Wrong ages
I was going to blog this just after I saw Mamma Mia! in the cinema, but then I forgot, but now Phyllis got it on DVD for Christmas, so we watched it again recently.
Plot spoilers follow.
In the movie, Donna (played by Meryl Streep, born 1949) is playing the mother of Sophie (played by Amanda Seyfried, born 1985).
While 36 is a fine age for having a daughter, she’s very clearly described as having been young and foolish at the time, which to me says no more than 25, but probably just 20. So the age gap is about 15 years too big.
Also, Donna’s lovers at the time of Sophie’s conception are shown dressed as hippies, which would date this at between 1968 and 1975.
But the film takes place in the present, so Sophie must have been conceived about 10 to 15 years before she was born.
Now, if the movie had been set in the mid-90s (at about the time when the musical was conceived), it could all have been made to fit nicely: A mother in her early forties conceived her daughter, now in her early twenties, in the early 70s.
However, for some weird reason (probably that the people behind Mamma Mia! were thinking of Donna as their contemporary), they decided to keep the background story and Sophie’s age, but to make Donna old enough to have been a hippie in her youth.
It’s all a bit strange, and it means the movie is almost clinically cleansed of people between 25 and 50.
If I had been in charge, I would definitely have set the movie in the mid-90s, with a much younger actress as Donna.
Eating grapes like a hamster
Has Anna been a hamster in a previous life? 
Economic bollocks
The Facebook addict I love updated her status to the following this morning while I was watching The Andrew Marr Show: “Phyllis is listening to Thomas shouting ‘You are talking economic bollocks’ at Gordon Brown on the telly!”
The whole interview is here.
The stuff that upset me was the following – I’ve highlighted the offending bits.:
ANDREW MARR: And if interest rates are down there, there’s nothing you can do to help [pensioners living on the interest from saving].GORDON BROWN: But hold on, Andrew. Remember that the worst thing that could happen to a pensioner on a fixed income, or other people who’ve got limited savings and are on these fixed incomes, is if inflation went out of control. And throughout the whole of the last eleven years, we’ve kept inflation under control, we’ve kept interest rates relatively low as a result of that…
ANDREW MARR: And you…
GORDON BROWN: …but it’s necessary at the moment for the economy to have low interest rates, I think most people would agree, for there to be economic activity. So the answer is not that there be high interest rates and high inflation. The answer is that we do more to help savers, which is what we’re looking at.
ANDREW MARR: But far from it being high interest rates, I mean we’re looking at interest rates going below 2% everyone seems to agree.
[...]
GORDON BROWN: I think you’ll probably find that the fall in the oil prices is pushing inflation down, the fall in interest rates is helping to push inflation down at the moment, we’ve got an exchange rate pressure upwards. So it remains something that the Governor will continue to look at.
Basic economic theory is that you lower the interest rate to stimulate the economy although this might lead to increased inflation, while you raise the interest rate to curb inflation and cool the economy.
So Gordon Brown is making several simple mistakes here:
(1) He claims interest rates have been kept low because inflation was low. That might have been the case, but that’s hardly anything to be proud of – that’s exactly what created the bubbles.
(2) He thinks the alternative to the current ultra-low interest rates is high interest rates and high inflation. But high interest rates will normally lead to lower inflation, not higher. The reason the Bank of England are willing to lower the interest rate is that they’re forecasting that deflation is a real possibility and they therefore don’t think high inflation is a real risk.
(3) He then says that the fall in interest rates is pushing down inflation. Again, this is definitely not economic orthodoxy. Falling interest rates are supposed to push up inflation.
(4) Finally, he claims that the exchange rate pressure is upwards. Hasn’t he realised that the pound is in free-fall?
I can only conclude that Gordon Brown has created his own branch of economics in which black is white and white is black.
Oblatspisere
Da Miriam og mig var børn, elskede vi oblater.
Kun at spise én om ugen var noget i underkanten, syntes vi, så vi sneg os ofte ind i vores mors kontor og stjal nogle håndfulde.
Men senere i livet har det ikke været nemt at skaffe oblater, især uden først at gå i kirke, så jeg har vansmægtet en del.
Men så fik jeg i år en vidunderlig julegave fra Miriam: To pakker oblater!
Det er godt nok tyske bageoblater, men de ser ligedan ud og smager også ens.
Phyllis og de ældre børn synes ikke, de smager af noget, så jeg troede først, jeg kunne spise dem alene, men så lykkedes det at lokke Anna til at prøve dem, og nu elsker hun dem også!
Slovakia now has a much stronger currency than the UK
Yesterday Slovakia joined the euro, becoming the 16th member.
It’s also the tenth anniversary of the euro. No big celebrations in the British media, but the Wall Street Journal has an excellent article, calling for a return to the Bretton-Woods system. Well worth a read.
Returning to the UK, a majority of Brits for some strange reason still don’t want to join.
It’s not that I think this moment is right for joining anyway – I think the pound should join at around £1 = €1.50, but that could be achieved fairly easily by setting a target rate.
Dinner for One
One of the most important traditions for celebrating New Year’s eve in Denmark (and Germany and various other places) is watching an old English sketch in black and white called Dinner for One.
Apart from the fact that there’s lot of drinking involved, it’s not entirely clear what it’s got to do with Hogmanay, but a tradition is a tradition, and I always miss it a bit when I’m in Scotland for New Year.
