DUFF & NONSENSE!

NAPOLEON: Act I, sc i

First, scroll down for Introduction

 

ACT I, sc 1

Lights down followed by a sound effect indicating a mob approaching the Tuilleries on the 25th October 1795.   As the noise reaches a crescendo, a terrific cannonade roars out and the howls of the mob turn to screams and groans.   As the lights/curtain go up bodies are seen, some still, some twitching and groaning.   Smoke is gradually clearing as two figures enter US right and left.   They step through the bodies, crossing diagonally, until they eventually meet.   One is Fouché, the ex-Commissar of Police, and he rolls over the odd body with his boot and peers closely at the features.   The other is Talleyrand, dressed as usual in the height of fashion, using his cane to assist with his lame foot and holding a lace hankie fastidiously to his nose.

Tall:  My dear Fouché, enjoying the October air?   There was a time when autumn simply meant leaves in the street.   Now we have bodies!   Such is the progress of our glorious revolution.

Fouc: M. de Talleyrand, your servant Sir - as well I might have been but for the progress of our glorious revolution.

Tall:  Indeed you might, I hadn’t thought of that.   What might you have been?   My valet?   (He views Fouche’s plain garb with some disdain)   Perhaps not, no disrespect but one does require one’s valet to be au fait with the very latest fashion and somehow, my dear Fouché, I don’t think fashion is high amongst your concerns.   How about butler?   Oh no, no, that wouldn’t do, you’d look like the spectre at the feast and give all my guests indigestion.   You might make a good coachman; I rather think you’d be handy with a whip.....

Fouc: Very droll, Citizen.   In the midst of death there is mirth, especially when M. de Talleyrand is present - ever the wit in the shit!

Tall:  Now, now, Fouché, just my fun, take no notice.   But do tell why it is that you are taking such an interest in these our former fellow citizens?   I thought in your line of work you’d be more interested in the living than the dead.

Fouc: As you well know, I am not in work at the moment but a policeman, even an ex-policeman, likes to know which of his former customers are, so to speak, permanently retired.   There’s never a shortage of scum around to start trouble but at least there’ll be a few less after this little effort.   Mind you, this lot are just cannon fodder, worthless all of them.   It’s the ones behind them I’d like to get my hands on, the ones that stir them up to it.   (He stares meaningfully at Talleyrand who remains quite unruffled.)

Tall:  Bravo, Fouché, one sleeps so much sounder knowing that vigilant citizens like you are keeping the revolution safe...

Fouc: I wish I could say the same about you, Talleyrand.

Tall:  My dear fellow, what are suggesting?   May I remind you that I broke holy vows and gave up the chance of a Cardinal’s hat to throw in my lot with the revolution?   I think I may claim to have made my fair share of sacrifice, don’t you?

Fouc: You broke holy vows long before the revolution - particularly the one about chastity.   Good God, man, you had more women than masses when you were a priest!   I’m an atheist and I hate the church but if I’d been running the Inquisition I’d have had you on the rack years ago.   You skipped very neatly from church to state and you’d skip back again just as quick if it suited your book....

Tall:  My dear old, Fouché ...

Fouc: Citizen Fouché to you!

Tall:  (Sighing)   My dear old, citizen Fouché, your revolutionary fervour is admirable except when it interferes with your capacity to think.   Come, Sir, beneath that rather unprepossessing exterior I know there lurks an extremely intelligent man but you’ve spent so much time with your nose stuck in police dossiers you haven’t given yourself time to think.   The fact is that you and I, though we have approached this point in the revolution from diametrically opposite directions, share much political thought in common...

Fouc: We’ve got bugger all in common...

Tall:  Please, Citizen, just exercise the skill common to all secret policeman - listen!   I know you despise and distrust me and given that you’ve probably memorised my dossier from cover to cover I can hardly blame you.   My church career, for want of a better word, was, I grant you, not without the occasional blemish.   (Fouché snorts.)   Mind you, my worldly sins were perfectly acceptable to most of society.   People will always forgive luxurious living in a priest provided they all have their turn at the trough.   But alas, it was the fornication that upset them.   It annoyed the gentlemen who thought a priest shouldn’t be in the great game at all, you know, unfair competition and all that, and it upset the ladies, both those that one wished, gracefully, to cease fornicating with, and even more those with whom one wouldn’t fornicate even if they were the last woman on earth.   Oh, that reminds me, how very remiss, I forgot to ask, how is Mde. Fouché?   Well, I trust!   (Hurries on before Fouché can reply.)   Ah, but still, I did love those ladies who lifted my cassock so regularly during those dreary days as an Abbot and I bless them all.   In those days I knelt to God and they knelt to me.   Thus, I offended not only my own class but revolutionary prigs like you.   Damned to the Left and damned to the Right and certainly damned above!   But, my dear old Fouché, I may have started as a member of the establishment and ended up as a revolutionary but you started as a revolutionary and ended up a member of the establishment.   (Fouché starts to interrupt but Talleyrand cuts him short.)   Oh, yes indeed.   Just remember, Fouché, there is no such thing as a ‘revolutionary policeman’, that is what is called an oxymoron...

Fouc: Eh?

Tall:  A contradiction in terms.   You are either one or the other, policeman or revolutionary, and let me tell you that policemen are always but always on the side of the establishment, the side of stability, the side of law and order.   (Talleyrand becomes very serious.)   And stability, Citizen, is precisely what I want, you need, and France yearns for!   Stability, Fouché!   Unless we have it your precious revolution will disintegrate and so will my precious France.   So, let me repeat, despite our differences in background and, er, style, we share a view, a political view.   And by the way, we also share a virtue.

Fouc: Christ, I don’t think I want to know, but go on, what is it?

Tall:  Survival.   We lived!   We both tip-toed through the slaughter house and neither of us slipped on the blood.   Rather remarkable, don’t you think?   By the way, talking of blood, who was responsible for producing all these extra litres?

Fouc: General-of-Artillery, Citizen Bonaparte.

Tall:  Really?   One doesn’t expect this level of efficiency from our revolutionary army - (Holds up his hand to forestall Fouché’s interruption.) - yes, yes, I know, lots of courage, bags of elan but, honestly, they’re just as likely to form square facing inwards and open fire, but this .... this is rather different.   I expect that even as we speak, Citizen Barras and his cronies in the Directory are congratulating themselves on their selfless courage in signing the order for this Bonaparte fellow.   Shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t mint a special medallion - and award it to themselves!

Fouc: Well, if it’s made of gold, no doubt you’ll be able to provide it - at a price, of course.

Tall:  Touche, Fouché!   Now why don’t we walk a while together, these bodies are beginning to smell.

Fouc: How can they?   They’ve only been dead an hour.

Tall:  Really?   Then personal hygiene is another of the many things to have suffered a decline during the revolution, let us depart.

NAPOLEON: Introduction

Some years ago I wrote a play.  I sent the first 3 acts to just about every theatre in the land - and then papered the downstairs 'loo' with the rejection slips!  It lay mouldering in a cupboard until I re-typed it into 'Word' and saved it on my computer in an obscure file.  I came across it the other day and I have decided to re-print it here one act at a time.  Apart from being, as I am sure you will appreciate, a magnanimous gift to posterity(!), it will also give me a chance to conduct a few nips and tucks!  I like reading play scripts but I do understand and sympathise with those who do not.  I advise those readers to simply skip each entry because it will not impede the usual flow of rubbish you have grown to expect here at D&N.  For those who do enjoy play-reading, feel free to criticise, to mock, to (as it were) throw rotten veg, to comment or even, if genuinely felt, to praise.

Copyright and performance rights are strictly owned by the author

.....................................................................................................................

NAPOLEON

A play by David Duff

INTRODUCTION

 

This is the first of two plays based on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.   It is not history!   My Bonaparte is not the ‘real’ Bonaparte even assuming that any three historians could decide on the nature of the ‘real’ Bonaparte.   I hope my characters come ‘alive’ in the mind’s eye of actors and directors through the text but the following may help.   Napoleon and Josephine already have images in the public consciousness and therefore should be cast with that in mind.   He was in his mid-twenties at this stage, dark, slight of build, intense and with that indefinable aura that marks the man of action and command.  

 

In real life, Josephine was not a great beauty and she was older than Napoleon. However she possessed an exotic charm from her dark, slightly Creole looks inherited from her Martinique background and she exuded a definite sexual allure which, combined with the wiles of the experienced courtesan, helped keep her head on her shoulders during the terror when she was imprisoned.   Her first husband was executed but she survived and with two children to raise she used her wits and her body to maintain a home in Paris.   Napoleon, inexperienced with women, stood no chance against her subtle sexuality.

 

Talleyrand and Fouché (and Josephine!) were amazing survivors of this turbulent period which despatched people to their deaths in their hundreds of thousands.   That they lived whilst others died is a testament to their intelligence, their ability and their guile.   Talleyrand, in particular, is a great figure in European history.   Personally corrupt and cynical, nevertheless, he had a clearer vision than anyone of the long-term objectives that would provide France and Europe with a modus vivendi.   In his fifties, he always carried a cane to assist with a limp.   His charm, particularly with the ladies, was legendary.  

 

Fouché was a street revolutionary who rose to become the secret policeman of the murderous Jacobin government.   Utterly ruthless and thus hated and despised his survival was extraordinary.   Like many politically cruel men he was in private life a devoted family man.

 

Barras was an opportunist who wriggled his way to the top to lead the Directory government.   A florid old roue and Josephine's lover at the start of the play.   The Duc d' Angers and Marcel the Jacobin are imaginary characters representing opposite ends of the political scene.

 

 

This play can be produced with elaborate sets and a large cast but, equally, it can be played on a bare stage with minimal sets and props and maximum doubling and trebling of parts (see below).   However, I think it is clear from the text that changes of scene should be swift and smooth to maintain pace.

 

Cast

(Ages in brackets and suggested doubling/tripling, etc.)

Napoleon (mid 20s)    Josephine (young 30s)

Talleyrand (50s)    Fouché (40s)    Louise (late teens)

Mde Remusat/Florence (50/60)  Barras/ Duc d' Angers/ Colonel (50/60)

Sieyes/Gaston/Sgt 21^st (40s)    Cit 2/Pietro/Marcel (20s)

Cit 3/Spy 1/Soldier 21^st/Jean - footman (20s)

Cit 1/Hussar/Guard Sgt/Staff Officer/Gentleman/Duc d’ Enghien (20/30)

 

 

NB: This leaves Spy 2 uncast.   Either use an ASM or slightly alter the dialogue in ACT II sc 4 so that d' Anger exits solo and the 'Gentleman' becomes Spy 2.

 

Costumes for those changing roles: The soldiers should wear the same long military trousers and simply change military tunics for different roles.  The civilians should wear the same breeches/stockings and change their coats, or strip to shirts if appropriate, as they change characters.  The addition and subtraction of powdered wigs for the gentry, perhaps side whiskers, beards, etc, will help differentiate civilian characters.

..............................................................................................................

 

The Sunday Rumble 28th Feb

My 'blogbirthday':  For once in his miserable, socialist life, Councillor Bob Piper, 'did good', even if it was entirely accidental, by publicly celebrating his blog's 6th birthday and thus reminding me that I had just missed my 5th birthday. Yes, dear reader, on February 17th 2005 I wrote these immortal lines:

Virgo non-Intacto!

I haven’t felt this nervous since I lost my virginity.  Mind you, that was so long ago I can barely remember it, and I’m quite certain that the lady in question erased it from her memory before she’d got her knickers back on.  Anyway, here I am, all of a tremble, after years of pissing into other people’s blogs, now I am a potential ‘pissee’.  Hitherto, never at a loss for words, now what passes for mind is a blank.

I suppose I could begin by providing some biographical details, but I can feel my eyelids drooping at the prospect, and anyway, if you are daft enough to follow this blog, you will no doubt pick up some clues on the way, because one truth is constantly demonstrated in the world of blogdom, that a writer gives away much more about himself than he illumines in others.

Actually, this being my first time (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), I shall treat it as an experiment in order to discover the finer points of Typepad and how it all works.  “I shall return!”

Oh dear, not exactly an auspicious beginning, was it?  And already you can see my weakness for pathetic sexual innuendo as a means to a cheap laugh.  I'd like to think I have improved over the years but alas  ...

Tell me it ain't so:  According to The Times the Tory lead has shrunk to just 2 points above Labour.  Cameron and Osborne are at risk of going down in history as the Laurel and Hardy of British politics.  Of course, the party itself is to blame because they voted this pair of "gi's a job, any job!" merchants into the leadership, mainly I seem to remember, because they spoke rather nicely and looked like the sort of chaps one would be delighted to see one's daughter bring home, soooo unlike that rather rough-looking bruiser, David Davis, who gave the menacing impression that he might enjoy the prospect of punching someone's lights out!  Well, if Brown gets back in we must close our eyes and hold our breath and wait for Death Varder and his black-clad heavies in the form of the international bond and currency dealers to storm in and give Brown (and, alas, us, too!) the punishment we deserve.  Perhaps - just, perhaps - if a new Brown government is extremely weak the financial turmoil that will result, combined with the national unrest that will surely arise as measures needed to deal with it are enforced, will finally blow Brown away, and if (some hopes!) the Tory party elects a leader with principles and the courage to enunciate them, we might still have a chance.  If Brown wins, or even if he fails to lose heavily, the British people are the cause and deserve everything they will get.  Brown will have bought the election on borrowed and printed money and if people really think he has steered us through the crisis - "they ain't seen nothin' yet". Additional: I have just watched Cameron's conference speech.  It was a good hustings speech, containing high aspirations, well delivered, so why do my doubts remain?

Same old same old:  A 'must read' article in The Times which provides a 'face in the dirt' description of an operation in Afghanistan.  Great courage - on both sides! - but the killer sentence comes right at the end after a long and bloody exercise:

The British soldiers, who had come lightly armed and were not ready for a day-long firefight, withdrew to their base.

So what, after all that effort and cost in blood and treasure, was the point?

Correcting the perspective:  Sometimes piffling affairs near to home assume an importance that is not their due.  Jamie Dimon, chief honcho at J. P. Morgan, is reported in The Telegraph as saying that:

"there could be contagion" if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. "Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country," said Mr Dimon. "We don't really foresee the European Union coming apart." The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.

California however poses more of a risk, given the state's $20bn (£13.1bn) budget deficit, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is desperately trying to reduce.

I have forgotten exactly how big the Californian economy rates on a global scale, I seem to remember that it was around 8th but if I am wrong it is still eye-wateringly huge.  It is not alone amongst American states in threatening to go broke and the outcome would have profound implications, not just for the world economy but also in that very ticklish area of internal American politics which comes under the heading of States' Rights.  This, I suspect, will move up to centre stage during the Obama regime's tenure in office as mainly Democrat states go broke and fall under the control of the Federal government, a development much to be desired by Obama and his apparatchiks, and mainly Republican states fight their way up to the Supreme  Court (as they are doing now) in an effort to break free from Federal interference.  This notion of States' Rights has been fairly dormant for some time but it lies deep in the hearts of the American people and could prove troublesome.  In the meantime, hold tight and hope California gets through.  If J. P. Morgan is worried, then we should all worry!

Where do babies come from? Ed Balls (no, no, that's not the answer to the quesion!) insists that our children need more and more sex education in order to stem the rise in teen-age pregnancies.  As Peter Hitchens reminds us in The Mail on Sunday, this is the Big Lie repeated yet again for the umpteenth time since sex education was first introduced some 60-odd years ago:

By 1963, in Norwich, parents were told that their young were to be instructed in sexual matters because the illegitimacy rate in that fine city had reached an alarming 7.7 per cent (compared with a national rate of 5.9 per cent). The national rate is now 46 per cent and climbing, so that was obviously a success, wasn’t it? (My emphasis)

Orlando who?  Yes, indeed, well may you ask, and I am ashamed to say that I had never heard of him, either.  Again, I am grateful to Peter Hitchens (scroll down) for pointing me in the direction of the late Orlando Zapata, a former mason and plumber who has just died in a Cuban prison at the end of a hunger strike undertaken as a protest against the Castro tyranny.  As a committed socialist, Councillor Bob Piper, to whom I referred above, likes to take his holidays in Cuba but makes sure his hotel room faces away from the prison in order to avoid the stench and the screams!  Of course, he is a keen critic of 'Gitmo', 'natch'.

Obama and Brown have a natural affinity:  We all remember those shots of Gordon Brown picking his nose in parliament but now those rascals over at 'I Hate The Media' have a YouTube film of Obama doing the same but with added sound effects to enhance the fun.  Quite disgraceful, of course, have they no respect?  (Don't bother answering that!)

The other Brown, 'over there':  I picked up the fact that the new Senator for 'Kennedy Kingdom', Scott Brown, a Republican who nicked the seat from under the silly noses of the Democrats, began his Senatorial career by voting for a Democrat bill!  I was inclined to whip out my blogging 'Tommy Gun' and hose him down - "you dirty rat, you" - but inertia, as so often, won the day and I wrote nothing.  Just as well because here is a spirited and thought-provoking defence in, of all places, the impeccably Right-wing American Spectator.  Well worth a read and perhaps there is more to the hunky Sen. Brown than just eye candy for sexually repressed American matrons!

 

I haven’t felt this nervous since I lost my virginity.  Mind you, that was so long ago I can barely remember it, and I’m quite certain that the lady in question erased it from her memory before she’d got her knickers back on.  Anyway, here I am, all of a tremble, after years of pissing into other people’s blogs, now I am a potential ‘pissee’.  Hitherto, never at a loss for words, now what passes for mind is a blank.

I suppose I could begin by providing some biographical details, but I can feel my eyelids drooping at the prospect, and anyway, if you are daft enough to follow this blog, you will no doubt pick up some clues on the way, because one truth is constantly demonstrated in the world of blogdom, that a writer gives away much more about himself than he illumines in others.

Actually, this being my first time (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), I shall treat it as an experiment in order to discover the finer points of Typepad and how it all works.  “I shall return!”

Actually, this being my first time (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), I shall treat it as an experiment in order to discover the finer points of Typepad and how it all works.  “I shall return!”

Tell me it ain't so:  According to The Times the Tory lead has shrunk to just 2 points above Labour.  Cameron and Osborne are at risk of going down in history as the Laurel and Hardy of British politics.  Of course, the party itself is to blame because they voted this pair of "gi's a job, any job!" merchants into the leadership, mainly I seem to remember, because they spoke rather nicely and looked like the sort of chaps one would be delighted to see one's daughter bring home, soooo unlike that rather rough-looking bruiser, David Davis, who gave the menacing impression that he might enjoy the prospect of punching someone's lights out!  Well, if Brown gets back in we must close our eyes and hold our breath and wait for Death Varder and his black-clad heavies in the form of the international bond and currency dealers to storm in and give Brown (and, alas, us, too!) the punishment we deserve.  Perhaps - just, perhaps - if a new Brown government is extremely weak the financial turmoil that will result, combined with the national unrest that will surely arise as measures needed to deal with it are enforced, will finally blow Brown away, and if (some hopes!) the Tory party elects a leader with principles and the courage to enunciate them, we might still have a chance.  If Brown wins, or even if he fails to lose heavily, the British people are the cause and deserve everything they will get.  Brown will have bought the election on borrowed and printed money and if people really think he has steered us through the crisis - "they ain't seen nothin' yet". Additional: I have just watched Cameron's conference speech.  It was a good hustings speech, containing high aspirations, well delivered, so why do my doubts remain?

Same old same old:  A 'must read' article in The Times which provides a 'face in the dirt' description of an operation in Afghanistan.  Great courage - on both sides! - but the killer sentence comes right at the end after a long and bloody exercise:

The British soldiers, who had come lightly armed and were not ready for a day-long firefight, withdrew to their base.

So what, after all that effort and cost in blood and treasure, was the point?

Correcting the perspective:  Sometimes piffling affairs near to home assume an importance that is not their due.  Jamie Dimon, chief honcho at J. P. Morgan, is reported in The Telegraph as saying that:

"there could be contagion" if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. "Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country," said Mr Dimon. "We don't really foresee the European Union coming apart." The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.

I have forgotten exactly how big the Californian economy rates on a global scale, I seem to remember that it was around 8th but if I am wrong it is still eye-wateringly huge.  It is not alone amongst American states in threatening to go broke and the outcome would have profound implications, not just for the world economy but also in that very ticklish area of internal American politics which comes under the heading of States' Rights.  This, I suspect, will move up to centre stage during the Obama regime's tenure in office as mainly Democrat states go broke and fall under the control of the Federal government, a development much to be desired by Obama and his apparatchiks, and mainly Republican states fight their way up to the Supreme  Court (as they are doing now) in an effort to break free from Federal interference.  This notion of States' Rights has been fairly dormant for some time but it lies deep in the hearts of the American people and could prove troublesome.  In the meantime, hold tight and hope California gets through.  If J. P. Morgan is worried, then we should all worry!

Where do babies come from? Ed Balls (no, no, that's not the answer to the quesion!) insists that our children need more and more sex education in order to stem the rise in teen-age pregnancies.  As Peter Hitchens reminds us in The Mail on Sunday, this is the Big Lie repeated yet again for the umpteenth time since sex education was first introduced some 60-odd years ago:

By 1963, in Norwich, parents were told that their young were to be instructed in sexual matters because the illegitimacy rate in that fine city had reached an alarming 7.7 per cent (compared with a national rate of 5.9 per cent). The national rate is now 46 per cent and climbing, so that was obviously a success, wasn’t it? (My emphasis)

Orlando who?  Yes, indeed, well may you ask, and I am ashamed to say that I had never heard of him, either.  Again, I am grateful to Peter Hitchens (scroll down) for pointing me in the direction of the late Orlando Zapata, a former mason and plumber who has just died in a Cuban prison at the end of a hunger strike undertaken as a protest against the Castro tyranny.  As a committed socialist, Councillor Bob Piper, to whom I referred above, likes to take his holidays in Cuba but makes sure his hotel room faces away from the prison in order to avoid the stench and the screams!  Of course, he is a keen critic of 'Gitmo', 'natch'.

