Conditional Formatting in MS Excel

by admin, posted in MS Office

An effective way to that little bit of extra pizz-azz to the presentation of your Excel spreadsheet is conditional formatting. This allows you to emphasis important values and make them stand out visually from the rest of your spreadsheet, as well as making this characteristic part of the overall design of the spreadsheet, rather than just doing manual formatting cell-by-cell after the event. You can define and attach a rule to an entire range, such as a row or column, and thus format whatever values might occupy that range in a standardised way if they meet your chosen criteria.

For example, if you have values that you want to measure against a relevant benchmark or threshold, you can then choose a format such as font, bold, italic, font colour, cell colour, border (or any combination thereof) and those values will accept that format whether they occupy that range currently or in the future.  You need simply to highlight (select) the range in question, and then go to the Home tab and select Conditional Formatting.  If you intend to measure the values against a pre-defined benchmark, the best option is to select Highlight Cell Rules from this menu.  The sub-menu for this option allows you to select a comparison (i.e. Greater Than, Less Than, Between etc). For example, if your threshold is 4000, you can then ascribe a format to values that are below this number via the menu on the right.  See the example below:

This will give cells that contain numbers that are less than 4000 a dark red font colour set against a light red background.

Should you wish to modify this rule, with either or both a different criteria or format, you can do so via the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager, which can be found by selecting Manage Rules… from the foot of the Conditional Formatting menu:

You can modify the rule(s) you have defined via the Edit Rule… button at the top of this dialog box.  Note that you can also delete rules via this dialog and create new rules as well, as an alternative method to doing so via the Conditional formatting menu.

You can create as many different rules for the same range as you wish, and also produce some more elaborate formatting effects by making full use of the variations available on the Conditional Formatting menu. More on this in upcoming posts…

Vice

by admin, posted in film reviews

In The Dark Knight (2008), the second instalment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, there is a telling scene where Batman locks himself in a room with the Joker and bars the entrance to prevent any intervention from the law enforcement officials in the next room.  The inference in the scene is clear; the self-appointed vigilante Batman is prepared to use whatever methods necessary to interrogate the villainous Joker, unlike the public officials who are hidebound by laws, codes of practice and the niceties of those pesky constitutional rights.  The film, and this scene in particular, was embraced by many right-wing pundits and commentators as a cinematic endorsement of the Bush Administration’s post 9/11 outlook and philosophy.  This was a philosophy that sought to radically redefine the strategy of the “War on Terror” with a willingness to shed the long-established conventions and pieties of international relations, and resort to extreme methods as a necessary means of engaging and defeating extremism.

The political figure most associated with this policy approach, even more so more than President Bush himself, was his enigmatic Vice-President, Dick Cheney; how ironic is it that the actor who portrayed Batman in Nolan’s film, Christian Bale, is the same actor who now plays Cheney in Vice, Adam McKay’s biopic of the former vice-president and left-liberal bogeyman.  Bale’s is far and away the film’s standout performance; as Cheney, he physically disappears into Cheney’s familiar impassive, humourless, hunched, shuffling presence, including his nuances such as his distinctive clipped, brusque manner of speech. Bale’s is by far the stand-out performance, and a bravura turn in a large and mostly underused ensemble cast, although Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney does well in a thankless role, although she struggles to rise above a screenplay that seeks to portray her as a Lady Macbeth-type accomplice to her husband. Less impressive are Sam Rockwell as George W Bush and Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld.

Overall, however, the efforts of Bale and his castmates are not done justice but what seems an underdeveloped and unfocussed script which hovers uncertainly between outright satire and serious character study.  There are many moments when McKay’s screenplay seems to betray his origins and as a comedy skit writer on Saturday Night Live. Indeed, Bush and Rumsfeld seem more like broad caricatures in one of that show’s politically-themed sequences than fully realised characters in a screenplay with serious things to say.   In large measure, McKay’s film appears to share its DNA , along with is political outlook, with a Michael Moore film, particularly in its scattergun approach and its gimmicky digressions designed to convey weighty abstract concepts in more digestible form. These gimmicks include a scene in an imaginary restaurant, where Cheney, Rumsfeld and their fellow travellers are invited by an unctuous, fictional waiter (Alfred Molina) to select from a menu that includes ‘rendition’, ‘enhanced interrogation’ amongst other dubious options (Cheney’s triumphant declaration is, of course, “We’ll take them all!”) and a scene where Dick and Lynne mull over the wisdom of joining George W Bush’s ticket in a pseudo Shakespearean exchange.  The forced and contrived nature of the transitions between a conventional narrative and these heavy-handed flights of fancy tends to undermine and confuse the film’s impact, especially the mock Shakespearean scene which takes the viewer out of the film and only serves to highlight the comparative paucity of the script.

Perhaps these defects are in some form unavoidable.  Cheney was, and remains, a deliberately obscure and imperviously opaque figure who defies most attempts to gain meaningful insight into his mind or character.  McKay attempts to deal with this challenge by spotlighting a couple of famous public episodes; his invitation to veteran senator and foe Patrick Leahy to, ahem, ‘go forth and multiply’ on the floor of the Senate and the incident where Cheney accidentally shot a friend, Harry Whittington, during a quail hunting expedition.   The latter is seen as a significant indicator of the power and aura that Cheney had managed to gather around himself, so much so that the victim, Whittington, felt compelled to apologize to Cheney, one assumes for the inconvenience he caused by placing his body in the way of the Vice-Presidential bullet.  Another of McKay’s rare attempts to convey some light and shade is his portrayal of Cheney’s somewhat unexpected, albeit understated support of same sex marriage inspired by his daughter Mary’s lesbianism, a stance which caused no small measure of confusion and distress with his conservative support base.

But these interludes offer little insight into Cheney’s character or motivations, beyond the familiar, predictable left-liberal characterisation.  It invites the conclusion that Cheney, despite occupying a privileged and massively influential position at the very heart of power, remains a largely unknown, and seemingly unknowable enigma. Vice, despite a being a watchable and engaging retelling of recent history, really falls between two stools and fails in its aspirations to shed any new light on its subject. It is too heavy-handed and obvious to succeed as satire, using a sledgehammer as its weapon of choice when a scalpel would have served better. But ultimately it is also too indulgent, undisciplined and eager to confirm the bias of its target audience to serve any real serious intent.

Perhaps there is a good film to be made about the controversial life and career of Richard Bruce Cheney. But, unfortunately despite its best attempts and some fine performances, Vice is not that film.

The Favourite

by admin, posted in film reviews

Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film, The Favourite, like much of his previous work, is a curious beast indeed.

At first glance it plays as a period piece, a baroque and farcical comedy of manners set in the court of Queen Anne in the early 18th century. This is an impression reinforced by its setting in a sumptuous palace (the real-life Hatfield House in Hertfordshire) full of hidden doors, labyrinthine unlit staircases, shadowy galleries and long, serpentine passageways, which lends itself to eavesdropping, conspiratorial gossip and the sudden discovery of people in rooms in which their presence is undetected or inappropriate.  However, the ornate setting is a mere surface veneer that does little to mask the cynical and profane mendacity, and political and personal malevolence that characterises the royal court.

The film’s main plot point is supposedly the rivalry between Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), Anne’s advisor, confidant and (as the film contends) lover, and her impecunious young cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) who aspires to the usurping of Sarah’s role both in the Queen’s favour and her bed, an ambition that she eventually realises. Whilst this competition between Sarah and Abigail gives the film its chief impetus and energy, the domineering presence is that of Queen Anne herself (Olivia Colman), a physically frail and mercurial character, apt to sudden and inexplicable tantrums, typically  when confronted by the spectacle of others enjoying themselves in music or dance.  The Queen’s court is a perpetually tense, paranoid environment where her servants, courtiers and assorted hangers-on are forced to tiptoe on eggshells for fear of earning her capricious wrath. The script by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara portrays Queen Anne’s court as a cynical, profane, political bearpit, where all friendships and relationships are no more than strategic alliances intended to earn advantage for the principals.  Indeed, the chief motivation for Abigail’s manoeuvring is depicted as being driven less by genuine feeling for the Queen (unsurprising since Anne seems singularly incapable of exuding any genuine warmth or affection) and more by the opportunity that the Queen’s favour would afford to advance her own social standing. The court itself is seen as a dissolute and acrimonious place; the film’s events take place against an unseen but ever present background of war in Europe, and the social and political foment in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution. These events intrude only occasionally into the story, most notably with Queen Anne’s attempts, urged on by Sarah, to gain parliamentary approval for her proposal to raise property taxes on her wealthiest subjects to finance her military adventurism.  Despite the epic events being played out off-screen, Queen Anne’s court is portrayed as dissolute and venal, where courtiers and members of the Queen’s household are more concerned with their own agendas and appetites than with the compelling questions of national destiny being played out elsewhere. 

