新年开始选举话题又起，一篇最新的泰晤士报分析，备读。米利班接受BBC采访。

 

 

最近一直觉得脑子有个念头，今晚才想起来，是查一下《得克萨斯的巴黎》的介绍，Paris,Texas。找到了男主角的剧照，如图。另外，今天守着小朋友又看了一部ITV的电影，对导演的访谈如下。一位朋友在<<城市画报>>工作，现在去北京了，他是在新西兰读书回去的，也许知道这个导演。

Director Roger Donaldson has had a long, productive career, featuring such glossy Hollywood productions as No Way Out (1987), Cocktail (1988), Species (1995), Thirteen Days (2000), and The Recruit (2003). He got started in faraway New Zealand, back when there was no film industry there to speak of. When Donaldson directed Sam Neill in both their feature debut Sleeping Dogs (1977), a political drama set in the near-future, it was the first feature film made in New Zealand in about fifteen years, and also the first one to open in the United States. Later Donaldson he came to the United States himself, directing a mind-boggling cast in The Bounty (1984), including Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Daniel Day Lewis, Liam Neeson, Edward Fox of Gandhi and Day of the Jackal, and Bernard Hill of Titanic and The Lord of the Rings.

A man named Burt Munro inspired Donaldson to make movies. In 1971 Donaldson, who is a motorcycle fanatic, went to remote Invercargill (the southernmost town in New Zealand) to visit a local eccentric. He'd heard Munro had a motorbike that held the land speed record and wanted to see it. Two years later, Donaldson had visited the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah with Munro for a racing event called Speed Week, and finished a documentary for New Zealand television called “Offerings to the God of Speed.” With The World's Fastest Indian, starring Anthony Hopkins, Donaldson goes back to the beginning of his career, writing and directing a feature film about his original source of inspiration Burt Munro. In Los Angeles, Donaldson talked about making the film and how Anthony Hopkins and he managed to establish a friendship after their notorious feud on the set of The Bounty.

---

AboutFilm: You've said that you have a lot of passion for this character. Can you talk about your sources?

Donaldson: This movie encapsulates my whole filmmaking career, really. This movie started out as a documentary that I made at the very beginning of my career. It was one of the first films I made. I made a documentary about the real guy this film is inspired by. It was one of my first trips to America and I came here with Burt Munro, myself, and my co-filmmaker. We went with him to Bonneville and followed along behind him and tried to keep up, and made this little naïve mini-documentary on him, mostly on a hand-wind Bolex [camera]. Then years later I'm making feature films. I never thought I was ever going to do that. It was never even an ambition, let alone a reality. But when I did start making films I remembered Burt. He was this extraordinary character. I guess it was the potential of making a film about the link between the place I had come from, New Zealand, which is very different to America, and then my experience with coming to America, which is a Mecca for people to come and do something that you can't do anywhere else in the world. For me it was filmmaking, and for Burt it was to get to the Bonneville Salt Flats where they have a yearly event where people try and set land-speed records. America is a place where things happen that don't tend to happen anywhere else in the world. I think that was what my fascination with making this film was. It came out of my experience personally with coming to America.

Question: You filmed during Speed Week. Was it difficult filming during the actual event?

Donaldson: No, it was a help because many of the cars are still relevant to today. They upgrade the engines, but the exteriors are still the same. They were on one track and we made another track parallel to it so the real event was happening there with Burt Munro's name still in their record book—and their program actually—and we were running a replica event next door to it.

Question: Was the Burt Munro as friendly and open as Anthony Hopkins played him?

Donaldson: Yes. That was the part of the character and the real story that I found most appealing, and was why I wanted to make a movie about him. It wasn't really that he rode a motorbike and set a land-speed record. He had this amazingly outgoing, positive quality about him. The word “no” was not in his dictionary. He did have his heart problems, and he'd fallen on his head many times and had lots of accidents, and the bike was always blowing up, but he didn't let that get in the way. He knew where he was going, and he just loved being on that bike, and he loved tinkering away with it. When we were making the film, the shed that he lived in—what we built was a replica of what he really lived in—all the pieces in that shed in our movie are the bits that were in his original shed. They were all bits that he handmade.

