It’s not often that you hear a director ask an actor, “Can we get a few grunts from you? Can you just get that grunting? Okay, now how about some heavy breathing? And where’s Zombie Number Two? We need you!” So begins a hectic day of filming a five-minute thriller for the Sci-Fi-London 48-hour Film Challenge.  

Director Vicki Psarias , who won last year’s 4Talent Best Filmmaker award, is asking actor Chris Rogers – playing “a strange man” – to re-record some sound. The planes flying overhead, the dismal weather and the lack of a sound monitor have made things a little more difficult than usual. The team only have a few more hours to shoot out in the forest by Barnes station in south-west London, as the next day will be devoted to editing.

"Investors fleeing Wall Street's mortgage-related strife plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into grain futures, driving prices up even more."
Washington Post

So its official. The UN anounced Monday that food speculators were mostly to blame for the recent surge in food prices. Agrofuels and changes to diet no-doubt have a part to play, but as Vietnam moved to stop panic buying at the weekend, with the Prime Minister stating that food supplies for the country were more than adequate , its clear that markets have been artificially inflating prices. A special meeting of the heads of the UN's agencies, along with the WTO and World Bank has been called in Bern for later in the week to discuss sollutions to the crisis.

Since I started researching the subject , a couple of in-depth articles have appeared in the Washington Post and BusinessWeek/Spiegel Online. It’s good to see that not only have two instituions of the conservative press picked up on the story (finally) but  that they join the likes of hedge fund head George Soros (who ran the US’s second most profitable fund last year) in describing the speculation as a sympton of unfettered capitalism gone too far.
My flatmate from Oxfam did point out to me that higher food prices had an upside – the impoverished farmers, many of whom have faced tough tough years (like in India where suicide amonst small farmers is very high), would be seing increased income. If the money is shifting from the miners of precous metals to impoverished farmers, it can't be all bad. It makes sense as an argument, but not if it’s at the expensive of mass starvaion – otherwise we’ll see a return to feudal systems with rich landowners supporting the people working the fields who can barely afford the produce they grow.

So Barrack Obama has talked about the end of red states and blue states. A united America, briefly putting asides its partisan splits so that it could face the huge challenges its confronted with right now – in foreign affairs, the economy, the environment and the global position in the world, which has been severely damaged. Four years of such a combo could be what is needed for the world to learn to trust America again, while the political bickering which blights such an often amazing country from doing the things which even the Chinese can offer the citizens – free healthcare and education for all – would briefly stop as the right and the left realise there is a rather large common ground.

Seriously tho, talk of obliteration of an entire country (the oldest civilisation on the planet, at that) belongs in the bar and not in the seat of power. It is easy to assume - I've often fallen into the trap - that because someone is a woman they will be honest, wise and fair – more so, even, than a man. Power corrupts equally, and some of the most ruthless, heartless and even chauvanist people I’ve met in the world of business have been women. 

"Cotton growers have been among the most vocal critics, having witnessed a baffling surge in prices over a few days in March. In one day, the price of cotton jumped 15 per cent despite reports showing cotton supplies were at near record highs."

Forgive me for this brief tangent from the world of film and pixels, but I've been compelled to pull myself away from an engrossing chat with the Hull Film people and write about something which seems pretty urgent right now.

Like a lot of you, I've been concerned about the news of the rise of food prices around the world - a near doubling in prices of some vital foods like rice and wheat - and the fact that the consequences could lead to an already undernourished majority of the world having access to half as much food as before.
"And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial bandits who have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and horror... This is silent mass murder."
Jean Ziegler, U.N. special rapporteur What troubled me most, however, was the causes, and how things are escalating so fast. I appreciate that investment in agriculture has shrunk, that close to two billion acres of land has been put aside for Biofools and that a wealthier India and China are eating more meat (the global meat industry consumes enough food to feed the world twice over, and emits more CO2 than the entire car, aviation and transport industry put together). But it seemed like there must be something else heralding such rapid changes in price (a few weeks back the global price of rice skyrocketed 300% in one day). So I formed a theory, searched Google, and found that I'm not alone in this thinking. I should stress I have no economics training, and my understanding of global commodities and futures trading is next to nothing. But I still think it's worth sharing this as it's not getting as much press coverage as you would expect - and would welcome any feedback/criticism you can give.

Basically its long been known that the forces driving first the debt bubble and subsequent sub prime crisis wiping billions off the values of the world's major banks, was the trading of debt on financial markets. Likewise the crazy price of oil - $117 and rising has been pushed up by speculators (people who gamble on the future price of a stock or commodities). Then gold and other precious metals started to rise and also now are at record highs as people invest in these commodities on expectation of bigger returns.

"Dealing in foodstuffs these days gives higher returns than stocks or bonds or real estate. These dealers never actually see the soybeans or sorghum, a bit like the Third World poor, who don't see much of them either... Our pension funds have also been getting into commodity dealing. The security of our monthly cheque may now depend on a family in Burkina Faso paying a week's wages for a bag of rice. " Tom Shields, Sunday Herald

So it seemed a logical conclusion that with all these markets now being overvalued or unstable, that the traders who control the billions invested by the major financial institutions, and currently trying to minimise the losses from the current turmoil, would seek to move their money to a new profitable place. Could this be driving the rise in food prices? And if so, does that mean there are some immediate actions that governments, the WTO and IMF, etc, could take to ensure that we don't see the first increase in famine and childhood malnutrition (which debilitates for life) in 20 years ago. And not have our TV screens filled with pot bellied children struggling for a bowl of rice in a few months?

“I suppose that's just capitalism but it's jolly disappointing. If society looked down on these funds then perhaps it would make a difference.”
Sir Michael Darrington, Chair of Greggs the Bakers

In much of the world 40% to a half of the household income is spent on rice. If the price rises by 300% in one day, as it did a few weeks back, it means that a family can eat three times less rice. Malnutrition seems inevitable, which in children has life-long consequences. The potential for widespread famine is more likely than at any time in the last 20 years. Since 2000, prices of wheat, butter and milk have tripled and prices of rice, maize and poultry have almost doubled - with the majority of those increases happening in the last year. 

Even the Chairman of Greggs the Bakers, Sir Michael Darrington, has spoken out about grossly irresponsible behaviour of the speculators and asking for the public's widespread condemnation of the darkest side of capitalism?

"It is astonishing in the present situation that the international financial institutions and government regulators have done little to control or banish this parasitical and antisocial practice. The myth of the benevolent and ultimately impartial market prevails against all contrary evidence." International Herald Tribune

People once just speculated on stocks. The internet bubble was great fun for day traders and bedroom gamblers with a bit of knowledge wanting to make a fast buck. I did it with QXL a decade ago - I bought £500 of shares, doubled my money, sold all but 2 of them, and then saw them rise tenfold, before falling back.

"The futures market reinforced the consumption trend: with food inflation expected to continue, wheat appeared the safest bet for investors in the years to come--prior to its dramatic surge, wheat had shown less volatility than maize and soybeans."
(60% of wheat market owned by index funds) Forbes.comThe internet bubble burst, and the mortgage / debt bubble picked up. A few years ago this started to fracture, and seeing problems ahead, people moved to oil, which in turn rose four-fold. More recently as the problems with bad bank debt became more apparent (a trillion dollars lost, apparently, probably enough money to feed, house, educate and provide water and health for everyone in the world - at least pick up a third of the bill of Iraq ), traders managing billions of investors' money, shifted to speculating in gold and other precious and semi-precious metals. And now metals have seen their prices so inflated that they are also overvalued, with the last place for the trading addict (and it is like any addiction) is food speculation. Gambling on the price of food, and acting in such a way to push prices up in order to make huge gains in a short period of time. For some institutions this may be the only way to cover up the holes in their finances from the sub-prime crisis.

