Andersontown News - Oct 23 97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source:Beananti@aol.com -- From Andytown to Albert Square -- Books -- FILM REVIEW -- Editorial -- Frank's memory invoked at Ballymurphy unveiling -- PARTY-POOPERS ************************************************************* Andersonstown News - Thursday, 23 October 1997 ************************************************************* >From Andytown to Albert Square Rising West Belfast director takes the helm of the top-rated BBC soap The popular soap opera EastEnders may recoup some of the Irish fans they lost following their disastrous series of episodes filmed in Ireland with a new face in the director's chair - Andersonstown man Dez McCarthy. Formerly from Stockman's Lane in West Belfast, McCarthy directed a series of East Ender episodes to be shown on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of next week. "Since it was my directing debut, I played it very safe," Dez told Andersonstown News. "But they offered me another block of episodes so I'll do more then, take more risks." McCarthy, who attended Holy Child Primary School, and St. Mary's Grammar School, says he "never had the slightest notion of being in film. My mother sort of pushed me into it to stop me from being a layabout." After St. Mary's, McCarthy spent a year at the University of Ulster studying Geology before dropping out and landing a job as an internal postboy at BBC Belfast. He was then offered a position as prop man in London, moving scenery around, and eventually moved up to assistant floor manager. From there he was promoted to location manager and then production manager. "I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and had a bit of luck along the way. I got a very lucky break when the Executive Producer from East Enders noticed me working as a production manager. Basically she put me on a directors course, and then they offered me a block of 3 episodes." East Enders is filmed eight weeks in advance. Three half hour episodes are done over a six day period, which is "very hard work" says McCarthy. The series has six teams made up of the directors and production team, who rotate working on blocks of episodes. While he managed to work his way up from the bottom, McCarthy sadly pointed out that times have changed and it is very difficult to get to climb the ladder. "Nowadays you'd have to go to film school. I just watched and learned with my own eyes, picking up hints." "I am very proud of him," says his father, Sean. "He's done very well for himself." Another daughter is also with the BBC, as manager of BBC Enterprises. McCarthy didn't want to comment on the controversial episodes that projected a "stage Irish" image of Irish people. The BBC apologised last month after being flooded with phone calls and letters from Irish people angered at the image projected from BBC studios. But he did say he knew many Belfast people would be watching the episodes he directed. And what did he think of his directing debut? "I did OK. I think the report card will say that, and that I can do better." While he is interested in directing more East Ender episodes, he says he'd "love to get an opportunity to direct a film". And with his slow but steady climb from "a layabout" to the director's chair, many people in Belfast won't be surprised to see that day. ******************************************************** Che: A 20th Century Icon Casteqada's Compaqera: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, translated by Marina Casteqada (Bloomsbury, #20) First off, according to Casteqada that famous photograph of saintly eyes and straggly black hair to the west was taken by the Cuban photographer Alberto Korda in Havana 14 months after Castro's revolution. Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrenelli saw it for what it was worth. Guevara had been standing on a balcony, half obscured by Castro's bulk, when he moved into Korda's lens. And the picture found its way into situations Princess Diana would never dream of. On two cold dark days in 1965, Che Guevara mysteriously stopped over in Shannon on his way back from China. What did he think? What did he do? Should he have headed north to join in the fomenting Civil Rights movement? It certainly would have been safer, and Ernesto Lynch (for he had Irish ancestors) could now be shaking Tony Blair's hand at Stormont and having Hello magazine reshoot Korda's picture instead of his body coming home in triumph to Havana and his spirit parodied by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It might have been otherwise, had he not found further adventure in Bolivia. The Bolivians wanted to obliterate all trace of the guerrilla after his capture. Within two days all that remained of him were his severed hands, steeped in formaldehyde for fingerprint identification. According to Casteqada, the hands were surreptitiously moved from Bolivia a year later, and are now somewhere in Havana. Various visiting dignitaries say hey have been allowed to see them. Guevara was 39 when he died. In the book Casteqada asks bluntly why his example led so many thousands of young Latin Americans to their senseless deaths in the 1960s and early 1970s. It misses the point. Messianic figures like this don't come around very often. Little Boss: A Life of Andrew Carnegie by James Mackay (Mainstream, #20) When others quoted balance sheets, Andrew Carnegie quoted Burns. When others talked merger and acquisition Carnegie wrote himself memos about the need to elevate his character. His was the classic rags-to-riches