The Permission Structure for Ignorance

The tariffs debacle is just another scaffold on a broader structure that has been carefully built over the last decade: the permission structure for ignorance.

Expertise is now widely derided, in favour of blind loyalty, bigotry and bluster. Economists can scream blue murder, but it’s fine to ignore them. Because we’re already ignoring experts in climate, vaccination, gender, war, immigration, the list goes on. The permission structure allows us to dismiss expertise, if labeled as ‘woke’, ‘globalist’, ‘deep state’ or ‘fake news’. Everyone with access to the internet has all the information at their fingertips. But it’s all for naught if we’ve been given permission to never seek out anything that challenges our biases and blind spots.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in questioning authority, questioning norms, questioning everything. I believe in lively and fierce debate. But I also believe that we can’t become foot soldiers in the war against expertise. As individuals, we are all at the mercy of the purveyors of information and misinformation: they represent the foundation of this permission structure of ignorance. To have any chance of countering them, we all need to become armchair experts ourselves. Experts in media literacy. Experts in history, lest we neglect its mistakes. And experts in epistemology: the study of knowledge, belief, truth, evidence, and reason.

It’s a massive personal responsibility. But it’s fast becoming the hygiene factor of every social interaction we have.


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The Palace Becomes a Circus

As true in business as it is in politics…


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What Next?

It’s nearly impossible to define a period while you’re sat right in it. But for us international folks in China, I would say that we’re all in a state of Chronic Contingency Planning.

When I first moved to Shanghai almost 10 years ago, the chapter in the book would read “The World Meets In China”. Why spend your life on a plane meeting clients at their Global Headquarters? Just sit in Shanghai and wait for them to inevitably come to you. That was a large part of the business case for me to be here in the first place. And now I find myself approaching a decade here, the longest I’ve spent in one place since I was a child.

Reflecting on the last six months, the chapter for today would read “What Happens Next?” My conversations with other foreigners are no longer repeatedly and concentratedly about how to manage China growth, China speed, China adaptation, China innovation. These days they are much more likely to veer onto the topics of overseas vacations, overseas promotion goals, overseas family and friendships, overseas retirement plans. We all continue to value our lives in China, and we’ve all chosen to stay here when many of our peers have left. But the razor sharp focus on China has gone. And I leave every conversation with the strong sense that all of us have one eye on the “What Next”.

On a personal note, I’ve been better than most in keeping up with the outside world, even as international platforms continue to be difficult to access from China. The Mosaic of China podcast has been an integral part of that, and I will continue to expand upon this project. But I’ve recently hit a mental block in releasing new episodes, and I attribute it to this state of Chronic Contingency Planning. Editing podcasts has become a joy in my life, I recommend it to anyone who needs to quieten their busy brains with hours of isolation and distraction. But these days I find myself needing to distract myself less, and spend more time crafting my own “What Next”. And it comes at a stage in my life when I’m also taking stock of a career spent making international connections, and re-engaging with the many people who have helped me reach this point.

It’s most likely that the answer to my own “What Next?” will be to continue as is for now. I still enjoy my life in Shanghai, both the rough and the smooth. But I’ve needed to take the time to make sure this is an actual choice, rather than just standing on the conveyor belt of the status quo. It’s taken weeks of self-examination to reach this point, but the words I’ve written today suddenly came to me fully formed when I woke up this morning. So I’m sharing them here in the hope that they resonate with you, whether you’re reading them in China or not.


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Imperial Eccentricity

Happy Thanksgiving from Shanghai to everyone who celebrates it!

