The SAGA Awards.

As I mentioned it is currently awards season in the US entertainment industry.

This really represents a very long conversation that begins with the Golden Globe Awards in mid-January and then continues until the Oscars at the end of February.

Last night saw the contribution to the discussion from the Screen Actors Guild of America (SAGA) Awards. Unlike the Oscars this hands out awards for both film and television performances. Television is of course considered the lesser of the two art forms.

The main reason for this is that the time from a film script being commissioned and the finished product being shown to the public for the first time is often four to five years. However particularly in US TV it's very common for the second half of a season to still be in production while the first half is being broadcast. This allows the production to gauge the audience's reaction and make adjustments accordingly.

So for example if you're doing a show like "Homeland" and there's a massive terror attack in France you can quickly re-shoot a couple of scenes to reference it.

However if you want to be that on trend with a movie released in 2016 you really have to have identified the trend as far back as 2012. To my mind that's a much bigger skill.

So looking at the results of the SAGA Awards it seems to me that they're either dropping hints to their audience or asking questions of the Oscars about what they are trying to say. I obviously think that seeing who can work out those little hints for themselves is part of the fun.

However I think it is obvious that SAGA have disagreed with the Oscars over British actor Idris Elba. The Oscars failure to nominate Elba for "Beasts of No Nation" has frequently been cited as an example of their racism. SAGA not only gave Elba the best actor award for that film but also a second best actor award for his role in the TV show "Luther."

Although I tend to overplay it Idris Elba has long bothered me for two main reasons. The first is that while he is an undeniably talented actor he is nowhere near as talented as he thinks he is. After all no-one is that talented.

The second is that Elba's fame seems to come from an army of fans made up almost exclusively of somewhat sexually repressed posh white girls.

The reviews of his performances on Twitter, the Internet and even in proper newspapers and magazines written by actual journalists all seem to focus on his physicality. As such they're full of references to how tall he is, how strong he looks, how rugged he seems and what a big presence he is on screen.

It might just be me but the sub-text I get from all these reviews is; "I want to see his penis!" "Can we see his penis?!" "I've never seen a black one before!!!"

As a result I can't help but wonder if by endorsing these fans by handing awards to Elba we're not so much furthering racial equality within the entertainment industry as dragging it back to the 1970's and the Blackploitation era.

The other big news from the awards - here in the UK at least - is that as with every year "Orange Is The New Black (OITNB) won best ensemble cast in a TV comedy.

This year one of the lead actresses - Laura Prepon - used the acceptance speech to go on something of a drunken ramble about how her show has got the diversity that is missing from the rest of the industry. After all set in a prison their cast is absolutely packed with blacks and tans.

This of course gives me an opportunity to talk more about OITNB. At any given point the battle is to stop myself going of on a completely off topic ramble about OITNB.

Having all seen the mayhem I can cause with mere Youtube it almost goes without saying that I don't use online streaming services like Netflicks or Amazon Prime unless I absolutely have to. I am though more than happy to pay to watch OITNB on DVD.

This though does of course leave me seriously behind. I've only just watched season 2 while I think last night's award was presented for season 5.

If you talk about making a TV show set in an American prison everyone automatically thinks of "Oz."

So throughout pre-production and the first season OITNB were keen to make the point that they weren't trying to remake Oz. After all that's a hard hitting drama set in the secure unit of a maximum security men's prison. OITNB is more of a comedy set in a minimum security women's prison.

However in the second season the lure of Oz became a little too much so OINTB introduced this new character "Yvonne" or simply "V." She set about convincing all the other black prisoners that they were victims of a racist system. After isolating them from all the other prisoners she then set her girls to work selling drugs etc.

To my mind that storyline made a fantastic mockery of the "Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign. Slightly before the BLM campaign began.

Also that season revealed the backstory of the "Miss Rosa" character. It was quite a surprise to discover that she was supposed to be Hispanic. After all you didn't need to discover she was played by "Barbara Rosenblat" for it to be obvious that she was of eastern European, Jewish heritage.

However I gather that in a later season one of the story lines is a big quest for a Mikvah. That sounds like a joke about "Jew-washing" to me.

Also if I you are a fan of OITNB you really need to be aware of an Australian show called "Wentworth Prison" which is also set in a women's prison.

Inspired by Oz and the movie "Chopper" this is an attempt at a hard hitting remake of a show from the 1970's and 1980's called "Prisoner Cell Block H." That remains something of a kitsch classic with the shaky sets and even shakier scripts providing much of the unintentional comedy.

So while I think OITNB and Wentworth Prison are examples of similar ideas appearing independently of each other they are very clearly aware of each other leading to a bit of a back and forth.

For example if a character in OITNB gets pregnant then pretty soon a character in Wentworth Prison will get pregnant. If Wentworth Prison does a storyline centred around the prison garden then OINTB will suddenly discover its prison also has a garden.

15:35 on 31/1/16 (UK date).

Operation Featherweight: Month 19, Week 1, Day 3.

It is January. Across the northern hemisphere it is cold, dark, wet and no-one can really be bothered.

This is also true for Iraq and Syria. As a result the frequency of my updates on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups have decreased because there's not that much going on in terms of actual fighting.

Backed by the Russians the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) have continued their operations to liberate the Latakia mountains from the Turkish backed Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB).

On January 12th (12/1/16) they succeeded in liberating the town of Salma which sits around 30km (20 miles) north-east of Latakia City and around 20km (12 miles) south-west of the town of Jisr al-Shugur. On Sunday (24/1/16) they succeeded in liberating the village of Rabia which sits around 15km (8 miles) to the north-west of Salma.

The liberation of Rabia marks the defeat of the last STB presence in Latakia Province and leaves the SAA free to concentrate on liberating Idlib and Aleppo Provinces as they advance towards ISIL's bastion in Raqqa Province.

On Monday (25/1/16) the SAA also succeeded in liberating the town of Sheikh Maskin from the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition of which the Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML) are the largest factions.

Sheikh Maskin sits around 80km (50 miles) south of the Syrian capital of Damascus and around 18km (10 miles) north of the city of Deraa. Crucially it sits at a crossroads between the provinces of Damascus, Suwaida and Quneitra and divides the east and west of Deraa Province. As such the SAA now have control over all the main supply routes across of the provinces south of the capital.

As a nihilistic organisation that constantly needs to conquer and destroy in order to exist in mid-January ISIL launched a fresh offensive to capture the city of Deir ez-Zour from the SAA. This sits on the banks of the Euphrates River around 130km (75 miles) south-east of Raqqa City - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria.

Although ISIL have long controlled the areas of Deir ez-Zour and Raqqa Provinces that surround it they have not yet been able to capture the city itself. For the most part ISIL's advances have been kept at bay by Russian air-strikes. 

However on January 16th (16/1/16) ISIL were able to capture the village of al-Bagaliyeh which sits roughly 4km (2.5 miles) north-west on the outskirts of Deir ez-Zour. Here they kidnapped more then 400 civilians. On January 20th (20/1/16) - following an international outcry - ISIL released the 270 women and children of that group. However the fate of the 130 men is still unknown although it is believed that they were massacred alongside 140 SAA soldiers.

