IOM Film festival reminds me of 'Dusky maidens under a desert sky'

It's the Isle of Man film festival 2018 and Manx Radio have a promo item here:

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/lights-camera-action/

There was also a Youtube interview on MTTV last week. The latter inspired me to have my own film festival so I forwent the delights of the local tavern on the weekend and watched an eclectic mix including ‘Hedd Wyn’, ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ and ‘The dawns here are quiet’ to name but a few.

The festival is built around ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ which is reckoned to have garnered all the subsequent epics like ‘Star Wars’ etc (what number are they up to now). I’ve never rated ‘2001’ but each to his own in fact ‘whatever sails your boat’ or in this case Spaceship!

The festival has loads of other items and there’s details at this link:

http://isleofmanfilmfestival.com/

They have I see a documentary on the overthrow of Gaddafi but I think I’ll give that a miss having enjoyed the regimes hospitality bak in the 1990s. You could say I backed the wrong side or indeed the Colonel was a silly sod for eventually throwing in his lot with the West that eventually stabbed him in the back - literally.

Back in the 90s I was heavily into the evils of ‘Anglo-American Hegemony’ and preached the word at conferences in Geneva, Rumania and eventually Tripoli. Indeed by the time I reached Tripoli I was the star act on ‘Anglo-American Hegemony’ and ‘Promoting Self Determination’ listened to by ‘dusky maidens under a desert sky’ - well actually they were all in fatigues and unsmiling clutching their ‘green books’. Still you could go for a walk around Tripoli then or enjoy an unescorted excursion to the Roman ruined city of Sabratha. I wonder could you do that now Libya is ‘democratic’ and divided between warring factions.

Image: Tripoli conference complex November 1995

Bernard Moffatt