The re-staging last week in France of the infamous Milgram experiments as a reality television show made uncomfortable viewing, at least for a while. Watched by an unsmiling presenter, 80 people were led to believe that they were taking part in a game show called La Zone Xtrême.
They were introduced to their "partner" for the game, a man who was then locked in a chamber and hooked up to electrodes. The idea was that the partner would attempt to memorise a sequence of word pairs before being tested. Every time he got one wrong, the contestant would have to give him an electric shock: the more wrong answers, the worse the shock. Once both parties got to the end of the show, each would win a huge cash prize.
None of the participants knew that the partner was an actor, nor that his screams of pain, appeals for mercy and eventual loss of consciousness were faked. Yet 64 of them - 80 per cent - continued to administer shocks even after there was no response from the chamber.
"Don't worry," rapped the presenter when one of them looked doubtful. "Go on. You have to continue. It's the rule."
This "game of death" aired as part of a documentary series purporting to examine the future of TV. It recapitulated Stanley Milgram's experiments in obedience and control in 1960s America, which were themselves inspired by the Adolf Eichmann trial taking place in Jerusalem. But it came in a week when the capital, at least, was particularly sensitive to the implications of "just following orders". The film La Rafle, which opened last month, is still reminding cinemagoers of the tacit acquiescence to the wartime round-ups of Parisian Jews by the Nazis, while the council has sponsored a poster campaign urging Parisians not to forget.
Perhaps inevitably, Christophe Nick's film, which was followed by a round-table with several cultural nodding dogs and the show's presenter as well as contributions from contestants, came in for instant criticism. Academics jostled in the pages of the next day's newspapers to point out, quite reasonably, that the real revelation wasn't so much that everyone is a potential torturer as that people who want to be on TV will do almost anything if a presenter asks them to.
The show's self-righteous tone, attention-grabbing music and hectoring editing hardly added to its tone of serious inquiry, and may have been influential in its failure to capture the expected market share. By far the majority of the country was watching Law & Order and the French equivalent of Only Fools and Horses on other channels.
What's more, this documentary was a splendid exercise in having your cake and eating it. It takes real brass neck to mount an hour of prurient, can't-look-away reality telly, then follow it with a magazine programme saying how awful it is that everyone took part and watched it. The producers even followed up the next evening with another documentary, going after reality TV producers so hard that the head of French Endemol complained of "Stalinist" persecution.
Splendidly, however, much of the programme's thunder in the media was stolen by a spat that developed between the presenter, Christophe Hondelatte, and one of his guests in the round-table discussion that followed.
The guest, Alexandre Lacroix, the editor of Philosophie magazine, took exception to Hondelatte's treatment of a contestant contributing to the discussion. This was in fact a highly unsavoury bit of TV in which Hondelatte, while discussing the contestant's reasons for continuing to play, insisted on putting on the record that he was homosexual, despite the man's objecting several times.
Lacroix accused Hondelatte of mounting an "interrogation" that revealed perhaps more than the programme itself had done about the coercive power of the presenter. The host's reaction, as Lacroix related a day or two later in Libération, was electric. "See the door? Out," he apparently shouted. "I'm the captain. You can get up and come and have this out with me in my dressing room. Face to face!"
Childish, perhaps, but it's the kind of irony you couldn't make up, and days later the thing is still rumbling out in the French press. Hondelatte has been forced to own up to getting cross, claiming that his opponent in effect called him a terrorist.
And everyone now seems to find the debate vastly more interesting than the programme that started it all: which raises the question, how far does TV really have to go to get noticed? Personally, I give it two more years before Celebrity Stanford Prison Experiment. You heard it here first.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Brief scoreline:
Liverpool 2
Mane 51', Salah 53'
Chelsea 0
Man of the Match: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
Race card
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m
5.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m
6pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-1 Listed (PA) Dh230,000 (T) 1,600m
6.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m
7pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (T) 2,400m
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Indika
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: 3/5
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The Facility’s Versatility
Between the start of the 2020 IPL on September 20, and the end of the Pakistan Super League this coming Thursday, the Zayed Cricket Stadium has had an unprecedented amount of traffic.
Never before has a ground in this country – or perhaps anywhere in the world – had such a volume of major-match cricket.
And yet scoring has remained high, and Abu Dhabi has seen some classic encounters in every format of the game.
October 18, IPL, Kolkata Knight Riders tied with Sunrisers Hyderabad
The two playoff-chasing sides put on 163 apiece, before Kolkata went on to win the Super Over
January 8, ODI, UAE beat Ireland by six wickets
A century by CP Rizwan underpinned one of UAE’s greatest ever wins, as they chased 270 to win with an over to spare
February 6, T10, Northern Warriors beat Delhi Bulls by eight wickets
The final of the T10 was chiefly memorable for a ferocious over of fast bowling from Fidel Edwards to Nicholas Pooran
March 14, Test, Afghanistan beat Zimbabwe by six wickets
Eleven wickets for Rashid Khan, 1,305 runs scored in five days, and a last session finish
June 17, PSL, Islamabad United beat Peshawar Zalmi by 15 runs
Usman Khawaja scored a hundred as Islamabad posted the highest score ever by a Pakistan team in T20 cricket
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The%20specs%3A%202024%20Mercedes%20E200
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Company profile
Company name: Suraasa
Started: 2018
Founders: Rishabh Khanna, Ankit Khanna and Sahil Makker
Based: India, UAE and the UK
Industry: EdTech
Initial investment: More than $200,000 in seed funding
Did you know?
Brunch has been around, is some form or another, for more than a century. The word was first mentioned in print in an 1895 edition of Hunter’s Weekly, after making the rounds among university students in Britain. The article, entitled Brunch: A Plea, argued the case for a later, more sociable weekend meal. “By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday night carousers. It would promote human happiness in other ways as well,” the piece read. “It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.” More than 100 years later, author Guy Beringer’s words still ring true, especially in the UAE, where brunches are often used to mark special, sociable occasions.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia