:00:20. > :00:24.The Pop Art legend Roy Lichtenstein gets the Tate treatment, as over
:00:24. > :00:30.150 works go on view. Richard Gere plays the villain in a film about
:00:30. > :00:33.greed and deception in the world of finance. 475? So we made a good
:00:33. > :00:38.deal. Fellow actor Jeremy Irons voices
:00:38. > :00:41.concerns about the waste washing up on some of the world's most
:00:41. > :00:46.beautiful shores. Historically we have always buried our trash. It
:00:46. > :00:50.seems that now we sometimes don't dig, we just dump.
:00:50. > :00:55.A writer's account of victimisation at the hands of an on-line stalker.
:00:55. > :00:59.In a real-life story that exposes the peril of the internet. At a
:00:59. > :01:04.certain point I did realise I was becoming the object of some kind of
:01:04. > :01:09.obsession. And from Bake-off to sitcom, Sue Perkins's new series
:01:09. > :01:17.about an awkward vet, struggling with her sexuality. I don't want to
:01:17. > :01:21.spend my weekends playing catch with a load of big-tited children.
:01:21. > :01:25.Joining me is Kerry Shale, the actor, author and journalist, Alex
:01:25. > :01:30.Preston, and Heather McGregor, also known as the Financial Times
:01:30. > :01:34.columnist, Mrs Moneypenny, and the presenter of SuperScrimpers on
:01:34. > :01:39.Channel 4. You can join the debate on twittwiter.
:01:39. > :01:46.Mickey Mouse and Donald book had never been seen on the roles of --
:01:46. > :01:51.Donald Duck had never been seen on the walls of art galleries, Roy
:01:51. > :01:57.Lichtenstein changed all that. He put them in eye-catching canvasses
:01:58. > :02:03.that reflected the post-war consumer boom. The Tate Modern has
:02:03. > :02:08.the first major Lichtenstein retrospective in 20 years.
:02:08. > :02:15.When Roy Lichtenstein xibgted his giant comic book canvasses in the
:02:15. > :02:25.early 1960s he divided opinion. Some considered him a genius, but
:02:25. > :02:26.
:02:27. > :02:32.one magazine dubbed him one of the worst artists in America.
:02:32. > :02:36.The comic book image is the black lines around everything, the more
:02:36. > :02:43.or less primary colours. All of this was to symbolise what we were
:02:43. > :02:48.really getting into, a kind of ready-made and plastic era.
:02:48. > :02:54.Taking us from Lichtenstein's pre- pop days, to his rarely seen
:02:54. > :03:02.Chinese landscapes of the mid-1990s, Tate Modern's retrospective tells
:03:02. > :03:04.the story of his 40-year career, in 13 dazzling rooms. Schooled as an
:03:04. > :03:07.abstract expressionist, Lichtenstein stumbled on his
:03:08. > :03:12.signature style almost by accident, when his son challenged him to
:03:12. > :03:17.paint something as good as a Mickey Mouse cartoon. There followed three
:03:17. > :03:22.years of highly controversial comic strip works.
:03:22. > :03:26.By applying his trained painting skill to the banal, Lichtenstein
:03:26. > :03:36.challenged artistic snobry his use of bold black lines, primary
:03:36. > :03:38.
:03:38. > :03:43.colours, and b Ben-Day dots. He didn't stop at comic strips, he
:03:43. > :03:50.applied the same style to many other subjects. Pastiches of iconic
:03:50. > :03:55.works by modern masters like Picasso and Matisse, reworkings of
:03:55. > :03:58.the traditional female nude. Landscapes and even sculpture. This
:03:58. > :04:07.new retrospective represents over a billion pounds worth of art. Does
:04:07. > :04:12.Lichtenstein deserve his reputation as a legend?
:04:12. > :04:15.These images are so familiar, aren't they, the reproductions have
:04:15. > :04:20.been reproduced. Account original still have any kind of impact?
:04:20. > :04:26.Definitely. I remember when I first saw Whaam!, was a photograph of it
:04:26. > :04:32.in a magazine. And then years later, many years ago, when I first went
:04:32. > :04:36.to the Tate, and I Whaam! In person for the first time, I was
:04:36. > :04:41.completely knocked out. Reproductions can't do it justice.
:04:41. > :04:45.You can't see the Ben Day dots properly all the stuff is gigantic
:04:45. > :04:48.and works because of that. But I remember when I was seeing the
:04:48. > :04:52.exhibition this time, I in theed people, everyone takes photos on
:04:52. > :04:56.their phones now. And I was kind of angry, because I thought be in the
:04:56. > :05:00.moment, just look at it, it is huge, don't reduce it to that. But I
:05:00. > :05:03.thought that's part of the joke of Lichtenstein, he would approve of
:05:03. > :05:07.that. That it would be rero duced again in a different way. --
:05:07. > :05:12.reproduced again in a different way. That is the secret of his genius,
:05:12. > :05:16.that it is a copy of a copy of a copy, it will always be copied.
:05:16. > :05:21.you have the same attitude to the originals? I was familiar with all
:05:21. > :05:25.the Pop Art, I had seen it in one dimension in magazines and books
:05:25. > :05:29.and things. I had also been to the Tate and seen Whaam!, and to the
:05:29. > :05:32.Met and seen one of his pictures there. Nothing prepared me for
:05:33. > :05:39.seeing all of those pictures together. For two reasons, first of
:05:39. > :05:44.all, when I saw it, I realised actually he's not just a copy book,
:05:44. > :05:50.a coppic book copy. He can actually compose pictures. He can use colour.