The film’s defining performance is doubtless that of Colman as Queen Anne; she masterfully injects empathy and even genuine pathos into a role that could easily have lapsed into Blackadder-esque caricature. The script gives us just enough insight into her tragic personal backstory for us to have an appreciation of the deep well of loss and grief that has formed her jaundiced and irascible personality. Lanthimos and his scriptwriters are, for the most part, unconcerned with accurate historical reconstruction; they have taken significant liberties with the many gaps in the historical record, and have not been averse to filling them with what cannot be other than pure invention.  One product of this would also seem to be at least one noteworthy omission; Prince George of Denmark, Anne’s husband and consort, with whom she is known to have had a close and loving relationship, is a character entirely absent from the film. 

But this is a minor quibble with a film whose obvious intent is not to be a painstaking period reconstruction, but an engaging, energetic and irreverent farce which dares to make complex female relationships, however fictionalised, its main subject, and  the fulcrum on which the entire film rotates.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

by admin, posted in film reviews

Much attention has been lavished on Melissa McCarthy’s performance as the celebrity biographer (and notorious forger) Lee Israel. It has been widely seen as a dramatic and serious role, and hence a radical departure from the customary broad comic persona which first propelled her to prominence in mainstream fare such as Bridesmaids. But the departure, it appears to me, is not so great as it might initially appear. Israel, in McCarthy’s hands, is still essentially a comic creation, as profane and as caustically and savagely witty as any of her previous out-and-out comic roles. But it would seem that the discipline imposed by the portrayal of a real-life character and a nuanced and subtle screenplay drawn from Israel’s own memoir, serves to curb McCarthy’s trademark excesses and allows her the time and freedom to explore her character’s more complex inner depths and motivation.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is that most rare cinematic beast: a film which has at its heart a portrait of a friendship between two lonely, middle-aged outsiders. We first meet McCarthy’s Israel as a down-on-her-luck celebrity biographer, attempting to eke out a diminishing living as a fringe-dweller in New York’s 1980s literary set, living in a ramshackle apartment, unable to enthuse her long-suffering publisher (Jane Curtin) about the marketing prospects for her latest subject, Fanny Brice, and so impecunious that she cannot afford medication for her elderly ailing cat, seemingly the only relationship in her life that she has any genuine investment in. When she happens accidentally across, and impulsively purloins, a letter from the aforementioned Brice, she discovers a pathway not only out of her desperate circumstances but a means of avenging herself on the literary world that had snubbed and ignored her. The key to both her short-term success, and hence her ultimate downfall, lies in her realization that she can make these literary artifacts more marketable by “juicing” them up with her own fabricated additions. It is a small step from this happenstance to her to creating and selling outright forgeries of supposed correspondence from such luminaries as Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward.

In this enterprise Israel is aided, firstly as confidante and then as accomplice, by Jack Hock, another disreputable, somewhat dissolute reprobate played with a winning self-assurance by Richard E Grant. They seem to be drawn to each other by a mutual misanthropic world-weariness, but where Israel is by nature solitary and withdrawn, Hock is sociable and voluble, perhaps dangerously so for the sake of their joint criminal endeavour.

It does great credit to the skill of both McCarthy and Grant that they manage to invest their essentially unlikable, morally dubious characters with considerable pathos and a certain rumpled dignity. This achievement is all the more noteworthy given the fact, as made clear by Israel’s statement to the court near the end, that she feels no regret in a moral sense for her deception, but her regret lies mainly in the fact that she was caught. The film does hint at one other source of regret for her, however; one of the victims of Israel’s deception is an impressionable bookseller, Anna, played by Dolly Wells, with whom Israel had made halting and diffident attempts at forming a relationship prior to the exposure of her scheme. This provides one of the true moments of pathos, when Israel appears to realise that Anna could have potentially provided an alternative path to redemption, a pathway she had squandered, like so much else, through her own mendacity.

