Wednesday 31 March 2010

Blair targets 'vacuous' Cameron on his return to campaign trail

Hmmmm. I must confess, I was unsure as to what "vacuous" meant. Here are a couple of definitions, which I think give a flavour (courtesy Webster's online dictionary):

1 : emptied of or lacking content
2 : marked by lack of ideas or intelligence : stupid, inane

Blair targets 'vacuous' Cameron on his return to campaign trail

Do yourself a favour, Mr Blah: don't go there, because you're not bright enough to call anybody (or anybody's ideas), stupid, not even Dodgy Dave.

And by the way, Blah, could you have Texture "spell out" when he's next going to "spell out" his policies, because I must have missed the last occasion he "spelt out" his policies - perhaps they were too complex for me to understand, or perhaps he's shit at spelling. Who knows?

13 comments:

Ana said...

Again?
Tony Blair, Again?
He is with that stupid smile in his face, AGAIN!
hehe
you'll understand after reading my e-mails.
Well... we have "vácuo" in Portuguese but not used in his sense.
It's used in: "embalagem à vácuo".
http://www.investex.com.au/pt/fish.html
you will see foods vacuous wrapped.
No air inside.
But this word is not used colloquially.
"You mean vacuous for me." hehe
"You left a vacuous in my heart." hahahaha
Blair's smile is vacuous.
Does it make sense to you?
:)

Ana said...

Above comment: vacuous attempt unable due to impossibility to leave a comment without a character.
hehe

Ana said...

.

Ana said...

No.
I'm not a troll....
hahahahahahaha

Ana said...

It's quite an experience...
Yes... it is Matt.
(I love the title of your blog!) Never said that.

Radagast said...

Ana: [shrug] The adversarial nature of politics is counterproductive, I think - they spend so much time apparently attacking one another that they forget to do anything constructive! A vacuous pursuit, in and of itself!

Anyway "It's quite an experience" is taken from one of the final scenes in Blade Runner. Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), chases Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), to the top of a multi-storey building, and, looking down at Deckard hanging from a girder by his fingernails, Batty tells him "it's quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is, to be a slave." That's why I juxtaposed the first four words of that quotation with a further quotation from "The Partisan," because it contradicts what Batty said.

Matt

Ana said...

Ah!
I remember this scene!
I remember he asking this question and strangely enough I have it on my mind but I didn't remember the "It's quite an experience". I remember the question quite clearly but the question I remember is like:
"Now you have the experience of living in fear, is it good? Are you enjoying?"
Funny this scene touched you too.

Radagast said...

Ana: Yes, it's a complex movie, or a simple one, depending upon which level one wants to watch it... It seems evident that Batty and his fellow Nexus 6 Replicants were, indeed, "more human than human," as Tyrell intended them to be. Throughout the movie, they're cast (and treated), as psychopathic and violent, but Batty turns that perception on its head when he saves Deckard, and with the erudition evident in that final speech.

Radagast said...

Ana wrote:
"..."Now you have the experience of living in fear, is it good? Are you enjoying?"..."

You were paraphrasing, rather than remembering Batty's words, literally? Sorry, I think I may have misunderstood.

Yes, Batty's making a point, all right. Imagine living in an environment where one's intellectual capabilities are completely ignored, where one is brutalized, such that one does what is ordered to be done, because the fear of further brutality is so deeply ingrained. It doesn't matter what Batty believes of himself - any convictions that he holds about himself are swept away as meaningless. He is a slave, and always will be... but only in the eyes of the slave driver.

Batty was more than that - he defeated the slave drivers' brutality - they didn't kill him, and in the end he showed them what one should do, when one has the power over life and death. Except the only person to witness it was Deckard, who was also a slave, of sorts - he was just a tool of the system, and may have been a Replicant, himself.

Matt

Ana said...

Yes! I was sure that Deckard was going to be a replicant and when the movie finished and he was not it lost the sense for me.
Ridley had to change the end of the movie and his version was already released but I didn't see it.
I will search for it now but if I remember correctly he had to change the end because someone or any institution found it was not good.
I will search and come back.

Radagast said...

Ana: Yes, Ridley Scott said that Deckard was always a replicant, in his mind, and there are hints in the "Director's Cut" to that effect: Deckard's photos (like Leon), the unicorn (the symbolism of which still escapes me - was this supposed to be a memory borrowed from Gaff, who also had a unicorn thing going on), the fact that he's starting to become confused and doubtful about his role as a Blade Runner (ie, he's developing his own emotional responses to stuff, in the way that Nexus 6 Replicants do), and so on.

This is finely-balanced stuff, though. After all, lots of people have photos; lots of people have recurrent thoughts about stuff that doesn't appear to have any significant relationship to the context; and lots of people change their minds about the way they feel about certain things...

They're hints - not definitive, and you're still left to perceive what you want, which is why the movie bears watching, many times, I think.

Matt

Ana said...

I did a little research and it matches what you are saying. It is an interview with Ridley and they say that Redford had to say Deckard is not a replicant.
I think that all these possibilities makes the movie more interesting and, good for Ridley, theoreticians can apply whatever they want...
hehe

Radagast said...

Well, if Deckard was a Replicant, he couldn't be told that he was a Replicant, and it couldn't be widely known that he was a Replicant, because of the verboten status of Replicants on Earth. So, like Rachel, if he was a Replicant, he would have had memory implants, but the memories wouldn't quite fit (because they were somebody else's), and eventually he would find a way out.

In a way, Batty, Pris and the rest had it easy: they knew what they were, and could conduct themselves accordingly, but because they knew what they were they were hunted. Rachel (and possibly Deckard), didn't know what they were, and so they were "safe," but slaves, nevertheless. It's a fabulously complex story.

Matt