Fortunately, however, we have YouTube these days, so here it is:
Part one:
Part two:
Rates
I’m getting really annoyed by the way people assume that a low interest rate and a low exchange rate are what this country needs.
To start with the latter, it used to be the case that a lower exchange rate, i.e., a devaluation, was a good way to get through an economic downturn because manufacturers would export more and there would be fewer imports.
However, these days almost everything is produced abroad – even those products that are technically produced here are often just assembled from parts produced elsewhere.
This means that devaluation leads to higher prices (= inflation) much more quickly and strongly than in the old days.
Sure, people will go on fewer holidays abroad and buy fewer or cheaper foreign products, and more tourists will come here and buy more, all of which will help, but there is no manufacturing industry that will benefit, so in practice most people will just be poorer and less tanned.
A low exchange rate also makes it very unattractive for foreigners to come to work here, and it makes it very appealing for British people to work abroad.
As an example, when I moved to Scotland in 2002, my salary looked attractive, but if the exchange rate had been where it is today, I would have earned the same by working in a supermarket in Denmark, so there’s no way I would have accepted the job.
Actually, fluctuating exchange rates is a huge problem. Around the turn of the millennium, when the pound was very strong, the UK was a bad place to do manufacturing, but because the salaries looked attractive abroad, it was a good place for multinational financial institutions. These days, it’s just the opposite.
But it takes years to open and close successful companies – you can’t just convert a bank into a TV factory overnight.
If the currency had been stable, for instance by being part of the euro, companies would have known what the UK would be a good “Standort” for.
Let’s now return to the interest rate.
Classic economic theory says that in a recession, you lower interest rates to make people borrow more money, thereby stimulating investment and consumption.
But this time the banks are hoarding money, so most mortgages are still high, and most companies can’t get the loans they need.
So the actual consequence of the low interest rate is that it makes it unattractive to hold British pounds, so the exchange rate collapses, pushing up inflation in the process and leading to all the nasty consequences described above.
I would therefore recommend putting up the interest rate again (not a lot, just to about one point above the Eurozone interest rate) in order to strengthen the pound and reduce inflation.
And as soon as possible after that, join the euro!
The course of this recession
For most of December, I’ve been wondering how the shops could afford to reduce their products so much before Christmas, what with the falling currency and everything.
But then my mother came home from a shopping trip to town and said something that made it all click into place in my mind: “Clarks have got no new models, they’re just selling old stuff.”
So this is what’s happening:
(1) Because of the credit crunch, the shops can’t get credit to buy new stock.
(2) Because they’ve got no new stock, they have to sell whatever they’ve got in stock.
(3) In order to make people buy this old stock, and to get cash to buy new stock quickly, the shops have reduced prices vastly. Also, because this is old stock, the falling value of the pound has not affected anything yet.
(4) Once the stock has been sold, some shops will have got enough cash to buy new stock. All other shops will shut.
(5) The shops that will be able to restock in January will have to pay in devalued pounds, so prices are going to jump up a lot (I forecast 50-100% price rises, based on the difference between the same Sony lens in restocking Amazon [£335] and selling-old-stock Jessops [£145]).
This will makes sales collapse, and so more shops will close.
I don’t understand why the Bank of England don’t understand that letting the pound collapse will cause horrible disasters. It’s not like the old days when there were plenty of home-made products people could buy instead.
Samme traditioner, men ikke på samme tidspunkt
I både Danmark og Skotland er det en yndet tradition at sidde med sjove hatte på og trække knallerter med sidemanden.
Men i Danmark gør man det til nytår, hvorimod det i Skotland hører julen til.
Det samme gælder champagne og dronningens tale, der også er nytårstraditioner i Danmark og juletraditioner i Skotland.
Fyrværkeri er i Danmark også forbundet med nytåret, hvorimod det i Skotland især fyres af på Guy Fawkes Night.
Og udklædte børn, der tigger om slik ved dørene, ser man til fastelavn i Danmark, men til Hallowe’en i Skotland.
Men i det mindste er Danmark og Skotland enige om, at julemanden kommer med gaver til jul – i Georgien kommer han til nytår (og er klædt i blåt, ikke rødt)!
What a Christmas!
It sounded like a good plan: My parents would arrive on the 19th, and on the 25th Phyllis’s parents and brother with wife and son would come for Christmas lunch.
I was going to serve some crostini when they arrived, and the actual lunch would then be a prawn and sweetcorn bisque followed by goose and pork roast, followed by cheese and finally three-coloured chocolate mousse.
However, first nephew Gordie got a stomach bug. Then Anna got it. Then my parents. But Phyllis and I were still going strong.
Then yesterday, we had a nice Danish Christmas dinner, my parents went for church as 11.30 pm, and when they came back I was feeling queasy.
I lasted till bedtime, when I emptied my entire stomach. Phyllis lasted till 3am, and in the morning, we were both feeling dreadful.
I found my parents and asked whether they were well enough to cook some food. They fortunately agreed, so Christmas day could go ahead, albeit with a reduced menu.
I didn’t join them for lunch, but I believe they had carrot soup followed by pork roast, then cheese and finally Danish ris à l’amande.
I think the day went fine, even if Phyllis and I were completely useless!