:05:50. > :05:55.The day before I had been trying out the latest 3HD glass, I
:05:55. > :05:59.realised look -- 3D glasses, and when I looked at his pictures I
:05:59. > :06:04.realise I had didn't need them, he painted in 3D. When you got to the
:06:04. > :06:08.end of his life, he was painting in the 1990s, there were paintings you
:06:08. > :06:11.could see. He was using all the techniques he built up before. If
:06:11. > :06:14.we hadn't had a proper retrospective, you would never have
:06:14. > :06:18.seen that chronological development. Of this the point of it, was to see
:06:18. > :06:22.the balance of work through over a period of time? Yes, that is what I
:06:22. > :06:26.found so profoundly disappointing about the show. When you have a
:06:26. > :06:29.retrospective, you want to see the march of genius through time and
:06:29. > :06:37.reinvention. It seemed to me what you got in this receipt trot
:06:37. > :06:41.pective, which I thought was -- retrospective, is it was remarkably
:06:41. > :06:47.pious. Wasn't it fun? The first three rooms were wonderful, someone
:06:47. > :06:53.described it as an acid shock. It was exactly that. You have this
:06:53. > :06:59.mournful picture of Lichtenstein trying to recapture the epiphany
:06:59. > :07:04.moment of Whaam! And Mickey Mouse. It struck me as cynical and an
:07:04. > :07:08.empty perfection to it. I don't buy that. Did you not, I really loved
:07:08. > :07:14.at the end interior with nude leaving -- Interior with Nude
:07:14. > :07:18.Leaving, we had the dots, the colour, the composition, we had the
:07:18. > :07:21.black lines of the Pop Art. Everything was in there.
:07:21. > :07:24.Chinese landscapes, I never thought I would be moved by Roy
:07:24. > :07:28.Lichtenstein, but I was moved by the Chinese landscapes, where
:07:28. > :07:32.almost everything becomes dots. They are gradations of grey, white
:07:32. > :07:37.and black. That is rather good, they were the highlight of the late
:07:37. > :07:41.stage of the exhibition. There was something angelic about it, you
:07:41. > :07:48.knew he was going to die. It was very much a man sitting on a rock
:07:48. > :07:53.looking back. I absolutely agree. The By the mirrors. Still using the
:07:53. > :08:00.dots: The mirrors are what he's about. The self-portrait is anti-T-
:08:00. > :08:05.shirt with a mirror. By all accounts -- an empty T-shirt and a
:08:05. > :08:10.mirror. But all accounts he was a pretty self-effacing guy. What
:08:10. > :08:14.would you hang in the living room? Whaam! I would have a Chinese
:08:14. > :08:18.landscape. I thought they were a great discovery and worth the price
:08:18. > :08:24.of admission to see that. problem I had is he is still all
:08:24. > :08:28.about surface. He said he wanted viewers to be able to take in the
:08:29. > :08:34.whole impression of his work in one blink. And I need my art to do more
:08:34. > :08:39.than that. I want depth. I want abstract Expressionism, I want
:08:39. > :08:42.Jackson Pollock, and my artist to be tortured. There is the sense of
:08:42. > :08:46.detatchment, you talked about the mirror paintings. Absolutely in
:08:46. > :08:51.those it is the very essence of detatchment? It is deceptive. I
:08:51. > :08:55.think the main thing he is, he is fun. He came out of a time with
:08:55. > :08:59.people like the Beatles, who were having fun and had depth at the
:08:59. > :09:02.same time. I think that there is a surprising amount of certainly
:09:02. > :09:07.intellectual depth there which I don't particularly understand, I
:09:07. > :09:11.read three Lichtenstein books this week. But they do, so I won't go on
:09:11. > :09:15.about that, I think they do jump out at you. I love the way the
:09:15. > :09:19.colours are so saturated, that they look different from every angle,
:09:19. > :09:22.and they look different when reproduced. I love his take on
:09:22. > :09:26.reproduction. The fact that he takes a comic strip and turns it
:09:26. > :09:29.into a painting. The value of the paintings, I know we shouldn't
:09:29. > :09:33.judge them. Does it change your view of them within you go around
:09:33. > :09:37.an, Biggs like this knowing they are worth millions and millions of
:09:37. > :09:43.pounds? I have to say, the one thing I still don't get is why they
:09:43. > :09:47.are worth that much money. Because you know, if you look at Jackson
:09:47. > :09:51.Pollock, and others, these are people who also, Jackson Pollock
:09:52. > :09:54.conveniently died in a car crash, which makes everything very, very
:09:54. > :09:59.valuable. Then there is a much shorter life. Where as Lichtenstein
:09:59. > :10:02.painted for years and years and years. Some of it is truly dread of.
