Crime in the UK and Singapore.

Violent crime is the type that people most fear: property can be replaced, life and limb cannot.

I have lived in both the UK and in Singapore. There are many differences between these two countries. Most people are of the view that Singapore is less free and that one's life is less restricted in the UK. There is some truth to this, but there is another side, too. In the UK, there is an epidemic of violent crime afflicting the nation - in Singapore there is no such thing.

In 2006, the Metropolitan Police released a statement that 52 teenagers a week, in London, were subject to knife related crime. That is an astonishing figure and indicates that London is no longer the safe place it was, when I was growing up there. I have seen no figures for Singapore, but in the six years I have spent here, I have only heard of a handful of cases of knife use, in the media, or by word of mouth. It is rare, here.

Why is the UK suffering an epidemic of knife-related crime - and Singapore is not? Well, one key reason is the way the state responds to violent crime. The UK takes a softly softly approach: the penalties for knife crime are really very minor, there. Singapore takes a harsh line, on all crime.

In the UK, in 2006, the Violent Crime Reduction Act increased the maximum penalty for carrying a knife from a pathetic two years in prison, to an almost as pathetic four years in prison. I am not able to find the corresponding penalty for Singapore but, as an indicator, a comparison can be made with gun possession. The possession of any weapon in Singapore is severely punished with lengthy prison sentences and caning (which causes terrible wounds). The use of any weapon in a crime results in life imprisonment and caning. Should anyone be killed by the weapon, the penalty is death - and death is almost inevitable in the Singaporean system. I have never seen anyone "let off".

I have watched the Singaporean legal system now, for several years: punishments for all crimes tend to be severe - and I have never seen moderation in the state's response to crime. In the UK, however, in 60,000 incidents of knife use, only 9 offenders received the maximum penalty. So, the Singaporean state responds aggressively to an individual with a weapon. The UK state does not. Singapore has no violent crime problem; the UK has a terrible one. It is reasonable to conclude that the UK problem is partially caused by its judicial leniency - were they to adopt a harsh response to the possession of weapons, the problem would most probably decline.

In a very real sense, the UK has chosen to have a knife crime problem. They have chosen to have the problem because they have chosen to respond too leniently to the criminals. Imagine that they adopt a harsher penal regime. Imagine that to be found carrying a knife, or any other weapon, would lead to a mandatory penalty of 15 years in prison without parole or bail. Imagine that using the weapon in a crime would lead to a mandatory penalty of life without parole. Imagine that killing someone with the weapon would lead to a mandatory death sentence for the killer. How much knife crime (or other weapon related crime) would the UK have once a few criminals had been sentenced under the new regime? I would think that they would have very close to NO KNIFE CRIME AT ALL.

So, it is up to the government of the UK and its judiciary to solve this problem. All they need to do is come down harshly on the weapon wielders - doing so will make the UK a safe haven, once more, as once it used to be. I really rather hope they do something akin to what I have suggested.

Yesterday, news of the latest teenager to die in a knife-fight in London broke across the world. Rob Knox, an upcoming actor, with a role in the next Harry Potter film, was stabbed to death defending his younger brother and friends from an enraged knife-wielding 21 year old man, outside the Metro pub, next to Sidcup railway station. Rob was stabbed four times, while trying to disarm the man and several others were injured, too. Had the UK a Singaporean style response to crime, it is most likely that this young actor would not have died. It is most likely that his killer would have thought better of the penalty he would receive and not carried a knife in the first place.

Fourteen teenagers have been stabbed to death in London so far this year. How many more must die before the UK adopts a civilized response to knife crime? By civilized response, I mean a response that protects the people of the nation and refuses to tolerate such crime. So, in a sense, one should be as uncivilized as possible to the criminals, so as to preserve the quality of life for everyone else.

Rob Knox's death has brought the knife issue in the UK to the attention of the world. Let him not have died in vain. It is time for the UK to act. Knife crime is easy to stop. All they have to do is make the penalties truly substantial - then it will quickly become a problem of the past.

For the sake of the UK, I hope the government there chooses a better future for its people: stiffen the law, to save the society.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and ten months, and Tiarnan, twenty-seven months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Talent will out

There is a saying in Britain: "Talent will out". This means that those who are talented will eventually succeed - but is this true? One doesn't have to be very observant, in life, to come across many people who are evidently talented, but not very successful. Clearly, all is not as it seems.

My contention, supported by a lifetime of experience and observation, is that talent, in itself, is not enough to guarantee success in any field. There are simply too many other factors at work, as well. Often, it is not the most talented person who succeeds - but the best connected. This is an example of the "who you know, not what you know" phenomenon.