Clearly the thing for which I’m most grateful is my American husband, because our marriage gives me the excuse to have a massive meal tonight, with all the trimmings. 🦃🇺🇸

In the spirit of our transatlantic union, I’m posting this graphic which I found online. To those Americans who are proud of their eccentric adherence to imperial measurements… this Thanksgiving, just be grateful you’re not as eccentric as the Brits. 🤪🇬🇧


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Human Dignity

I live a privileged life. So when it comes to the marketplace of opinions, I tend to do more listening than talking. But unlike other privileged people, I have the experience of living in a place which gives me a tiny sliver of insight into what it feels like to be a minority. To be a migrant. And to be at the receiving end of a system that doesn’t care one jot about me. To feel - on a visceral level - that my human dignity can be taken away at the whim of the authorities. And to value my privilege all the more, versus those whose human dignity is crushed on a daily basis, and in their own place of birth.

I have family living in Israel, and I’m the grandchild of holocaust survivors. So I feel a deep heartbreak about the utterly reprehensible actions of Hamas this week. I don’t even know what words to use. Inhuman, sadistic, diabolical? None of them feel strong enough. But ‘heartbreak’ is certainly the right word. That’s not just a poetic flourish, I can literally feel the pain in my chest right now for every Israeli. However, that’s not the only pain I can feel. I can also feel the heartbreak of a Palestinian who lives a life hopelessly lacking in human dignity. There are no words to describe what ‘burning indignity’ feels like. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just try to imagine a cocktail of rage, fear and despair. The taste is disgusting and ineradicable.

I’m writing this because I have both Jewish and Muslim people in my circle, Israelis and Palestinians. Like you, I can’t personally solve one damn thing. But what I can do is somehow put into words the complex feelings that I’m experiencing, and affirm that it is possible to sit with these two heartbreaks at the same time. Some of you will feel that it’s too soon for this privileged and out-of-touch liberal to ‘both sides’ the argument from his life of relative luxury in Shanghai. While there are people still in the desperate throes of grief. While there are still innocent hostages whose lives are in the balance. You know the taste of human indignity, and I’m truly sorry for offending you by writing this now. But now is exactly the time when the temptation to dehumanise the ‘other side’ is most enticing. I despise the posts I’m reading that justify the Palestinian cause without any reference to the despicable acts of Hamas, whose charter seeks to eradicate and erase every living Israeli. But I also abhor those who would cast all Palestinians as barbaric monsters, whose lives aren’t worth a scrap.

I live a privileged life. And I can’t solve a damn thing. But I can put into words the complex feelings that I’m experiencing.


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250,000 Downloads

I want to take this opportunity to mark the halfway point of Season 03 of the Mosaic of China podcast, and to celebrate surpassing 250,000 downloads since the project’s launch in 2019.

Thank you to all fifteen guests of the season so far, I look forward to releasing the next fifteen episodes over the coming weeks and months ahead. And thank you to each and every listener to the show, it has been my pleasure to be part of your cohort.

To mark the occasion, I’ve released a special bonus episode of the show featuring the one and only Denny Newell. To listen, search for 'Mosaic of China' on your favourite podcasting platform, or head to: https://mosaicofchina.com/season-03-bonus-codependency.


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The Stars are Out

At last some positive news, China's newly-updated COVID-19 Control Protocol has removed the * on our ‘Green Arrow Codes’.

Theoretically, this means that travel will become unrestricted within the Chinese mainland. Until now, the * has denoted that you have been in a ‘Medium Risk Area’, which curtails your ability to travel to certain places. At one point earlier this year, I had collected three of them, and needed to quickly return home to Shanghai before my luck ran out.

Let’s see how this plays out, since the surprise announcement just came out today, and it might take a while for certain Provinces to change their policies. But for now, it’s a small step in the right direction.


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An Impressive but Unsustainable Spectacle

So we’ve received a ticket which allows one person per household outside our residential compound for a few hours each day. And what greets us there is a facsimile of normal life. The streets are beginning to fill with people, one or two shops have started to open, and makeshift hair salons have popped up on every other corner. Back at home, things are also looking a little closer to normal. As supplies have started to become easier to obtain, we’ve slowly been emptying the fridge of ‘essentials’ and letting it fall back into its natural state: as a receptacle for alcohol mixers and neglected jars of condiments.