So when Egypt halted its rice exports because of falling stocks, speculators push up the cost of a ton of rice by 300%. India followed by limiting their rice exports heavily and waiting to see how high the price would go. Riots and civil disruption erupted worldwide, with the UN Peacekeeping force shooting at hungry rioters and getting shot at in Haiti (did that one make it to London Lite?). It was, if you may recall, the tripling in the price of rice in Burma, which triggered the monk's protests there last autumn.

Day traders, seeking a quick buck with no sense of consequence (or morality) have created the potential for widespread famine. As Anthoney Costello, director of the UCL institute of Global Health pointed out in frank terms, "the poorest households in the developing world, surviving on tiny fixed incomes, will be hungry right now. In a few months our TV screens will show the pot-bellies of children with kwashiorkor and the emaciated faces of mothers and children ravaged by malnutrition and infection. Many will die unnoticed."

"In a few months our TV screens will show the pot-bellies of children with kwashiorkor and the emaciated faces of mothers and children ravaged by malnutrition and infection. Many will die unnoticed."
Anthoney Costello, UCL  Intervention by the UN by handing out sacks of rice won't solve the problem - the rice will still be very expensive (as will the wheat, soya, grains, oil, etc), and the hungry will be in the hundreds of millions. It's the speculators and the same lack of regulation which led to the current sub prime crisis, the internet bubble, and the price in oil which needs to be stopped. And even the biggest fans of free trade and global capitalism are arguing massive caution. To quote Paris-based agro-economic think-tank and research body Momagri 

"free trade will not stabilize prices but will increase instability. Indeed, simulations based on the assumption of complete market free trade in 2008 show that large-scale crops and grains will see price volatility rise sharply, while cattle prices will collapse. In addition, unregulated free trade, by increasing the participation of financial speculators, will further intensify price volatility. This was demonstrated by a new groundbreaking indicator that links the percentages of financial speculators to the increasing volatility of agricultural prices.

I don't think they are even caring about social impact... their job is to make money... They're not going to be worried about repercussions somewhere else."
Gary Kaltbaum,
Hedgefund managerEven the owners of hedgefunds are alarmed by the merciless trading of those whose need for a short buck (perhaps to cover their loses on sub prime) blinds their vision to the suffering they are creating.

Other articles discussing this include this, this in the International Herald and Tribune, and this. For the record I should point out that one article by Brian Durrant in MoneyWeek argues against the claims that speculation is driving the rise in prices, tho he does recognise that activity in food trading has risen from $10bn to $142billion pa in the last decade. He argues it is down to more people eating meat in China and India and the rise of biofuels, and that it is a simple issue of supply and demand, suggesting the answer is greater trade liberalisation:

If the world today were a rational economic place, then regions such as the Gulf, which are energy rich but are food production constrained, would be investing their petrodollars in agriculture. On the other hand, the US is the world's biggest agricultural supplier, but has enormous energy demands. The rational solution would be for Saudi Arabians to buy farms in the mid-West. At the same time America would secure its energy needs in the most efficient manner by sending teams of Texans to Riyadh. But in practice, numerous controls prevent Saudi Arabians buying Mid-West farms and Americans owning Saudi oil wells...

Instead, mutual mistrust is rising. Gulf leaders are considering plans to desalinate sea water to plant wheat in the desert, while at the same time the US and Europe are trying to turn corn into fuel. It's the economics of the madhouse, but alas, these measures make sense in terms of narrow domestic politics. And the consequence of this surge in economic nationalism? Even more food price inflation."

An interesting point, but a digression - as UN Chief Ban Ki Moon told a conference this weekend :

"If not handled properly, this crisis could result in a cascade of others ... and become a multidimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world,"

Update 8pm, Monday :

MoneyWeek pointed out their link above was broken, now corrected.

I also see from the Evening Standard left on my train back to Glasgow that the IMF have spoken out on it today and Brown is holding a summit tomorrow. There is also an interesting piece of analysis in today's Times from Anatole Kaletsky which speaks in mysterious terms about the correlation between the announcement of bad news in the markets and the rise of food prices, claiming no-one knows why they are so linked.

