Jews from their homes. Home Game out-wrenches even that. Not that it’s really about wrenching, it’s about education. Because precious few people on this planet know – or even care about – the truth of the settlers and what happened to them in the summer of 2005.
Thank heavens, then, for Home Game which goes to the heart of the matter and tells the truth with a knockout punch. It follows Gush Katif teenagers as they face up to the reality of losing their home, while trying to continue – and to win – the annual basketball tournament. This is the human side of the story laid bare for all to see. To say that it’s an emotional experience wouldn’t begin to do justice to the sheer power of it all.
The disengagement happened in 2005. Here we are three years on, and what good has come of it? The Palestinians did not – surprise, surprise – respond in kind to Israel’s gesture. On the contrary, they simply moved their weapons forward and bombarded southern Israel with Qassam rockets. (These are terrifying, destructive weapons and not – as the ghastly Jon Snow* once shamefully claimed on Channel 4 News – “pretty pathetic things”.)
As for the former residents of Gush Katif, the majority of them are still in temporary accommodation and continue to suffer financial hardship and extreme emotional pain after being ripped from their houses by their own government. So many in the world are either unaware of their plight, or are actively hostile to them after being fed a wildly distorted picture of the settlers. But the truth is out there, as they say. You could visit http://www.netzach.org.il/Default_en.aspx and http://www.jobkatif.org.il/index_e.php if you want to learn more.
Meanwhile, Ariel Sharon, who controversially ordered the disengagement, remains in a coma in hospital. Although I opposed his disengagement plans, I still admire him for his lifetime of service to Israel, which is why Julie and I co-dedicated Not In My Name to him. (The other dedicatee was Benjamin Netanyahu.) All the same, I can understand the at-times blood-curdling anger some of the Gush Katif residents felt towards him, as seen in Home Game.
Congratulations, a huge pat on the back, and maximum respect to Avi and everyone else involved in making Home Game, for showing it like it is. I recommend you watch it, or organise a showing. This link will take you to the website for the show, where you can watch the trailer, read more about it, organise a showing or donate to the initiative.
And good luck to the former Gush Katif residents as they rebuild their lives.
* Jon Snow is often a disgrace. When he reported on the Mumbai massacre, he described the killers as “practitioners”, rather than what they are – Islamic terrorists. (cf the BBC which refuses to describe suicide bombers who blow up school buses full of kids as ‘terrorists’, preferring to use the term ‘militants’, as if they are 21st century Derek Hattons.) Snow also, astonishingly, reported that the Mumbai terrorists showed a “wanton disregard for race or creed” when the exact opposite was the case. They deliberately and carefully targeted Jews, Americans and Britons.
I see the haggard hypocrite that is Elton John has slagged off The X Factor yet again. Specifically, he said he would rather get his “cock bitten off by an Alsatian” than watch the show.
Firstly, way TMI, Elton. Secondly, leave the animals out of it you sick fuck. Thirdly, just shut-up generally. I haven’t forgotten how you slagged off American Idol for being “racist”, and Pop Idol as “fucking cruel”, yet gleefully agreed to let both shows run ‘Elton John theme weeks’ which were big moneyspinners for you.
Meanwhile, I see that Brian Friedman is not sure whether he’ll return for the next series of the X Factor. I hope he doesn’t. There’s something creepy about him.
I received another foreign edition of one of my books today. It was the Brazilian edition of my Amy Winehouse biography, and very nice it looks too. But the most exciting aspect is that there is a television advert in Brazil for my book! See below.
My Amy and Paris Hilton biogs are selling well overseas. At the last count, the Amy book had been sold to Belgium, France, Brazil, Holland and Finland. The Paris book has so far gone to Sweden, Russia, France, Finland and Japan. Bravo!
Iran backs terrorists, executes people for being gay to the cheers of assembled crowds, and is building a nuclear bomb to “create a second holocaust that wipes Israel off the map”. Must keep them busy. One wonders how they have the time – let alone the cheek – to complain about a small scene in a western movie.
Speaking of Iran, my main objection to Barack Obama has always been towards his horrific appeasement plans for Iran. These have gone unnoticed by his naive Brit backers. After all, why let the prospect of millions of dead Jews get in the way of the pant-wetting excitement you feel when you complete the “I support Barack Obama = I am a nice person” equation?
Well, Al, I for one certainly care far more about Paris than I do about the discredited scaremongering you are using to relaunch your career. I think any right-minded person would feel the same. So get over it!
As Paris would probably put it: “Global warming – that’s hot!”
I don’t think anyone has come out looking good from the whole episode. Brand (who I like) and Ross (who I’m not quite so keen on) both look ridiculous after that silly stunt. The BBC responded bizarrely to the whole episode and did nothing to suggest it knows its arse from its elbow. Meanwhile, the 30,000 people who didn’t hear the show but still complained to the Beeb that they have no sex lives (come on, that was the subtext of their cry for help!) look like even bigger muppets than they did before.
One of the strangest responses to all this has been the way that many commentators have begun to hark back to a supposedly golden era of broadcasting, an era personified by Michael Parkinson. Give me a break. Parkinson is the show that Billy Connolly used to launch his career using a joke about murdering his wife and using her backside to park his bike on. Parky loved that joke and laughed his face off at it.
But then this is the same host that positively groveled over wife-beater and serial cheat George Best during his countless appearances on the show. “Go on, tell us that story about the Miss World contestant and the guy in the hotel. Pleeease! Just one more time!” Another regular guest was Muhammad Ali who divorced his first wife because she wouldn’t go along with his Islamic demands over her dress code. Nice.
It was always a bit of a boy’s club on Parkinson. My point is, though, that if Russell Brand appeared on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross and made a joke about murdering his wife, you can only imagine the shrieks of horror that would come from the mouths of the very people who hold Michael Parkinson up as some sort of moral example.
I see that the anti-Jade Goody bandwagon can’t leave her alone even as she faces the horrors of cancer. Just as they pathetically tried to dub her a racist after Celebrity Big Brother, they are now trying to smear her as homophobic. Oh you sad bunch.
Chris kindly got me this book for my birthday this year and I nearly wept with joy as I opened it. It’s so much more than a book. It’s a treasure chest of joy for Israel lovers, including copies of key documents, posters and more.
I’m a big fan of Sir Martin Gilbert and have enjoyed many of his books down the years. This is my favourite.
The aforeblogged television interview about Amy Winehouse I gave in Hollywood in October will be shown on American TV tomorrow night. It will eventually be shown over here, too. ‘Citing.