The humanitarian situation in Deir ez-Zour has been growing increasingly grim with the Russians being forced to airdrop emergency supplies to the besieged civilians. However you won't here anything about that story in the western media because it blows apart the frequent claim that Russia and the SAA aren't fighting ISIL.

While the pace of fighting has naturally slowed if anything the amount of diplomacy has increased. This is an area where it is very hard for me to add anything of value but one where it is very easy for me to make a mess.

At around 18:00 on 28/1/16 (UK date) I'll be back after dinner to attempt to do more of the former than the latter.

Edited at around 19:50 on 28/1/16 (UK date) to add;

This unseasonable diplomatic push has been led by the US. So last Friday (22/1/16) US Vice President Joe Biden began a two day visit to Turkey. At the same time US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Saudi Arabia before heading on to Vietnam and China.

The US' objectives of these dual visits was really twofold. In the first instance they wanted Saudi Arabia and Turkey to end their support for Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML) and by extension Al Qaeda through the JAF coalition.

To this end on January 15th (15/1/16) the US Justice Department announced that a Syrian born US-citizen - Amin al-Baroudi - had plead guilty to attempting to supply tens of thousands of dollars tactical equipment such as sniper's sights to FML. Obviously they prosecuted him because they did not want this violent extremist walking the streets of America.

However to prosecute him for providing material support to a terrorist group the US would first have to declare FML to be a terrorist group. This would mean designating Turkey and Saudi Arabia as state sponsors of terrorism. So instead they prosecuted him for attempting violate US sanctions on the Syrian government.

With the stated aim of the FML being the overthrow of the Syrian government this legally highly questionable. After all if it is an offence then the US federal government which is prosecuting the case has itself committed the offence by supplying this type of non-lethal equipment to groups trying to overthrow the Syrian government.

As such I think if Mr al-Baroudi were to appeal his conviction he would have a good chance of success. However with it being clear where Mr al-Baroudi's loyalties lie I suspect that he's not going to appeal.

The US' other objective was to get Saudi Arabian and to a greater extent Turkish permission to ally with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD). This is of course the group that has established a massive buffer-zone along Syria's border with Turkey from the Euphrates River all the way to Syria's border with Iraq. The QSD currently holds positions just 50km (30 miles) from Raqqa.

To this end whilst Biden was in Turkey and Kerry was in Saudi Arabia the US confirmed - through semi-official channels - that it had been working to extend the runway at the Rmeilan airstrip which is deep inside this QSD controlled buffer-zone.

Although some people got over excited claiming that the US was trying to build an airbase in Syria the work was simply to accommodate large transport aircraft like the C130 Hercules. I seem to remember the Canadian air force doing something similar in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake in about three days.

The intention being to signal that the US would very much like to supply the QSD. It's a completely unnecessary move because you can bring in supplies from Iraq by road these days.

Although the official announcement didn't come until Saturday (23/1/16) rumours that this US work was being undertaken had been swirling for a couple of weeks.

Almost immediately afterward those rumours began further - yet to be confirmed - rumours emerged that Russia had sent engineers to Al-Qamishli International Airport which is also in the QSD controlled buffer-zone around 70km (40 miles) north-west of the Rmeilan airstrip. The Russians seem to be working on the far more ambitious plan of turning that civilian airport into a Russian Air Force base just 3.5km (2 miles) from the Turkish border.

The message the Russians seem to be sending there is that the US had better hurry up getting permission to support the QSD or give up seeking permission before Russia is once again force to step in and just do it anyway.

It appears that the US' latest diplomatic push has failed on both fronts.

For reasons that I still need explaining to me tomorrow (29/1/16) the United Nations (UN) plans to bring together the 'moderate opposition' in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss plans to overthrow the Syrian government. Saudi Arabia who handles the invitations has invited the FML. However it has refused to invite the QSD.

As Biden was making his trip to Turkey the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was making a trip to Germany to meet with German Chancellor Anglea Merkel. Coming little more than a week after Turkey murdered 9 German citizens in an Istanbul suicide bombing this visit raised further questions over Merkel's judgement.

The Turks though decided to press home the insult. Just before the visit Turkey announced that it was ending it's military operations in the predominately Kurdish city of Diyarbakir saying that it just had to remove a few ditches and barricades. None of this has actually happened.

It was intended as a threat to Germany that if it complained about the human rights abuses in Diyarbakir Turkey would respond by removing the ditches and barricades it has built along the border with Syria in an effort to convince us that it is tackling ISIL's supply lines.

Under Ms Merkel's much vaunted leadership Germany and the rest of the European Union (EU) has recently borne a particularly heavy burden in the fight against ISIL and associated groups.

On November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) there was of course the Paris Massacre in which 130 civilians were murdered. Since then France alone has experienced several other smaller terror attacks and there have been raids, discussions about martial law, alerts and false alarms across the EU.

While I've been writing this a prime example of the tense atmosphere the EU finds itself in has emerged from Disneyland Paris in France. Although it's still early days it seems that all that's happened is that in a scenario that is familiar to many Americans a man has simply decided to take his legally held pistols on vacation with him. It is only at the last minute when the metal detectors went off he discovered his hotel had been designated a gun-free zone.

Then because he's probably a French Muslim of north African descent everyone has proceeded to completely lose their sh*t.

Then of course there has been the refugee crisis. Following the scandal of the New Year's Eve sex attacks in Cologne, Germany people across the EU have become very interested in what other crimes committed by asylum seekers are being covered up. The answer is a lot with sex attacks, robberies and murders emerging from Sweden in the north-west down to Greece in the south-east.

The EU's response to all this has been to try and tear itself apart. Not only has there been a lot of talk recently about scrapping the passport-free Schengen agreement which is seen as central to the EU on Monday (25/1/16) it was even suggested that Greece is expelled from the EU simply because their great enemy keeps dumping refugees on them.

As such most outside observers - particularly in the US - are becoming increasingly convinced that it can't be long before the EU stops punching itself in the face and simply breaks off diplomatic ties with Turkey until it stops being the number 1 security threat to the EU.

For example over the weekend the leader of the UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn visited migrant camps in Calais and Dunkirk in France that are often referred to as; "The Jungle." The set piece of Corbyn's visit was a protest by Anarchists that saw migrants storm a ferry shutting down the port of Calais. This seemed to trigger a weekend of violence amongst the migrants including a gun battle at the Dunkirk Jungle.

So on Tuesday (26/1/16) there was a shooting in homeless camp in Seattle, Washington, US which is also known as; "The Jungle" as the Americans tried to be included in the story.

Also on Tuesday numerous schools across France and the UK had to be closed amid a grand bomb hoax. This was repeated again today. Although I stand by what I said yesterday this was also a US attempt to be included in the EU discussions as a way to predict what is going to happen next.

The fact that these bomb hoaxes were sent from a Twitter account registered to a Russian email account was a reference to France setting fire to the Paris Ritz hotel on January 19th (19/1/16) in response to the Rihanna/DiCaprio scandal.