:10:02. > :10:06.The first and the last room, his earliest paintings, I wouldn't give
:10:06. > :10:09.tuppence for them. They are all worth a fortune. I don't think they
:10:09. > :10:14.are worth what they say they are. If I had millions of pounds I would
:10:14. > :10:18.definitely be buying one of those Chinese painting. You can make up
:10:18. > :10:22.your own mind on the Lichtenstein retrospective, it is on at the Tate
:10:22. > :10:27.Modern until the 27th of May. Richard Gere's character in the
:10:27. > :10:30.film Arbitrage, has a keen interest in contemporary art, leading him
:10:30. > :10:36.into dangerous territory. That love of risk is his approach to making
:10:36. > :10:40.money. The thriller, set in the sky describers of Manhattan, sees Gere
:10:40. > :10:42.in a contemporary tale of greed and corruption at the core of the
:10:42. > :10:49.financial industry. Richard Gere won a nomination for
:10:49. > :10:53.the Best Actor Golden Globe for his portrayal of Robert Miller, a
:10:53. > :10:57.charismatic billion Nair who finds himself in trouble after a series
:10:57. > :11:03.of bad decisions. Arbitrage opens as Miller is on the verge of a huge
:11:03. > :11:12.deal to offload his New York hedge fund. A deal that masks a string of
:11:12. > :11:22.deceptions. 475. So we made a good deal.
:11:22. > :11:26.Actually I lied. I would have taken four. The film, the feature debut,
:11:27. > :11:30.Paolo Guerrero, whose parents were stock brokers, shows a man whose
:11:30. > :11:34.life becomes increasingly corrupt. And whose risk-taking has become
:11:34. > :11:39.ever more dangerous. Miller's messy private life means his deceptions
:11:39. > :11:42.don't end at the office door, as he battles to protect his business
:11:42. > :11:49.deal and reputation, he faces increasing pressure, after
:11:49. > :11:55.announcing the suspicion of NYPD detective Bryer, played by Tim Roth.
:11:55. > :11:59.Why did you lease an apartment for Mrs Colt. She needed a place to
:11:59. > :12:06.entertain buyers, she came from Paris. Do you rented an apartment?
:12:06. > :12:11.It was by the holding company. Susan Sarandon plays Ellen Miller,
:12:11. > :12:15.who uses her husband's fortune for philanthropic ends. Her interests
:12:15. > :12:20.lie in protecting the family, it is far from clear if she's complicit
:12:20. > :12:24.in her husband's actions. We vpbtd signed the paper, for some reason
:12:24. > :12:29.they are still on it. It will always be fine, just follow the
:12:30. > :12:33.plan. What is that plan? Confidence equals contract. Following recent
:12:33. > :12:37.high-profile scandals in the financial industry, Arbitrage seems
:12:37. > :12:41.to be a timely examination of corruption in big business. Half of
:12:41. > :12:46.the fund's assets are missinging. Does this tale of a billion Nair
:12:46. > :12:52.with dubious morality give us real insight -- billionare with dubious
:12:52. > :12:59.morality give us a real insight into those who take risks with
:12:59. > :13:03.other people as money. Alex, in a world where we have the
:13:03. > :13:10.Libor scandal, Madoff, all the misks that led to the financial
:13:10. > :13:15.crash, how realistic all the risk that is led to the financial crash,
:13:15. > :13:20.how realistic was all this? You were a trader before? Something I
:13:20. > :13:23.would like to leave behind. This struck me as an extraordinarily
:13:23. > :13:29.disappointing film, a missed opportunity on par with Oliver
:13:29. > :13:35.Stone's Money Never Sleeps, equally disappointing. It seemed entirely
:13:35. > :13:40.divorced from the world of now. And shown up by a recent film Margin
:13:40. > :13:45.Core, a debut director too. It felt as if the director of this will be
:13:45. > :13:49.some how marooned in the 1980. He seemed to show no interest in
:13:49. > :13:56.staying in touch with what was going on in addressing the great
:13:56. > :14:01.issues of the age. In no way engaged with the cred dt crisis, it
:14:01. > :14:04.seemed an extraordinary -- credit crisis, it seemed extraordinarily
:14:04. > :14:14.removed. I was disappointed when I saw this. I was all ready to love
:14:14. > :14:19.it. I loved Margin Call, I loved Wall Street, I loved last year's
:14:19. > :14:23.Inside Job, the Oscar-winning document treatment the two issues I
:14:23. > :14:28.had were, one on the technical level, I didn't believe it at all.
:14:28. > :14:33.There were mistakes? I think there were things that were unbelievable.
:14:33. > :14:39.You know. Such as the post-Madoff and post-crash, that you would be
:14:39. > :14:46.able to invest $100 million in a copper mine and take a hedge on it
:14:46. > :14:50.t and borrow $100 million from the company for somewhere else all
:14:50. > :14:54.without your chief executive not knowing. The FT has a bit of a love
:14:54. > :14:59.affair with Richard Gere, our review irhas previously described
:14:59. > :15:05.him in previous films as -- reviewer has previously described
:15:05. > :15:10.him as someone who has "lack qered grace and fee lean features" I
:15:10. > :15:15.really wanted to love this movie. All that was accurate there is when
:15:15. > :15:19.you are on a private jet have a lid on your coffee pot. One of the
:15:19. > :15:26.risks with Richard Gere in the film is having him as a villain
:15:26. > :15:31.throughout. What did you make of the performance? He's the most
:15:31. > :15:37.gorgeous 64-year-old on the planet. 63. It irritated the hell out of me
:15:37. > :15:41.on many levels. I think he's a good actor but not a great actor. I
:15:41. > :15:45.suspect that this could have been offered to Clooney and people who
:15:46. > :15:51.would have given it more depth. It irritated me because decided to
:15:51. > :15:59.play him cute. I didn't believe that. His eyes were always ciankled
:15:59. > :16:02.and lovable. Wasn't that clever, someone who is villain ous, but you
:16:02. > :16:12.are sympathetic throughout the film to him? I thought the whole movie
:16:12. > :16:13.
