ACOMSDave

Community Journalist

Amal Clooney Transcript of UN Speech on Trump and Journalism | Time

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Source: Amal Clooney Transcript of UN Speech on Trump and Journalism | Time

I am writing as a community journalist, who in the past along with Sean McGoruan and others have tried to write and reflect about the LGBTQ community in Northern Ireland.  There were times when it felt an uphill struggle, as we fought censorship and bureaucracy, not to mention the establishment.

We wrote about murders, about police sting operations, about AIDS.

Even today we still have to write about homophobia, how the ‘lockdown’ has and is affecting people; but we are lucky now to not have people thrown into prison without trial.  Though I must say that the government’s current stance on ‘gay cure’ therapy beggars belief – is the Prime Minister trying to go back to the days of Margaret Thatcher?

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney’s speech is thought-provoking, and also worrying, because only this morning I re-published on the NIGRA website about  the film ‘

Welcome to Chechnya: The Gay Purge, review: a heart-stopping account of those fleeing persecution

which was shown on BBC TV this week

Take time to read the articles and watch the film, if you haven’t already.  YOu won’t’ be disappointed.

Third Man Out

By

   
Title Third Man Out
Place Albany area
Publication date 1992
Pages 173
Price £9.00 pb
Author Richard Stevenson
Publisher Harrington Park Press
Edition  
Special features (maps, etc.)  
ISBN 978-1-56023-656-6
Third Man Out

The ‘Third man Out’ reads like a bad headline in a tabloid about a cricket match at Lords: thankfully however Richard Stevenson’s, Donaly Strachey mystery, is anything but!

The story centres around the ethical question and decision of whether gay activists should “Out” closeted public figures, and in particular those who do damage to the LGBT community through actions or inaction.

I am not a philosophy major, and after the numerous newspaper articles showing high profile figures being caught literally with their fingers, if not something else, in the cookie jar, I will leave the rights or wrongs of “outing” to you as an individual.

But back to the story: it is a story set in the broadest terms of a gay community, with a loosely classified reporter being killed (murdered) for running an outing column.  Enter Don Strachey, whose similarity to the creations of writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane is compelling.  Strachey cannot be ignored, as with so many noir detectives. The story noir has all the integral parts, murder, mystery, lies, cheating, big wigs, little wigs – apart from the central them of the story being set in ‘gay and’, it could be an offshoot of the Big Sleep.

There is for a change a non-stupid police chief, who uses Strachey to do his hunting, and of course, the insurance payout.

Set within the story are the second thread, that of a gay man dying from AIDs, and of his family and his lover.  This story is tangential and apart from Strachey and his partner/lover has little impact on the main crime.  But what it does show is AIDs at that time, people’s understanding of the disease and its impact and also a moral decision that may have to be taken.

Of course, just like those great noir detectives of old, Strachey solves the crime and the murder, for they are two different things.

I am not going to give away the ending.  You are invited to read a well-crafted story with believable characters, and I will be looking for the other books and also for the movies now available on DVD with Chad Allen as the lead.

Third Man Out

Links:

Wikipedia – Noir Fiction

The Collini Case – Book Review

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Title The Collini Case
Place West Germany
Publication date 4th July 2013
Pages PB 208
Price PB £7.18
Author Ferdinand von Sabruch
Publisher Penquin
Edition  
Special features (maps, etc.)  
ISBN  978-0718159207

Firstly I must note my self-interest in legal stories, and ‘The Collini Case’ delivers for me in every way. whether it be in book form, TV, radio or movie. 

I remember watching Perry Mason, The Defenders, and lately (ITV Series taken from USA).  But also The Client by ….. Grisham which I read as a book and then watched as a movie and TV series.

I am also an ardent fan of police/detective procedural, having read the Moonstone when I was 8 years old, all of Sherlock Holmes, and most of John Buchan’s books; never mind the various police TV series over the years.

Yes I love the law, but I am not a lawyer/solicitor/or policeman!

So when I picked up this book, ‘The Collini Case’ second hand in a charity shop for £0.50, it was firstly because it was about the law, more specifically the law in Germany; and that it was about the second World War, the Nazi and economic regime over that period, and the fall out after the war, and it was about people.

The people are easily defined:

  • the lawyer
  • the murderer
  • the murdered person
  • the love interest
  • The mentor (?)

The law in this case is that of the law in Germany following reunification of West and East Germany.  The German legal system is that of civil law which is founded on the principles laid out by the ‘Basic Law for the Federal Map of Germany, … but many of the most important laws were developed prior to the 1949 constitution.  It is comprised of ‘public law’ which regulates the relationship between a citizen/person and the state…  This area of law has also been subject to a wide array of influence from Roman Law to Napoleonic law.

I have already mentioned the main characters in general terms, the story is relatively simple; ‘a man walks into a hotel and kills another man.  The murderer is a well-respected Mercedes-Benz worker, Fabrizio Collini – a man of unblemished record, and with no apparent reason for committing the murder. He doesn’t run away but refuses to defend himself to the police.  His lawyer, assigned by the court, gets nowhere with him, and even though he is almost concerned with ‘just’ doing his job, he follows his legal nose, discovers his client’s past and therefore his reason for the murder and then he has to put together a mechanism for the prosecution to introduce the evidence so that he has the right of rebuttal.

Apart from the initial murder, there is no further ‘American’ style action.  It is a story about thinking, about research and also about the good, old-fashioned dogged investigation.

The sting in the tale is the impact that this story had on the German legal system and the German government after its publication.  The outcry over ‘war criminals’ escaping justice led to the German government reviewing its legal system.

Links:

  1. Amazon: The Collini Case
  2. Cineuropa trailer:

The Waiting Time – Book Review

By

The Waiting Time - Gerald Seymour
The past brings a Cold Front –
The Waiting Time
Title The Waiting Time
Place Europe including the United Kingdom
Publication date 1998
Pages Large format 389
Price £9.99
Author Gerald Seymour
Publisher Bantam Press
Edition
Special features (maps, etc.)
ISBN 0593042492

The Waiting Time, by Gerald Seymour, is about the past, yet it is set in today. It is about a murder during the time of the ‘cold war’, when East and West were jockeying for position and power. It happens before the ‘wall’ comes down and reunification of West and West Germany, but we follow the four main characters of Dieter Krause, Tracy Burns, Albert Perkins, and Josh Mantle through their trials and tribulations as one is chasing to prevent the truth coming out, and one is searching for evidence of the truth, and one is looking for redemption, and one is being puppet master.

This is not a whodunit as we already know who got killed, and where, and when, and by whom! It is an exploration of stamina and willpower to continue with all the odds appearing to be against you, and that includes governmental agencies.

As with most stories, yu develop a sympathy for some of the characters, what is unusual in this story, is that you have sympathy for both the hunter and the prey. The hunter is trying to protect his past and his future, whilst the prey is trying to let go of the past and to pay homage. The two ancillary characters have their own motives and it is interesting to see how they play out against each other.

I would recommend reading ‘The Waiting Time, by Gerald Seymour. It is not an easy read, but it is one which engages and which is definitely worth persevering with.

Links:

  1. Amazon – The Waiting Time
  2. Gerald Seymour at Amazon