Acting is a case in point. What is the background of the actors who "make it" in public life? Well, very often, in fact, too, too often, they come from families who are already connected to showbusiness. This explains something I was often confronted with, when I was an actor: the best actors did not necessarily get the jobs - and the ones who did get the jobs, weren't always that good as actors. They had something else going for them: they knew the people involved in the projects. This happened a lot.

I met many good actors in those days. I met many actors who seemed to have much more talent than their famous colleagues - and yet, they were relatively unknown. They had talent but they didn't have the opportunities provided by good connections in the business - and so, ultimately, they failed to succeed.

I use acting as an example, but this phenomenon will apply, in varying degrees, to almost all areas of life: knowing the right people really helps - in fact a lot more than actually being the right person (in the sense of having the talent).

Let us just check out the backgrounds of a couple of famous actors as examples. Ewan MacGregor - of Star Wars fame. Now, those who know him well, won't be surprised, but others, who don't, might be surprised to learn that he had a relative in the original Star Wars film. No doubt that connection helped put him in touch with George Lucas, at the right time. Furthermore he is related by blood or the marriage of his relatives, to three established figures in British showbusiness: Denis Lawson, Shelia Gish (very respected) and Lou Gish. With such a base of connections to start out with in the showbusiness world, it would have been a lot easier for the young Ewan MacGregor to establish himself than his unconnected contemporary competitors.

Another example is Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. He started out his career as one of the most connected individuals you could imagine. Both of his parents work, in some way or other, in showbusiness. His mother is actually a casting director. That is the person whose job it is to select people for roles on behalf of production companies: they are the people who cast actors. Clearly, she would know, personally, many key players in the business, many people able to give her son a job. The same could be said for his father. He is a literary agent - which is more relevant that it seems. A literary agent is connected to the film and tv worlds through the sale of books to them. So, his father, too, would have good showbusiness connections. It is impossible to run Daniel Radcliffe's life again, without his parents connections, but undoubtedly he would have had a hard time of it - and may, in fact, never have succeeded at all, without them. That is what I would expect, anyway, from what I have seen in other talented but unconnected individuals.

There are many talented people in this world who never really get the chance to shine. I met many on my way in England. None of them made it. Yet, many of them "had it" - in the sense of talent. It is a pity really. I have often thought how much better films and theatre would be if the person who was cast was actually the best person for the role - rather than just the best connected person (as it usually is). I rather feel that the quality of that particular art would be so much higher if it were so.

No doubt this observation applies to many other areas of life, too. Everything would be so much better if it was genuinely the best, most suited person doing it. Indeed, it would be good, indeed, if the saying: "Talent will out", was true - but it isn't.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

"Hogwarts Castle" J K Rowling Sues

I marvel at the cheek of J K Rowling creator of the unremittingly imitative Harry Potter. J K Rowling is suing an Indian community group over their erection of a "Hogwarts Castle" - in reality a wooden structure bearing only a remote resemblance to the filmed object, as seen in the many Harry Potter films.

Her objection is that the Indian group, FD Block Puja Committee of Salt Lake, India, have breached her copyright over the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, by building a structure and referring to it as "Hogwarts Castle".

The wooden structure, known as a pandal, is one of over 10,000 pandals constructed in the Kolkata area to mark the festival of the Goddess Durga and her slaying of a demon - thus representing the triumph of good over evil.

What struck me as quite curious was how different their presentation of Hogwarts is to be. Dominating the set will be a statue of the 10-armed goddess attacking a demon as it emerges from a buffalo. That doesn't seem too much like Harry Potter to me. However, there will also be life-sized images of Harry Potter and his companions.

The festival is the biggest in East India and communities there pride themselves on the pandals that they create. The organizers of this one chose the theme, thinking it would draw the crowds in. Santanu Biswas, secretary of the community group, said, "We had no clue we had to seek permission from the author."

Now, I can understand their point of view. They are from India, and such matters are probably not well known. So, the idea of the extent of copyright was not likely to be known to them. Yet, there is something about all of this that bothers me. Anyone reading any book by J K Rowling can only be struck by their derivative nature - she owes so much of her contents and "ideas" to other authors that there is very little, if anything, in the books that she can truly call her own. To exercise copyright so virulently over such a collection of derivations (to which there are internet sites devoted to all over the net), is really rather cheeky. J K Rowling cannot claim to be free of imitation. In fact, she would be hard pressed to claim origination without stretching the truth, rather.