It feels like we’re finally coming to the end of our Shanghai lockdown story. When the dust has completely settled on the world’s response to the pandemic, we can have a grand debate about the chaos of freedom versus the tyranny of protection. But right now, the key verdict on the last three months is that China remains in zero-rush to relax its zero-COVID policy, exhibiting zero-interest in reintegrating into the rest of the world. So international folks will continue having a tough time trying to keep one foot in China and the other elsewhere. At this point we’re all Jean-Claude Van-Damme doing the splits on two slowly diverging Volvo trucks. An impressive spectacle, but not one that can be sustained forever.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been focusing most of my creative energy on writing these Shanghai updates for Denny and me. I’ve taken pains to strike a personal and balanced tone, being truthful to our own experience while trying not to misrepresent the experiences of others. This phase is now coming to an end, and I will soon pivot back to my usual creative outlet of producing the Mosaic of China podcast. I’m much more comfortable being a conduit for other people’s voices rather than dominating the full bandwidth with my own. But what will remain constant are the details about life in China that you usually can’t find anywhere else. Thank you for following our lockdown story. Hopefully from now on I’ll be back to posting with a little more variety, a little less frequency, and a lot less intensity.


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Dystopia Level Silver

So we’ve reached the crappy milestone of our 50th day of lockdown in Shanghai. That’s 9 days in March, and 41 consecutive days since April 1st. Dystopia Level Silver unlocked.

Despite official reports that the number of cases are going down, the lockdown has perversely become even stricter. In our district, more barricades are going up; fewer deliveries are being allowed; and now if even one person tests positive in your building, *everyone* gets carted off to central quarantine. It’s yet another doubling down on the exponential lunacy of Zero-COVID. What once could be seen as a policy with some degree of merit has long since become detached from the bounds of logic. The same singular strategy that has prevented us from stepping outside of China since February 2020 is now preventing us from stepping outside of our compound. Zero-COVID has overtaken Omicron in terms of its indiscriminate menace.

We’re surviving on a diet of cheap distractions. Denny has something called a ‘job’, which appears to keep him busy. Apart from that, it’s down to the basic routines of eating, drinking, and looking at willies on the internet. The whole city has taken a bumpy nosedive down Maslow’s pyramid, and we still don’t know when we’ll reach rock bottom.

We’re so lucky to be locked in together. We’re a good team: he does most of the cooking and cleaning; while I do most of the deliveries and dishwashing, and quiet sobbing in a foetal position. Despite a universe of anxiety, our little solar system is still spinning on its constant axis of jokes and hugs. I would rather not have another 50 days of this. But I’m grateful that we’ve been through it together.


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Digital Scavenging

So far Denny and I have been locked into our compound - in 2 stints - for a total of 24 days. In all this time there has never once been a positive case of COVID-19 in our lane, and it’s becoming clear that this fact doesn’t have any bearing on our ongoing collective imprisonment. We’re getting a little taste of what it means to be under extra-judicial house arrest. Shanghai has temporarily become a city of ten thousand modern gleaming mini Warsaw ghettos.

Before you worry, Denny and I are still doing fine. I’m checking in with friends and acquaintances across the city, and they’re also all doing fine, to varying degrees. None of us will starve. But on a daily basis we are all being forced to reflect on our primal needs for food, freedom, shelter and sanitation. In Chinese, one of the most common ways of greeting someone is ”吃饭了吗?” meaning “Have you eaten?” It’s only now that I’m realising the history of deprivation that must lie behind that phrase. Today, the first thing we say to each other over calls and texts is: “Do you have enough food”?

If you ask anyone in Shanghai what they’re doing, the answer will most likely revolve around food. Digital scavenging for online provisions before they sell out; keeping up with hundreds of text messages to bid for collective purchases; doing inventories of fridges and rearranging the contents in order of what’s rotting first; rationing ingredients; planning meals; preparing meals; cooking meals; washing up after meals: it’s an endless obsessive cycle. And a short sharp kick in the backside to a city that had become reliant on an over-abundance of restaurants and delivery services. Fancy diets are out the window at this point. We’re counting our carrots, preserving our potatoes, and oil is liquid gold.