Being entitled to mock France's sense of panic Russia quickly responded to this by setting fire to a TV broadcast tower. This mimicked a fire on a communication pylon at Egypt's Cairo airport the previous day which was just a fire. The intention being to remind France and the US that Russia has not forgotten about the bombing of 7K9268.

Anyway I gather there's been a similar fire on a construction crane in New York City, US just this afternoon.

21:45 on 28/1/16 (UK date).

COP21 Terrorism Update #19.

As I mentioned yesterday one of the big movies at the 2016 Oscars - "The Revenant" - is all about the COP21 Summit it and the global draft climate change agreement it produced.

With this being my 19th update on the issue it is fair to say that draft has become mired in Islamic inspired terrorism.

Last year the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) got rather fixated on the Oscars. In the run-up to the ceremony they released a series of murder videos. These seem intended to showcase ISIL's expertise in movie making and in particular special, visual effects.

As a result an Oscars ceremony where one of the movies is about climate change is a bit of a worry from a security perspective. In order not to spoil proceedings I've obviously tried to be discreet about this. After all the US pays people to worry about this sort of thing and they are certainly aware of the situation.

I have got the impression though that the US would like assurances from its allies that they are aware that it is aware of the issue. Given the US' response to the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres that strikes me as more than a little arrogant.

So yesterday numerous schools in Paris, France, London, UK and weirdly Cornwall, UK had to be evacuated amid a grand bomb hoax. This of course invoked memories of the December 15th (15/12/16) evacuated of Los Angeles school district amid a similar hoax. Later in the day the US confirmed they were responsible for the French and British hoaxes with a hoax shooting at the San Diego Naval Medical Centre. Los Angeles, San Diego and the Oscars are all located in the state of California.

However later on the US really started to build its part with the news they had prevented an Islamic inspired terror attack against a Freemasons Temple in Milwaukee. This was intended to spread confusion during US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Beijing, China. After all an Islamic inspired terrorist trying to attack a Jewish Temple makes sense. An Islamic inspired terrorist attempting to attack a Masonic Temple really does not.

This brings me on to the arrest of 8 and the killing of 1 of the protesters at the Malheur Wildlife Reserve in Oregon by the FBI.

That protest has been the US main way of highlighting the problem of the draft agreed at COP21. Following the January 20th (20/1/16) Islamic inspired terror attack against Bacha Khan University in Pakistan the US used the Oregon protest to pose the question of whether the COP21 draft needs to be withdrawn prior to its April 2017 deadline to prevent further terror attacks. Clearly this issue came up during Kerry's visit.

The Oregon protests also highlight a key difference between the regulatory environments in free market economies such as the US and command economies such as China. This has long been an issue within climate change negotiations because in command economies the government simply decides what the national plan will be and then carries out that plan. In nations like the US the private sector is pretty much free to do what it likes with the exception of specific activities that the government has passed laws against.

In the US the occupation of government property such as is happening in Oregon is considered free speech protected by the 1st amendment to the constitution. The open carrying of firearms in public is protected by the 2nd amendment. Therefore it's not clear what crimes the Oregon protesters have committed by the simple virtue that their behaviour is so unprecedented that up until now the government didn't see a need to make it illegal.

The FBI operation was pre-planned ambush. They invited the protesters to negotiations away from the Wildlife Reserve and simply pounced on them as they were en route. A huge failing of the COP21 draft is that it enshrines the principle of Binary Differentiation. This gives China license to emit as much greenhouse gases as it likes. The US clearly thinks China won this concession in a last minute ambush when in fact it was just the US negotiators screwing up.

What is odd is that although I've not seen any of them this type of ambush is apparently a major part of the plot in the mafia. movie "The Godfather." Abe Vigoda - the actor who plays the character who sets the ambush in the movie - died of natural causes just before the FBI mounted their own ambush.

Vigoda is also famous for playing a TV character called "Phil Fish" or simply "Fish." One of the lead voices in the Oscars So White campaign has been the actress Jada Pinket-Smith. Her most recent role was playing a mafia-style boss "Fish Moody" in the TV series "Gotham."

So yeah, that got weird quickly.

Rather demonstrating that the US really doesn't understand how to ask for favours today has also seen Rihanna releasing the single "Work" featuring Diamonds World Tour boyfriend Drake.

I've been too tired and hungover to bother with it. However politically it sounds less like a comeback and more like a death knell.

20:20 on 27/1/16 (UK date).

Edited at around 15:00 on 28/1/16 (UK date) to add;

The big concern ahead of COP21 was that the US would try and ambush proceedings with something random and wildly off topic. If they'd used something new this could have been a disaster. However if they sent a spent force like Rihanna it could be easily ignored.

So much of 2014 and 2015 was taken up with an elaborate con trick to convince the US that everybody was still super interested in Rihanna. This was led by South Korean electronics giant Samsung who put together this entire app/game to promote Rihanna's upcoming album "Anti."

It paid off when just before COP21 Rihanna used the Samsung app to announce a tour in support of the yet to be released Anti album. The support act is a very pretentious Canadian act that calls himself "The Weeknd." In the months prior to this announcement both the Weeknd and fellow Canadian "Drake" released songs about sneaking around in clandestine relationships with who we were supposed to speculate was Rihanna.

Due to some fantastic work on the part of the South Koreans this had absolutely no impact on COP21 whatsoever.

Therefore the intention of releasing the Rihanna single "Work" featuring Drake while John Kerry was visiting China was to confirm that knowing Rihanna is a spent force China had been able to flip the ambush on the US to win itself an opt out.

What actually happened is that the US had absolutely no interest in drawing up a functioning global agreement. Instead Obama wanted something he could pass by executive action to claim all the glory.

The specific wording that gives China and India their opt outs is Paragraph 4 or Article 4. This wording was not included until the absolute final draft. On the previous draft I flagged up a problem with it. This prompted the US to do a hasty re-write so I wouldn't be able to use it to criticise Obama. In the process they messed up and handed China and India their opt outs.

Clearly the US didn't get an answer to the question is posed yesterday so re-stated it today with a train crash in Florida - Can anyone confirm that the train is off the tracks and on fire?

Unfortunately overnight Rihanna has decided to go ahead and release Anti regardless.

Oscar's Massive Spoiler

On February 28th (28/2/16) the Academy Awards (Oscars) take place in Hollywood, California, US.

As an outsider I think a large part of the Oscar's enduring success is that it has never lost sight of its true purpose. That is of as an industry awards. Of course it helps that the industry in question is an extremely glamorous one that most everybody secretly wishes they could be a part of.

If you are one of those people who stays in their seat until the credits have ended you will know that the movie industry can be very cliquey. Directors tend to work with the same group of screenwriters, photographers, actors etc. For example if Joss Whedon is directing a project it's a fair bet that the actress Amy Acker will appear at some point.

However this goes beyond simply finding jobs for your less talented friends. On set things run more smoothly if everybody sees the world in the same way - the grand artistic vision. As such the controversies and discussions that surround the Oscars serve an important purpose within the industry. It allows newcomers to be tested out to see whether they'd fit in on a future project and keep the Cara Delevingne's of this world to minimum.

Therefore while it would probably boost my readership dramatically if I shared all the secrets prior to the ceremony I think in the long run it would just spoil it for everyone.