"Why, then, has a global collapse in credit created a boom in commodity demand? The short answer is that nobody knows.
Anatole Kaletsky
The TimesMore intrigingly he matches the graphs of the rise of the Euro against the Dollar, against the rise in commodity prices, pointing out that the are almost exactly the same shape. My knee-jerk user-generated-economist theory would be that as currency speculators abandon the dollar in the face of sub-prime fallout that big institutions or investors whose wealth is tied to dollars are trying to offset their losses with investment in commodities, a 'safe haven' as people are always going to need to eat. As the dollar falls in value, no real wealth is lost if your billions in dollars of rice or wheat futures is rising by the same amount.

Could this really be a case of the world's poorest literally starving to death to clean up the mess left by some gung-ho and irresponsible banks and traders? 

(I promise film and media talk will soon resume. All images from Trading Places, which is a good introduction to the corrupt world of food commodities trading) 

Update 9am Thursday

 Business bible Business Week has republished an excellent article from Die Spiegel which acknowledged that "hedge funds and small investors bear some responsibility for global hunger... "The landscape has changed since the influx of large index funds. Fund managers seek to maximize their profits using futures contracts, and prices", says [long term grain trader Greg] Warner, "keep climbing up and up.""

"In mid-2006 Anderson was touting the "extraordinary profitability" of field crops from corn to soybeans. He was convinced that rising worldwide hunger would be synonymous with highly profitable— and dead-certain— investment bargains... These days, though, Anderson avoids the media... buying up rights to all photos of himself on the market."
BusinessWeek

PM Brown has agreed to rethink biofuels after a summit on the question. Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, admitted to the  Observer (only just seen this now) that rising demand from emerging countries, such as Brazil, India, China and Russia, explained some, but not all, of the price surge, which has seen the cost of wheat double in 12 months. 'I see so much focus on food, and it seems to be so trendy in the investment world,' he said. 'The underlying dilemma has been created by the wealth of the BRICs [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries; but, for the past year or so, it's also been a major theme for financial institutions. The markets seem to me to have a bubble-like quality.'

US shops have started to ration rice, and the Latin American countries have grouped together and are looking at creating a distribution network "so we don't" in the words of Venezuala President Hugo Chavez "fall into the hands of intermediaries and speculators, which stop millions from receiving food."

Meanwhile a meeting of US Farmers and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates U.S. commodity markets, in the US led to some heated exchanges on Tuesday - and an agreement not to raise the investment limit on speculation as planned. 

"Sixty per cent of the current [wheat] market is owned by an index fund," said Tom Coyle, of the National Grain and Feed Association. "Clearly that's having an impact on the market."

From the article in the Globe and Mail

"Some producers blamed these large speculators for causing a disconnect between the value of a futures contract, and the underlying value of the asset is supposed to represent.

Cotton growers have been among the most vocal critics, having witnessed a baffling surge in prices over a few days in March. In one day, the price of cotton jumped 15 per cent despite reports showing cotton supplies were at near record highs.

Several cotton industry players urged the CFTC to investigate the price movements, and demanded that the regulator make speculators subject to the same rules as commercial players who buy and sell the actual commodities...

Given the current turmoil, the CFTC said yesterday it was not inclined to move ahead with controversial plans to raise investment limits for speculators. "I believe that before acting, this agency must be certain that additional speculative pressures will not exacerbate the anomalies we are experiencing in these markets," said CFTC acting chairman Walt Lukken. "It is critical that we understand the problem fully so we can get it right and ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease."

I woke this morning, at the godawful hour needed for my slow and pricey train ride to Hull , from a dream where I was a kid once more, back in my school hall at St Aidan's again. We'd just finished a double filmmaking lesson (probably inspired by watching M.Dot.Strange's awesome film skool on Ytube till the early hours) and were putting the chairs back to the sides with the teenage tedium of those times. I was muttering to my friend about picking up a copy of the Independent as they had a big feature on the film industry. And I realised suddenly that I would not have been the punk cinema kid at school.