He was living in this shed. I think he was going to build a new house, so he built a garage and moved into that, but for twenty years never built the house. I know the local town planning people would come around every month and say, “Burt, when are you going to start your house? You're not allowed to live in a shed.” So he always told them, “Yeah, I'll start it next week.” He didn't even have water on the property. He collected rain water off the roof. Before I'd met him he'd obviously been married, because he's got four kids who are still alive. They're in their seventies and eighties now.

Question: Have any of his kids seen the film?

Donaldson: Yes, they've all seen it. In fact, we had this amazing event in New Zealand, which we billed as the world premiere, in this town of Invercargill. They had renovated a beautiful three-story opera house in this town. They took out some seats and put a movie projector into the cinema. The guys who set up The Lord of the Rings premiere down in New Zealand put in the sound system, and it was a fantastic sound system. We had forty of Burt's descendants come to the screening, and the prime minister flew in. I don't know where they got so much red carpet from. They paved the street in red carpet. It was an event like I've never had for a premiere. It was amazing.

Question: What did the children think of the movie?

Donaldson: They loved the movie. Maybe they were embarrassed to see that grandpa was a bit of a womanizer, but I think the word was out already!

Question: He seemed a bit eccentric and naïve—

Donaldson: He was. I think part of his naïveté was that he came from a very isolated part of the world. In New Zealand, especially the bottom part of it in the 1960s, the closest place to it is Antarctica. He was naïve. I think it was that naïve quality that allowed him to do what he did do. He would go where others wouldn't go. I remember him telling me a great story; it was a pity I couldn't put it in the movie. He was driving along past Edwards Air Force base, and he sees a big sign, “Welcome to Edwards Air Force Base,” so he assumes, “Well, that means me.” So he just drives on through the gate and for some reason they didn't stop him, or he got past without the guard seeing him. So he's now out on the edge of the runway. He'd heard they had this rocket plane called the X15 at the time. So he said he thought he might look for it. Sure enough, there's the X15 about to do a takeoff run. He got his camera out; he was there on the edge of the runway taking pictures of it, and all these cops turned up and arrested him. They kept him for three days before they let him go and decided he wasn't a spy. This is a true story. That's the craziness of this guy. I've got a hundred stories like that.

Question: Is the scene where the cop pulls him over on the highway when he's riding a his bike based on reality?

Donaldson: Yes, it was.

Question: How about the transvestite story?

Donaldson: The transvestite story was an amalgamation of stories, some of my own, coming to Hollywood early on, and characters that he had known. One thing I was looking to do with that scene is that Burt had a wonderful quality about him where he was color-blind. He didn't see race or religion or anything. To tell the story nowadays where not only is the guy black, but a transsexual, the real Burt would have been exactly like this character was. He would have treated him normally.

Question: Did the Indian company support this film?

Donaldson: No, the Indian company has recently been bought and sold. In fact myself and my co-producer were interested in buying the company, but we were too late by a few days. It had already been sold to another group of investors.

AboutFilm: What kind of budget did you have?

Donaldson: Fifteen [million].

AboutFilm: Did you have to stretch, or were you comfortable?

Donaldson: Every movie is always a stretch. You never have enough money, and this movie I made as if I was making a studio picture. Everybody made the movie for scale and we stretched our dollar. This would have cost forty or fifty million if we had done it in the studio system without changing a thing. My co-producer and me worked hard. We did the movie for nothing, and Anthony helped us out. Everybody contributed.

Question: What would have been your Plan B if it had rained during Speed Week at the Salt Flats?

Donaldson: There was no Plan B. Sometimes you can only hope for the best because if the worst happens, the movie is over. It would have been the end of the movie, as it was planned anyway. I don't know what we could have done. In fact, on the very last day of shooting, it rained and flooded the Salt Flats and it was over. It literally spread our set over fifty square miles. It took weeks to find it all. There were hurricane force winds out there and inches of rain. We had finished that day. That was the first part of the shoot. Maybe we were smart scheduling it first, so if we were wiped out there we would have canceled the rest of the movie. We did two weeks at Bonneville. We shot the first two thirds in America, then we moved to New Zealand and did a third down there.