However this year's big movie is so big and of such global significance I've decided that it constitutes Force Majeure.

The movie I'm talking about is of course Alejandro G Inarritu's spellcheck baiting "The Revenant." This is largely seen as a star vehicle intended to allow Leonardo DiCaprio to finally win the best actor Oscar he's missed out on in various other movies such as "The Departed."

Throughout his 25 year career DiCaprio has tried use his wealth and star power to make the World a better place. Unfortunately though I think his efforts to highlight Africa's vicious mineral wars in 2006's "Blood Diamond" were rather drowned out by his absolutely appalling South African accent.

In recent years DiCaprio has concentrated heavily on the issue of climate change even being appointed as an official Ambassador for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 

DiCaprio's commitment to this role goes far beyond simply turning up to the occasional function or recording the occasional video message. His "Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation" has actually funded a lot of credible research into renewable energy. Therefore within climate change circles DiCaprio is taken seriously. For a celebrity.

As such The Revenant is supposed to reflect DiCaprio's efforts to combat change and in particular the draft agreement that was reached at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris at the end of 2015.

For example much of the movie features DiCaprio's character - Hugh Glass - trekking alone through the frozen wilderness of the American northwest. This showcases the insignificance and vulnerability of man in the face of the awesome power of nature.

The narrative of a man being left for dead before battling back to rejoin civilisation is a metaphor for the journey towards COP21. Efforts to combat climate change of course failed at COP15 in Copenhagen back in 2009. The entire process was intended to have been killed off at COP18 in Doha in 2012. COP21 was supposed to mark a triumphant return.

The title of the film is not so much inspired by as directly stolen from a French TV Series "Les Revenants" (The Returned.)

Essentially this is a Zombie drama. However it doesn't feature your typical lumbering, brain eating, decaying Zombies. Instead these Zombies seem to be perfectly normal and just like everybody else. Many of them don't even realise that they're dead.

Les Revenants is one of those shows that rather than telling the audience a story per se it instead asks questions of that audience.

For example some of the central characters are a traditional family with twin daughters. One of the daughters is killed in a bus accident whilst on a school trip while the other daughter who missed the trip through illness survives. So when the Zombie twin returns she is still a pubescent girl of around 12 or 13. In her absence though the living twin has continued to grow up and is now at the age of around 16 or 17 where she's starting to go out partying and staying out all night with boys.

This contrast of course poses all sorts of questions about growing up including that old favourite of the Olympics and the Eurovision Song Contest - the age of sexual consent. After all legally both twins are the same age so why isn't acceptable for the Zombie twin to also be sexually active? It of course also raises issues of parental grief and that old assertion that in the eyes of their parents children never really grow up.

If there is a central character in what is an ensemble piece it is this woman "Julie." In her recent past Julie has experienced some sort of traumatic event and since that event entered into what we assume was her first lesbian relationship with a local policewoman. That relationship has ended but the policewoman is obviously keen to see it re-kindled.

One day Julie is sort of adopted by this Zombie boy of around 10 or 11. This triggers the re-kindling of the relationship and Julie and the policewoman effectively become the boy's lesbian parents raising all sorts of questions about homosexuality and gay parenting.

As the first season draws to a close and throughout the second season the Zombies begin to emerge as a separate group from the living. This raises all sorts of questions about tribalism and the concept of otherness that are at the heart of all racist and sectarian conflicts. At the time I think I made specific reference to the Nazi Holocaust.

I have to say though that I found the second season to be extremely hard work. This was primarily because it was broadcast some four years after the first season. 

The delay was the result of some production problem such as getting the season commissioned or getting actors to commit. The second season did make a series of in-jokes about this production problem but having it filtered through the problem of getting the UK distributor to pick it up these largely went over my head.

My main problem was that over the course of those four years I'd largely forgotten how season one had ended. I remain convinced that it ended with Julie, the policewoman and the Zombie boy trying escape the town by driving over a dam but being prevented from doing so by some supernatural force.

The second season began with the town being flooded by some unspecified cause and taken over by the French military. Many of the original cast including the policewoman were simply missing with no explanation.

With Inarritu being something of Mexico's golden boy there was a lot of gossip about Les Revenants across South America throughout 2015.

For example a big theme in season one was concerns that a dam would burst flooding the town as had happened some 35 years before. Then of course in the second season the town had been flooded.

So for example in October 2015 the receding waters of a reservoir in Mexico exposed the 400 year old Temple of Santiago Church that had been submerged when the dam was built and the reservoir was created. Photographs of the scene were essentially the opening shot of the title credits of Les Revenants.

Then on November 5th (5/11/15) a dam burst in Bento Rodrigues, Mariana, Brazil flooding a near-by town with toxic water killing 17 residents.

Not being aware of the DiCaprio link at the time and struggling with season two myself I didn't think that it was worth my time addressing Les Reveants directly as opposed to, say, working on the negotiating text itself.

However looking back it is clear that a large part of the reason why COP21 failed was because the US and Brazil got bogged down in the detail of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) - the so-called "Sheen Clause" - at the expense of all other aspects.

As a result I can't escape this nasty feeling that maybe I made the wrong decision by failing to address Les Revenants directly.

This of course brings me onto the wider question of whether I think DiCaprio deserves an Oscar in reflection of his work on climate change?

It is obvious that DiCaprio is a man whose long wanted to walk in my shoes. Therefore a victory for him would mean an awful lot of reflected glory for me.

However the fact of the matter is that COP21 was not a triumphant return. Instead it saw efforts to combat climate change die face down in the dirt. Its bloated, rotting corpse is now starting to present a health hazard all of its own.

That means DiCaprio failed. It means UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres failed. It means that COP21 President Laurent Fabius failed. It means I failed. It means we all failed.

Handing out awards for failure has never sat well with me.

Although I held my tongue at the time DiCaprio's appearance at COP21 on Saturday December 5th (5/12/15) actually struck me as part of the problem.

DiCaprio's primary role as UNFCCC Ambassador is to raise the profile of the organisation amongst people who enjoy his movies but don't necessarily watch that news or understand terms like "Binary Differentiation." 

However DiCaprio is either not famous enough or not the right type of famous that the press and the paparazzi would go through the arduous process of getting accredited for a COP Summit on the off chance that he might appear. As such I'm not sure how much extra publicity DiCaprio actually brought to COP21.

The arrival of DiCaprio's Hollywood glamour did have a huge effect on the - frankly - nerds who were attending COP21 already. These people don't need any reminding of the importance of taking action on climate change and already find the topic exciting. So rather than trying to excite them further the challenge is often to keep them calm and thinking rationally in what is an extremely high pressure environment.

DiCaprio's appearance occurred at a crucial point in negotiations. The relevant working group had just finalised the draft to be sent to the high level segment for final negotiation. This left delegates facing the crucial decision of whether to accept that draft or send it back for further work.

Therefore I think that rather then getting excited over DiCaprio it would've be better for delegates to have spent that Saturday sleeping, having a nice meal, taking a walk in the park, visiting one of Paris' famous art galleries or doing whatever it is they do to relax and clear their heads.