This level of food scarcity may well be familiar to many who experienced some kind of lockdown over the last two years. But it’s freedom that’s in just as short supply in Shanghai. I don’t want to go into all of that right now. But let it be another wake-up call to those who complained about being encouraged to take vaccines, or politely asked to wear masks in grocery stores. Please have some perspective, your human rights will be just fine.

We’re still keeping healthy and happy, and in the last couple of days we’ve managed to get our hands on some butter, frozen steaks, and wine. This already makes us feel like some of the luckiest people in the city. So I’m not trying to elicit sympathy with this post, I just want to keep everyone up to date. Many many thanks to everyone who has been in touch, it really means a lot. I don’t plan on writing other updates after this, so you can assume that this will be the status quo until further notice. That’s going to be our assumption too.


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Guys, You Can’t Control Omicron

Here’s a quick roundup of our personal situation in Shanghai right now.

We initially had a 9-day lockdown, after which we had 6 days of freedom. Now we’re on day 7 of our second lockdown, which has been even harsher than the first. But there are some people who have been locked in for the entire 3 week period. And others have tested positive for COVID-19 and have been carted off to central quarantine, separated from children and pets. So the situation for us isn’t as bad as others in Shanghai.

The food supply chain has practically ground to a halt, and grocery deliveries are almost impossible. Some of the larger residential compounds have been able to organise bulk orders from a few suppliers. But smaller compounds like ours have no buying power. For the first time, all the people in our compound have formed a group on WeChat, and it’s a full-time job to keep up with our collective attempts to bulk-purchase essentials such as eggs, milk, bread and apples. We have somehow managed to form an alliance with a couple of the other neighbouring lanes, so here’s hoping we can successfully manage something soon. In the meantime none of us are allowed to leave our individual apartments, and the gate to our compound remains locked from the outside. For the last few days, the only delivery we have personally received has been a care package of 10 eggs, some cured pork, and some weird powdered medicine.

We still have
- Netflix
- Booze
- Negative COVID test results
- Enough food for the next few days

We’re running low on
- Everything else

Despite all this, we’re doing OK. The sun is shining, the air is clean, and we’re keeping ourselves active and happy. It is what it is. In Shanghai we’ve had it easier than most others around the globe until now, so now it’s our turn. And all this is nothing compared to some parts of the world, where people are sheltering in basements rather than cosy apartments, with even less access to food and water, listening to their homes and schools and hospitals being bombed. 💙🙏🇺🇦💛

You’ll notice that at this point I’m not at all worried about COVID-19 itself. We’re triple vaccinated, and the omicron variant is both low-risk and near impossible to control. Let’s hope that the authorities here can come to the same conclusion soon. In their noble efforts to take care of the people of Shanghai, they’re demonstrating the true meaning of the phrase “killing us with kindness”. 😞


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Interview with the China-Britain Business Council

These days I have a love/hate relationship with the label ‘entrepreneur’. But the life of an independent content creator and an entrepreneur is very similar. You can be fueled with pride for your mission one day, and paralysed with doubt and self-loathing the next. But with the help of positive people around you, you do have the chance to live comfortably with this creative tension, and preserve your equilibrium.


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Noodle Art

I haven’t posted anything for the last couple of weeks because I’ve been busy making this self-portrait out of noodles.
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*No, I’ve had a stinking cold and have been sneezing and coughing all week. I used a photo filter app called Prisma to create this image in 10 seconds.


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100,000 Downloads

A big thank you to everyone who helped Mosaic of China achieve its 100,000th download at the beginning of this month.

It's still a modest project, but I'm grateful for every single person who has taken the time to engage with these stories.


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Sixty Stories

Yes, there’s a podcast about China that is both informative… and fun.