story, from his birth as a destitute weaver's son in Dunfermline in 1835 to the moment 65 years later when he was hailed by a business rival as "the richest man in the world". But Carnegie, the library man, was one of the malevolent faces of capitalism. In one of the most powerful sections of the book, Mackay recalls the 1892 strike at the Homestead steel plant that was to degenerate into one of the most disgraceful episodes in American industrial history. The steelworkers thought that Carnegie was on their side. Behind their backs he was plotting to smash their unions. The strike ended in bloodshed and terrible hardship for the workers who lost their jobs. Then in 1901, shaken by a vicious boardroom punch-up with Henry Frick, one of his most powerful business partners, the union smasher sold out his interests in Carnegie Steel and started giving millions away. The scale of Carnegie's giving will quite possibly never be matched. Mackay concludes that "the immense good that has come from the Carnegie millions must outweigh any reservations about the manner in which they were amassed". Conscience money, perhaps. The Brontes: A Life in Letters by Juliet Barker (Viking #20). Oddly enough the most gifted of the daughters of Padraig O Pronntaigh from Loughbrickland is the sister about whom we know least, Emily, who kept her passionate truth-telling for her poems and not for Wuthering Heights. We should also know much less about Charlotte if the main men in her life had had their say. Juliet Barker as a spin-off from her biography of all the Brontes shows exactly why she publishes numerous extracts from her letters, accounts and memoirs in an attempt to let the Bronte family and friends tell their own stories in heir own words. Their father Patrick is given the honour of beginning and ending the story, but his letters are a touch pious and while they might not justify Barker's conclusion that he was " a man of great emotional depth". at least they redress the hostile picture of him in Elizabeth Gaskell's 1837 biography of Charlotte which noted the loaded pistol which he kept by his plate at breakfast. His sympathetic treatment of Catholic Ireland in Maid of Killarney (1818) later turned into hostility to Catholic Emancipation, probably an exercise in social climbing, which matched his adaptation of the French-sounding surname. Only Charlotte lived to see herself at least partially vindicated. By the time Emily had been hailed by at least one critic as a genius, the poignancy of her sister's never knowing the posthumous triumph was almost too much for Charlotte. First, she witnesses the deaths of her two older sisters from tuberculosis soon after their mothers' death had forced them to be sent to a mean and dark school for clergymen's daughters. Then years later, she watched her brother Branwell's death, also from tuberculosis, followed shorty by Ann and Emily's deaths also from the same affliction. Barker quotes cruel contemporary reviews which despite their writing under male pseudonyms, accused the Brontes of taking as their subjects "the eccentricities of women's fantasy", and failing to shy away from acts of physical cruelty which "true taste rejects". Emily's Wuthering Heights was deemed a "strange, inartistic story", all the characters being "utterly hateful, or thoroughly contemptible". As a result the novel's sequel was not commissioned, the publisher neglected to pay her what she was owed, and she was dead soon afterwards. Only Jane Eyre attracted some favourable notices, and also comments that "a book more unfeminine it would be hard to find", and "never was there a better hater" than its author. Just as well the Andytown News wasn't round in those days. 1. Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton (Michael O'Meara, #7) Re-issue of bestseller biography. 2. Diana: Her New Life by Andrew Morton ((Michael O'Meara, #7) The original Diana's biographer's update. 3. Silent Honour by Danielle Steele (Corgi #4) 4. Branded Man by Catherine Cookson (Corgi #6) Disfigured man holds key to turn of century Northumberland mystery. 5. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (HarperCollins #7) Pulitzer Prize winning reminiscences of impoverished Limerick childhood 6. A Little Book of Calm by Paul Wilson (Penguin #1.99) Pocket-sized guide to help to relax and enjoy life. 7. Woman to Woman by Cathy Kelly (Poolbeg #6) Married man leaves girlfriend just as wife uncovers affair. 8. Finbar's Hotel by Various (New Island Books, #10) Irish authors contribute a chapter each to a a multi-faceted drama. 9. Cradle of Thorns by Josephine Cox (Headline #4) Woman's relationship with orphan soothes troubled past. 10. Promises, Promises by Patricia Scanlan (Poolbeg #5) Charmer leaves trail of destruction through four women in the same extended family. -- Supplied by Easons. ******************************************************* FILM REVIEW DANNY'S NO ORDINARY DIRECTOR If you could say anything about the films of the triumphant triumvirate of Danny Boyle, Andrew MacDonald and John Hodge it is that they certainly do not make ordinary films, writes Robert McMIllen. Their darker than dark Shallow Grave was followed by "the best British film of the decade" in Trainspotting, a track record which earned them a beckoning finger into the world of Hollywood. Given the huge success of Trainspotting, it was always going to be an enormous challenge for the talented trio to come up with something as good. And, doggonit, they almost did it. A Life Less Ordinary is a smashing film which should come with a warning