The problem was actually highlighted in the closing plenary the following Saturday. If you watch it again you'll notice that in the front-row there are two young, blonde female delegates in hysterical floods of tears apparently in full Beatlemania mode. Looking at that you can't help but ask whether the decisions being made at that point were good decisions.

Then of course there is DiCaprio's unfortunate liaison with Rihanna in Paris last Tuesday (19/1/16). Although I think at worst DiCaprio was simply playing along with a tabloid rumour I had two primary objectives in dedicating 2013 to Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour. The first was to protect the UNFCCC process while the second was to protect Rihanna and her career. With it now looking like I've failed on both fronts that is a bit of a sore point.

As such the whole thing struck me as rather unnecessary and posed some serious questions about DiCaprio's judgement and whether he has the skill set to be a positive influence on Rihanna.

Fortunately for DiCaprio though the criteria for membership of the Academy has not yet slipped to the point that it includes blogs.

Hopefully though the "Oscars So White" protesters will come to realise why Academy members are sitting there going;

"Micheal B Jordan was in a rocky movie. That's cute(!)"

After all their continuing stupidity is really starting to bum people out.

17:10 on 26/1/16 (UK date). 

Cadence to Flint.

For most of 2016 the big story in American politics has been the water crisis in the city of Flint, Michigan. However technically it's not a problem with the water. It's a problem with the pipes.

Still feeling a little delicate I'm not going to give you a complete history of lead within the modern environmental movement. After all the only bit you really need to know is that even when ingested in small quantities lead does huge amounts of damage to various parts of the human body such as the brain, the nervous system, the circulatory system including the blood and the kidneys and even the bones.

In fact the origin of the phrase; "Mad as a hatter" comes from the neurological damage done to hat makers through their use of mercury - a heavy metal similar to lead.

Although different countries have set different rules at different times certainly since the 1970's there has been a concerted effort to phase out the use of lead in various everyday process such as house paint, an additive to gasoline and water pipes.

Unfortunately Flint has never been a particularly well managed city so has lagged behind in this effort to replace lead water pipes. I should point out though that it is the responsibility of individual householders to make sure that the lead pipes within their property are replaced.

The mismanagement of Flint came to a head in November 2012 when the state of Michigan declared a financial emergency with Flint being on the verge of bankruptcy. This saw the elected leaders of this traditionally Democrat run city being replaced with a non-partisan emergency manager - essentially an accountant.

One of the first things that emergency manager did was switch Flint's water supply from the nearby Great Lakes which Flint had to pay for to the local Flint River the water rights of which are owned by the City of Flint essentially meaning that it was free.

The only problem with the water from the Flint River is that it has a higher than average salt content making it very corrosive. As a result it corroded the cities lead water pipes leeching toxic lead into the water supply.

Highlighting the problem Flint actually switched back to the Great Lakes water supply back in October 2015 - some two months before the story blew up. However with the pipes now irreversibly damaged there is no way of keeping the lead out of the drinking water.

What is very alarming about this story is that almost immediately it was known that the corrosive water from the Flint River would damage the pipes increasing the risk of lead poisoning. However the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which the state and local authorities look to for for guidance conspired to cover the problems of Flint up for the best part of three years.

There is a strong suspicion that the EPA which is part of US President Obama's Democrat administration covered up what was going on in Flint to avoid exposing the mismanagement of the city and in the process embarrass the local Democrat administration.

What seems to have change is the death of Aylan Kurdi on September 2nd (2/9/15) which led to the plight of refugees to become hot, global topic.

One of the worst offenders when it comes to exploiting the plight of these refugees as a political football has been President Obama. If he cared a damn about the refugees he would dedicate himself to ending the 5 year war that has made refugees of them in the first place.

Instead though Obama has been more interested in setting up what I suppose you could describe as a "refugee pipeline" into the US so he can condemn as racist anyone who objects or even suggests that the US should screen these refugees for security purposes.

Even as far back as the adoption of the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees it has been accepted that people with malicious intent will try and pose as refugees. As such it is actually an obligation of the convention that nations screen potential refugees to make sure that they are not criminals. The November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres and the December 2nd (2/12/15) attack in San Bernardino demonstrates exactly why there needs to be screening of refugees.

Therefore the cover up in Flint seems to have been broken in order to provide a metaphor for the refugee issue. After all while a doctor would probably disagree you could say that those killed in Paris and in Riverside suffered an extreme form of lead poisoning.

As such the signing of an emergency declaration for Flint by President Obama on January 16th (16/1/16) was seen as a massive victory for the men in the shadows with Obama finally being forced to admit that his refugee policy is dangerous to the health of the American public.

Rather than taking that legitimate criticism in good grace the Democrats almost immediately went on the offensive. Led by Hillary Clinton in her January 19th (19/1/16) debate appearance the Democrats have attempted to portray the Flint crisis not as a failure of a Democrat led city but as a race issue caused by the Republican Governor of Michigan state.

On Friday (22/1/16) there was an interesting incident in Michigan's direct neighbour Canada. Here a boy killed his brothers with a shotgun at home and then killed two adults in a school in the Clearwater area of  La Loche which sits on the banks of La Loche Lake in Saskatchewan province.

Canada's new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is another particularly serious offender when it comes to exploiting refugees. The remaining members of the Kurdi family have been granted asylum in Canada and following Obama's example Trudeau frequently welcomes new arrivals of refugees and visits Mosques in an effort to show how caring he is. 

At the same time Trudeau has withdrawn Canadian forces from the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Obama's response to the San Bernardino attack was of course to call for greater gun control. Canada already has that tighter gun control with every firearm having to be licensed. However it clearly didn't stop this child from stealing a gun and carrying out this school shooting like Adam Lanza did in Newtown, US back in 2012.

The lesson from places like Israel and China where they have extremely tight gun controls but attacks still continue only with knives and cars is that it doesn't matter how tightly you control the weapons used in the attacks they will continue for as long as the violent intent is there.

Interestingly there is actually a lot of credible evidence suggesting that part of the reason why predominately black US cities such as Flint are so violent is that very mild brain damage caused by lead in water pipes and paint causes the people living in those areas to be more aggressive and prone to violence.

The Clearwater shooting of course happened in an Aboriginal or Indigenous Indian community. This is a reference to the ongoing protests at the Malheur Wildlife Refugee protests in Oregon, US. That of course is the US' big contribution to the post-COP21 discussions.

In order to highlight the complexity of Indigenous rights debates the ranchers at Malheur are claiming that they are indigenous to the area. However the Burns Paiute Tribe Native American tribe have opposed them instead claiming they are the truly indigenous group.

What makes Indigenous rights debates so complicated is that originally there was only one continent - Pangaea. Therefore technically everybody is indigenous to every where else.

This was rather neatly highlighted today with an earthquake between Spain and Morocco. With Africa and Europe being so close together this frequently comes up in European arguments over migration and refugees.

Native American tribes like the Burns Paiute Tribe aren't actually that native to the US. In fact they're originally from Russia having migrated into Canada and down into the US. Therefore if I was trying to stir up trouble I could legitimately accuse the Burns Paiute Tribe of being Russian Colonialists.