Leaving aside political and ideological differences, there’s much to be learnt from the stories of people living their lives in China. Whether you’re in the arts, business or science, every episode will provoke your curiosity and challenge your assumptions, no matter where in the world you live.

A big thank you to all 60 guests who have so far appeared on Mosaic of China, and a special thanks to everyone who joined us at the end-of-Season party in Shanghai.


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Cassiopeia

🎵💥Cassiopeia by Sara Bareilles

• 🎧 Listen #1: That’s a kooky little song. Catchy chorus.

• 🎧 Listen #2: Oh there’s that weird song again. I don’t think much of the ending. But that chorus still gets me. What the hell, I’ll buy it.

• 🎧 Listen #10: OK I‘ve worked out why I like this chorus. The choices she has made with the harmony are sublime. Good stuff.

• 🎧 Listen #11: Maybe I should stop listening to the second chorus on repeat. I’ll play it all the way through.

• 🎧 Listen #12: Wait, what the hell are these lyrics anyway?

• 🎧 Listen #15: This is actually quite clever. A lonely star dreaming of love. And there’s some nice little wordplay on constellations and supernovas and whatnot. Cute.

• 🎧 Listen #20: Hold on, those lyrics aren’t just cheap puns about space. “She dreamed of a way to ignite”; “Lightyears alway from the hope of being sun-kissed”; “She burns with desperation”; “They both smiled: what a day to explode”; “Break me to pieces”; “Let’s see what a fire feels like”. MY HEART ACHES.

• 🎧 Listen #25: I’ve just noticed the extra percussion ‘collisions’ in the chorus. How the hell did I miss those until now?!

• 🎧 Listen #26: Oh, the drums are heartbeats. I’ve been a fool.

• 🎧 Listen #30: “A supernova grew up to be stardust”. Holy shit, I finally get the ending. This song is so perfect, I’m gonna puke.

• 🎧 Listen #Gajilion: How can someone create an entire world out of a 4-minute song? I need to write a public love-letter to Sara Bareilles, and herald her genius and humanity to the galaxy.

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Death of a Hero

Today we lament.

Tomorrow we resolve

To be the same bulwark against evil

That you were.

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Almost a Perfect Match

This is my new Facebook avatar.

Rather than include realistic wrinkles, I just need enough Botox now to make it match...

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40,000 Downloads

In the big scheme of things, 40,000 downloads is very modest. But I’m deeply grateful for each and every one of them.

Thank you to everyone here for all your support of the Mosaic of China podcast. I’m looking forward to Round 2!

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Reviewing The AFI Top 100 Movies

Over the past two years, we have watched every single one of the top 100 Hollywood movies of all time, as compiled by the American Film Institute in 2007. The full list is below.

Shamefully, out of these hundred pre-2007 American films, I hadn’t seen a whopping 67 of them before this exercise. I loved the classics; I tolerated the musicals; I slogged through the westerns and war films; and I never want to set eyes on a Marx Brother EVER AGAIN.

To save you from embarking on the same silly idea, here are two years’ worth of my insultingly reductive one-sentence reviews, which each include a mark out of ten for enjoyment & rewatchability:

1. CITIZEN KANE (1941) - Citizen Trump. 8/10

2. THE GODFATHER (1972) - Epic mafiapalooza. 9/10

3. CASABLANCA (1942) - Refugees, rogues and romance. 10/10

4. RAGING BULL (1980) - A feel-bad movie about abuse and self-destruction. 5/10

5. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) - So corny, only redeemed by its great production numbers. 7/10

6. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) - The life of a headstrong woman in the old South. 6/10

7. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) - Four hours of camels. 7/10

8. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) - Gruesome arbitrary horror. 9/10

9. VERTIGO (1958) - Women acting as props in a world of creepy men. 8/10

10. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) - Dark & psychedelic. With catchy songs. 8/10