Question: What deleted scenes will be in the DVD?

Donaldson: There was a scene we cut out when he goes to a hospital when he has a heart attack. They check him out and they say, “You're really sick. You've got to stay in the hospital.” He says, “Well, how much is it going to cost?” They say forty dollars a day or something. So he says, “I'll die in my car,” and off he went. We shot the scene but it didn't make the movie—it slowed things down at that point. There was another scene we show where he blew the radiator hose after he lost the wheel. So he just blocked the whole road with his vehicle so that nobody could get past. An eighteen wheeler comes by and he stops it and says, “I'm hitching a lift.” The guy says, “What are you doing blocking the road?” and he says, “Because we've got to take the whole lot.” The next scene showed him towing the bike and the trailer and so forth.

Question: Was Anthony Hopkins your first choice?

Donaldson: Yes. I think it's one of those things that in retrospect I realize there was nobody else that could do it, especially nobody else that the world would be interested in. Trying to find an actor of his age, with his box office potential and appeal—the list is a list of one.

Question: When you worked with Anthony Hopkins before, there are some stories about some friction between you?

Donaldson: It's no secret that Anthony and I were ready to kill each other when we were doing The Bounty. It was a really tough movie to make. I guess in retrospect, I realize how much it takes to produce a performance like he did with William Bligh. You can't just take that character and do it that convincingly and not become a little bit like that yourself as you're doing it. We were shooting in the tropics for ten weeks and he was wearing his blue navy woolen uniform done up to the neck every day. It was 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity, and everybody was getting seasick on the boat and being sick. It was like the real Bounty. And then years later we saw each other again and we realized we were both pretty proud of that movie and that it was one of the most memorable movies we'd been involved in, so we became friends again. It's hard to believe it, and I don't know how it happened, but now we are just best of friends.

Question: When was Burt Munro's first record set?

Donaldson: The record that he broke and still stands was set in 1967.

Question: When is the movie set?

Donaldson: In 1962, even though I never mention the year or show any cars [from the period]. That was the first year he went [to Bonneville]. That was visually determined by the shape of the tail of his motorbike. After 1962 he changed the shape of the tail. He set a record then, but the record that still stands was not set then. It was set later. He kept upping the record and he also changed the capacity of the engine, so he held records in different classes as well. The one he set for streamline motorcycles under 1000 cc is the one that still stands, and that was set in 1967.

Question: How old was he in 1962?

Donaldson: The real guy would have been sixty-four.

Question: He died in 1978, right?

Donaldson: Right. What I did with the movie, and what Tony's done with the character, is take the character I knew in my documentary. When I knew him he was 72, and that's the character we really put on screen, even though the motorcycle is an earlier motorcycle.

Question: Would he have been amused by this film?

Donaldson: He would have loved it. He wasn't shy about publicity. He wasn't a bragger, but he wasn't shy to tell you what he's done either. He didn't feel like he was bragging. He would just tell you the facts.

Question: With all the stories, it seems like this guy's life would make a great television series.

Donaldson: It would. He kept coming back year after year and every time he had stories. He had hundreds of stories. One of the characters, Marty Dickerson, is still alive, who in the film was played by Walton Goggins, who's in “The Shield.” Marty came out to the Salt Flats and he had some pretty risqué stories! Burt was no saint, that's all I know.

Question: Did he retire?

Donaldson: He retired by dropping dead. He died of a heart attack and pneumonia.

Question: Where is the motorcycle now?

Donaldson: The engine is in New Zealand. When we made the movie we built two exact replicas of the real bike, and then we built two replicas where the exterior looks the same, but the engine is different, so we had four bikes. The original engine of the original bike is in New Zealand, and the frame is here in America.

Question: How many times did he go to the Bonneville Salt Flats?

Donaldson: He went nine times, I think. I think 1974 was the last time.

Question: Did he remember to register after that?

Donaldson: I'm sure he did. They weren't going to let him run, and then they said they would give him a handling run just to appease him. They thought his bike was a joke, really, and thought he was a bit of a joke as well. He was just like he is in the movie, a naïve simpleton sort of character. They said they would give him a handling run to prove he could keep it upright, and he just opened it up as in the movie and took off. They let him ride it, and he did set a record on the first run. What in reality he had to do was set the record in two different directions, and it's a story that goes on and on. He did the fastest time in the wrong mile and then he crashed the motorbike as he does in the movie and burned himself as in the movie. In the interest of telling the story we had to compress it.

Question: Did he really go 200 miles per hour?

Donaldson: With his character it's hard to find the difference between the fact and the fiction. I've seen reports he did 206 miles per hour and others that said 213. I honestly don't know what the real facts are. I just know what I saw, which was that the bike went very fast and he was pretty crazy.

Question: Are you into motorcycles yourself?

Donaldson: I am. I've always been into moving fast myself. I don't know why. I guess I do know why, I had a grandfather who was a doctor who was crazy about motorcars and going as fast as he could go. He inflicted that on my father who passed the disease on to me. I'll pass it on to my kids now I guess.

Question: What do you have now?

Donaldson: Right now I have this crazy little car called a Suburu WRX STi. It's a little rocket machine, and then also a family car. I don't have any motorbikes now. I sold my motorbikes when my kids started to show an interest in them, but I think it's time to get another one.

AboutFilm: Which of your Hollywood films are you proudest of?

Donaldson: Someone was asking me that the other day. I have eight kids and if someone asked which was my favorite I would have to say honestly they are all different and I love them all. I think that's pretty much the way I feel about all my movies. Each one represents a large chunk of my life. They are very different movies. If you compare Cocktail and Species to Thirteen Days and this movie, they are very different movies. Yet they all found their audience and their fans and their detractors. I'm personally proud of all of them. I've never done a movie that I didn't come to it believing in it and trying hard to make a great movie out of it. Sometimes the critics love you, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes the audience loves you, and sometimes they ignore you. For me filmmaking is the experience of making the film. It's hard to have a preference about which movie you think is the best movie, because they are so different.

Question: What is next?

Donaldson: I honestly have no idea. I started reading scripts really in the last few weeks.

BBC China专栏

 

我有一个表哥，酷爱摄影，他说乐趣之一就是观察光线的变化，每天固定一个时刻，拍同样的风景，日积月累，能够看到光线之美。我是个没有耐心的人，无法抓住一张照片长短的瞬间，能让我有所感的时段至少以天计，比如每年中特殊的日子，串起来，看看自己若干年的变化，比如圣诞节。

 

 

一个人的巴黎

 

在英国的第一个圣诞节，和很多学生一样，我一个人跑到了法国。走之前，我在伦敦买了一对英国青花瓷杯，送给我的舅舅。这位舅舅基本生活在我童年的记忆里，因为他很早去了巴黎谋生，留下小表哥成为我童年的玩伴。那次相逢，我有这极大地期待，不是因为巴黎，而是因为两代人，分别在海外两地谋生，能够在圣诞节重逢，我们都是基督徒家庭的人。

 

舅舅看到我很开心，我帮他装上了视频MSN，他和温州的兄弟姐妹通话，然后我就不客气地一杯接一杯地喝红酒。在漫长的法国假期，我基本上熬夜看电视，虽然听不懂，但是法语强烈的音节性，好似鼓点一样，让人振奋，熬到凌晨四点，法国电视台已经没有节目可以播，就转播香榭丽舍大街上的交通状况，我看着车的尾灯串成光流，而大灯从强烈刺眼，随着到天明的到来，逐渐淡去，和周围的亮度逐渐协调，我努力辨别出大街上的夜行人，我突然告诉自己，哦，这就法国，然后就混混沉沉睡到下午四点。

 