against the dangers of permagrin. At a special showing last Sunday in the Virgin Cinema complex gags physical and verbal kept a rapt audience smiling when they weren't guffawing at the tale of an incompetent "kidnapper" and his condescending "victim." We've had incompetent kidnappers on screen before of course but the man being touted as "the new Sean Connery" - Ewan McGregor - is just brilliant (is there anyting the man can't do) and his rapport with Cameron Diaz, while not Tracey and Hepburn, is a joy to watch. The stunning opening sequence is set in Heaven - a sixties cop shop bathed in white light. Desk Sergeant Gabriel has orders to send two of his top operatives to earth where dysfunctinal families, irreconcilable sexual problems and divorce are the order of the day. Word comes from above that the situation has to be remedied. The terresterial love scene has to be improved and O'Reilly (Holly Hunter) and Jackson (Delroy Lindo) are sent Stateside to bring lurve to a pair of completely incompatible strangers. Diaz is the spoilt daughter of a CEO for whom McEwan cleans floors. When fate throws the two of them together, the rocky road to amour is littered with robberies, shootings, car chases and divine intervention. (Whatever happened to a night at the pictures and a pint in the Whitefort?). The action fairly zooms along at a rate of knots and given the calibre of the production and writing team it is no surprise that nearly everything works. The whole cast were faultless from the stars to the minor players everyone making the most of John Hodge's wonderful script. There is nothing more enjoyable than watching good actors enjoying themselves on screen, hamming to their little hearts' content. Watch out also for the animation accompanying the final credits. (It actually took as long to shoot this sequence as it did to shoot the whole film!) However, the film was not faultless. The denouement was a disappointment given what had gone before, and a few scenes were superfluous. Yet this should not detract from what really is a good 100 minutes enteratinment at the movies. Unfortunately comparisons with the Boyle's previous films will detract from this highly-enjoyable romp. Victims of their own success? ******************************************************** WE SAY ANDERSONSTOWN NEWS Editor: Basil McLaughlin Phone: 619000 (5 lines). Fax: 620602. E-mail: nuachtan@iol.ie. Website: http://www.iol.ie/andersonstown-news. Mary terrifies the moral pygmies There are those political analysts who believe that the sympathy vote that will accrue to Mary McAleese in the wake of her mauling by Machiavellian political opponents and malevolent media manipulators could well more than offset the damage done to her by the prospect of all-important transfers from certain quarters. That remains to be seen, and it is to be hoped that Ms McAleese can ride out the storm and win the race to the Park, primarily because she is by some distance the best candidate in the field, but also because it would be very nice indeed to see the biters bit. But in the midst of the understandable fury felt by Northern nationalists at the disgraceful treatment being handed out to Ms McAleese, we should not lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of ordinary people south of the border are as affronted and outraged by the political circus that has passed for the Presidential election and the attempted demonisation of the candidate from the North (shorthand here for north-east, because no such problem is said to raise its head in other northern counties like Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal) . It is too easy to fall for the twee old line that we from the North are no more wanted by Southerners than we are by the English. The Halloween spectre of anti-Northern bias that has been brought out of the cupboard to scare us over recent days does exist, make no mistake, but it would be folly indeed to overestimate the 'Black North' syndrome. There does exist a small and unbelievably vociferous coterie of vehemently anti-nationalist media pundits and politicians who, for their own twisted ends, have been assiduously peddling the idea that an innate anti-Northern bias pervades every aspect of life in the modern Irish Republic. In fact, it does not. If it did, those of us who holiday regularly and in such numbers in the Republic, whether it be Killybegs, Killarney or Killashandra, would return home with our tails between our legs recounting horror stories of our treatment at the hands of the hostile Southerners; those of us who work or shop in Dublin or commute regularly between the major towns on this island would be relating tales of woe about how it is to be an outcast in your own land. Indeed, we would go further and state quite categorically that this allegedly ubiquitous anti-Northern bias is nothing more than code for anti-nationalist and anti-republican bile from that section of the Irish political and media establishment which finds it most difficult to come to terms with this island's tortured past. It is no coincidence that the same people who are lining up to pontificate on why Fianna Fail shouldn't have gone to Belfast for a candidate are the same people who protest most loudly when, for instance, the prospect of a new inquiry into Bloody Sunday is mooted, or the subject of a 150th Famine commemoration is raised. It is they who are backward-looking and begrudging, it is they who are afraid to look to the future in an attempt to map out a new future for us all, and that is why they are so absolutely and utterly