11. CITY LIGHTS (1931) - Who knew a silent film could be so funny, and so moving? 7/10

12. THE SEARCHERS (1956) - Visually stunning, casually racist, semi-subversive cowboy flick. 6/10

13. STAR WARS (1977) - Nice small film, someone should make a franchise out of it. 8/10

14. PSYCHO (1960) - Tawdry and tense Hitchcock classic. 8/10

15. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) - Monolithic (pun intended) genius. 8/10

16. SUNSET BLVD. (1950) - I’m ready for my cynical Hollywood nightmare, Mr DeMille. 7/10

17. THE GRADUATE (1967) - The alienation, the generation gap, the love triangle. And plastics. 8/10

18. THE GENERAL (1927) - A wartime romp about a man and his train. 4/10

19. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954) - I coulda been a contender instead of a bum watching this great crime drama. 9/10

20. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) - It’s true, it is. 8/10

21. CHINATOWN (1974) - Forget it Jake, it’s an L.A. suspense thriller with no relation to Chinatown. 7/10

22. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) - Duplicity and immorality, but... nobody’s perfect. 10/10

23. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) - The dismal dignity of the poor economic migrant. 7/10

24. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) - So magical. I’m not crying, you’re crying. 9/10

25. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) - Atticus Finch for President. 9/10

26. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) - Corruption, fake news, and senators without a backbone. Brutally timeless. 9/10

27. HIGH NOON (1952) - 24 meets Blazing Saddles. 7/10

28. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) - A masterclass in acting the hell out of brilliantly written dialogue. 10/10

29. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) - Femme fatale film noir crime classic. 7/10

30. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) - Impressive boat trip of madness. 7/10

31. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) - Second-rate suspense in suits. 3/10

32. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974) - Less engaging version of The Godfather Part I. 6/10

33. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) - Violent and disturbing portrayal of control vs. chaos. 8/10

34. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937) - A bossy girl manipulates labourers and animals to do her bidding. 6/10

35. ANNIE HALL (1977) - Well la-di-da, it’s a pair of neurotic New Yorkers. 7/10

36. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) - Gentlemanly madness in the blazing sun. 5/10

37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946) - The best film about the complexity of human emotion that no-one’s ever heard of. 8/10

38. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) - A lucky escape from someone who slowly goes mad with power and greed. Relatable. 7/10

39. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) - Conspiracy theorists with their finger on the nuclear button. Also relatable. 7/10

40. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) - A lovely romance, with superfluous Nazis. 8/10

41. KING KONG (1933) - Booming, screaming, and roaring. Oh and a story about Man’s disrespect of nature. 5/10

42. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) - Sexy, violent, and ultimately as impotent as Clyde himself. 4/10

43. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) - Like Taxi Driver (#52 on this list). But with a man-baby and dream sequences. 7/10

44. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) - Classic comedy about feminism and class. 8/10

45. SHANE (1953) - Yet another western, this time through the gaze of an irritating child. 6/10

46. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) - Bus-riding, carrot-eating, wedding-jilting sexy silliness. 7/10

47. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) - Sexiness, Stress, Stanley and STELLA! 6/10

48. REAR WINDOW (1954) - Snooping and suspense. With a dead dog thrown in. 7/10

49. INTOLERANCE (1916) - Gigantic audacious unwieldy storytelling from a century ago. 6/10

50. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001) - You. Shall not. Pass (judgement on this great adventure trilogy). 8/10

51. WEST SIDE STORY (1961) - It’s alarming how charming this is. Despite the shonky acting and weird makeup. 6/10

52. TAXI DRIVER (1976) - Misogynistic leering violent sleazefest. 6/10

53. THE DEER HUNTER (1978) - Does the world really need a gratuitous 3-hour movie about Russian roulette in Vietnam? 4/10

54. M*A*S*H (1970) - More like M*I*S*H*M*A*S*H. 3/10

55. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) - Confusion, criminality and crop-dusters. 8/10