Had we been lucky enough to have filmmaking lessons, I would have been the nerdy, geeky square one reading up on the film industry and tax breaks. 'Oh God' I cried, 'Why did you have to make me so Jewish'? I implore the heavens, my arms outstretched in a kind of permanent throbbing shrug, my mouth downturned and eyebrows twisted in incredulity, my hands bouncing as if tied to elastic, a Jewish movement I've decided must be genetic, as I don't think I even really met a  proper Jew til I was an adult. *(see below)

Which is a digression, really, from the reason I sat up in bed to scribe this, rather than steal an extra 30 minutes sleep before I set off to Hull, with my Sid Vicious cutout, for a follow up to a panel that first took place in November 2004. Devised by the unhinged genius of Mr Laurence Boyce, we asked back then if cheap digital technology, coupled with access to online distribution was about to herald a PUNK CINEMA REVOLUTION with people making films and distributing them without any industry interference, much like pioneers of punk and the original garage bands. We questioned the idea and created a seven point manifesto (point 1 - question everything, point 2 - take risks, point 3 - focus on live experiences, point 4 - share your experiences, point 5 - use famous people, point 6 - give your work away free, point 7 - be constantly honest and challenging)

Of course, barely three  months later, Chad and Steve set up YouTube, and the rest is kind of history. The majority of films watched online are created by the likes of you and me, with no industry interference whassover, according to Screen Digest. We Are The Strange and Four Eyed Monsters, and the rest of the crew, show the new punks distributing their own films not just online - for free - but on DVD and in cinemas too. I'm still a little confused by point 5, however, tho all should hopefully be resolved at today's panel - Never Mind the Celluloid 2, Hull Screen, Sunday afternoon, 2.30 - 4.30. 

Submitted by Lucy Coogan:

The West Midlands may seem a million miles from Hollywood, but filmmaking talent is strong in the region and as more and more young filmmakers embark on what they hope will become a career, the need for support and advice is as vital as ever. But is there enough in the region? And is it meeting and fulfilling the needs of a growing community of filmmaking talent?

I'll never forget watching Truly Madly Deeply as a kid, a film I hold responsible for a crush on cellists (Altman's Shortcuts also playing a part). Anthony Minghella did much more besides making deeply heartfelt and tender films - from chairing the BFI to Grange Hill, Inspector Morse and promoting the family ice cream business on the Isle of Wight.

All thoughts to Hannah, Max, Carolyn and the rest of his family right now.

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name, has also died at his home in Sri Lanka.

Brilliant actor Paul Scoffield, star of A Man for All Seasons, the Crucible and Quiz Show, has also passed away.

David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008) was an award-winning English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield won both an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his role as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 filmA Man for All Seasons. He had previously originated the role in the stage version both in theWest End and on Broadway, winning a Tony Award. 

"We are custodians of a miracle. For billions of miles in all directions there is nothing, nowhere like this."

On my tenth day in the jungle, the morning after the Shivaratri party (Shiva's birthday - a bit like Christmas), I finally met my first native monkey. Almost human size, like Hanuman , with a white body and black face, and arms long enough to give me a good clobber, he thundered in with graceful side swings over my tent to the tree above - thousands of leaves heralding his arrival like confetti. The sound at first was so great, I thought perhaps I was under attack. We looked each other in the eye and he reclined on a branch before turning to me suddenly, scowling and angry. He indicated beneath him - a pile of pink toilet paper someone had left under the tree and gave me a universal gesture with his outstretched palm: 'clean this shit up', before leaving fast with his entourage through the trees. The conversation couldn't have been clearer.

Imagine a society based not on the pound or dollar. Where these names related only to a piece of paper you used sometimes to exchange for goods and services. But instead where the most powerful principle is karma - doing good work. It is not so strange an idea to us, that what goes around comes around - it was Newton, after all, who stated that for every action will be an equal and opposite reaction. But it's a fundamental principle here in India, with society perhaps built on it, while in the West it's mostly incompatible with everyday life.