:16:13. > :16:17.was cute. You showed the crash scene. I was enjoying it as a
:16:17. > :16:22.Hollywood three-act movie. And when I went off it was when one of the
:16:22. > :16:25.characters, her throw away line was "real life isn't like TV", it was
:16:25. > :16:29.something trashing TV I thought, you know mate, you don't have the
:16:29. > :16:37.right to do that, TV is better than this. The crash was taken from
:16:37. > :16:41.season two of Mad Men. It was taken from Bonfire of the Vanties. In Mad
:16:41. > :16:45.Men he's talking about friend French films, they are drunk, it is
:16:45. > :16:49.a mistress. Well you are right it is Bonfire of the Vanties on
:16:49. > :16:52.steroid. There were moments in the script, when he talked about
:16:52. > :16:58.himself as a patriarch, I don't think people who are patriarchs
:16:59. > :17:04.talk about themselves like that. One doesn't like to construct too
:17:04. > :17:08.many conspiracy theories behind this. Jarecki senior, the two
:17:08. > :17:13.brothers who are directors, their father is a master of the universe,
:17:13. > :17:19.he owns two of the British Virgin Islands, he was a commodities
:17:19. > :17:26.trader. It is more interesting if you think of it as on Eid pal thing
:17:26. > :17:30.going on, here oedipal thing going on here, here is a father bringing
:17:30. > :17:34.havoc upon his family and their father was a banker in the 80s.
:17:34. > :17:38.There is a lot more autobiography in the film. Are there people like
:17:38. > :17:44.Robert Miller? Yes there are. First of all, you know, there are people
:17:44. > :17:48.who use the word "variation margin" in their normal life. I had to stop
:17:48. > :17:50.and replay it to make sure I had heard it. I thought about it
:17:50. > :17:55.afterwards. I thought it was unbelievable, this man is taking
:17:55. > :17:58.unbelievable risk in his personal and professional lie. Then I
:17:58. > :18:01.realised I could name three billionares, who are personal
:18:01. > :18:05.friend of me, who have taken unbelievable risk in their
:18:05. > :18:09.professional life and you ask why. They seem to have everything, why
:18:09. > :18:12.do they do this, and live their lives like this. These people
:18:12. > :18:15.really exist, even now. That is the very nature of the job, isn't it.
:18:15. > :18:20.Some of these financial jobs, you are required to be a risk-taker to
:18:20. > :18:24.make the money in the first place. I don't know a millionaire, let
:18:24. > :18:29.alone a billionare. I imagine there is one on the sofa next to you.
:18:29. > :18:33.Speaking of million, one of the problems with the film is it was
:18:33. > :18:37.pretty cack-handed in the dialogue. One of the characters said you owe
:18:37. > :18:46.me $4.5 million and you want it back. They know it was tonnes of he
:18:46. > :18:51.can position, there was cliches, get this tie -- exposition, there
:18:51. > :18:55.were cliches all over it "get this guy to the hospital". Why are the
:18:55. > :19:04.films poorer when you have the real-life scandal? I think the best
:19:04. > :19:11.thing to have come out of the credit crunch is Jonathan Dees book.
:19:11. > :19:14.He says "these people were rewarded for their work lives, they acted
:19:14. > :19:19.with impunity in their home lives", the novel does it in such a way
:19:19. > :19:25.that makes you root and hate the protaganist. I only hated Gere, I
:19:25. > :19:28.loved his hair and hated film. Along with those films is Queen of
:19:28. > :19:34.Versailles, a few weeks ago. That was a brilliant film. It started
:19:34. > :19:36.off being a celebration of this guy, it ended up being him having a
:19:36. > :19:39.nervous breakdown. He was another billionare. I have heard good
:19:39. > :19:44.things about that. Arbitrage, the film, opened tonight.
:19:44. > :19:49.Now to a disturbing true-life tale of harassment, which reveals the
:19:49. > :19:54.perils of using the Internet. Writer, poet and academic James
:19:54. > :19:57.Lasdun's life was turned upside down when former student turned
:19:57. > :20:00.stalker. Waging a sinister campaign, which he describes as verbal
:20:00. > :20:04.terrorism. He has published an account of his victimisation, that
:20:04. > :20:11.might prove a cautionary tale in the age of on-line trolls and
:20:11. > :20:15.cyberbullying. "Her campaign, it appeared, was no
:20:15. > :20:19.longer for expressing their anger or embarrassing me. But something
:20:19. > :20:23.much more concrete and practical. It was at this time that she
:20:23. > :20:29.conceived that crystal line formation of the true nature of her
:20:29. > :20:33.mission. "I will ruin him". Lasdun first came across Nasreen, as he
:20:33. > :20:37.calls her in the book, when she was a student in his creative writing
:20:37. > :20:41.class. Two years later he received an e-mail asking for advice on the
:20:41. > :20:45.book she was writing, and Lasdun pro-politely obliged. A
:20:45. > :20:48.correspondence began, and it was only when Lasdun felt the need to
:20:49. > :20:53.cool off their friendship, that the tone of her communecations began to
:20:53. > :20:59.change. I began to get concerned when the volume of e-mails went up
:20:59. > :21:04.to every day, then a few a day, then several a day. They weren't
:21:04. > :21:08.hate mails at that point. They were just chatty gossip. But at a
:21:08. > :21:13.certain point I did realise I was becoming the object of some kind of
:21:13. > :21:17.obsession. The first accusation she made was one of plagerism. From
:21:17. > :21:21.there she began bringing my agent and his editor -- this editor she
:21:21. > :21:26.had worked with into a strange conspiracy they arey. Then she
:21:26. > :21:31.began with accusations of sexual misconduct. She accused me of
:21:31. > :21:33.having her drugged and raped. That I suppose was the furthest she took
:21:33. > :21:39.the accusations, from there she went on to threats against me,
:21:39. > :21:43.against my children. As well as meticulously recounting
:21:43. > :21:50.the harassment he endured, he takes literary excursions to make sense
:21:50. > :21:55.of his experience. Ranging from erotic obsession to anti-semitism
:21:55. > :22:01.suffered by his own father, the architect, Sir Dennis Lasdun.