All told, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, despite being one of the more unlikely subjects for a mainstream biopic, is an original and assured one, distinguished by a keen directorial evocation of time and place by Marielle Heller, a witty and nuanced screenplay by Nicole Hofcener and Jeff Whitty based on Israel’s own memoir, and note-perfect performances from its principals.

“Warp Speed” Charts in Excel

by admin, posted in MS Office

One of the more impressive and dynamic feature presentation features in MS Excel is charting.  However, in successive versions, the folks at Microsoft have been unable to stop themselves from expanding and complicating Excel’s charting feature to the point where it has become possibly the best exemplar of ‘program bloat’ in the Office family.

For the average Excel user, henceforth, chart creation and modification can be, at best, a time-consuming diversion and, at worst, a confusing and confused labyrinth of excessive choice.  There is, happily, good news for user who is time-poor and seeking to adhere to the sacred principles of KISS.

It is possible to generate a useful chart in Excel via just one keystroke.  You need only select the range of cells in your spreadsheet containing the labels and values that you wish to portray on your chart.  Then, just press the F11 function key on your keyboard and stand back to be amazed!

Excel will instantaneously create a brand new sheet in your workbook, containing a chart based on your selected range of data

A default chart sheet generated in mere seconds with the F11 key

You will immediately have a default 2 dimensional column chart.  Of course, this chart might not be be of a type or format that meets your needs; if so, you can then modify your chart by employing the vast and diverse range of tools to be found on the Chart Tools tab that will appear at the top of the screen whenever your chart window is active.

But if the default chart is enough to meet your needs, very possibly the F11 key is all that you will need. A knowledge of this little-known simple Excel maneuver is also likely to impress your colleagues and workmates, who will likely view you with a new respect and, dare one hope, awe.

For more on charting and other Excel presentation strategies, look for upcoming posts…

Unlock the Power of MS Word with Styles

by admin, posted in MS Office

One crucial but rather underused feature in MS Word is styles.  Styles can provide you a powerful and streamlined method of creating and managing the formatting and presentation of your Word documents.  And the longer and more elaborate your documents become, the more beneficial and powerful styles can become for you.s

A style is simply a saved set of formatting attributes that you can assign with one click to a variety of different elements within your documents such as paragraphs, individual characters, graphics, tables and bulleted lists.  You will find yourself using styles in Word whether you want to or not; the default template that Word employs for each new blank document already has a default style called “Normal”. {Don’t they just love the word ‘Normal’ at Microsoft?)  This style dictates the initial appearance of the text you type in a new document- what font, size, colour, alignment et al it has right from the start. 

The Normal template also already has a number of different styles readily available to the user.  All you need to do is position the cursor in the paragraph you wish to format, and then click on one of the styles that are attached to the panels in the Quick Styles gallery found on the right of the Home tab.  The default styles you will see include Normal, Heading 1, Heading 2, Title and many more besides.  For a bigger choice, you can use the pull-down menu on the right of the Quick Style gallery to access a more comprehensive gallery of default styles.

You will see that using styles as your chief formatting method gives you two crucial benefits:

  1. Speed: it will give you a rapid, one-click solution to achieve repetitive formatting, particularly in your longer documents.
  2. Standardisation:  elements  in your document such as headings, paragraphs, tables and lists that employ the same style are guaranteed to look exactly the same.  In this way you can effectively create and maintain a professional uniformity throughout your documents, regardless of the ‘whims’ or erroneous formatting choices of other users.

And, furthermore, if you use styles as a foundational concept in your document design, it opens up many other automation features in Word.  For example. styles lend themselves to the simple creation of Tables of Contents, the easy enhancement and layout of graphic elements such as diagrams or pictures, and the clever creation of “phone book headers”, to mention but a few.  (More on these features in upcoming posts…)

In summary, the use of styles in Word to their full potential is perhaps the best way to differentiate the true “power” Word user from the wanna-be.

Creating a Growth Series in MS Excel

by admin, posted in MS Office

The little, green ‘Fill Handle’ in the lower right hand corner of a selected cell in an Excel spreadsheet is a very versatile asset. It provides an easy way of copying the contents of cells, especially formulas, into adjacent cells. It can also automate the creation of common labels such as the names of months and weekdays.  One need only enter the initial label (e.g January, Monday), position the mouse over the fill handle in the lower right, and then drag over the required range in the adjacent row or column, and…Voila!

With a simple but clever variation on this technique, you can also easily produce a ‘growth’ series,  Just enter the first two values of your intended series, in order to define the increment that you want between the values:

i.e. 20,24…28,32,36,40

Then select both the first two cells, and use the fill handle to create your series with the required growth factor between the successive values.

This method is also ideal for a series of dates. Again, simply enter the first two dates in your intended series, to define the pattern you seek:

i.e. 16/11/18, 23/11/18…30/11/18,7/12/18, 14/12/18

This can be  a great way to eliminate much of the tedium of creating rosters, time sheets and the like in your Excel spreadsheets.

Creating a Personal AutoFill Series in MS Excel

by admin, posted in MS Office

Most relatively experienced Excel users are familiar with the use of the Fill Handle, the little green square in the lower right corner of the selected cell, to automate and streamline many routine spreadsheet functions.  For example, it provides the user with a simple way to copy formulas into adjacent cells.  It is also a great way to “Autofill” a common series of labels, such as weekdays or months.  You can just enter the initial label in the first cell (e.g. January, Monday…) position the mouse over the Fill Handle and then drag to the right or down to complete the series as required.

The good news here is that you can “tame” the AutoFill feature to create your own personalised series, and automate its creation in any spreadsheet in the future. Simply create a version of your intended series in consecutive cells in any spreadsheet,and then select (highlight) this range.  Go to the File tab and select Options, the last choice on the lower left hand side. Then select the “Advanced” category on the left, and scroll down the right hand screen until you encounter a button bearing the label: “Edit Custom Lists…”

This is the ‘brains’ of the ‘Autofill’ feature.  In this dialogue box, you will see your selected range already visible in the “Import list from cells” box on the lower right. If you simply click on the Import button, your list will join the master “list of lists” in the window on the left.  You can then create this list via the same AutoFill handle maneuver, and thus significantly accelerate your routine typing process, and earn the undying respect and awe of your workmates and colleagues.

Printing a List of Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Word

by admin, posted in MS Office

The most recent incarnations of Microsoft’s Office desktop software boast a large and ever-expanding array of commands and features.  The enduring problem is: how to find and activate all of these fantabulous features?  With enough patience and perseverance you can track them down, hidden away in Microsoft’s typically labyrinthine nest of tabs and ribbons, but all too often this can be a frustrating hit-and-miss endeavour, for it seems the choice of location for many commands doesn’t seem to conform to any recognisable system of logic known to homo sapiens.

Happily, there can be another way for Office users to circumvent Microsoft’s intimidating tabs and ribbons, especially for “old-school” PC users and veterans of the ‘pre-mouse’ era. Most of the commands in your mainstream MS Office program (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook et al) can be activated via an equivalent keyboard shortcut; many of these are familiar and can be used to the same effect in most MS programs. (for example Ctrl+ C for copy, Ctrl + X for cut, Ctrl + Z for undo).  The problem is: how is the average new user supposed to know what keyboard combinations do what?

Fortunately there exists, at least in Microsoft Word, a clever, “hidden” way of easily and instantly generating an exhaustive listing of keyboard shortcuts.

The >Macro> dialogue box in Microsoft Word

Word offers its users a means of automating and standardising routine procedures, via macros that the user can record and then play back as a single action. However, there are also pre-designed macros that are built into Word by default in a library called Word commands.  You can locate this library by selecting Macros from the right of the ribbon attached to the View tab. (Why is it found on the View tab? See my earlier observation regarding Microsoft logic.)  If you select Word commands from ‘Macros in..’ menu half-way down this dialogue box, you will find one of the macros therein is called “ListCommands”.  If you select this macro, and then click on the Run button on the upper right,you will be prompted to create a document that lists all the keyboard settings in Word.  This macro will actually a produce a brand new document containing a large table with a comprehensive listing of all of Word’s keyboard settings.  You can then readily print out the resulting document, and by so doing, create a resource that might mean that you never need go near a Word tab or ribbon again.