For if we say that our highest goal is to be happy, and if we know that money will buy us neither love nor hapiness - that in truth the highest levels of depression are in the richest nations, then money takes on a much less significant role. Good work is key. And this includes the work you do to earn money, and the energy you manifest with those around you. If you keep creating good vibrations more come back to you. It's as if to become one with the ultimate (god, tao, fate, divine, spirit, pi, maths, whatever), you help anyone who asks, because the ultimate serves everything.

And the more I look at this system, which respects nature - in fact starts with respect for nature, and the feminine as much as the masculine, the more it seems that India is years ahead of us. Not in terms of technology or infrastructure or inequality or so forth. But in wisdom.

Our financial system seems built not on karma, but on debt and consumerism, which in turn is dependent on creating a sense of  individual inadequacy, to facilitate increased consumption. And this constant demand for us to always be consuming is not because the big business bosses want to work overtime or are particularly evil. It's that our financial system is so heavily based on debt, that if the economy does not constantly expand, we will be unable to keep up interest payments on the debt of the money we spend and the economy would crash.

Paul Grignon's 47 minute animated film Money as Debt - is very illuminating on the subject (and more than a little scary).

Which is not to say the market is defunct. Quite the reverse. There's something really strange about letting go of possessions in Goa, living native in the forest with monkeys and snakes and spiders, and returning to the shops to buy cheese, fresh fruit and veg, goods from around the world, beautiful clothes and so on - and for next to nothing, normally. For all my socialist instincts I came back to society loving global trade.

Even credit makes sense when it's issued at source. Sometimes you have lots of money, you pay your bills. Other times you don't and it's a tight few days or week, so the shopkeeper or restaurant or whoever, waits until you have money. But there's no interest, no banks, no beurocracy - just human contact and trust.

It seems that what each of us really wants - hapiness, health and wellbeing - not to mention lots of free time and being close to our friends and family, and a job we believe in and enjoy, is actually not so difficult. The fact we don't have it in the west is not because it is illusive or hard to find., Hundreds of millions of people here - people with nothing, materially, to speak of - have much of that. As a European who has long lived in Goa - told me: the greatest luxuries for him, the things most valuable to help him live his life well, are time and space

So for us in the West to find it perhaps we simply need to stop thinking that finding hapiness is in anyway about aquiring something or getting somewhere, but just a shift in our perception to see that whatever we have right now - even if it is not as good as the Jones's - is perfect. And to train our brain, and our imaginative faculties to view what happens to us in this way so that we don't get mirred by the bleak unfair times, but instead hope. And then do good.

And as well as helping us towards the hapiness that should be our birth-right, such an attitude shift would also start to give the planet and its people the protection and respect she needs.

And this, I think, is the challenge facing filmmakers in the coming years - filmmakers who want their work to reflect or support improvements in people and the world, and the aversion of possible environmental/resource/political catastrophe.

Without this then we really may be in trouble. 

There is much to see in the hearts and minds of people I meet here to think such a change could be possible - and maybe bloodless, and maybe soon. Even the wasted tourists whose Withnail-style posturing would make Bachus reach for the Alka Seltzer, even they seem to get it eventually.

We're sick of living miserably in office cattle pens, working like dogs so we can afford to pay off the bill for the things we worked like dogs to produce.

God is hope, as a restaurant owner from Manali said to me recently. And we need hope now - for the more I look at it, the more it feels we have the most important task in the solar system - we are custodians of a miracle. For billions of miles in all directions there is nothing, nowhere like this. There is no backup plan or second life. It's this. The planet is beautiful and incredible, and while our society may be like a teenager refusing to listen to the wisdom of his parents and tidy its room and quit smoking, we are evolving.

We may only just be beginning to take our instructions from nature, rather than barking out orders like a dying general clutching onto a vanishing empire, yet there is, I think, hope.

Red Bull's Flug Tag is back on the 7th June 2008, and they have kindly given E4 an offcial entry birth. The idea is to make your own flying machine, and well basically fly into the seprentine.