:22:01. > :22:08.Yes, the story of her attacks is the spine of the book. And
:22:08. > :22:15.obviously it is quite dramatic. I think it is any way. But off that,
:22:15. > :22:19.I digress, I suppose, into these other topics that arose naturally.
:22:19. > :22:22.Lasdun's book is strikingly honest about his own victimhood. But are
:22:22. > :22:31.there risks and moral issues raised by writing this as a memoir, rather
:22:31. > :22:36.than a novel. This description of Nasreen, the
:22:36. > :22:42.name given to the student turned stalker, as a verbal terrorists. Do
:22:42. > :22:46.you think that was justified, given the way Lasdun describes his
:22:46. > :22:52.experiences? Do I think it was justified calling her a verbal
:22:52. > :22:56.terrorist? My God, yes. The abuse she subjects him to is terrifying,
:22:56. > :22:59.it is horrific. I was hoping at one point. I don't read scary,
:22:59. > :23:04.terrifying books, this was really a very frightening book. I was hoping
:23:04. > :23:08.at one point it was a post-modern novel, so that it was a novel
:23:08. > :23:15.rather than reality. He said this on radio shows, so I can say this,
:23:15. > :23:21.I was stunned by theing, she is still sending the e-mails. He -- by
:23:21. > :23:27.the ending, she is still sending the e-mails. I would be afraid to
:23:27. > :23:31.walk down the street under that. She threatens to kill his kids, it
:23:31. > :23:36.is virulant anti-semitism and accusations of rape. The thing is,
:23:36. > :23:40.is she sane That is the problem with the book. That is the moral
:23:40. > :23:45.issue at the heart. I think it is beautifully written, he's a fine,
:23:45. > :23:52.fine short story writer, wonderful poet. There is an ethical hole at
:23:52. > :23:55.the centre of this book. That is how quickly and speciously, he
:23:55. > :23:59.dismisses the idea that she's mentally ill and actually he should
:24:00. > :24:03.be helping her. He had her family's e-mails and never contacted them.
:24:03. > :24:08.He should have been reaching out to this girl, who was clearly deranged.
:24:08. > :24:15.Instead, what do we look for from our writers, we look for empathy,
:24:15. > :24:19.this guy has no empty. I think he has enormous empathy for her, but
:24:19. > :24:22.it is a disturbing hole in the book. He felt himself in danger, I
:24:22. > :24:25.imagine the professional advice might not have been to get in touch
:24:25. > :24:31.with this woman? He said the professional advice was not to
:24:31. > :24:34.return her e-mails and not to delete them. And to make sure he
:24:34. > :24:38.read them incase she was threatening violence. I don't agree
:24:38. > :24:44.he had a moral responsibility to reach out and help her if he
:24:44. > :24:47.thought she was mentally deranged. She has her own family. I get
:24:47. > :24:51.unbelievable quantities of e-mails for some people I think are
:24:51. > :24:57.seriously off the spectrum. I won't go to the effort of tracking down
:24:57. > :25:05.their families and suggesting they help them. I find one of the
:25:05. > :25:10.reviews said this is a powerful thesis on the power of the internet
:25:10. > :25:15.for harm. Sometimes I feel at the edge of it. Somebody has a Twitter
:25:15. > :25:18.account that purports to be me, they have a picture of me on it and
:25:19. > :25:25.they say things that I would never say. They are allowed to do this,
:25:25. > :25:29.because in the last description of it, it says "parody". This is a
:25:29. > :25:34.modern nightmare that your reputation could be completely
:25:35. > :25:44.trashed. I did keep finding myself holding up the book and saying what
:25:44. > :25:48.would hem -- Hemmingway do? I mean he could delete the e-mail account.
:25:48. > :25:51.He was told by the police not to do that. It seemed to me, that yes,
:25:51. > :25:56.the abuse was horrific. But there are ways that one could have
:25:56. > :26:01.constructed it. It seemed to me he rather wallowed in his own misery.
:26:01. > :26:05.I was struck by the opposite, I I was struck by his generosity and
:26:05. > :26:10.politeness. I thought that he strips himself bare. He strips his
:26:10. > :26:15.motives bare, with the accepting of whether or not she's nuts. But his
:26:15. > :26:20.own motive, like did I give her any, was there any reason she should
:26:20. > :26:24.have become obsessed with me. He was much more polite, and
:26:24. > :26:28.empathetic towards her than I think I would have been. It is one long
:26:28. > :26:32.piece of self-analysis. The thing he did at the beginning, which was
:26:32. > :26:40.to praise her, overtly in the classroom, and then to go and see
:26:40. > :26:45.her two years later. He tries to say...He Tries 0 get a novel
:26:45. > :26:49.published. As a teacher of Krayivity that gave a moment of --
:26:49. > :26:53.creativity, that gave me a moment's worry. The issue I had was the
:26:53. > :27:01.first third was like a thriller, and so exciting, and then you go
:27:01. > :27:05.into this rather nice but slightly diminuendo, deGreggss, you get this
:27:05. > :27:10.lovely passage on the train, which I thought was wonderful, but then
:27:10. > :27:14.the trip to DH Lawrence's chapel and the trip to Jerusalem. It did
:27:14. > :27:20.feel it was disappearing off. is how his mind works, isn't t that
:27:20. > :27:25.is how James Lasdun copes with this. Is by going into literary metaphor,
:27:25. > :27:28.and Patricia Highsmith and DH Lawrence, he as trying to make
:27:28. > :27:33.sense through literature. He's trying to regain control of his own
:27:33. > :27:37.life and his own narrative. Through expressing it in the only way he
:27:37. > :27:41.knows how to do it. He does write beautifully. The man can write.