However rather than trying to de-legitimise anybody's claim I think the point the US trying to make in Malheur is just how complicated Indigenous rights debates are because ultimately there's not actually a correct answer.

15:55 on 25/1/16 (UK date).

Like I Said, On the Test.

You may remember that last Wednesday (20/1/16) I had grown bored of work and had decided to talk about women's nipples instead.

Specifically I commented on how "War & Peace" had fractured the BBC's new found adoption of the US Federal Communication Commission's (FCC's) infamous "No Nipples Rule."

However I may have failed to mention that War & Peace was being broadcast in direct competition to the German series "Deutschland '83" which was being shown on Channel 4 (C4). Rather unsurprisingly this is set in Germany in the year 1983.

Long suffering C4 viewers will of course get the reference to the "This is England '86," "This is England '88," "This is England '90" mini-series' that followed the 2007 movie "This is England" no matter how little script there was. US viewers may of course recognise the story of a 'Soviet' spy working undercover in 'the west' from the TV Show "The Americans."

Basically it's the Germans going; "We're cool." "Despite our language we're not just bossing everybody about!"

Obviously despite War & Peace watching Deutschland '83 with my father is a bit of a challenge. Although as a deaf man he has to rely on subtitles in all programs he remains a little threatened by "foreign." Seriously getting him to sit down with my brother's Pakistani girlfriend over Christmas was a major step forward.

However my main complaint so far is that episode two contained a continuity error so shocking it's taken me the best part of two weeks to get over it.

Essentially the main spy returned to his hotel room after doing some urgent spy business. There he found an oriental looking waitress trying to seduce him. To this end she was lying on his bed wearing nothing but a towel. She then stood up to kiss him, unpinned her hair and was suddenly dressed in a skirt and a camisole. With no explanation.

However I've just realised that earlier in the same episode the main spy's girlfriend back home was taking a swim with a male friend. Obviously in this scene she took her clothes off and exposed her nipples.

Therefore I'm inclined to write off the glaring continuity error as the German's going; "Yeah, we're cool with that. However if she'd accidentally shown her tuppence during the fight scene you Brits would've freaked the f*ck out."

On the subject of pretty girls fighting during last year's Eurovision Song Contest I sung the praises of Season 1 "Marvel's Agents of Shield." I did this while watching Season 2 knowing that the director Joss Whedon had been off making some film. As a result that season was a bit of a let down. Essentially it was filled with just lots of pretty girls fighting reducing it to bog standard sci-fi fare.

However now Season 3 is being broadcast a little late on C4's "E4" it seems to be improving. Already they've made a joke about Season 2 in the form of Chloe Bennet wearing a tank-top without a bra.

Now Ms Bennet is the sort of woman who really needs to wear a bra. As a result Episode 1 was a complete continuity nightmare with in one frame one boob leaning to the left while in another frame it was suddenly leaning to the right.

Seriously if you printed out every frame and put them in a flick book I'm pretty sure you could make her boobs dance.

Anyway, now I've missed War & Peace it seems unlikely that I'll be getting back to some actual, proper work tomorrow.

22:00 on 24/1/15 (UK date).

COP21 Terrorism Update #18.

On December 12th 2015 (12/12/15) the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) produced a draft of a global agreement that would prevent meaningful action being taken to combat climate change either now or at any point in the future.

As a result the fossil fuel rich Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia have been using Islamic inspired terrorism to intimidate nations into ratifying the draft. It requires 55 nations to do this or the draft is scrapped without coming into force.

This past weekend (16-17/1/16) saw the 6th Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). This was the first meeting bringing UNFCCC delegates together since COP21.

It was of course accompanied by Islamic inspired terror attacks in Jakarta, Indonesia and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It was also accompanied by an attack on Kenyan troops in Somalia.

This week sees the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) take place in Davos, Switzerland. This gathers together political and business leaders from across the World along with other decision makers for an informal exchange of ideas. It is the type of event where everybody brings with them their own agenda.

However the UNFCCC has been very keen for the issue of climate change to be one of the main topics of discussion. After all with the COP21 draft effectively forbidding national governments from taking action it is now solely up to the private sector to solve the problem of climate change.

The WEF opened to the news of yet another Islamic inspired terror attack. This time in Pakistan. Yesterday terrorists forced their way into the Bacha Khan University in Pakistan's north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. They proceeded to murder 22 people.

Pakistan is of course a majority Muslim nation. However it is not an Arab nation. So much like Indonesia Saudi Arabia cannot automatically count its support.

In fact Pakistan was one of the first nations to express concerns about the COP21 draft with a December 13th (13/12/15) suicide bombing at a clothing market in Parachinar.

Pakistan is of course no stranger to this climate related Saudi aggression. On December 16th 2014 (16/12/14) it was subjected to the worst terror attack in its history when Islamic inspired terrorists attacked a school on a military base in Peshawar killing 141 people including 132 children.

This was considered a threat to the entire UNFCCC community that had just concluded the COP20 Summit on a similar military base in Lima, Peru.

The attack on the Bacha Khan University of course mimicked the Peshawar attack. It also mimicked the April 2nd 2015 (2/4/15) attack on Kenya's Garissa University in which 148 people were murdered. Sitting just across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia east African nations such as Kenya have borne the brunt of Saudi Arabia's climate related aggression.

In the 12th instalment of this series I pointed out how in 2015 Islamic inspired terrorism had killed 219 people in Pakistan while climate change had killed over 1000. As such climate change is five times a bigger threat to Pakistanis than terrorism. My point being that it would be completely irrational for Pakistan to prevent action on climate change to protect itself from Islamic inspired terrorism.

Saudi Arabia seems to have taken this as a challenge. After all if the number of Pakistanis killed in terror attacks increases that statistic could shift a little in 2016. Mind with 2015 being the hottest year on record and 2016 predicted to be even hotter it's likely the increase in both will cancel each other out.

The reaction administration of US President Barack Obama to the Bacha Khan attack was just as childish as its response to the Indonesian and Burkina Faso attacks. While the Bacha Khan attack was taking place the US State Department issued yet another statement threatening the Burundian government.

This again stated the Obama administration's intention to piggy-back on Saudi Arabia's aggression in the hope of getting the COP21 draft ratified so Obama can claim it as part of his grand legacy.

The response for the wider US though has been rather more interesting.

Their big contribution to the post-COP21 debate has been the ongoing protests at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Following the Bacha Khan attack Oregon Governor Kate Brown demanded that the Obama administration take action to end the stand-off which she branded a; "Spectacle of Lawlessness."

Although I'm not sure if Ms Brown as a Democrat was aware why her frustration has suddenly boiled over this was a reference to the fact that Saudi Arabia has until April 2017 to gain the 55 votes of ratification it wants.

Unless the international community steps in before then to revoke the COP21 draft and end the stand-off Saudi Arabia are likely to murder a lot of people between now and April 2017.

Plus if we wait until COP23 at the end of 2017 to resume work on a functioning agreement it's going to be a challenge to have it ready in time to go into force by 2020.

17:15 on 21/1/16 (UK date). 