Obama and Brown have a natural affinity:  We all remember those shots of Gordon Brown picking his nose in parliament but now those rascals over at 'I Hate The Media' have a YouTube film of Obama doing the same but with added sound effects to enhance the fun.  Quite disgraceful, of course, have they no respect?  (Don't bother answering that!)

The other Brown, 'over there':  I picked up the fact that the new Senator for 'Kennedy Kingdom', Scott Brown, a Republican who nicked the seat from under the silly noses of the Democrats, began his Senatorial career by voting for a Democrat bill!  I was inclined to whip out my blogging 'Tommy Gun' and hose him down - "you dirty rat, you" - but inertia, as so often, won the day and I wrote nothing.  Just as well because here is a spirited and thought-provoking defence in, of all places, the impeccably Right-wing American Spectator.  Well worth a read and perhaps there is more to the hunky Sen. Brown than just eye candy for sexually repressed American matrons!

 

"Blimey wot a norf an' souf"

Further to my preceding post on 'Dithering Dave' and the stumblebum Tories, it looks increasingly likely that my vote will go to UKIP.  I grant you that were they ever likely to gain power I would emigrate instantly to New Zealand, it being the furthest civilised place on the globe, in order to watch from a safe distance.  However, their erstwhile leader, Nigel Farage, does possess the knack of telling it like it is, and does so at full volume, judging by this photo which brings to mind a line from that old cockney song: "Blimey wot a norf an' souf, blimey wot a mouf 'e's got!"

 

According to The Daily Mail, Mr. Farage described the, er, less than distinguished President of the European Union, M. Rumpy-Pumpy Rompuy, thus:

you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance... of a bank clerk

Very rude, of course, but was it fair?  You may judge for yourself.  Farage continued:

'Is this European democracy?' Farage asked. 'You appear to have a loathing of the very concept of the existence of nation states.

'Perhaps that's because you come from Belgium, which of course is pretty much a non-country.'

Farage has something even better going for him, he's standing against that little shit, Bercow, in the next election.  Need I say more?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1253714/You-charisma-wet-rag-British-MEP-launches-astonishing-tirade-new-president-European-Council.html#ixzz0ggEzP5xL

'Monty' could teach 'Dave' a thing or two about command

Let's be honest, I know he was a war hero and an officially endorsed Great Man but 'Monty' was also a tremendous pain in the arse with a mountain of faults to set against the range of his virtues.  However, '2nd Lt. Dave' Cameron would do well to study 'Monty' and his methods as he prepares to lead his 'troops' over the top against a hail of mobile 'phones and staplers hurled by 'Mr. Nasty' in No. 10.  According to James Forsyth in, yes, you guessed it, The Spectator (no link yet), the Tory High Command is divided against itself and the result is that the message to the people is that there is no message!  The result of that is a heart-stopping slippage of Tory support in the polls.  According to Forsyth, the Tories are led by a cabal of 5 men, only 2 of whom have actually ever faced an electorate on the hustings!  Those two are Cameron and Osborne, and with them they have 3 unelected SpAds.  Steve Hilton is on one side and is described thus:

He is a maverick whom you will never see wearing a tie.  He has little time for the Westminster game, and has considerable confidence in his own judgment.  For example, he is unconvinced  by the quality of the party's polling, so he just doesn't use it, and instead relies on his own instincts and knowledge.

Yeeees, quite!  On the other side is yet another great political strategist at young 'Dave's elbow, 'Andy' Coulson, the former editor of, wait for it, The Screws News of the World.  Again, only a Paxman-like, yeeeees, quite, will do by way of comment.  The third SpAd, George Bridges, is described as a former aide to John Major - need one say more?

It is now clear that I was dead right all those months? years? ago when I said that Cameron had no ideology by which to steer his political ship.  'That woman' might have had her version of SpAds but anything they came up with by way of ideas she could test against the template of her well-honed philosophy, at which point, it either went into her handbag or was walloped by it! Getting back to 'Monty', one of the diktats by which he operated was that he, and he alone, would work out The Plan.  Once he had done that it would then be handed down to his staff officers for them to work out how it would be executed.  Almost every other general in the wartime British army worked the other way round, the staff would propose ideas and the general would choose between them.  'Monty' wasn't always right but he was infinitely more successful than any of the others.

In similar fashion to what happened before the 'election-that-never-was', when Cameron and Osborne panicked as their poll figures slipped and were forced to announce a huge relief in inheritance tax at which point their popularity soared, Forsyth reports that for the first time a proper, 2-hour shadow cabinet meeting was held last week at which all the shadow ministers spoke and put forward their ideas for the forthcoming campaign.  So at least now 'Dave' and George have had some imput from real, live politicians, not just oily PR and gutter-press oiks.  However, the main problem remains, no-one knows exactly what 'Dave' stands for - and that includes 'Dave'!

 

 

A great euro idea - put the cart before the horse!

I am usually wrong about most things - well, I didn't need to tell you that, did I, not if you have been a regular reader here at D&N. Even so, thanks to the wonderful law of averages at least I am right some of the time.  For example, I was absolutely dead right when I opposed the formation of the Euro and cheered our refusal to join. My main objection, then and now, was that it was a perfect example of putting the monetary cart before the political horse.  The Euro fanatics of the time were driven by twin motives, one honourable, the other despicable. 

The first honourable (if misguided, in my opinion) imperative arose from memories of the first half of the 20th century.  As Timothy Garton Ash puts it in The Guardian:

The personal memory of war, occupation, humiliation, European barbarism; fear of Germany, including Germany's fear of itself; the Soviet threat, the cold war, the "return to Europe" as a guarantee of hard-won freedom; the hope of restored European greatness.  These were massive biographical motivators, which drove people like Mitterrand and Kohl even unto the euro.

However, he points out that now, in the 21st century, those memorial impulses are fading fast.  Even if it was ever a good idea to invent some mechanism to lock the disparate nations of Europe together, the use of monetary union before political union was a nonsense with an inbuilt fault like a sticking accelerator on a Toyota.  The second, dishonourable motive was plain, old-fashioned power-lust.  The desire of Euro politicians and Euro bureaucrats to 'strut their wretched hour upon the stage' even if it was plain to everyone else that they were stark naked!  For example, is it possible to take President 'Rumpy-Pumpy' Rompuy seriously?  Or the equally absurd High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs, Baroness Ashton of Upholland?  ("Security affairs"?  She used to be a leader of the CND, for God's sake!) 

The next 12 months are going to 'interesting' in the sense of that old Chinese proverb that 'it is a curse to live in interesting times'.  Apart from the push and pull between international money-men and various prime ministers, for the first time in a long time the voice of the people is likely to be heard, not in the polite modulated tones of the European parliament but shouting and screaming in the streets and squares of various European cities as they lob bricks and petrol bombs. In Greece, Spain and Portugal the mobs are already out and about.  How will their less than courageous domestic politicians face up to them whilst simultaneously trying to placate the EU and, more important, the German financial Gauleiters?  It's already turning nasty:

EU leaders will deny that this is a ­bailout and everyone will know that it is a bailout.

Both Greeks and Germans will then be furious. One well-placed diplomatic observer in Athens suggests to me that, as part of the European supervision of Greece's fiscal discipline, "there'll be a German under every desk". Just don't mention the war. Except that Greece's deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, already has. Recalling the Nazi occupation, he said earlier this week: "They took away the gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away Greek money, and they never gave it back. This is an issue that has to be faced sometime in the future."

To which furious Germans will reply: "They took away our d-mark, and nobody asked us if we wanted to give it up. We were assured, in ­solemn treaties and ­rulings of our constitutional court, that we'd never have to bail anyone out. We took 10 years of painful reform to make ourselves competitive again, while those Pigs lived high on the hog. Now we're being asked to work till age 67 so the Greeks can ­retire at 63." And so on.

So much for the Greek tragedy but now some people are conducting a Spanish inquisition, like Stephen Fidler in the WSJ:

Greece set off the crisis rattling the euro zone. Spain could determine whether the 16-nation currency stands or falls.

The euro zone's No. 4 economy, Spain has an unemployment rate of 19%, a deflating housing bubble, big debts and a gaping budget deficit. Its gross domestic product contracted 3.6% in 2009 and is expected to shrink again this year, leaving Spain in its deepest and longest recession in a half-century.

The Greek 'moussaka' might just be swallowed by the EU in some international financial stitch-up - provided the Greek people don't turf their government out - but a massive Spanish omelete will really take some digesting:

Euro-zone heavyweights Germany and France have pledged to support Greece if necessary. But any bailout for Spain—whose $1.6 trillion economy is nearly double those of troubled euro-zone partners Greece, Portugal and Ireland combined—would be far costlier.

A "shock and awe" infusion aimed at renewing faith in Spain's finances, should it be necessary, would take roughly $270 billion, according to an estimate by BNP Paribas. It estimates similar confidence-restoring moves in Greece, Ireland or Portugal would require $68 billion, $47 billion and $41 billion, respectively.

Gulp!  Of course, there are some optimists who think Spain will scrape by but as usual the bond-dealers who, unlike politicians, actually  have to put their money where their mouths are have already indicated the sort of price they will charge:

The price to insure €10 million in Spanish bonds for five years— just €2,350 three years ago— rose this month to €171,750 before falling to €125,000, said data firm Markit Group Ltd. (My emphasis)

Some voices are being raised in support of the idea of exiting the Euro altogether because it would be a living example of that old adventure story-line: "With one bound he was free!"  It would be hellish tricky to pull off but never underestimate a politician in panic mode!  And in fact, it might well be a push rather than a jump because we have yet to hear from the paymasters themselves, that is, the German people.  As Martin Vander Weyer puts it in 'The Speccie':

As pressures mount, the euro could fracture — and, as I wrote here five years ago of the inevitability of just such a crisis, ‘you may be sure that if restructuring the euro without its most delinquent members becomes a political imperative, the French and the Germans will find a way to do it’. (Again, my emphasis)

Well, all good Englishmen will pray for such an outcome but only time will tell.  And, whilst we cheer on from the sidelines we should remind ourselves that we will not be immune to considerable 'collateral damage' in the course of the explosion!  "Don't panic, Capt. Mainwaring, just pass me my steel helmet!"

 

Oh no, another premature ejaculation!

That was a silly title!  I'm now going to get hundreds of 'hits' from men searching for a cure for the incurable.  However, you regulars will be familiar with my problem - no, no, not that one! -  in which I pick up a book and before I have even reached halfway I start leaping up and down here at D&N and shouting its praises.  Oh well, fasten you seat belts, here we go again!

I was in Waterstones the other day having surrendered to my galloping 'bookoholism' - anyone know of a ten-point plan which would ween me off it? - and having found two books in their "3 for 2 offer" I picked up the third simply because the title intrigued me.  I do that all the time, a bit like an 'alcie' who spots a bottle of turps in a nice mauve colour and just can't resist it!  The book was called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by a Swedish writer, Steig Larsson.  Suffice to say that I was up until 1.15 this morning reading it and I can't wait to finish this silly post so I can get back to it!