这么些年后，我突然和一个朋友谈起那次法国之行。朋友说他曾在巴黎三天，就在卢浮宫待了三天。我说自己是最后几天，才想起去卢浮宫看了一下。我还记得孤星手册（Lonely Planet）上特别提醒，逛博物馆最好穿上软底鞋，因为比较累。朋友大骂我暴殄天物。我却分明记得，自己是近乎炫耀地谈论这段浪费之旅，自己在巴黎浪费的两周假期，除了看听不懂的电视和日夜颠倒的觉，以及去了一次迪斯尼乐园，我只想起那扇摇柄的卷帘窗，摇下来，就把外面光线，分不清楚白天还是黑夜。三年后，我一次去日内瓦旅游，发现当地旅馆也有这样的带摇柄的窗子。

 

其实，我知道自己炫耀的原因。去法国之前，我潜意识里已经把巴黎当作自己人，有亲戚在那里。虽然人们抱怨法国人傲慢排外，小气懒惰，故意不说英语，但是没有关系，我不介意，我可以变得他们一样，不管对外国人，还是对自己人，傲慢挑剔，也歧视别人，所谓的懒惰，就是我法国表哥说的，番人（温州话对外国人的用词）一杯咖啡可以喝一下午，不想做工挣钱，这个我也可以做到。总之，我不想只是去过哪里，，把一次旅行当作珍贵的回忆，我只想待在那里，成为那里的一部分。我要像一个北京土著一样，饭后看看《北京晚报》上有没有双安商场微波炉打折的消息，根本不在乎这辈子有没有去过颐和园，或者要不要去爬一次长城，当一次外地来的好汉。

 

对巴黎是这样，圣诞节也是如此。

 

打折的圣诞节

 

之后的圣诞节，我都是在英国过的。2004年的那次，我得了重感冒，发高烧。躺在临街的床上，暖气很足，体内又是高温，一开始，让我从里到外，都感到节日的温暖。但是后来心情突然变得很糟。那一天我都躺在床上，没有出门，我把电视从头到尾看了一遍，那么多的牌子，我居然不知道，比如homebase，Debenham, House of Frazer, dfs，PCworld,Curry,H&M，M&S，Dreams等等。

 

那些折扣，剧烈地刺痛了我的心。第一，我发现自己是这么的穷，尤其是到了圣诞节的时候，几乎没有什么钱，第二，更可恨的是，这个时候东西是这么的便宜；第三，环睹四壁，这个租来的家是如此的小，即使有钱，也放不下，我想要的沙发、大床，壁炉，精致的厨房。总而言之，一个家都没有的人，圣诞节简直就是一封红色标签的信封，以为是礼物，拆开来了才发现是律师函讨债信。

 

最初的圣诞节，让我感到沮丧，在心里留下来一道痕迹。在中国的时候，除了听母亲说一下教堂圣诞的情形，我从来不随喜和同学去教堂唱叮叮当，也故意把别人给我的圣诞祝福，拖后几天，回复一句“新年快乐”。我接受不了在中国过圣诞节的时候，是民族主义情绪在作怪？也许，或许仅仅因为我还不习惯用中文说“圣诞快乐”，我不愿意迁就一份不和胃口的二道子西餐消费一份还算朴素的宗教情感。而今，我却在英国被圣诞所困扰，因为与巴黎一样，我生活就在此地，是如此急切地想成为这里的一部分。

 

随后的几年里，圣诞节慢慢成为我的节日。2005年圣诞节，我有了家，冷冷清清的客厅里，我特地放上了一棵圣诞树，掉下来的松针，让自己花了好久才清除干净；2006年的圣诞节，我们去了爱丁堡，住在爱丁堡城堡下的青年旅社，青年旅社特有的廉价、生分、拮据，又迫使自己缩到房间里看电视。值得庆幸的是，平安夜我们穿过半个城市，去一个朋友家吃饭，爱丁堡的苦寒与夜雾，一路伴随，却让人感到亲切，激发出一个需要圣诞节的感觉；2007年圣诞节，我们有了朋友来做客，我把家里壁炉边上的绿瓷砖擦亮，喷上mulled wine气味的香薰。

 