:27:41. > :27:46.God there is a wonderful image he's talking about the Arab quarter of
:27:46. > :27:52.Jerusalem there are old men sitting around with their nargula, he
:27:52. > :27:56.describes it as "their tender creaturely involvement with their
:27:56. > :28:02.pipes", that was the most beautiful image. My favourite use of words
:28:02. > :28:07.was the "unmistakable fin", that said it all. It was under the
:28:07. > :28:10.surface there is the shark. One of the deGreggss is based on anti-
:28:10. > :28:14.semitism, taking it from the Nasreen e-mail into an experience
:28:14. > :28:18.of his father. That I felt of manipulative. I'm suddenly thinking
:28:18. > :28:23.did I get this wrong, I really felt there were moral issues with that.
:28:24. > :28:27.Whey felt he was doing. There was a much more violent anti-semetic
:28:27. > :28:30.attack on his father, the architect of the National Theatre amongst
:28:30. > :28:34.other things. I felt he was some how yolking Nasreen's comments,
:28:34. > :28:38.which of course he has edited and chosen what you see and what you
:28:38. > :28:42.don't. The controlling power of the author. And yolking the very
:28:42. > :28:48.violent attack on his father to Nasreen. I just felt there was
:28:48. > :28:54.something really fishy about this book. We will leave it there.
:28:54. > :28:58.right! Give Me Everything You Have is out now. From a concerted effort
:28:58. > :29:02.to trash a reputation, to the worldwide problems of trash
:29:02. > :29:07.littering the environment. For a new documentary, the Oscar-winning
:29:07. > :29:12.actor, Jeremy Irons, has travelled the globe to visit beauty spots and
:29:12. > :29:19.beaches covered with washed up waste. It challenges us to consider
:29:19. > :29:24.how much packaging and pollution we produce. From Lebanon to Vietnam,
:29:24. > :29:27.from Iceland to France, Irons crosses confidents to survey the
:29:27. > :29:33.effects of today's throw-away culture. Historically we have
:29:33. > :29:38.always buried our trash, but it seems that now we sometimes don't
:29:38. > :29:43.dig we dump. Waste from the ancient Lebanese
:29:43. > :29:50.city has been brought here. To an uncontrolled dump on the edge of
:29:50. > :29:55.the city. Irons investigates the three main solutions to the problem
:29:55. > :30:00.of waste disposal. Sea dumping, landfill and incineration. Which
:30:00. > :30:06.produces the harmful chemical compounds, dioxins. Dioxins are
:30:06. > :30:13.compounds that are made from carbon. Like we are. But they have got some
:30:13. > :30:16.extra bits stuck on. These are chlorine, or bromine molecules,
:30:16. > :30:22.they do not occur naturally in mainstream chemistry of life. If
:30:22. > :30:29.you set fire to them, you start to produce a set of compounds which
:30:29. > :30:33.are very toxic. In Vietnam, Irons meets children born with birth
:30:33. > :30:43.defects, years after the spraying of chemical over forests during the
:30:43. > :30:54.
:30:54. > :30:59.In California he meets people hoping to achieve a target of zero
:30:59. > :31:03.waste. We have now made it mandatory in San Francisco for
:31:03. > :31:06.everyone to participate in our programme, from single family
:31:06. > :31:13.residents, to apartment dwellers to all types of businesses and even
:31:13. > :31:18.visitors. So technically, as a visitor to San Francisco, you are
:31:18. > :31:22.legally obligated in to participate in our separation programme. Will
:31:22. > :31:26.Irons's stark message about the issue of waste make us sit up and
:31:26. > :31:30.listen, or is it human nature to throw away and forget about the
:31:30. > :31:33.consequences. A feature-length documentary about
:31:34. > :31:40.the environment have been suck he isful in recent years, there was
:31:40. > :31:45.AlGor, he's Inconvenient Truth, and End of the Line about fishing. Is
:31:45. > :31:48.this part of that successful tradition? I think so. With
:31:48. > :31:51.Inconvenient Truth, whether or not you agreed it was very powerful and
:31:51. > :31:54.made you question your own belief, so everybody had to have a belief
:31:54. > :32:00.about climate change. I watched this for 20 minutes, stopped,
:32:00. > :32:07.switched it off, went downstairs got all my children in a room
:32:07. > :32:11.together, started it again and made them watch it with me. So they
:32:11. > :32:16.could explain the chemical diagram, and we got to the end and vowed
:32:16. > :32:21.never to buy pre-packaged vegtables again. You talk about the diagram,
:32:21. > :32:24.it is a difficult subject to make engaging? It is, but fascinating
:32:24. > :32:28.subject. I did feel this was one of those things. We had a geography
:32:28. > :32:32.teacher that used to come in with terrible hangovers and play these
:32:32. > :32:35.very ernest, and very educational films while he was rubbing his
:32:35. > :32:40.temples in the darkness at the back of the room. This did feel like one
:32:40. > :32:46.of those. The graphics were pretty old fashioned and there was a short
:32:46. > :32:50.of shoestring aesthetic that ran through it. It was a shame I found
:32:50. > :32:56.it educational rather than entertaining. Boy is it educational.