There is a sad and, alas, all too real story to go with this book.  Apparently Larsson, who was a campaigning journalist by trade wrote this, his first thriller, which was finally accepted in 2005 for publication by a tiny publishing house who actually resorted to handing our free copies to people in the street in order to stimulate interest.  It took off like a rocket and Larsson wrote two more featuring the same fascinating lead characters.  All three books are now up there in the top selling lists and someone tells me a film of the first one is planned.  Then, just as success arrived, so too did death, and Larsson died suddenly and prematurely at around the age of 50.

I simply cannot praise this first book highly enough, indeed, I can hardly wait to get started on the second which I already have.  I promise you, people, this book is terrific on all sorts of levels.  Come on, you can trust an old second-hand car dealer like me, can't you?  Well get out there and buy a copy!

And by the way, if any of you ingrates out there have already read the book - why didn't you tell me?

Additional:  Finished it!  Terrific but I forgot to add another well-deserved garland of praise to 'Reg Keeland' a.k.a. Steven T. Murray, his real name, and the translator of the book.  At no time did I ever sense directly that this was a translation - and that is the highest praise anyone can give a translator.  Anyway, on to Book Two ...

Foot fiddlers, Freudians and chirocrackers - out, out, out!

In fairness I should begin by confessing my almost total ignorance on much of what I am about to write - so no change there, then!  However, I am provoked to this post by news that someone is agitating to stop the Nationalised Health Service ("The envy of the world" - heh, heh, heh!) from using tax-payers' money, or, my money as I fondly think of it, to fund the provision of homeopathy, or 'witches and weeds potions' as I usually call it.  The fact that Prince Charles is in favour of it only stiffens my opposition.  According to its opponents there is absolutely no scientific proof of its efficacy.  Now, here I should enter another caveat because even if ten scientific doctors stood shoulder to shoulder on a stack of Gray's Anatomy and swore to their prescription I would, with gritted teeth, be forced to accept it but inwardly I would still have considerable doubts. But when it comes to flagrant mumbo-jumbo witchcraft I have no hesitation in telling its practitioners to stick their goofy nonsense where the sun don't shine!  I say that with some caution because I do have one or two friends who, for example, practice 'foot-fiddling' (as I call it because, for the life of me, I can't remember its 'technical' name) and other friends (all of them women!) who are willing submissives and who swear by it.  As for those devilish 'chirocrackers' I wouldn't let them within a mile of me!  To be honest, until today I had no idea that the NHS actually used my money to pay for this rubbish so I wish the campaign well.

However, there is another organ of our 'not-fit-for-purpose' government which also uses my money to pay for crackpots and charlatans, and that is our unjust Justice system.  Today we have a case of an obviously dim-witted policeman who forgot that his two police dogs were locked in his car for 7 hours on the hottest day of the year and who perished accordingly.  He actually did remember them part way through the day and was on his way to release them when he was interrupted and then went and forgot them again.  Anyway, up in court he claimed all sorts of excuses but the clincher appeared to be:

The officer yesterday told the court he suffered from anxiety because of previous inquiries by the Independent Police Complaints Commission was 'out to get him'. 

He also claims to suffer from depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. (My emphasis)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1252893/PC-left-dogs-die-baking-car-seven-hours.html#ixzz0gIJoCZEj

I would suggest that it was more like obsessive compulsive stupidity with which he was suffering.  However, as I understand it, he has been let off as a result of this Freudian analysis and in that he joins a long line of far more serious malefactors who have wriggled their way out of charges of murder as a result of their defence teams hiring in psychoanalysts to tell juries that their ghastly actions were all motivated by their potty training.  There is very little real scientific support for the accuracy of psychology as applied to individuals so why are public funds used to keep these hoaxers in work?  And why aren't psychoanalysts pilloried and pelted with rotten veg whenever these charlatans creep out into the public sphere?

 

Over there - no, no, not 'over there', I mean over there!

I am very conscious of the fact, whether it be lamentable or not I leave for others to decide, that this site is more than somewhat America-centric - if that's a word.  I make no apologies, I am an unashamed admirer of much (but not all!) that is America.  However, it does mean that I am pandering to my blind spot when it comes to Europe and that is foolish given its size and its proximity.  To whine that I am not the first Englishman to ignore Europe is no mitigation.  I am reminded of this by an intersting essay in the current Spectator by Mark Wood, a former big wheel in Reuters and now an even bigger wheel in ITN.  Alas, it does not appear on the 'Speccie' site so I am unable to link to it - but you could go and buy a copy and help keep my favourite magazine going!

In essence, Mr. Wood strongly urges 'Dave' to consider a serious wooing of Mrs. Merkel.  I know she's not much to look at but she is, according to Mr. Wood, an extremely able and ruthless political operator, not only at home where her coalition with the Free Democrats is producing a sort of mini-Thatcherism, but also within Europe where her quietly uttered "nein" is literally the last word on anything.  There is some truth in this, I guess, given that she turned her thumb down at that importuning phoney, Tony Blair, when he tried for the top job.

However, she is, I gather, feeling lonely these days because whilst the Franco-German pact is considered essential she doesn't actually think much of that Hungarian dwarf who runs the place.  From time to time she feels the need to tug his lead sharply in order to get him to heel.  She has taken rather a shine to Jose Luis Zapatero of Spain who is a pragmatist battling away to get his nation's books in order, and also the equally pragmatic Polish government which, like her, abhors all those glitzy Euro conferences and the gladhanding that goes with them.  Berlusconi is beyond the pale and she cannot stand Brown, according to Mr. Woods' report.  Consequently, she would be delighted to see the back of him after our next election and if a suitably young, handsome, polite Tory politician was to come calling with a bunch of political flowers, well, who knows where it might end!

Mr. Wood points out, shrewdly, that Germany is still encumbered with its 20th century past.  It has borders with nine other nations and they have learned that cordiality verging on meekness is the best approach to their neighbours even if they do play music late at night, get drunk, row with each other and generally make a nuisance of themselves.  "Make nicely" is the new German motto!  Perhaps because we are that much further away we have failed to shuck off all those wartime memories which, it must be admitted, we cling to like an old veteran who brings out his medals at the slightest excuse.  I, myself, stand accused of a deep and abiding suspicion of Germany, not only because of its history but also because it is so huge and powerful, squatting as it does in the very heart of Europe, that I automatically reach for my suspicions.

However, a grisly fact must be faced.  The chances of Britain unilaterally pulling out of the EU are so remote as to be beyond consideration.  One's only hope is that the whole rotten edifice collapses one day - I had hopes of that with all these debt problems, and it might, just might, still happen, but given the huge political investment made by the Euro fanatics, I wouldn't bet on it.  Given that, I suppose it would be sensible for a sceptical but pragmatic Tory government to open up closer lines of contact with Berlin and try again to forge a relationship with what I would call the 'sensibles'.  Let there be no mistake, meekness or not, it is the Germans who run the show and if, under Mrs. Merkel, they are now prepared to push forward in a  sensible direction we would be daft not to be alongside nudging and shoving in the time-honoured manner we have developed with our American cousins.

In memorium

I think I wrote some time ago of the terrific impression made on me by the Armed Forces Memorial near Litchfield.  In particular the two group statues which are enormously evocative and deeply moving, particularly this one, on the north wall, showing a dead soldier on a stretcher being passed on high towards a grieving widow and young son.

Photo: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-482967/War-memorial-paid-donations-Daily-Mail-readers-opens-public.html

I would urge anyone who finds themselves in what is, to all intents and purposes, the very middle of middle England, to try and spare an hour or so to visit this memorial which is simply superb in every aspect.  I am provoked to this post by a blogger: http://troutbirder.blogspot.com/2010/02/korean-war-memorial.html who took these photos of a memorial he came across in Washington to the men who died in Korea.

Again, in a different way, deeply evocative and both works, British and American, restore my faith in the almost lost art of memorial statuary. 

Shylock, fascist intellectuals and race hatred

In what I thought was the most innocuous of posts below I simply linked to an interesting essay by an American teacher of English literature and her thoughts on the character of Shylock.  This brought forth a gobbet of race hatred by someone who signed himself as 'Revilo Oliver' which was interesting because, as I learned, the real Revilo Oliver died some years ago.  However, he is worth a few minutes of your time. 

For a start his name is a palindrome which he insisted was real, the practice being an old family habit.  He had a fairly distinguished career as a professor of ancient philology at the University of Illinois and served with distinction during the war in the Army's cryptanalysis unit.  As a result of that job he claimed to have definitive proof that Roosevelt knew beforehand of the attack on Pearl Harbour.  (Yes, yes, I know, one of those!)  After the war he returned to academe and in the '50s joined William Buckley on The National Review, a Right-wing magazine set up to counter the Left-wing National Republic.  Politically, Oliver was constantly on the move - but only one direction, further and further to the Right such that he and Buckley fell out and Oliver left the magazine.  He was a founding member of the John Birch Society and spent the rest of his life spewing forth his hatred of communists and Jews (interchangeable in his mind) before dying in 1994.  Needless to say, he embraced every daft conspiracy theory provided he could point it at either Jews or communists or both.

I mention all this because I am frequently amused at the flatulence of many American Left-wingers who sneer at Palin and Brown as being beneath contempt because they are not intellectuals!  Well, the late and unlamented Dr. Oliver was an intellectual to his fingertips whilst simultaneously being, as my e-pal 'JK' might put it in 'Arkie' language, bat-shit crazy!  The point I am laboriously making is that being intellectual is absolutely and definitely not a guarantee of wisdom.

Now I will turn to my 'commenter' who signed himself under false colours but whose name-link took me to a site called "Jew Watch".  With a title like that you do not need to be warned about its content!  The site was recently taken over by a James Stenzel and for lack of any other information I must assume it was he who commented on my post.  I cannot be bothered to investigate his biography, suffice to say that the man is the site and the site is the man!  In his comment he offered another link to a site titled "Majority Rights".  This is another terminally tedious Right-wing outlet but the first article on it provided me with a wry smile.  It is a turgid read by someone who has wasted his life in fringe politics when he could, by comparison, have been doing something really useful, like painting the mother-in-law's kitchen, or, supporting West Ham, or whatever.  Anyway, one topic caught my attention in which the writer indicates his desire to forge links with Islamist movements.  There, in a nutshell, was an example of the extreme Right and Left joining hands on the circle of politics with extreme Muslims.  They're all Brothers and Sisters under the skin - and the veil!

What's going on 'over there'?