越来越多10月底或者11月初的时候，我就希望天气再冷一些，树叶掉的再快一些，因为平安夜和圣诞节感觉会来的更快一些。布里斯托路边树上缠上雪白小灯泡的时候，我就会去自己喜欢的商店，计算一下买一个不错面包罐需要多少钱，一套希区柯克的DVD会不会打折。圣诞节的shopping依然是一个巨大的经济问题，摆在我的面前，但是我却感到一点点购物的乐趣。在平安夜那天，我会摆上几瓶酒或者ale，花一个下午的时间，烘烤自己喜欢的羊肉，如果允许，拿出曾经是圣诞礼物的烟斗，放上从老式烟店买的烟丝，在微醺之后，看着烟雾在灯光下弥散开。

 

如今，圣诞节的冷冷清清，成为我心中最值得期待的一天，因为根据这四年的观察，圣诞节那天，英国的天气特别晴好，街道异常的清爽，商店都关门，路上没有太多的行人和汽车。我知道，他们都回家了，我留下来，要成为这里的一部分。

 

如果关注BBC最两年走向，似乎越加商业化，比如网站更新、新闻链接尝试、iplayer推出，最近特地发布维珍推出高速接入服务，感觉背后两家似乎有交易，有兴趣的媒体可以深挖一下。

奥运前、地震时候，BBC受到中国读者的批评。但是对BBC的价值观，我依然是支持和信任。不过，作为一家英国国有公共媒体，在一些报道和分析的遣词造句上，还是有自己的情绪在其中，又在文章中被平衡化解掉，这点和中国官媒追求的宣传功能和战斗性有不同，所谓“文攻武卫”，汉语能够找到其合适方式，显出鲜明的风格。和做人一样，在某些方面，我们还是比较情绪化，自己怎么爱别人的，希望别人怎么也爱自己。不像英国人，特别是在政治上，呈现出私生活和公共态度的人格分裂状态，冷漠而忍耐，可以把人杀死了，又还会惺惺相惜装，出席葬礼念悼词。

 

BBC这篇分析的导语：It is a sign of the times that security has been increased at Reykjavik's small Parliament building, from one policeman to three. 对冰岛挑战Great Britain的姿态，讽刺十足，这样的文字更加适合private eye。实际上，如果每天有心读一些新闻，这样的BBC新闻体，可以找到一些感觉。

 

此例子送给批评BBC不客观的读者。

 

 

 

 

 

一直不好意思用英文写评论，对自己的英语很是不自信。我的确在语言方面有点特殊的困难，比如，至今我的英语拼写还是有很多问题，我能够看懂的单词比说对的多，想表达的感觉又比知道的单词多。这种写作上的挫折感，很像自己过去写中文。上次听了张戎女士讲座，看到几个朋友议论，同时朋友给我一份伯明翰大学校刊Redbrick写了一篇feature，于是我打算在离开伯明翰之前留下点什么，就用英文写了一份读者来信给他们。

 

I am a research fellow in School of Psychology. It is very interesting to read A nation divided (28^th, November) on Redbrick. I have attended in this lecture and still remember Ricky Jeffrey asked the last excellent question about Bertrand Russell’s comment on China. However, Dr. Chang missed his point and made me quite disappointed.

 

On the feature, I am impressed Ricky mentioned he has visited China and found Mao’s politics gone. However, I do not agree with this point. Mao is still alive in today China politics. In China, the politics is running in a heritage-listed way, which means Chinese Communist Party’s politicians prefer to develop and revamp their ideas and manifesto from the previous leaders, even against them. For example, though CCP run China in a substantial capitalism way, however, still brand it as “socialism with Chinese feature”. Deng Xiaoping could not deny his connection with Chairman Mao either. In Chinese politics terminology, Chinese communist party invent the sequence of Marx-Leninism, Mao’s thought, Deng’s theory, Jiang’s three representatives ideas and so on. This is the list of heirs and the titles of their ideas show their positions in the authorities and historical hierarchy.  