56. JAWS (1975) - The terror and stupidity of opening up beaches despite obvious dangers. Soooo relatable. 7/10

57. ROCKY (1976) - We’re all just bums from the neighbourhood trying our best. 6/10

58. THE GOLD RUSH (1925) - Alaskan starvation tomfoolery. 5/10

59. NASHVILLE (1975) - Seventies celebrity, exposed through intersectional storytelling. 4/10

60. DUCK SOUP (1933) - Bizarre irreverent farce. Bizarrevarce. 3/10

61. SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941) - A great bus chase, a great joke about Pittsburg, but otherwise... meh. 5/10

62. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) - Like Happy Days with a great 60s soundtrack. And nothing else. 3/10

63. CABARET (1972) - Skewed performative mirror of Weimar Berlin. 5/10

64. NETWORK (1976) - I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take the degradation of news journalism any more. 7/10

65. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) - It’s a jungle adventure romance with a terrible score, Mr Allnut. 6/10

66. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) - Poison darts, bad dates, melty faces and, best of all, red lines superimposed on maps. 8/10

67. WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966) - Dysfunctional couples drink a boatload of brandy and argue in different theatrical configurations. 6/10

68. UNFORGIVEN (1992) - Where the antihero kills all the other antiheroes. 5/10

69. TOOTSIE (1982) - Semi-woke, semi-sexist Hoffman drag race. 7/10

70. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) - Crime and justice and other strangely compelling nastiness. 7/10

71. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) - Gruesome, gory and grim. 7/10

72. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994) - A great story, a great Morgan Freeman voiceover, but actually not much else. 7/10

73. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) - A couple of charming robbers run away to Bolivia. 6/10

74. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) - The classiest horror. Never mislay your pen! 8/10

75. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967) - Murder mystery with undercurrents (and just currents) of racism. 7/10

76. FORREST GUMP (1994) - CGI and schmalz. 6/10

77. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976) - Procedural docudrama. More docu than drama. 7/10

78. MODERN TIMES (1936) - Chaplin with a conscience. 6/10

79. THE WILD BUNCH (1969) - Trains and bridges and guns, bang bang. 4/10

80. THE APARTMENT (1960) - True love and male privilege. 8/10

81. SPARTACUS (1960) - Pervy biblical epic 6/10

82. SUNRISE (1927) - Murderous husband has a shave and chases a piglet. 4/10

83. TITANIC (1997) - Superb storytelling, awful dialogue. 7/10

84. EASY RIDER (1969) - Cult counter-culture classic... that also happens to be crap. 4/10

85. A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935) - Anarchic grating singing nonsense. 2/10

86. PLATOON (1986) - Relentlessly miserable portrayal of war. 6/10

87. 12 ANGRY MEN (1957) - A brilliant lesson in how to negotiate with blowhards and bigots. 8/10

88. BRINGING UP BABY (1938) - You know, the usual madcap leopard/brontosaurus story. 7/10

89. THE SIXTH SENSE (1999) - Still amazing, even when you know the twist. Every day. 10/10

90. SWING TIME (1936) - Goofy & adorable. Except for the blackface. 6/10

91. SOPHIE'S CHOICE (1982) - A totally authentic portrayal of what happens when broken people find each other. 8/10

92. GOODFELLAS (1990) - Sheer menace. 8/10

93. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) - One great car chase, bookended by utter shite. 3/10

94. PULP FICTION (1994) - Hyper-stylized expletive-laden crime caper. 8/10

95. THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971) - Small-town 50s Texas in all its sexy tragic monotony. 7/10

96. DO THE RIGHT THING (1989) - Simmering racial tension gets turned up to boiling. 9/10

97. BLADE RUNNER (1982) - A dystopia where you’re never sure who is capable of human emotions. DysTrumpia. 6/10

98. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942) - Cloying patriotism with moments of heart. 5/10

99. TOY STORY (1995) - A harrowing tale of envy, delusion and mob rule. 9/10

100. BEN-HUR (1959) - Loooong. And gaaaay. 6/10

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