The Litvinenko, erm, Inquiry?!?

In late November 2010 the UK Queen recorded a Christmas message to her subjects in the Commonwealth. In this message she subtly boasted about how England had been awarded the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

However a few days later on December 2nd (2/12/10) FIFA awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia. This was of course hugely embarrassing to the UK Queen. So rather than taking up the option of simply re-recording the message the UK has had a vendetta against both Russia and FIFA ever since.

In late 2013/early 2014 vendettas against Russia became extremely fashionable. After all the west was supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) while Russia was opposing ISIL and getting to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. So the US overthrew the government of Russia's neighbour Ukraine - turning it into ISIL's Shamali (Northern) Province - to provide an excuse to sanction Russia.

The UK obviously didn't need much encouragement to join in so blew the dust off the case Alexander Litvinenko who died in 2006 of polonium poisoning. An at least triple agent working for Russia, American and British intelligence with a specialism for organised crime Litvinenko is the sort of man that a lot of people - including Britain - wanted dead.

However the UK decided that the political climate suited the entire thing being blamed on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

So in January 2015 the UK opened a public inquiry into the death. However this was a formal inquiry in name only and in practice was - rather like Shamali Province - simply a forum for anti-Russian dissidents to air their paranoid ramblings in public.

For example at no point during proceedings was either Russia or the men accused of carrying out the poisoning represented in any way at all.

One of the wildest claims the Litvinenko family lawyer made was that he could trace the polonium used back to a specific nuclear reactor within Russia.

If this inquiry was intended as a critical examination of the facts - as a public inquiry is supposed to be - then the presiding Judge - Sir Robert Owen - should have asked the lawyer to provide evidence to support his speculation or simply withdraw the claim. Sir Owen though decided to simply let the claim stand unchallenged.

Things descended beyond parody though when the Litvinenko lawyer claimed that the alleged killers had put the lives of hundreds of thousands of Londoners at risk by carrying radioactive polonium through the streets including to a football match.

Polonium emits what is known as alpha radiation. This does extremely horrible things to the soft tissues of the human body such as the blood. However like many other things that do horrible things to the inside of the human body such various forms of bacteria, virus', heavy metals such as lead and even rain-water alpha radiation is stopped by the human skin.

As such this claim of Londoners being put in danger is utter nonsense. It is also High School level physics. However Sir Owen did not pick up this and the claim went unchallenged.

Today Sir Richard Owen has concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin is personally responsible for Litvinenko's death. I don't think even Sir Owen expects his claim to be taken seriously.

The UK is currently trying to re-negotiate it's relationship with the European Union (EU) ahead of a promised referendum on the UK's continuing membership of the EU.

Over the years a significant point of friction between the EU and the UK has been the UK's treatment of me and in particular my grandmother.

Although I am adorable the EU's main cause for concern is that my grandmother's case went to Court numerous times including to Britain's highest court - the High Court where the Litvinenko case was held. At every stage those British Courts completely disregarded the law and simply returned the verdict the Crown had demanded.

When I was facing criminal proceedings in the summer of 2013 there were lots of complaints from tennis fans about the *ahem* "extremely slippery courts at the All England Club at Wimbledon."

Therefore the wild and unsubstantiated claims made Sir Owen today are not intended to be believed. Instead they are to highlight the credibility problem faced by Britain's politically biased legal system.

Although it's never been far away in Britain this issue was first raised yesterday with the Poppi Worthington case. Here a father essentially raped his 13 month old daughter to death. However the British Courts and police saw their role as covering up and destroying any evidence in order to prevent him being prosecuted for this crime.

Today's Litvinenko announcement has been accompanied by fresh revelations in the Jimmy Savile child abuse cover up.

The fact that the UK seems to enjoy child rape stories just that little bit too much is obviously also a point of friction with some of the EU's less pervy members.

The sanctions over Shamali Province is also a point of friction between the EU and the UK in its own right. It's clear that the Eurosceptic British MP's who constantly call for fresh EU sanctions on Russia are not doing so because they have a problem with Russia's behaviour or even out of particular support for ISIL. Instead they're doing so specifically to damage the Eurozone economy.

Obviously that hasn't gone down well with the nations that make up the Eurozone economy.

12:25 on 21/1/16 (UK date).

Boob Alert.

This is a bit of a detour I know. However with award season upon us I've got a nasty feeling it might come up on the test.

In response to the New Year's Eve (NYE) sex attacks in Cologne, Germany I highlighted attitudes towards sex and nudity as key difference between Arab and European societies. This is of course a discussion that Europe has every year during the Eurovision Song Contest.

Although due to the participation of Israel they opt not to take part the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) actually includes many conservative Arab nations such as Morocco, Algeria and even Syria. If a female performer appears with her hair, shoulders or arms exposed viewers in these nations would consider it something of a scandal.

At the other extreme you have nations such as Germany, France, Italy, Sweden etc. If a female performer were to appear completely nude these nations only complaint is likely to be that it seems like a cheap gimmick.

If the US were to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest it would probably find itself closer to nations like Morocco and Algeria than nations like Germany and Italy. The US of course is actually rather prudish when it comes to sex, nudity and even bad language and swearing.

On US TV sex and nudity is of course governed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and their much ridiculed "No nipples" rule. This determines whether content is sexual or not based on whether a specific piece of anatomy - the female nipple - is featured rather than a more general assessment of the context.

A show that I've noticed that seems to take great pleasure in making a mockery of the FCC rule is "The Americans." This often features where the man flips the woman on to her knees on the bed, hikes up her skirt and pulls down her panties. He then slams himself into her pert buttocks before she passionately cries for him to stop.

The context of this type of scene is clearly sexual. However because no nipples are featured the FCC does not consider it to be sexual.

Contrast this with a show like "Orange is the New Black (OINTB)" which is set in a women's prison and is broadcast on the Internet and therefore is not bound by FCC rules. Within the prison society one of the important locations is the showers. This is because it is one of the few areas where all the prisoners are forced to congregate together and the male guards are not allowed to enter.

As a result it is in the showers that much of the scheming and the confrontations take place. In the background of these scenes it's natural that there are nude women getting in and out of showers. However the context is completely non-sexual and if anything serves to highlight how prison dehumanises people by denying them even that small amount of privacy.

However because these scenes do feature nipples the FCC determines them to be sexual meaning that OITNB cannot be broadcast on US TV.

That said if I do have any complaint with OINTB in the first season they did rather get carried away with the fact that due to being broadcast on the Internet and therefore not covered by FCC rules they could get away with gratuitous and graphic sex scenes. That did sort of give me the urge to remind them that there is also an almost endless supply of hardcore pornography on the Internet. From OINTB I was hoping for a plot. Fortunately having recently watched the second season they do seem to have got over their excitement and toned it down.

The UK has traditionally sat between the US and nations such as Germany. The UK is still quite prudish with depictions of sex and nudity being restricted to after the 9PM watershed and seemingly rationed out so a single channel could probably only get away with it once a day. However in the UK there is an acceptance that to an audience of sexually active adults it is okay to acknowledge that adults do have sex and when they do they tend not to wear many clothes.