 

However, with the poverty gap and corruption, social unfairness increase dramatically in the last 15 years, Mao’s thought become more popular than before. Therefore I prefer to say Mao is returning in a memorial politics, especially to poor Chinese. The new left, who boosts Mao’s thoughts now, (attention, the definitions of left and right are different from them in English politics context) regarded as conservative in today’s CCP’s spectrum.

 

To Mao in Dr. Chang’s eye, I have to say this is a great book, but it should be labelled at the first page: Read it carefully with your fiction’s taste jolly. This is also why I am impressed to Ricky’s question and his practical comment on China. Mao is not a counterpart to Hitler but root in Chinese history.

 

Yours truly,

 

Zeng

 

今天来不及给纵横写稿，虽然不成文，但是把自己的一点想法发上来，主要是看了这篇分析。虽然曼德尔森有gay嫌疑，我总是怀疑一个gay的政治人物，比较适合做古代宦官，而不是民主社会的政客，但是这个人很让我佩服。如果把政治比作比赛，他是一个令人望而生畏的对手。在某种意义上说，保守党人对曼德尔森的忌惮，大大超出了他本人在工党的欢迎程度。现在工党新生代，对这个老人缺乏感情，但是曼德尔森是一个六面兽一样的角色，在残酷的党争之中，只有这样的策略家和不言败的斗士（I am a fighter, not a quitter）才能告诉那些靠媒体装饰门面的新生代政治家的作派，什么是比赛。

 

至少，曼德尔森在修理奥斯本的手段上，让人惊叹此人能量的巨大。而最近工党出台的45%的税收，也很可能是一个战略陷阱。因为这个比例，对于实际财政状况没有太多改善，但是对保守党来说是一个局，保守党不跟进，是失去底层民众的好感和支持，如果跟进，那是保守党的灾难。一旦保守党跟进，工党至少还有5%的税收空间，保守党如果跟进，工党再放出这5%的空间，保守党将不会进一步跟进，这时候保守党会陷入两边不讨好的局面。此外，曼德尔森利用商务大臣身份，与布朗要靠近的金援国家，比如海湾国家、俄罗斯，示好。也许只有这个六面兽一样的人，才能够放下意识形态的架子，把利益的天平摆弄得如此玲珑老道。如果有一天，他出回忆录，一定去买一本。

 

最近对英国分析，慢慢有了一些感觉，特别是通过对这次PBR的阅读和关注，能够了解从经济方面看政治，心里颇有收获。

BBC China专栏

 

伯明翰大学心理学院有个党支部，党叫东林党，核心三人，主业搞博士后研究，其次是吃吃喝喝。按照其中一人的说法，知识分子不注重衣着，但是很重视吃，因为工作太费脑。

 

东林饭局

 

说这话的是长铗，来自中关村的中科院之家，对于吃，有特别的讲究和体会。有一次吃了一盘不错的虎皮尖椒，居然回家写了一篇夹叙夹议的分析散文，论证了中科院北沙滩附近的夫妻饭摊和伯明翰布里斯托路小饭馆之异同。有时一旦吃的兴起，会给我们背诵《荷塘月色》，以期花一份饭钱，获得口感和美感的双重刺激。

 

另外一位是冥冥中，徒步行走爱好者，常常下午在训练房跑个5000米，晚上继续来做试验，搞数据。他们都比我先到伯明翰，我呢，如《马太福音》中耶稣对门徒所说，“你们是世上的盐。”意即基督徒虽然卑微，但是可以让身边世界不同。我就是这样子的，喜欢吃吃喝喝，到处撒盐，来了之后，长铗和冥冥中基本上告别了“微波炉午餐+鱼条晚饭”的日子，生活的滋味一下子添油加醋许多。

 

来伯明翰之前，我耳闻这里中餐便宜好吃。到了之后，发现虽然伯明翰的“中国城”类似于墙缝中的小草，在市中心顽强地探出脑袋，宣布自己的存在，缺乏伦敦唐人街那种忽悠的气魄。不过吃的的确不错，特别是大陆口味的地道，至少在英国排前三。但是从大学到市中心，要坐两站火车，很不方便。偶尔有兴致，三人会坐夜车到市中心吃一顿。几番下来，市中心的中餐馆，基本上都过了一遍。