terrified of the prospect of 21st century nationalism gaining a foothold in the Southern political establishment. We will leave them to join Nelson McCausland and his allies in calling for the Free State to join the Commonwealth; we will leave them to coo and sympathise with proven arch-bigots within unionism who suddenly take an interest in Irish politics only to say that Mary McAleese shouldn't be part of it; we will leave them to ignore the fact that these same people treated the now sainted Mary Robinson like something stuck to the sole of their shoe whenever she had the temerity to cross the border (stopping only, before we leave, to remind them that these unionists would take nothing to do with the Irish Presidency if Gusty Spence were to be elected). We prefer to step ahead with Mary McAleese and her kind in an attempt to put the old enmities of the past behind us, instead of making a living out of them as her enemies are doing. Whether or not Mary McAleese gains the office she deserves, and we will spend the next week with fingers tightly crossed, she will always be able to say that she frightened the political and moral pygmies more than anybody else - from North or South - ever did. ********************************************************* Frank's memory invoked at Ballymurphy unveiling MAN OF THE PEOPLE: Plaque tribute to Springfield stalwart Upper Springfield community workers are fond of saying that the story of Frank Cahill is the story of Ballymurphy. So it's fitting that the offices of the area's foremost community group should today (Thursday) be renamed after the district's legendary community leader. Politicians, community workers and local residents will gather this afternoon to see Frank's widow Tess unveil a plaque and mural in his honour at the newly-named Frank Cahill Centre, formerly the Upper Springfield Resource Centre on the Whiterock. "The result of Frank's efforts are visible today in every corner of the Upper Springfield and in many places further afield," said local community worker Tommy Gorman. "You look at the Resource Centre, the Health Centre, Newhill Community Centre, Conway Mill, the big housing refurbishment schemes and somewhere, always, is the great influence of Frank Cahill. "The fact that today's children will grow up in a much healthier and more caring environment than their parents' is in large part a tribute to his ability to inspire others with his own vision, optimism and enthusiasm." Frank Cahill's roots in the community go back a long time - he was involved with the Ballymurphy Tenants' Association from its formation in 1963. He was instrumental in the building of the community centre and the BTA's economic development plants. He was the driving force behind the landmark 'Tale of Two Surveys' investigation into social conditions in Ballymurphy. Frank co-ordinated the intake of Catholic refugees from Belfast flashpoints into Ballymurphy in 1969 and 1970. Ciaran de Baroid worked alongside Frank on a wide range of projects benefiting the Ballymurphy community. "We will remember the small, bespectacled man in a long overcoat who looked at us all with an approving grin and in the 67th year of a life that had enriched everyone it touched, slipped gently out of our lives." The renaming of the centre coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Upper Springfield Resource Centre and workers will at today's ceremony pledge to rededicate themselves to Frank Cahill's aspirations. ***************************************************** PARTY-POOPERS Northern Ireland Tourist Board chiefs have been branded "party-poopers" for failing to provide any information on Ireland's premier cultural festival which kicks off in Belfast today. The angry accusation comes after it was revealed callers to the Tourist Board's city centre headquarters were being rebuffed by staff. Local man Danny McGurk says he rang the Board to enquire about the major events at the Oireachtas only to be told that they knew nothing about it. When he explained that up to 10,000 people - including 8,000 visitors who have booked out every hotel, guest house and hostel in town - were due to take part in the centenary cultural festival, he was advised to check the Yellow Pages for "a thing in West Belfast called the Culturlann". "It's truly appalling that the body charged with tourism promotion here is totally ignorant about the first ever Oireachtas to be coming to Belfast, especially since the venues it's using include the Waterfront Hall and the Europa Hotel. They're party-poopers." But Conradh chief Gearsid S Caireallain, pictured above yesterday launching the Internet version of the Andersonstown News Oireachtas supplement, says he's "saddened but not shocked by the attitude of a board which has been particularly unhelpful in the running of the Oireachtas". "The NITB should be disbanded," he said. "We applied 18 months ago for financial assistance for the Oireachtas and have yet to receive a penny." Hotels and guest houses contacted by the Andersonstown News confirmed an increase in bookings, with some guest houses stating they were fully booked for the festival. The Europa Hotel reported "a large amount of people phoning in to book rooms specifically for the Oireachtas" and the International Youth Hostel on Donegall Road say they are completely booked. "Nearly every other call we get is someone wanting rooms this weekend for the festival," a spokesman said. ********************************************************* ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-10.26.97-11:07:30-8950