 Now E4 want their own fans to represent them at the Flugtag. One lucky team consisting of four fans will be E4's offcial team at the big day. They will design, build and pilot the craft 

All you have to do is get creative with your flying machine, make sure it fits the E4 brand and can fly a bit!

All info here: http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/A/advertorial/flugtag/index.html

 As well as representing E4, you will be in with the chance of winning some cracking prizes...

1st Prize: Flying Lessons or some trips in aerobatic planes, or just take the money and run, to the tune of £5,000

2nd Prize: A day to remember in an  aircraft of your choice, or just take £2,000 

3rd Prize: Tandem parchute from 15,000 feet, or £1,000

Submitted article from Zenia Mai Enriquez:

Can you outsource video post-production work?  Can outsourcing efficiently provide the cost advantage benefit without sacrificing quality?   

The beaches of Goa are a bit like the United Nations, so many pepople from around the world, so many ambassadors of peace. They mostly seem lovely wise souls who will probably one day run companies and countries.

Meanwhile in the US a very real battle continues, the ultimate in a way, between a woman and a black man.

And it is a battle which - if the Clintons push it too hard, could perhaps split the Democratic party in two.

Obama brings with him links with the black world, with the Islamic world, and the Arab world, who generally prefer to deal with men, with Kenya and Africa, with American hard working Christians and young people. He served his community as a lawyer while Hillary sat on the board of Walmart. People of all ages and backgrounds can relate to him. He bridges all of these groups, and the British, the Indians - in fact everyone I speak to seems to like him too.

He reminds me of that old notion of the Southern Gentleman - the best kind of American - refined and in control of all their faculties, and able to use them to create and sustain peace - I cannot imagine him acting in a manner which was not courteus. This seems vital at a time where American diplomacy is so low the country is close to being ignored from the world stage as all but a big and rich consumer market.

Hilary, on the other hand brings a bridge with, erm, Bill Clinton.

And a campaign which seems from across the pond as being built on destorying the credibility of the most credible presidential candidate in memory. He may bring no experience, but is this not his greatest asset?. He understands the needs of the people who work hard each day. He does not know how to pull strings in the coridoors of power. He doesn't need to. He will be president.

Please Bill, encourage Hillary to drop out. Now is not her time. She will make a great president and a female president is a glorious goal, and worth fighting full power for when the time is right. But not against her own party. With the opposition, when her own party is unable to offer a more suitable candidate. In many ways, Obama, because of the peace he may be able to create with the Muslim, black and working class communities is already a good 30 years too late.

And besides, vice president would be a great way of ensuring there is no way the Republicans could beat the strong 'Ready from day one' position in 2012 or 2016. I don't think Obama's peace keeping and uniting abilities will be needed for long, and once things settle down a bit, someone with huge political know-how will be very useful to keep the peace. But right now the world not only wants, but needs, Hope.

And my impression from these multicultural souls in Goa, in spite of the drunks, and the loud mouths and the politically ignorant, is that there is a faint suspicion, a glimmer of hope. Not just of a new Black American president, but of ever growing peace.

If anyone is unsure - have a look at the extract from Obama's book Hope at Time.

So the UK government is looking at following in French President Sarkozy's footsteps by forcing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to monitor thier customer's web usage and disconnect them (after a warning) if they are found to be downloading illegally. This switch of legal responsibility from the copyright owner to the internet provider is significant - but more alarmingly so is the change of web access into something which can be monitored and controlled by the people providing you with access. I'm supposed to be taking time out in India, but couldn't resist sharing my thoughts when I heard the news.

Internet Protocol is built on the all-data-is-equal model, where anonymous packets of information are sent from servers to users, with no-one in between having the faintest idea what that data is. The switch to a system (supposing it can be securely built) which identifies this traffic and acts as a result is a culture shift in the fundamental nature of the web - potentially allowing, for example, ISPs to block politically sensitive material, or provide faster, more stable web access to big fee-paying webisites over slow ones.