I am obliged (again!) to my eagle-eyed e-pal, Alan Sullivan, for pointing me in the direction of a fascinating theory as to what is going on 'over there'.  Something's up, even I have noticed it from 'over here'.  Glenn Beck spotted it a while ago, and Sarah Palin, in her political innocence, tripped over it in 2008, and Scott Brown was the lucky inheritor of it a few weeks ago.  So, what is it?  A revolution, no more, no less.  The Palin/Tea Bagger/Scott Brown and other phenomena are all indicative of a restless, dissatisfied electorate with a real grudge against their ruling elite - irrespective of Party.  According to Herbert Meyer in the link above the twin shocks of 9/11 and the Wall Street crash have shaken their faith in their rulers.  I would argue that Obama's win in 2008 was the first indication of this unrest and his huge support stemmed from a desire for what he promised - real change.  Unfortunately his 'real change' has turned out to be as phoney as a $9 bill which, under his stewardship, is about what it's worth today!  It is now evident beyond any shadow of doubt that he is one of the most useless presidents ever elected in the last 100 years.  With a Democrat majority in both Houses he failed to get his flagship policy on health through the Congress.  However, his political vacuity was not the only example on offer.  The conduct of members of Congress, as they produced two bills both of which in sheer magnitude would give the Encylopedia Britannica a run for its money and which they all admitted was impossible to read from cover to cover, and their brazen acceptance of pork-barrel bribes to change their votes, was a disgrace to such a hitherto distinguished legislature.  (Surely it can only be a matter of time before term limits govern members of Congress - and I would welcome something similar 'over here' for parliament.)  I think it is fair to say that each and every incumbent, from both parties, who is facing re-election in November must be facing a huge risk from third party challengers.  It will be no good incumbents relying on their normally aquiescent party allegiances, the voters have moved on, or at least, enough of them have moved on in a mixture of disgust and anger to threaten them all.  This explains the unseemly rush to the lifeboats of so many Congress men and women who are standing down at the next election.  A few posts back I suggested that what voters are looking for (and what they have so far discerned in Sarah Palin adn Scott Brown) was authenticity.  Mr. Meyer puts it better than me:

In the looming political battles, persona will matter more than policy. As we move toward the 2010 elections, of course we'll ask candidates to outline their plans for how to improve our health care system, what to do about illegal immigration, how to bring down the unemployment rate, how to fight the war, and all the rest. But what will determine who gets elected this year won't be a set of specific policies, but something simpler, and in a way much deeper: a recognition among grassroots voters across the political spectrum that character is more important than personality, that education isn't the same thing as judgment, and that expertise without common sense is dangerous. (My emphasis)

There are dangers in all of this.  When electorates are angry and frightened and have lost faith in their traditional leaders they may turn to political mountebanks.  Such an outcome for a nation like America does not bear thinking about, so we must keep our fingers crossed.  One obvious threat is the re-action of Obama's regime to the on-coming express train that is going to flatten them.  As I have pointed out before, his administration is filled with Marxist ideologues determined to ram through measures to ensure their socialist vision is made safe for ever.  Obama has, through the mouth of his political consigliore, Rahm Emanuel, threatened rule by presidential decree, a practice which has increased over recent years but which offends the proprieties of American political life in that it circumvents the checks and balances of Congress.  On another front, there is already incipient revolt from various States on a range of contentious issues in which they are fighting cases against the Federal government on the basis of State Rights under the Constitution.  The Supreme Court is likey to have to earn its money in the near future.

 

I repeat, there are dangers but I have faith in America and I think they will weather this storm and come out of it healthier, wealthier and wiser!

The Shylock dilemma

I am in danger of writing myself out today so this time I shall confine myself to providing you with a link to a very interesting memoire from a lady who has spent the past 30 years in an American university teaching English literature in general, and Shakespeare in particular.  For reasons she makes clear in her essay she has concentrated on The Merchant of Venice, and the changing attitudes of her students towards its central 'villain' makes fascinating reading.

Great Controversies Through Which I Snore #1

Well, if Oliver Kamm can have his never-ending series on "Great Historical Questions to Which the Answer is No", then I am going to indulge in an equally unlimited number of controversies over which others might rage but through which I shall snooze undisturbed.  There can be no better example with which to begin than the huge fuss and furore over the Israelis 'offing' a Hamas gangster in Dubai.  This being an equal opportunities murder site, I should make clear that were Hamas to succeed in shooting/stabbing/strangling/poisoning (delete as necessary) the head of Mossad, I would remain equally unmoved provided they did so with the clean, one might say, clinical, efficiency with which they despatched Mahmoud al-Mabhouh to his 72 virgins.  It will certainly have one desirable result, henceforth all those big-wig Hamas thugs who strut about the rich hotels of the world as though they owned them (perhaps they do!) will now have to creep about very surreptitiously.  In the meantime, those 'very naughty boys', the Israelis, in the form of their ambassador, Ron Prosor ('Vot should I know, already, I vos in Golders Green all day, my life!'), has been summoned to the Foreign Office to be interviewed by Sir Peter Ricketts, the permanent under secretary, no less. Heh!  That'll teach 'em to make use of British European passports.  Bet they're quaking in their boots!

Now, where was I  ... zzz ... zzz ... zzz ...?

Hot from the Nancy Pelosi Acadamy of Science

Not that Mrs. Pelosi is 'hot' in the accepted American sense of the word, alas, the poor, raddled, old bag is well past her 'sell by' date; even so, my under-cover American agent, 'JK', obviously feels a 'strange attraction' (another term tossed around between us quantum mechanics as we peer up at the underside of the universe) for her because he keeps a close eye on her 'local hidden variables' (another physical physics term) and he report the following:

Heaviest Element Yet Known to Science Discovered

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has now identified with certainty the heaviest element known to science.

The new element, Pelosium (PL), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Pelosium is inert, and has no charge and no magnetism. Nevertheless, it can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Pelosium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Pelosium has a normal half-life of 2 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a biennial reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

Pelosium mass will increase over time, since each reorganization will promote many morons to become isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Pelosium becomes Senatorium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Pelosium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

God bless America!

Julian Simon wins again - from the grave

I remember when I first started this blogging lark that one of the earliest arguments I had was with a blogger called Jim Bliss who was one of those 'End of the World is Nigh' alarmists, similar to 'Little Willy' but infinitely more intelligent and polite (not difficult, I know), and one of his pet theories was peak oil and the looming disaster for Mankind when it was reached - which, in his opinion, could be any time soon.  At the time I doubted his forecasts and reminded him of the Julian Simon/Paul Ehrlich bet which, whilst not taken on the basis of oil, nevertheless held a lesson to all 'end-of-the-world' alarmists.

You can read the details at the link provided but in essence Erhlich, back in the '70s and '80s (and still today) was an extreme alarmist (along with his friend and fellow alarmist, John Holdren, now a big wheel in 'St. Barack's' administration) warning of a coming catastrophe as human population growth outstripped resources.  In 1980 the late Julian Simon offered him a choice of several different metal commodities and a bet that they would fall in price over 10 years not increase as predicated by Ehrlich's alarmism.  Ehrlich chose five - and ten years later he sent Simon a cheque for $576.06! 

But still the shrieking from alarmists continued particularly on this notion of peak oil which so worried dear old Jim Bliss.  I told him at the time that even with nil expertise I still doubted his forecasts because there were still 'zillions' of gallons of oil yet to be discovered and which were simply awaiting a rise in price to make them worthwhile.  I am obliged to those 'wise guys' over at Cafe Hayek for pointing me to this report from Exxon Oil in which their boss points out:

“We have replaced more than 100 percent of production for 16 consecutive years" and "The corporation’s reserves additions in 2009, the highest in the decade".

I do hope Jim Bliss reads this, it should help him sleep better at night!

Additional:  More from Cafe Hayek:

BP’s reserve replacement ratio for the year was 129 per cent – making 2009 the seventeenth consecutive year of reserve replacement of at least 100 per cent.

And this:

Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: OXY) announced today that at year-end 2009, the company’s preliminary worldwide proved reserves totaled 3.23 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) compared to 2.98 billion BOE at the end of 2008. In 2009, the company had proved reserve additions from all sources of 483 million BOE, compared to production of 235 million BOE, for a production replacement ratio of 206 percent.

And this:

Questar E&P reports year-end 2009 proved gas and oil reserves of 2.75 Tcfe, up 24% from year-end 2008.

P.I.S.S.

In case you're wondering, the acronym stands for Pebble in Shoe Syndrome!  This is a new and deeply disturbing psychiatric condition which might interest my recent interrogator, 'Weggis', who took me to task for admitting my confusion over the precise meaning of 'autism'.  However, PISS is a very different but persistent condition with which I am suffering as I write.  You know how it goes, a little thought enters your head and you just cannot rid yourself of it and the subsequent irritation is like, well, a pebble in your shoe.  Unfortunately my particular 'pebble' is not so easily removed - but perhaps I should stop waffling and explain.

What causes gravity?  That's what I asked myself the other day and indicates the level of idle inertia of which I stand accused on a daily basis by the little Memsahib.  Yes, dear, I reply, but still the question nags - why should the mass of one object attract the mass of another object?  Where's the go-between?  What is the go-between?  I can see and understand the interaction of one body on another if they are both pushing through a dense medium, say, like two ships on the water because you can 'see' the compression of the medium which will, depending on their relevant positions, either repel or attract each other. But gravity is not a push-me-pull-you force it only goes one way - pull-pull.  That intelligent, brainy and charming fellow, the late Richard Feynman, tells me in a slim volume of his that you can measure this force with incredible accuracy, but he can't tell me what are its root causes.

And that's just one pebble in one shoe, I have another in the other shoe!  Back in the days when I tried to teach myself something of quantum mechanics I was intrigued to learn that if you smack a couple of particles in opposite directions at near the speed of light (think of them as tennis balls) and both share the same quality known to the boffins as 'spin', but you direct one of them through an electronic screen of some sort which changes its spin, the spin on the other changes automatically!  Remember, they are travelling near the speed of light in opposite directions so how does the message get through from one to the other?

Do you know, I think I have discovered the cure for PISS.  Just pass the irritating pebbles onto someone else and let them suffer.

Note: to any of my brainy readers who might feel tempted to answer my questions, please remember you are dealing with someone who didn't just fail maths, physics and chemistry at 'O'-level but crashed with the sort of terminal velocity experienced by a kamikaze pilot!

'Little Willy' dribbles in my comments box

Regular readers will know that Dr. 'Little Willy' is an excitable chap given to much mouth-foaming and eye-ball swivelling.  Those of you who pay UK taxes and who plucked up the courage to visit his abominable, badly-written and pig-ignorant blog site (to which I will not link) will be pleased to know that this moron has just been awarded a Doctorate - in 'pond life', I believe - so now you know where your tax money went!  In the comments to a post down below he became even more excited than normal because he had discovered an article in The Guardian reporting a 'scientific' paper that purported to disprove Anthony Watts' contention that data taken from a huge number of US weather stations was invalid because their physical surroundings had changed over time.  Watts and his teams of volunteers spent many years actually visiting US weather stations from which temperature readings are taken and the data sent into places like NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), intellectual home of Dr. James Hansen, the man whose prophesies to the US Congress back in the '80s proved to be, shall we say, less than accurate.  GISS, and others, take this raw data and fiddle about with it (I use the phrase advisedly) in order to, er, adjust the outcome. 

