On the 23 October 2007 episode of RTÉ’s The View (watch it here), hosted by the excellent John Kelly, I joined Hugh Linehan of the Irish Times and Izabela Chudzicka of City Channel to offer my completely unqualified opinions about books and films.

We watched Michael Moore’s “Sicko” - and I apparently surprised people by pointing out that a broken clock is right twice a day. Moore’s tendency to overstate and hog the screen is less on display here than in his other movies. His paean to the health services of the UK, France and Cuba is the movie’s weakness - particularly his fellating of Castro’s health services.
But his call for socialised medicine/universal healthcare probably suffers from being, ironically, too mainstream. For 10 years GM spent more on worker-health-care than steel to produce an average car. Ask the CEOs of GM or Chrysler if they’d take socialised medicine and see what they say in 2007? Ageing workers become a competitive disadvantage (versus younger, healthier workers at Toyota and Honda plants in the US) when you have to foot the bill.

David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises” was the other film - a London Russian “Godfather” with that infamous bathhouse fight scene. Personally I was more freaked out by the “professional processing” of the film’s first murder victim, but I can see how the sight of Viggo Mortenson’s wobbly bits in close proximity to a sharp knife has caused some visceral discomfort.

Glenn Patterson’s the third party was the book. Northern Irish writer goes to Hiroshima, should be shamed out of any idea he’s a member of the MOPE (most oppressed people ever), but mainly moans about being a NI writer - which I can’t recommend.
Then again, when you start out a book set in Hiroshima with a vision of an eagle flying over the city at dawn, you’re not exactly being subtle with metaphor, are you?

“Paintings from Poland” - National Gallery, Merrion Square - through 28 January - Speaking of somewhat less than subtle…visiting this exhibition was a real treat. But the Symbolist movement couldn’t have been accused of much subtlety either, on the whole. Lots of images of the 16th century court jester Stanczyk, famously pictured as he learns of the fall of Smolensk to the Russians - and the imminent dismemberment of Poland. The Partridges (pictured) by Jozef Chelmonski being a lot more subtle and poignant.

Izabela makes an interesting point - the collection gives Polish people in Dublin a chance to see paintings they studied in school but might never have a chance otherwise to see in person. I don’t know enough about Polish art to judge the curation, but I did wish we had a chance to get further into a discussion about whether the swift move - after Polish independence - from heavy-handed nationalist symbolism in art to more abstract expressionist ideas in touch with European movements was fairly drawn. Did Polish art really move that quickly after Independence? Or is there a read-through of a contrast with the Irish experience?