I think one show that really highlighted the differing attitudes between the US and the UK was a 2006 UK/US co-production called "The State Within." Coming just before the widespread use of digital broadcasting and catch-up services in the UK the British version of each episode was broadcast as normal during the week. Then late at night on the weekend the American version was broadcast as a sort of catch up.

In one episode there is a sex scene. In the British version this featured an actress briefly lying on her back on a bed with her breasts and nipples expose. In the American version is was the exact same thing only the actress was very theatrically covering her nipples with her fingertips. Watching the two versions back-to-back it was quite hard not to laugh at how little difference that made.

However over the past few years I've sort of noticed that UK broadcasters are becoming more prudish and more like the US when it comes to sex, nudity and swearing. I think there might be a number of reasons for this.

The main one seems to be that the UK is trying to sell more and more programing to the US market. As a result those shows have to abide by the FCC rules. At the same time more and more US shows are being sold to the UK making British audiences more prudish almost by default.

Then of course there is the Internet. Specifically Facebook's adoption of the FCC's no nipples rule. As Facebook is used globally this again this seems to be making the FCC rules the global rules.

Also I think the Internet does discourage actors from taking on roles that involve nudity. In the days before the Internet if an actor did a nude scene it would only really be viewed in a communal setting such as a cinema or a family living room and watched within the artistic context in which it was intended. The Internet has made it incredibly easy for sex and nudity with fictional works to be used as pornography.

For example within like a day of the film "50 Shades of Grey" being released someone had edited all the sex scenes together in a montage and put it up on the Internet. Even I found that a bit creepy.

British TV's new found prudishness really came to a head in 2015 with several BBC dramas that were all billed as the most raunchy and sexually explicit shows ever broadcast on TV. However none of them had any sex or nudity in them whatsoever.

The first of these was a show called "Poldark." I didn't watch this but I gather the most sexy thing that happened is that a man cut some grass with his shirt off. Under UK broadcasting rules this is the sort of thing you can show in the middle of the day in a show aimed at children.

There was also a show called "The Scandalous Lady W." This was the telling of a true story from 18th century British high society. It centres around the marriage of Lady Seymour Worsley who rapidly discovers that her new husband - Sir Richard Worsley - is a voyeur who can only become sexually aroused by watching other people have sex. As a result he forces Lady Seymour to have sex with various different men for his pleasure.

Eventually Lady Seymour left Sir Richard and ran away with another man - Captain George Bisset. Sir Richard then sues Captain Bisset for stealing his property. As their defence Lady Seymour regales the Court with the sordid details of every sexual encounter Sir Richard forced her to engage in. This caused a huge scandal at the time with every torrid detail being reported in the press and gossipped about widely throughout the land.

Therefore the issue of sex and sexuality is central to the story and the program makers had a fantastic opportunity to say interesting things about the 18th century attitude of women as property and the way that in prudish societies these salacious stories draw huge audience. For example by far and away the most read post I've ever written was entitled "Hayley Atwell's Boobs."

Unfortunately due to the BBC's new found prudishness The Scandalous Lady W was forced to tell this story almost without mentioning sex. As a result they resorted to this strange narrative device that involved some parts of the story being told in the present time before switching to a flashback and then to flashforwards before returning to the present time.

This left the entire program feeling like an really annoying waste of time.

The one that really annoyed by though was "Life in Squares." This told the true story of what is known as the Bloomsbury Group of artists including Virginia Woolf. Knowing that one of the characters - Duncan Grant - was a gay man I decided to record the opening episode and sort of skim through it before deciding to sit down to watch it with my father. I needn't have bothered because the most explicit scene involved two shirtless men lying down on a bed together.

As I was really busy at the time it was broadcast I didn't get the chance to watch the opening episode properly before the third let alone the second episode was shown. As a result I just gave up on it.

It's against this backdrop of increased prudishness that the BBC's adaptation of "War & Peace" has caused something of a repressed stirring amongst certain British newspapers. This adaptation not only includes sexual themes and sex scenes but also nudity including female nipples.

However from the way the nudity is used you suspect that someone is playing a game. In the opening episode the nudity appears only in the background of a group scene which is almost a dream sequence used to illustrate an alcohol fuelled rampage. This is obviously easy to edit out without altering the story. However in a later episode one of the lead character's nipples appear in a dialogue scene which is much harder to edit out.

This adaptation has already been sold to the US market where it will be appear on not one but three networks. As such it does seem like the BBC is using it to trying an probe differing attitudes to sex and nudity amongst different US broadcasters.

Interestingly this adaptation of War & Peace can trace its roots back to the 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Sochi, Russia. The main theme of that ceremony was "Russia: There for hundreds of years before Communism. Still here afterwards." Supported by a number of factual documentaries on Russian history War & Peace is set towards the end of Tsarist rule and helps set the scene for the Communist revolution of 1917.

On the topic of the visual arts everybody's favourite popstar Rihanna is currently in Paris, France shooting scenes for her role in Luc Besson's upcoming movie "Valerian." Given what Paris has had to put up with recently in terms of terrorist attacks and the COP21 Summit this strikes me as unnecessarily spiteful.

However being somewhat familiar with the logistics of movie making I am inclined to give Besson the benefit of the doubt. After all this was likely put in motion long before the plan for the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres had even been conceived of.

That said though the fact that Besson is not only relying on the star power of Rihanna but also of British model/nuisance Cara Delevinge suggests that Valerian could end up being more than a little thin. I think the best we can hope for is a repeat of Besson's 1997 "The Fifth Element" which was very highly stylised if very silly.

If you have seen The Fifth Element you will of course have seen Milla Jovovich's boobs. However it's much less likely you seen some of her photographs because it turns out this former model is actually a highly accomplished photographer. If you're British the main trauma of the Jennifer Lawrence nude photos scandal was the realisation that Nicholas Hoult will never work in the visual arts ever again.

Leonardo DiCaprio has also been in Paris recently promoting "The Revenant" for which he is hotly tipped to win an Oscar. So hotly tipped in fact there is a Spanish statement that has been translated into English then into French and finally into Italian which says simply; "No the bear didn't rape him. It's a female bear called Miranda."

The fact that DiCaprio has decided to linger in Paris before travelling to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Switzerland seems to have reignited rumours that he is dating Rihanna. These rumours have largely been started by The Sun newspaper in the UK who in the past few months have claimed that Rihanna's dating everyone including Lewis Hamilton, Travis Scott and the Weeknd who will be the support act on her upcoming tour to name but a few.

Back in the days when they used to put topless women on page three the trick wasn't to believe these sort of stories in The Sun but to work out what point they were trying to make in the telling of the lie. However this particular rumour has also been picked up by the UK's Daily Mail/MailOnline newspaper who not only changed the location of the alleged liaison but claimed they had photographs of it that French privacy laws were preventing them from publishing.

This prompted France to set fire to the Ritz Hotel in Paris yesterday (19/1/16) to confirm that Rihanna and DiCaprio had indeed been in the same city at the same time.

After all that's apparently a lot easier than Rihanna simply picking up the phone or perhaps releasing an album.

17:30 on 20/1/16 (UK date).