Piracy is of course a terrifying prospect for the film industry if it simply heralds a culture of not paying for content. Unlike the music sector, non-piratable aspects of the film business are rarely profitable (while Radiohead makes over three quarters of its income from touring, most films are lucky to cover their marketing costs for a cinema release). Furthermore, while you can make a film on no budget, it's hardly the same as recording an album in your bedroom or mastering on your laptop; the lack of money will be obvious on screen. Films are the most expensive artform going, and a future where users do not expect to pay for the films they watch at home would lead us into the hands of the Orange Film Finance board from the cinema ads, putting up the budget of a film in return for brand exposure. It's a horrible prospect.

But at the same time, the Recording Industry of America's heavy handed approach with music downloaders (sending huge fines and court summons to young children and dying seniors) has done nothing but cement resentment  and hostility to the music industry . Music sales still fall and downloading still rises. The proposal, currently under discussion, may help the film industry avoid considering new business models and ways of operating in the short term, but it also entrenches an us-vs-them attitude and hardening the resolve of pirates while inevitably forcing ISPs to put up their costs, alienating consumers. And what too of shared networks and free-wifi - will public libraries, bars, cafes and National Express trains (and indeed my own house) have to turn off open access for fear that someone somewhere will be using the bandwidth to download something illegal, forcing the ISP to shut down access for all? Potentially terrible PR for the film industry, at a time when survival seems pinned on building a positive relationship with audiences.

I'd also argue that the jury is still out over the impact of piracy on lower-budget, niche and independent films. Some would say that it acts as a 'try before you buy' on high-risk / high-quality films with unknown actors and directors - ie non-studio films. Researching and writing one of the first major market reports into making money from creative assets in the digital age, for Informa in 2001, and watched the shifts ever since, including the huge DRM backlash, and the massive increase in previously unknown MySpace (etc) acts who rise to prominence through giving their music away for free, not to mention Radiohead's highly successful experiment and Four Eyed Monsters, I'm inclined to agree that at a certain level, peer-to-peer sharing is a useful form of marketing. Little Miss Sunshine was widely available to download and watch online through sites like PeakVid and Alluc, yet people I know who first watched it online went on to buy multiple copies - for themselves and friends as gifts.

The people who stand to lose the most in cash terms are perhaps the studios with major tentpole releases, where losing 30% of DVD sales to piracy on say Lord of The Rings, is a significant sum of money when you consider it has made $6bn... (cont.)

Al Gore’s climate change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth opened up people’s eyes to the devastating potential effects of climate change around the world. There has finally been an increase in the film world of the sometimes controversial carbon offsetting, whereby carbon used in a film's creation is offset through environmental projects such as tree planting or energy saving in the developing world. Film such as No Country for Old Men, The Day After Tomorrow and Syriana have all been carbon neutral, with an increase in the past two years in lower budget independent films also taking this path. Carbon offsetting may seem like a luxury for a low budget shoot, yet costs no more than 1% of the budget and often less.

Ali Selim’s Sweet Land , for instance, cost $1m to make and a further $5,000 for London based Carbon Neutral Company to calculate and report on the 8,000 tonnes of carbon used in the process. Offsetting this by investing in a reforestation project in Germany and windmills and compact fluorescent lighting in Jamaica cost another US$10,000.

The filmmakers were given incentives to minimise environmental costs during the production – ‘shooting out’ each location, by filming all the scenes there before moving on. Actors used an on-set carpool, while sunlight was used as a light source wherever possible.

There are lots of services online to try and help you estimate your costs for small things, such as flights to Film Festivals - which will cost less than you think. A return flight from London to India (as I've just found out for personal reasons), for instance, costs around £13, a trip to Cannes would be much less. Of course the best option is to take a train, or not go altogether, but at least with an offset there is some positive impact.

This Carbon Calculator can tell your CO2 for flights and offers a choice of options. Two directory sites provide links and details of carbon offsetting providers - Carbon Catalog and the Emisions Offset DIrectory .