Now you would think that to be sure their, er, adjustments were accurate they would at least make some effort to have the sites checked for suitability.  For example, sites which in the early 20th century would have been described accurately as 'rural' might well have been overtaken by urban development thus altering their readings as nearby air-conditioning extractors, car exhausts from car-parks, reflected heat from asphalt and so on pumped warm air over the thermometers.  But no, they never did that and the only check on subsequent urbanisation was done by viewing night-time satellite photos to see how many light sources there were surrounding any particular weather station.  Thus, a weather station which started life in a 'green field' setting might well have had a single air-conditioned office built next to it with a small asphalt car-park none of which would show any huge increase in light sources at night but its temperature readings would show an immediate jump.

Even worse, here is an example of a weather station whose positioning was actually carried out by scientists, or at least, was executed under their very noses, at the University of Arizona, no less:

 

This is an official weather station site and its data is used by GISS in its efforts to convince us that global warming is taking place which it is, of course, if you believe their graph from this particular station:

They are so proud of this station they even had a special sign made up:

Do you really think that the station and the data it produces today bears even a faint resemblance to what it produced in 1867?

You can read the whole article on this at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/07/25/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-24/

Watts and his volunteers have surveyed approximately 85% of US weather stations and this map shows their positions and his assessment of their individual accuracy.  Suffice to say that anything in red is likely to have a bias upwards of between 2 to 5 decrees centigrade. 

All of this work was done by amateurs sending in photographic evidence along with written descriptions of the immediate environment, supervised by Anthony Watts whose expertise lies in weather.  His methods of assessment are an open book for anyone to check, as has occurred now.  I have no expertise to test either Watts or his critics, but I know which one I would trust. 

The fact that Dr. 'Little Willy' sides with Watts' critics is an abnormality in the raw data for which I have compensated by adjusting my dress before leaving!

 

Off to see SoD!

'Son of Duff' and his delightful partner are in a state of high excitement and unconfined joy because dear old Dad is paying them a visit this weekend.  Don't ask me how I know these things, I just do!  Anyway, I shall be 'off air' until Sunday afternoon.

Globally warmed snow and ice in Goreland - and other fairy tales!

The HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) reeling under the perfect storm which lashed their methods and their reputations to shreds are now desperately trying to unfreeze their brains from the arctic winter which has descended both 'over here' and 'over there'.  It is a measure of their wild-eyed desperation, as they see their carefully manicured scenarios disappearing under record snowfalls, that they are now claiming that all this snow is a proof of global warming.  You see - and please don't giggle - global warming heats the air so that it absorbs more moisture which results in greater precipitation either as rain or snow.

Allow me, as I try to keep a straight face, to raise some points.  First, this winter's snow is abnormal and, as the HAFs always admonish us sternly, weather is not climate, so perhaps they could explain to me why it is permissable for them to use this particular weather event as a 'proof' of a warming climate when they would bridle in outrage were I to offer the last few chilly summers as an indication that global warming theories are crap?

Secondly, if snowfalls are a proof of global warming why have they wasted the last 20 years taking measurements from very dodgy weather stations and fiddling around with the raw data in order to prove their theory when all they had to do was measure the snowfall?

Finally, I would ask them where all the snow has been hiding for the last few years?  Several times in the last decade or so, the Swiss have been weeping into their strudel because of the absence of snow on their slopes and the consequent absence of skiers?

More moussaka, sir?

This is a comment I left over at David Osler's place (he's a hopeless Leftie but a good egg) in which he moaned and groaned about the iniquities, as he sees it, of Hedge Fund operators who are betting heavily against Greek debt and thereby forcing the Greek government to cut back on the pay-offs and bribes given to the Greek unions in the form of swollen pay packets:

With a rock-steady hand and unblinking eye our host takes careful aim - and shoots the messenger!

Greece is, was and always has been a kleptocracy. It cooked its financial books to look like a tasty moussaka so that the ambitious Euro fanatics in Brussels would swallow it whole - which they did with big, fat, silly smiles on their smug mugs. Now they're suffering with chronic indigestion and along with our host they blame the messenger.

Please, please, do try and understand that 'short buyers and sellers' are like shit-eating cockroaches, they only thrive if there is plenty of shit lying around. If politicians (and I include our host as such) want to do them down then they should run their nations' financial affairs with rigorous propriety, only spending and borrowing what they can afford. Then the Hedge funds will hate you!

Now, who's next?  Portugal?  Spain? Italy?  Perhaps I should open a book but my mathematical skills are so poor I'd probably be the first bookie in history to lose money!

He who laughs last didn't get the joke - but Cheney does!

More excellence from the WSJ. 

In my 'love letter in praise of Sarah' I pointed out to any progressives who took a wrong turn and by mistake arrived here at D&N that if 'St. Barack of Obama' is so wise and intelligent and intellectual (the highest accolade in the progressive order of chivalry) how was it that he wasted his first year trying to find out who, in the international arena, his friends were?  I could also have asked why he wasted a legislative year trying to ram a health bill down the nation's throat despite the obvious sounds of choking which could be heard even 'over here'?

More to the point, I could have asked why this intellectual 'brainiac' has completely flopped on his campaign pledges to close 'Gitmo'?  And further, how is it that he has actually weakened the very Homeland Security which he is pledged to defend by allowing his Attorney General, Eric Holder, to tell the police to advise the Christmas Bomber that he had a right to silence - which he promptly took!  And finally, how has this 'Master of the Intellectual Universe' opened up the very real possibility that in a great forthcoming showcase trial in which all those deeply revered principles which form the story lines of the TV series West Wing (soooo admired in the White House!) might well end as a massive embarrassment and international humiliation to his own country when a progressive judge sets Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts free because the CIA once stuck his head in a bucket of water?  By the way, that odd gurgling sound you can hear is not some other poor sucker trying to breath through a bucket of water, it's actually Dick Cheney trying, but not very hard, to stifle his howls of laughter as 'St. Barack the Brain' runs full tilt into hard reality.

My very strong advice to all of you who sneer and jeer at Mrs. Palin for being 'stoopid' is to take a long hard look at what a cock-up a so-called 'intellectual' can make of things and then ask yourself if Mrs. Palin, even if she tried her hardest, could actually do worse?

From Athens with love!

As expected, minds have been concentrated in Brussels by the special delivery package from Greece containing its eye-watering debt.  This has been tossed round quickly from hand to hand, no-one being too keen to be caught holding it when the music stops.  It availeth them naught because the only people in Europe with the necessary 'moolah' are the Germans and they have an additional national interest in saving the Greeks from default because it is their own banks who loaned much of the money to the Greeks in the first place!

Mind you, I don't think everyone in Brussels thinks this is bad news.  The Euro is an oddity being a currency based on a political union (of sorts) by nations who have pooled their monetary policies - but not their fiscal policies.  This cannot last forever, something has to give, and this crisis will provide Brussels with their first chance to insist on fiscal control of the Greek economy.  Of course, they will do it at second-hand by laying down very strict conditions to go with their underwriting of Greek debt and will then use the Greek government as their glove puppets to foist it on the Greek people.

Still, it's an ill wind and all that sort of thing, so I am delighted to tell you that Britian has no part in this under-writing exercise because, of course, we are not in the Euro.  This will irritate Euro fanatics who, being on the whole as thick as a box of rocks, are all too keen to lend money to Greeks.  I excuse my e-pal Oliver Kamm from this stricture, he's definitely not thick, just blind in one eye and unable to see out of the other!

I was provoked to this post by the estimable Wall Street Journal.

 

An absolute 'must read'!

Not too much time this morning - shopping duties! - so I was delighted to stumble over this report by the very well-informed Paul Waugh telling us all 'an everyday story of Tory constituency folk'.  I do hope Cameron can run the country with more finesse than he can stitch up a local Tory party - and on his own doorstep, too.  Pathetic!

http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/02/joanne-cash-that-meeting-in-full.html

Missin' y' already!

I do try to at least start the day with a smile and a chuckle before the usual snapping and snarling sets in around mid-morning  and this billboard, which has been set up in Minnesota by a 'person or persons unknown', certainly gave me a laugh.

My thanks to the usual rascals:

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/minnesota-mystery-who-paid-for-the-george-bush-miss-me-yet-billboard

An authentic fake? Hope not!

I have been chided firmly by two of my regular commenters, 'JK' and Dom, who disapprove of my love for Sarah!  'JK' dismisses her, by implication, as a no-hoper who would not even raise a sweat on Obama's noble brow were she to run against him in 2012.  Dom, on the other hand, accuses her of hypocrisy in that her public pronouncements on the subject of shrinking government belie her actions as Governor of Alaska when she indulged in some federal boondoggles.  In defending her I must also make clear my reasons for liking and approving of her.

To begin, I suspect that I am not alone in desperately seeking 'authenticity' in my politicians.  Parliament and Congress, it seems to me, are stuffed full of pretenders, and what I mean by 'authenticity' is that one should be able to take stock of a politician and say to oneself with a fair degree of accuracy that what you see is what you get.  Or, to paraphrase that well-known advertising line, 'he or she does what it says on the can'!  Of course, mere 'authenticity' isn't sufficient in itself.  As seen from 'over here', Rahm Emanual is a totally authentic, thuggish, political s.o.b. What he lacks is the next piece of the specification, the necessary piece, that is, the direction.  Take, if you like, Harriet Harman (or 'Harry Harperson' as she is known here out of respect for her feminist views), who is 'authentic' to her socialist extremities but her extreme Left-wing femininism is, as far as I am concerned, totally in the wrong direction.  However, with her, no matter how much she sometimes attempts to disguise it, what you see is very definitely what you are likely to get were she ever to gain serious power.

Returning (with relief) to Mrs. Palin, another criticsim of her is that she is ill-educated and, even worse, she is stupid, and even worse than those and all the sins in the world, she is not an intellectual!  This is a dangerous line of attack because the writers or speakers presuppose that they, of course, are very well educated, highly intelligent and, in the words of the ineffable Baldrik, 'more intellectual than the most intellectual thing in the world'.  Thus, the inherent snobbery of some her critics is made manifest, but if they are permitted to use words like 'intellectual' without ever defining what it means, then I take leave to use the word 'commonsense' with equal impunity.

If Sarah Palin comes to the White House with the firm, 'commonsense' intention to shrink government and to return money to tax-payers I am really not too bothered if she can't find the exact chapters in Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty which will provide a philosophical  buttress to her views.  Nor, when it comes to her foreign policy, will I be too upset if she simply says to the State Department, provide me with two lists of countries, those who can be described as pro-American and those which are anti-American, and we will conduct ourselves accordingly.  You may snort with derision at my, and by implication, her, simplicity but had such a straightforward approach been undertaken by the 'intellectual' Barack Obama it might have saved him a wasted year bowing and curtsying to every murderous gangster in the world whilst he found out the hard way who his friends are.  Apart from anything else, it would have had the advantage of not upsetting America's friends.

I confess, I am not close enough to read the small print of Mrs. Palin's politics from 'over here', and whilst I make a fool of myself by my, er, 'teenage pash' for her, of course, you can be sure that one beady (and slightly blood-shot) eye will remain open and watching carefully.  If I'm wrong, I will own up and take my punishment, but in the meantime, even three years away in the future, I would suggest that Obama, if he is as well-educated, intelligent and intellectual as everyone says, should start sweating now!