I remember reading a much more erudite tale of a Wizard school when I was a boy - long before J K Rowling became a single mother and cafe haunting writer - The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K Le Guin. If you look around, you will see that everything J K Rowling says in her books, has a precedent elsewhere.

So, my feelings on the Indian situation are mixed. Yes, copyright should always be upheld. But no, not if the author in question owes so much to others - the question then becomes: whose copyright should be upheld? J K Rowling's...or the the legion of authors that she owes multiple huge debts to?

Incidentally, Warner Brothers and J K Rowling are suing for 2 million rupees - about $55,000 USD. That is a lot of money to the organizers. If they can't get agreement to go ahead - they will have to dismantle their work.

The unseen factor in all of this is that the Indians are, basically, engaged in a big Harry Potter promotion. Perhaps, in that light, J K Rowling should be paying them, not suing them.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix

I have just taken my family to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was not the experience publicity had led us to suppose - but it did have its lessons, all the same.

Much of the film was concerned with what happens when an institution tries to repress the individuality and expressiveness of its people. Hogwarts school comes under the baleful influence of the Ministry of Magic, which seems mainly to be informed by paranoia and is more than a little drunk on power. Through the lens of this film, one could suppose that J.K. Rowling is examining the nature of totalitarianism, everywhere.

What is telling about the people in this film is that the children do not allow themselves to be repressed forever. This too, is true to life in most countries of the world and in most institutions where repression has been exerted too long and too hard. However, it is not always the case and, in this sense, the film is not true to what can actually happen in real life. Sometimes, the people just give in and accept their repressive situation - at least on the scale of human lifetimes.

Yet, being Hollywood, of course, the children rebel and reassert their individuality. I suppose that J.K Rowling is stating here, that she believes the desire to be individual and expressive cannot be held down for too long - for when it is repressed a desire to rebel builds up and over time, there can only be an explosion of sorts. So, too, is it in Harry Potter.

A child watching this could learn the lesson that individuality is important and must be nurtured and, at times, even fought for. The children of the school fight for many things - but one of them is simply the freedom to be themselves.

Yet, there is an unconscious irony here. You see much of the Potter themes are derivative and echo other works by other prior authors. Indeed, so obvious are some of the borrowings from other works that Ainan piped up at one time: "Why is this like the Lord of the Rings?", he enquired, not best pleased.

It is like the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's has a "Dark Lord"...and Potter has a, well, a "Dark Lord". Frodo Baggins has a direct connection to the "Dark Lord" through his Ring - and Harry Potter has a direct connection to the "Dark Lord" - through his mind. Tolkien has Gollum who says "My precious." a lot. Potter has a very Gollum like figure who says "My mistress." a lot. There is a baddie in Potter that looks remarkably like the blond twins, in styling, from The Matrix...I could go on, but you should get the idea by now. Harry Potter is many things but it could never be accused of being original.

This is a pity, in many ways. Harry Potter is the most successful book series, of its kind, at any time. Yet, it is founded on "borrowing" themes and ideas present in prior, greater works. That it succeeds is only because its audience is too young to know where everything comes from - though Ainan is only 7 and he noticed the borrowings from the Lord of the Rings, himself. Usually, however, this derivativeness will pass a child by - and so it is that Potter can succeed.

So, the film left me with mixed feelings about it. One theme is important for children to understand: that the freedom of self-expression should be preserved - but the story is actually an example of the denial of that freedom. J.K Rowling imitates so many others through her work, that one could say she is a potent counter-example of free expression. It is a blow against the creative spirit to derive her works from the works of others. It is a blow against those who had the individuality to create their own original works. In this sense, Rowling works against the very theme that she proposes as central to this film. In a derivative world, the individual creator cannot be free to be themselves, without suffering the indignity of imitation.

It would be good to see more actual originality in Rowling's works. Perhaps it is just a function of being old enough to have seen and read quite a lot - but that background knowledge does make the entire Harry Potter franchise look like a patchwork quilt of other people's ideas. It is tiring to see such tired material up on the screen.

The film was unable to hold Ainan's and Fintan's attention and from about half way through they were getting restless and a little bored. Ainan is 7 and Fintan has just turned 4 - to give you some idea of whether it is right for your child. They preferred to play with each other, in the second half, than watch the antics on the screen. This is not their usual response to a film, by the way.

We shan't be going to another Potter movie. In that way, we will be expressing our freedom to choose, as advised by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and no months, or Tiarnan, seventeen months, go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)