Fahrenheit 11/9

by admin, posted in film reviews

Anyone remotely familiar with American film-maker Michael Moore’s filmography would not be surprised by the undisguised, unambiguous slant of his latest venture. Fahrenheit 11/9, his cinematic polemic directed at the Donald Trump era in American politics.  Indeed, Moore nails his colours to the mast in the film’s title: the deliberate juxtaposition of the numbers 9 and 11 is a nod to Moore’s renowned 2004 film, Fahrenheit 9/11, his inquisition of the then Bush administration’s response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath. 11/9 is intended to refer to the date November 9 2016, the day after Trump’s surprise election victory; the inference is far from subtle, in Moore’s customary style, and unmistakable: Trump’s unexpected elevation to the White House is a disaster equivalent to the events of September 11, 2001.

However, the film’s devotes little running time to a familiar excoriation of Trump’s various outrages and misdemeanours; Trump himself is almost an incidental character in Moore’s version of events.  For him, the true villains of the piece are his enablers, those who by their complacency or malfeasance made the unlikely Trump presidency possible.  The culprits are numerous: Hilary Clinton and her inept, tone-deaf campaign, Clinton’s sponsors in the Democratic Party who allegedly rigged the primary process to bestow the nomination on her rather than Bernie Sanders (clearly Moore’s preferred candidate), and the generation of Democrat politicians, up to and certainly including Barack Obama,  who had, through their compromise and lack of conviction, betrayed and disenfranchised their progressive, working-class constituency.  And, preeminently, much of the blame for the Trump ascendancy is laid at the feet of the mainstream media who, dazzled by Trump’s ‘celebrity’ status and the colour and shade he brought to an otherwise insipid election year, gave him  an enormous amount of non-critical coverage in the early stages of what was widely assumed to be an unserious ‘vanity’ candidacy. And Moore, to his credit, does not exempt himself from the (dis)honour roll of Trump’s inadvertent media enablers.

Unfortunately, the central message of Moore’s film is somewhat undercut by his trademark scatter-gun approach.  The laundry list of grievance is long and runs the gamut from Democratic political corruption, the water lead poisoning scandal in Michigan, family separation in immigrant families, gun violence in schools, exploitation of low-paid workers in Virginia, and much more besides. At the end of the day, Moore’s attempt to cover so much ground only dissipates and dilutes the passion and urgency of his message.   In particular, Moore can’t seem to help himself from indulging in his familiar stunts; spraying the garden belonging to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder with tainted water, and attempting to place the self-same Snyder under citizen’s arrest in person. The comedic impact of these episodes is minimal at best; they feel forced and contrived and could have been left on the cutting room floor without detracting in any way from the finished product. On the contrary, these sequences seem more than a little obligatory and under-graduate, and give the impression of Moore straining to satisfy the expectations of his loyal audience. The overall effect, it seems to me, is to undercut and trivialise the gravity of the very serious allegations that Moore is making: in Snyder’s case, no less than willful manslaughter.

The same could be said about one of the film’s final sequences, where historical footage of Nazi rallies and Hitler’s oratory is spliced and overlaid on audio from Trump’s speeches.  This, too, seems obvious, heavy-handed and arbitrary. and rather sells the audience short.  History (and one might dare hope, the US electorate) may well deliver a very negative judgment on the Trump presidency, but the US has had plenty of venal, corrupt and incompetent presidents in its history.  You don’t need to draw a false, somewhat overblown equivalency with Hitler to prosecute this case against Trump, and to do so verges on an insult to the viewer’s intelligence.

Moore’s lapse into over-inflated hyperbole is a shame, because Fahrenheit 11/9, at its best, makes many telling and salient points about the existential crisis of American democracy in the age of Trump.  Perhaps most salient is Moore’s insistence, counter to at least one prevalent view, that Trump is no mere aberration who fell out of a clear blue sky, but instead the most recent culmination of an anti-democratic trend whose origins predate Trump, and seems likely to outlast him.

It is worth reflecting on the fact that Moore’s earlier film, evoked in the title of this one, Fahrenheit 9/11, was clearly intended to contribute  to the defeat of George W Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Instead, history tells us that, in 2004, the Republicans secured a majority of the popular vote for the only time in the last seven presidential elections.  It would be unfair to blame Moore for this outcome, but his film obviously did little in the end to prevent it. He does his best to find a hopeful note in the apparent, reinvigorated progressive activism of a younger generation, and, like him, one can but hope.  But the lasting impression left by Moore’s film is still most likely to be a distinct chill running down the spine.