Time for G. F. Newman to write a new police tale

I have expressed my admiration for the writer G. F. Newman  many times before, particularly his book Law and Order which lifted the lid off the incipient corruption within the Metropolitan Police in the 1970s. One tut-tutted, of course, at his description of London detectives regularly 'fitting up' East End scallywags either because they had failed to come up with a big enough bribe, or, simply because it was their turn for a spell inside irrespective of whether or not they were guilty because, in the policemen's minds, they were almost certainly guilty of something!  However, the tut-tutting was a prime example of middle-class hypocrisy because actually it was rather comforting to know that the police were busy lifting a regular number of 'scrotes' so that we could go on with our own little fiddles undisturbed.

Today that cosy arrangement has been broken by the influx of immigrants and the new, all-pervading 'crime' of racism.  The poor old 'Plods' were caught napping by all these changes, especially the blinding searchlight of publicity which culminated in the iniquitous MacPherson report of 1999 which branded them as "institutionally racist".  Personally, I couldn't have cared less just so long as they kept banging up the villains but the moment MacPherson's smelly stuff hit the fan that's exactly what they stopped doing.

Meanwhile the corruption which is never far from any police station continued but in a new guise.  The old time copper was happy with a few quid in a foreign bank account to pay for his retirement villa in Spain, but the new breed of coloured coppers quickly saw the graft that could be screwed from a white organsisation under attack from below on the immigrant streets of London and from above by the politically correct commissars of nu-Labour and the BBC.  Thus, Ali Dizaei, formerly a Commander, no less, in the Met but as of yesterday a 4-year 'guest' of Her Majesty, was able to shake down the inept, cowardly so-called leadership of the Met and the "not fit for purpose" Home Office for tens of thousands of pounds.  Apparently he smiled as he was sentenced, and why wouldn't he?  He'll actually only be inside for about a year in a protected wing and there is a £1 million pension pot waiting for him when he reaches 60 years of age.

The only good news to come out of this travesty is that the Black Police Officers' Association, of whom Dizaei was a former president, comes out looking like a stooge for organised crime!

PS:  I wonder if Newman, a good story teller, is capable of shucking off his ingrained Left-wing sympathies to tell this sort of story the way it is?  I hope so because it would be worth reading.

"This lady's not for turning"

I trust the 'Blessed Margaret' will forgive my impudence in quoting her famous words in my title but I think she will be pleased at the context in which I use them.  Today, I hear that the delicious Sarah (waddya mean, "Sarah who?"!) has given the strongest hint possible that she's up for a challenge against 'St. Barack of Obama' in 2012.  Now, if only she could manage to recruit the ice maiden, Ann Coulter, as her running mate my cup of good cheer would overflow.  Unlikely, I know, but a man can dream, can't he?

From this distance I am watching her 'campaign' with keen interest.  As usual she is enormously assisted by the stupidity of the progressives who, unable to restrain their visceral hatred, play into her hands by their vitriolic insults which only drive yet more people to her banner.  Also, of course, like the dim-witted slogan-shouters they are, they end up believing their own agit-prop to the effect that Sarah is stupid, evil, incoherent and worst of all, quelle horreur - unsophisticated!  They said more or less exactly the same things about dear old Ronnie who ran rings round them all and died with the well-deserved reputation as the greatest president of the 20th century.

So far - and of course there is 'many a slip 'twixt cup and lip' - she has begun superbly.  First, she shucked of the day-to-day inhibiting duties of being Governor of Alaska.  Then she wrote, or at least issued, a book which shot to the top of the charts instantly providing her and her advisers with a gauge as to her popularity.  She has been careful to keep a polite distance from the machine politicians of the Republican party who, as such, are about as popular as their Democrat opposite numbers.  Eventually she will need them but she's waiting, I guess, for the time when they need her more! She has made an appearance at the 'Tea Bagger' conference because she knows that those people constitute the swing vote which will be crucial to any presidential candidate.  However, to forestall any accusations of treachery she has offered to speak in support of her erstwhile boss, John McCain.  Finally, she has become a regular contributer to Fox News whose audience is so far in excess of the liberal MSM as to be almost embarrassing, well, it would be if they were capable of being embarrassed.

So far, so smart!  If I may, in my slightly reserved and frightfully British way, attempt a little Americanism - yee ha, go git 'em, gal!

More war

I have read further into Max Hastings' excellent book, Armageddon, which describes the 1944/5 campaign which followed the Normandy breakout.  In my immediately preceding post I suggested that any analysis of a military campaign must start at the top, however, it is just as important to continue on down the chain of command and consider in some detail what was happening at the bottom.  He does this carefully during chapter 3.

It is an acknowledged fact that in Europe the Germans out-fought everyone.  (I once owned a superb book on this subject written by a retired American officer which analysed in mathematical detail the various kill/cost ratios between the different nationalities but alas I have lost the book and now I can't even remember his name - getting old is a curse!)  Some might suggest that at the end the Germans were fighting in defence of their homeland which must have galvanised their efforts, but at the end they were fighting with reservists, old men and boys, and still they out-fought our soldiers who mainly prevailed through shere might.  Also, at the beginning they were the invaders and they still pulverised everyone.

Hastings makes the valid point that the western allies were a citizen army and the rather heartening fact is that most men are loath to kill other men unless they are forced to it.  My missing book had statistics to indicate that a huge number of American and British infantrymen simply made no effort to actually shoot enemy soldiers if they were not an immediate threat.  According to Hastings, American infantry commanders were soon aware that in a force of say 200 men, probably only 40 of them could be depended on to use their initiative and act in a positive and aggressive mode, the remainder simply went to ground and stayed there.  Naturally, the wastage amongst those men prepared to take risks and commit themselves was very high and could not easily be replicated by raw recruits sent in as replacements.  This risk aversion was accentuated and even, perhaps, encouraged in the British army which was all too aware of a national shortage of manpower.  Put simply, the British were struggling to find replacements for the killed and wounded and were reduced to disbanding the remnants of regiments and amalgamating them with others.  Incidentally, it was this lack of positive aggression by the infantry and the cavalry which led to the over-reliance on artillery for which the Americans, in particular, gained such a reputation.  The Germans, of course, quickly spotted this and would simply leave a machine-gun or two forward to fire a few bursts whilst their main force was held back waiting for the inevitable barrage to whistle in.  Once it was over they would quickly move forward to the original position.

Having said all that it is worth remembering that the Germans were mainly a citizen army, too, and yet on the whole their soldiers never suffered with risk aversion to the extent that the allies did and it is worth asking why.  I suggest, hesitantly, that it had much to do with the German ethos.  From the days of the Roman empire, which never succeeded in conquering them, the north German tribes were treated with great caution by all their neighbours because of their aggression and their ferocity.  This stemmed, I think, from their geography.  North Germany is, to quote an old phrase, 'as flat as a witch's tit' which means that there were, and still are, no natural barriers behind which the tribes could defend themselves.  In an area in which your enemies can march in any time they feel like it you learn rapidly that the best form of defence is attack.  You may snort with derision to suppose that what happened 2 or 3 thousand years ago could have any effect today so I will simply quote the words of Gerhard von Scharnhost, the father of the 20th century German army:

Prussia should never conduct a defensive war, her geographical position and her lack of natural and artificial means of defence do not allow that option.

Or, to put it another way, geo-politics rules so get your retaliation in first! 

The WWII German army might have been a citizen army but citizenship there was very different to that which existed in America and Britain.  In Germany all able-bodied men underwent reservist duties in the army during which they were imbued with the tactical doctrine of the arm in which they served.  Nothing could be further from the truth than the ridiculous stereotype of the dimwitted German soldier who justs obeys orders.  The very opposite was true, German soldiers down to the lowest ranks were trained to use their initiative at all times.  They were told constantly that communications were the first casualty of battle so they must never just wait for orders but must use their initiative to take the fight to the enemy.  Always search for an open flank - and then attack it!  Nothing could be further away from the hopelessly amateur 'Dad's Army' approach of the part-time volunteer British territorial army, many of whose cavalry regiments were based on the local hunt!

Pre-war, the American army was about as useful as the Boy Scouts - and probably not much bigger!  A small British army was scattered world-wide in a vain attempt to hang on to the empire.  I have not come across any sustained and supported effort by the British 'Brass' during the inter-war years to encourage deep, analytical thinking in the British army so that a tried and tested tactical doctrine would emerge.  This compares badly with the Germans who with the likes of Guderian worked out the way in which massed armour should be deployed.  Even quite junior German officers were encouraged to think, like this example of a thought experiment entitled "Creeping or Springing".   The author, a junior officer, worked out that an infantryman on foot would take 35 minutes to cross 1200m of flat open ground using a mix of walking and then lying down and shooting.  He worked out that the soldier would be prone and shooting for 8 minutes and walking for 27 minutes.  Whilst prone he would only offer a 1/4 size target to the defender, and indeed, the defender would only offer a 1/4 size target for the whole of the time - during which he would be firing non-stop.  Mathematically the result was that the defender  had a 2:1 advantage over the attacker.  That paper was published in 1899!  Can you imagine any junior officer in one of our fine old regiments bothering with any of that?  Actually, 'Monty' was an exception.  He was so traumatised by the slaughter on the Western Front in WWI that he did think long and hard about warfare in the 20th century - and was considered quite eccentric for doing so.  Alas, even he never quite got, as Guderian did, the absolute necessity of all-arms formations in which infantry, tanks and guns worked intimately together.  What passed for military thinking in the British army between the wars could be summed up by the decision of some of our oldest cavalry regiments to hand back their tanks in 1918 and return to horses which were considered the proper means of going to war for a gentleman!

You may wonder why I am boring on about this.  Well, the fact is it fascinates me but also it makes me view our current 'Brass' with a more than jaundiced eye.  Are they any better today than they were yesterday, I wonder?  Current events do not auger well.

"If the left hand don't getcha then the right hand will!"

Apologies, dear reader, you are being experimented on!  As you may have noticed from my side-bar I give talks on military history.  Rather shrewdly (I think), I confine myself to previous eras of warfare where it is impossible that any of my audience will be able to argue back on the basis of actual experience.  However, this whole subject of how the allies missed their chances in 1944 has, to quote the current argot, 'sent me off on one'!  So fascinated have I become that I have decided to build up a talk on the subject.   Alas, this will no doubt entail the purchase of yet more books to go on top of the waiting-to-be-read pile which daily threatens my life and limbs - to say nothing of the chewing out I will receive from the 'Memsahib'.  Anyway, just to warn you that this post may be a tad esoteric for your taste and anyway it is really my first attempt to order my thoughts on this complex subject.  On the other hand, criticism, and especially criticism backed by facts or references, is very welcome.   