:32:56. > :33:01.Our educator was Jeremy Irons, the actor, taking us through? Yes. I
:33:01. > :33:06.didn't like the film. I found it, it seemed to go on forever, it
:33:06. > :33:10.seemed to go on as long as Gone With The Wind. I thought as a film
:33:10. > :33:15.it was a bad film. It was just one damn thing after another. And
:33:15. > :33:19.Jeremy Irons, bless him, he can be fantastic as an actor, I felt he
:33:19. > :33:23.was acting being Jeremy Irons. At one point he's sitting on a trash
:33:23. > :33:26.mountain, and mumbles to himself "this is appalling", and you think,
:33:26. > :33:30.yes it is appalling, we can see that. It is not his point, I
:33:30. > :33:33.thought it was badly directed. does add light and shade? At one
:33:33. > :33:39.point he tries to walk around a field and measure it. I thought
:33:39. > :33:44.this is not a Charlie chaplain film. Someone in the edit tried to make
:33:44. > :33:48.that funny. I felt the problem with the film of not Jeremy Irons, it
:33:48. > :33:53.went on for a very long time with a lot of negative things. In the end
:33:53. > :33:57.my 14-year-old started playing with an iPad, I said put it away and he
:33:57. > :34:00.said no, it is too depressing. I felt there was endless problems and
:34:00. > :34:04.very little time given to any solution. Absolutely right. That's
:34:04. > :34:07.the problem. I wonder whether it is because they do sort of try to talk
:34:07. > :34:11.about the way you deal with waste. But there doesn't seem to be a
:34:11. > :34:15.sense of looking at why we create all this waste. You know, it remind
:34:15. > :34:25.me, watching this, of one of the greatest novels of the past 25
:34:25. > :34:26.
:34:26. > :34:33.years, the Underworld, the hero is waste analyst. It uses waste as a
:34:33. > :34:38.metaphor for the rapcious bulimic economy that shoves this out with
:34:39. > :34:43.no regard for the human. If it was an economy celebrated in the age of
:34:43. > :34:49.Lichtenstein, that consumer culture? There is lots of scenes in
:34:49. > :34:52.Mad Man where they leave the trash. The music is all by Vangelis.
:34:52. > :34:57.appalling. I thought the music was very dated. The fact that Vangelis
:34:58. > :35:02.is still alive making music made me feel old. Wasn't understated the
:35:02. > :35:06.music? You could hear it in the clip, there was plianky, plianky,
:35:06. > :35:13.hope, hope, hope at the end. We have to make it more hopeful what
:35:13. > :35:21.can you come up with it. We get four seconds and a bit on San
:35:21. > :35:23.Francisco. My problem is it wasn't political enough, not looking
:35:23. > :35:28.deeply enough at what the underlying causes of this were. But
:35:28. > :35:34.there were moments. The grotesqueness of those flotillas of
:35:34. > :35:38.trash in the doldrums of the north Pacific giant. They felt like
:35:38. > :35:43.exemplary spaces of globalisation. They seemed extraordinary images.
:35:43. > :35:49.This plastic soup they talked about. I never want to eat a prawn again.
:35:49. > :35:54.It is not just enough to point a camera at it. It was astonishing
:35:54. > :35:59.and scary, you have to have political dimension. And sex it up.
:35:59. > :36:03.Al Gore was more sexy an Jeremy Irons. I worry about the sexy thing,
:36:03. > :36:08.I worry that in essentially a polemic film, some aspects are
:36:08. > :36:13.presented as being objective, yes we don't know if they were?
:36:13. > :36:20.deformed babies, that struck me as in terrible taste. It was, I think
:36:20. > :36:24.it does provide a kind of frisson, we saw, but there were babies feet,
:36:24. > :36:28.deformed foetuses in pickle jars in Vietnam. I felt manipulated by that.
:36:28. > :36:33.I thought it was incredibly clunky, and even more so because the rest
:36:33. > :36:39.of the film is so dry. It has nothing to do with trash. They were
:36:39. > :36:44.dumping agent orange as a political act against the vet con. What are
:36:44. > :36:47.we going to do, except buying loose vegtables. When they found the
:36:47. > :36:53.solution, we went to a loose vegtable shop that looked like it
:36:53. > :36:57.was in the part of the world that people would never see the vast
:36:57. > :37:03.majority. And entirelyly populated by people who read the Guardian.
:37:03. > :37:09.This bow hoe utopia. The vast majority of the world can't get
:37:09. > :37:13.their hand on the Guardian or loose vegtables. Let's be realistic about
:37:13. > :37:17.why it happened. We never got that. Trash is in selected cinemas now.