 

所谓东林，其实是校门外布里斯托路上的一家小饭馆。在那条路上，几乎吃遍各种各样的鱼条薯条皮萨牛排咖喱饭之后，东林成了我们首选，于是自诩东林党。试想一下，一个闷骚理科生，一个体壮如牛的工科生，一个每周奔波两个B城的文科生，除了学术，也就是我们的工作，我们还能谈什么风云风月呢？所谓东林党，其实就是一场饭局加若干个饭桶吃货。

 

心理学类似于学术圈中的道家，各种流派技巧都吸纳。以饭局三人组为例，由我经长铗到冥冥中，本科分别是文学、生物、计算机，文理工三科，一个比一个硬，最后都汇集到心理学中来。长铗基本功扎实，冥冥中做的最热的磁共振，我做语言的行为研究。虽然同属心理学，但是我们坐下来吃饭聊天，长铗和冥冥中话题更多一些，第一他们都做脑科学层次研究；第二，他们的研究都与视觉有关。因此各自领域所谓大牛，常常是共通的，说起来谁谁牛，哪个哪个文章发了Science，Nature，PNAS等等。而我生性骄傲自大，最不喜欢用大牛这样的滥词，搞得做学术好象当民工下煤窑一样。于是，酒酣耳热之际，我只能问冥冥中，在大连话里，螃蟹有几种叫法？

 

 

 

再见，伯明翰

 

除了我们三人，东林饭局常有不同人物出席。有一次和伯大一位中国教授吃饭。教授说，中国学生既不是最用功，也不是最懒的，干什么都是中不溜。因为这句话，我每天晚上离开办公室的时候，都会抬头看看学院大楼，谁的房间还亮着灯。

 

事实上，长铗、冥冥中和我，其中必有人一人常常是最晚的。不管冬夏，在饭局之后，我们一路踱步回校，然后工作到晚上11点，甚至更晚。我们曾经讨论过这问题。冥冥中说，英国大学训练出来的人，做事情按部就班，看似不紧不慢，其实很有效率。我同意，英国教育鼓吹的organisable把人训练成正规军作战，而中国人喜欢的熬夜加班，有点像毛泽东的游击战术，对于个人而言，也许后者常常出奇制胜，但是对于学术合作来说，协调和组织是必需的。长铗的解释却更加心理学，他说搞学术，还是需要热情，那种八小时干完就走人，也不一定真适合做学术。

 

就是这样子，长铗、冥冥中和我，以吃的名义，谈论一些关于学术，或者有关自己发展的问题。而饭局的高潮，往往不在东林，而是他们的家里：喝酒。

 

有一次，长铗的文章终于发表，我们三人晚上干到11点，然后跑到冥冥中家里，把那瓶茅台给喝了。长铗显然有点激动，他说自己“四年磨一剑”，从北大博士后到伯明翰博士后，长铗做了三年多。按照冥冥中的说法，博士后做两个，干五年是个极限。确实，我们三人已经不再低龄留学，拿到博士已经是二十七八，有工作过，有家庭的牵扯。现在是从博士后到一个稳定的教职关键阶段，否则，三十多岁的人生将重新洗牌，走一条非学术的道路。在学术的道路上，我们奔四刚起步，但是要跳过35岁这个坎。所谓跳，就是有文章发表。

 

好象有一次喝醉了，突然在长铗家里睡着了，就是这样，因为酒，还有每个人暂时说不出来的理想，伯明翰的有些事情便记不清。本来，还没有离开，就开始回忆，这不是我的风格。按照道哥的说法，“事业正处在上升期”，即使稍稍的叹息或者感慨，都太轻率，太奢侈。于是加上一段幻想，以资鼓励。也许在中国的某个冬天，三个东林党人，在北京或者南方，一座或几所大学大楼里面，每个黄昏，暮色四合，灯火阑珊，三个人的房间都亮着灯，每个人在想着是不是再找一家叫东林的饭馆，吃一顿饭。