:37:17. > :37:23.She has become something of a national treasure in recent years
:37:23. > :37:30.following her success in the conducting contest, Maestro, and
:37:30. > :37:35.the enduring popularity of the Great British Bake-Off, Sue Perkins
:37:35. > :37:43.has written material for French & Saunders, but she has written her
:37:43. > :37:50.own sitcom which begins this week. Sue Perkins wrote and stars in
:37:50. > :37:56.Heading Out, which is about Sarah, and a vet. I don't want to spend my
:37:56. > :38:02.weekends playing with big-titted children. Ha ha ha, does she mean
:38:02. > :38:06.us. As her 40th birthday approaches, she find it difficult to still
:38:06. > :38:12.address the issue of her sexuality with her mother. I won't prime but
:38:12. > :38:17.what's their name. Michelle, a French person, and a sales person
:38:17. > :38:23.for a medical company. Oh yes, and what sort of things does he sell?
:38:23. > :38:28.Leg, mainly leg, artificial legs. That's useful.
:38:28. > :38:31.While all those around her think nothing of her sexuality, Sarah
:38:31. > :38:35.herself dreads coming out. At her birthday party thrown by friend,
:38:35. > :38:41.she's presented with a surprise gift, which they hope will help
:38:41. > :38:45.prepare her for speaking to her parents. Life coach and self-styled
:38:45. > :38:52.personal enhancement co-ordinator, Toria. I know we didn't get off on
:38:52. > :39:00.the best footing, which a bloody shame, I'm an awful lot of fun, and
:39:00. > :39:05.crazy with a capital "B". Perkins is keen to emphasise that
:39:05. > :39:10.the theme of sexual identity isn't the whopbl theme. Will this series
:39:10. > :39:19.prove a sweet treat for the audience.
:39:19. > :39:22.Just do it, paint me. Consider yourself redecorated! So Alex, I
:39:22. > :39:29.guess Sue Perkins really is now a modern national treasure, so
:39:29. > :39:35.deserving of her own show? Yeah, I felt that this was much like the
:39:35. > :39:39.Great Bishop Bake-Off it is television comfort food. It is
:39:39. > :39:46.unchallenging, comfortable viewing. I thought it is not pushing any
:39:46. > :39:50.boundaries, it reminded me of the Brittas Empire. Perfectly good.
:39:50. > :39:54.There is so much goodwill surrounding her, that will propel
:39:54. > :39:59.it into perhaps happier waters. are getting a fair number of
:39:59. > :40:06.comedies about awkwardness at the moment. Miranda, for example?
:40:06. > :40:15.this is very bad, I can't reprecontinued -- pretend it is as
:40:15. > :40:18.good as pier Rwanda for the Brittas Empire. It is a group of sketches
:40:18. > :40:23.stitches together for a sitcom. I was doing a sitcom once, and the
:40:23. > :40:27.writer and lead actor said to me, don't do sitcom acting or you will
:40:27. > :40:30.appear to be insane. In sitcom acting everyone is guorning and
:40:30. > :40:34.doing this. That is what they are doing in this. Everybody appears to
:40:34. > :40:36.be crazy. What about the social values in the programme. Sue
:40:37. > :40:43.Perkins, worried about coming out to her mother, all her frepbtdz
:40:43. > :40:47.think being gay is fine. I fine -- Friends think being gay is fine.
:40:47. > :40:50.find that unlikely that you are 40 and not coming out to your parent.
:40:50. > :40:54.You are never coming out or come out long ago. I found the whole
:40:54. > :40:59.thing to be so far out of my comfort zone generally, I wasn't
:40:59. > :41:04.sure if I found it funny or not. I did find it funny explaining my 14-
:41:04. > :41:10.year-old watching it with me what a booty call was. I would like to
:41:10. > :41:19.have been there for that moment. There are differing public
:41:19. > :41:24.attitudes to 0 sexuality, in Eastleigh the victory today and
:41:24. > :41:27.UKIP would have put that down to the backlash on gay marriage.
:41:27. > :41:32.think with regards to gay marriage and homosexuality it is interesting
:41:32. > :41:38.that Sarah is the only person in the whole of her world who has any
:41:38. > :41:45.issue with her sexuality. It feels to me nice to see, let me rephrase
:41:45. > :41:48.that, nice to see two mem women in bed. Nice to have not this panting,
:41:48. > :41:52.Tipping the Velvet moment, and just seeing it as normal. It is very
:41:52. > :41:56.normal, I felt that, it presented it as very mainstream. It is like
:41:56. > :42:01.as though we are seeing only fools and horse, with Rodney gay and
:42:01. > :42:07.Cassandra as a bloke. That is the kind of normality. I totally agree.
:42:07. > :42:11.It is a good thing. I wish I had something that was funnier. I wish
:42:11. > :42:16.it had a sense of reality. The fact she carries the dead cat around
:42:16. > :42:20.through the whole of the first episode, a vet who doesn't care and
:42:20. > :42:26.seem to be interested in animals. thought that was clever as an idea.
:42:26. > :42:31.The fake cat was savageed by a real dog at the end. It just wasn't
:42:31. > :42:36.funny, I applaud the normalisation of things. Jo the physical comedy
:42:36. > :42:43.is not good -- The physical comedy is not as good as Miranda. That is
:42:43. > :42:45.hard to match. Heading Out is on BBC Two. Thanks to my guest,
:42:45. > :42:47.Heather McGregor, Kerry Shale and Alex Preston. Do remember you can
:42:48. > :42:52.find out more about everything we have discussed tonight on the
:42:52. > :42:57.website. And we are looking forward to reading your tweets in the Green
:42:57. > :43:04.Room. We are leaving you tonight with the performance by the great
:43:04. > :43:11.American pianist, who died earlier this week at the age of 73, Clyburn,