As I mentioned in a post below I was deeply shocked by the opening chapters of Max Hasting's book, Armageddon, in which he describes the final efforts by the western allied armies to seize their chances and defeat Germany in 1944 once they had broken out of the Normandy bridgeheads.  Hastings lashes 'Monty' for the wretched failure at Arnhem and, as others have done before but perhaps not so bluntly, points out the myriad failings within the British army.  I took an interest in all this decades ago, in fact, I read Chester Wilmot's book The Struggle for Europe in 1954 when I was 15 and I can still recall the shock that book gave me.  However, in more recent times I have concentrated on other historical periods but this controversy over Arnhem has provoked my interest.

To check Hastings' scathing criticism I have just reread the relevant chapters from Nigel Hamilton's biography of 'Monty' because it has always been an unfathomable mystery to me why the normally careful and cautious Montgomery, a man determined not to waste the lives of his men in the way he had witnessed during WWI, suddenly threw caution to the wind and gambled on this extraordinary attack.  In considering great military disasters it is always right to start at the top and work down.  The overall commander of the allied armies was 'Ike' Eisenhower, an amiable man endowed with what today we would call 'great man management skills'.  Alas, what he lacked was any ability at all to command armies in the field.  Beneath him he had a pair of extremely vociferous (and personally unpleasant) army commanders, 'Monty' and Patton.  Strictly speaking, Patton was commanded by Bradley, but the latter was technically junior and had previously served under Patton, and even when in command still referred to Patton as 'Sir'.

After the breakout from Normandy the allied armies raced across France chasing a broken German army, and indeed, it was well and truly broken as Liddell Hart confirms from conversations held with senior German officers after the war and published in his book The Other Side of the Hill.  All of them confirmed that from late August to the middle of September Germany was wide open.  It seemed to most of the allied generals that the end of the war would come before Christmas - but not to 'Monty'.  He knew, from his WWI days, the skill of the German army in improvising defences in depth even using ersatz units scraped from the bottom of the military barrel if you allowed them the slightest respite.  The problem for the allies was that there were insufficient supplies to maintain all their formations in their headlong pursuit across Europe and this lack of supply was slowly but surely acting like a drag anchor on their advance.  Both 'Monty', on the left, and Patton on the right, knew that one concentrated punch was required but the question was should it be a left or a right uppercut?  At this point all eyes turned to 'Ike'.

For political as well as personal reasons 'Ike' assumed 'Monty's' position as operational commander of all allied armies in Europe whilst maintaining his previous role as Supreme Commander of all allied forces.  Politically, given American public opinion, this was understandable but was a disaster for allied strategy.  His first, and not the least, of his mistakes was to site his HQ in Granville right over on the western seaside of France in Brittany.  His radio communications were atrocious - he would have had better command and control has he stayed in London!  All messages to and from him and his subordinates had to go via radio which entailed long delays for encrypting and then decrypting so that detailed orders would take days to reach Montgomery and/or Bradley.  Thus, from the very first moment of assuming operational command 'Ike' failed completely to maintain what the military call 'C3' (Command, Control, Communication).  Apart from one brief 10-minute period some 15 days went by without 'Ike' and 'Monty' actually meeting face to face despite constant pleas on the part of the latter urging the former to fly in if he had to.

Both 'Monty' and Patton (via his alleged superior, Bradley) were bombarding 'Ike' with requests for the necessary supplies to carry out the killer punch.  The choice, in strategic terms was simple, either go east for the Saar just south of Luxembourg (Patton), or go north to the Ruhr ('Monty').  One of 'Monty's' two armies (the Canadian) was involved in clearing Antwerp and the northern Franco-Belgium coast, so he needed the assistance of Bradley's left flank army to join his British army to go north.  To be fair to 'Monty' he did offer to serve under Bradley in such a case.  Patton, meanwhile, his head swollen even larger than usual by screaming headlines of praise in the American press easily bent Bradley to his own aim of an eastern attack via Metz into the Saarland.  Eisenhower, facing his first and greatest test as a commander in the field, failed!  To paraphrase the old song, 'he wouldn't say yes and he wouldn't say no', and in the end he sort of said yes and no to both headstrong commanders.  Meanwhile, because both allied flanks had slowed because of their lack of supplies, the amazed Germans found that they had time to scrape together an increasingly coherent defence force so that by the time the allies re-started their advances they hit a very well-made German brick wall.

There can be little doubt that 'Monty' was right to insist on striking north at the Ruhr.  Patton's target of the Saarland did contain important coal and other industrial sources but nothing on the scale of the Ruhr which is the very heart of modern Germany.  As one of the German generals told to Liddell Hart, without the Ruhr Germany could not have fought on.  Even more important the way to Berlin was through the north and if we had punched through in September we could have reached Berlin by November and taken most of what was to become Soviet Eastern Europe long before Stalin's tanks arrived.  However, even if 'Ike' had chosen Patton's eastern thrust that would have been better than the 'no decision' decision he did take.  Whilst Patton in the Saar would have been further away from Berlin than 'Monty' in the Ruhr, nevertheless, there was not a better man that Patton for whipping his troops forward regardless of cost and they would certainly have covered more ground faster than the British whose propensity for stopping frequently for a 'cuppa' has been remarked upon by students of the war.

One statistic alone tells the enormity of this lost opportunity.  According to captured German documents, during the hiatus amongst the allied armies that occurred in the first week of September:

[T]he Germans had barely 100 tanks available for action on the whole of the Western Front, against more than 2,000 in the allied spearheads.  The Germans had only 570 serviceable air-craft to support them, where-as the British and American aircraft then operating in the west totalled over 14,000.  Thus the allies had an effective superiority of 20 to 1 in tanks and 25 to 1 in aircraft. 1.

1:  History of the Second World War, Basil Liddell Hart, Cassell 1970, p.559

Another odd couple

The 'D&G show' continues to under-whelm!  For the benefit of my foreign readers 'D&G' are David ('call me Dave') Cameron and George Osborne, respectively the capo and the consigliori of the Bullingdon mafia, aka, the Tory party.  At least, I thought it was the Tory party but as viewed through its froth and mirrors (smoke is no longer permitted) it seems indistinguishable from nu-Labour as invented and successfully flogged to a gullible public by our very own version of an American snake-oil salesman, 'Teflon Tony' Blair.  I've forgotten how much I pay for my weekly edition of The Spectator but I'm beginning to wonder if it's too much.  Part of the reason I buy it is because I assume that they are close to the Tory leadership and can thus vouchsafe some accurate indications of whatever passes for political thinking in what is likely to be our next government.  Wrong!  They haven't a clue!  Like those old Kremlinologists of yesteryear, they sift the scraps of this and that, lick their fingers and stick them in the air to judge the direction of the wind, read the runes from top to bottom and back again, but all to no avail.  Soon they will be reduced to eviscerating a sheep or something in order to tell us what the Tory leadership is really thinking.  It must be thinking something because they have hired all these so-called experts to tell them what to think.  One of them is, and please don't be rude and laugh, Lord Stern - please, please, I asked you not to laugh! Oh, sorry, you were weeping, I do beg your pardon.  And yes, that is the same Stern who with 363 other economic illiterates wrote that infamous letter to The Times telling us all that Maggie Thatcher was an economic illiterate just before our economy took off; and it is the same Stern who, just as belief in global warming is melting faster than the IPCC tells us Himalayan glaciers are melting (not!) who issued a report at the Copenhagen conference telling us all that the globe was in melt-down.

All 'The Speccie' writers have a go this week at trying to define what 'D&G' really stand for but none of them agree and none of them sound in the least convincing.  Even their really intelligent editor, Fraser Nelson, is reduced to listing all things that he hopes 'D&G' will be in favour of once they get their bums on the ministerial chairs, but as my old mum used to say, if wishes were horses beggars would ride'!  Apparently, one of 'D&G's' over-paid SpAds has advised them to take a leaf from the Obama campaign and keep plugging the word 'change' without ever specifying exactly what is to be changed and how.  Do they seriously think that people who are likely to vote Tory don't read the papers, or the internet, or watch TV (including Fox News), and have thus failed to notice that 'St. Barack of Obama', who was the one promising change has dismally failed to change anything much except, I suppose, he did succeed in out-spending and out-borrowing George Bush!

Well, if the Tories think I'm going to buy a pig in a poke, they can dream on!

The odd couple!

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last 3 days but certain social events have intervened plus I have been digging into the WWII controversy over Operation 'Market Garden' which has meant digging out some of my old books and the resulting shambles makes my 'study' look like the north end of Arnhem bridge in 1944!  Stand by for a long-ish post on the subject, coming to a blog near you - SOON!

In the meantime and courtesy of 'The Speccie' (but no specific link available yet) I have come across the most unlikely of friendships.  Let me turn the tables by asking you a question.  A few days ago J. D. Salinger died.  He was the king, nay, the emperor of reclusives; he was the reclusives' reclusive!  I think I did read his book, Catcher in the Rye, at some time but I'm afraid it didn't make much impression on me because even as an adolescent I was not given much to introspection and teen-age angst.  He was a one-book-wonder, and why not given that it sold, so I read somewhere, 60 million copies and even at a $1 a copy why risk your reputation with all those precious, embittered reviewers who know in their hearts (if they could find them) that their writing skills are limited to a couple of column inches in the so-called 'culture' section of the Sundays.

So, my question is this, given Salingers' furious insistence on remaining anonymous and private and well hidden from all outside interference, with whom, do you suppose, did he strike up a 'friendship' by correspondence lasting over several years?  I will narrow the choice a little by telling you that the other side of this 'friendship' is a writer for The Spectator but as a tease I am not going to tell you who, I will merely say that it is one of the most unlikely of them all.  To find out, you will have to buy a copy of this week's 'Speccie' and thereby help finance my favourite magazine.  But if you're really nice I may tell you in a day or two.

Entente Cordiale - my arse!

Sorry for the slightly crude title and for this rather hurried post, you know how it is when you're old and retired, things to do, people to see, life is just one social whirl plus - it's the 'Memsahib's' birthday today!

However, I did feel the need to snort with derision at the latest scam idea to emanate from government circles suggesting that our armed forces should amalgamate with the French to save money.  Anyone with half a brain (so that lets out most of the cabinet) knows that you can't trust the French as far as you can throw a bowl of onion soup into a gale, and just as any French politician will also tell you that the rosbifs are a load of perfidious batards!

Why are we ruled over by cretins!

Clare Short: nu-Tory?

What a sweet, old-fashioned 'gal' she is, that Clare Short; well, perhaps 'sweet' isn't quite the word but watching her at the Iraq enquiry today she certainly has some old-fashioned views on the malignancy which lies at the heart of our body politic, and those views are ones which would sit comfortably with many an old Tory who yearns for a return to a more conventional and business-like conduct of our national affairs.  Her description of how cabinet meetings were conducted was quite shocking in that it sounded like a casual series of off-the-cuff, chatter and gossip.  Part of the problem stems, I think, from the sheer size of the Cabinet these days, and it confirms me in my opinion that some current departments should be brought under the control of others so that the number of cabinet ministers is reduced - ironically, Clare Short's old department covering overseas aid is a prime example!  If memory serves, Blair never actually appointed a formal war cabinet, that is, a smaller committee of cabinet ministers to run the preparation and conduct of the war.  This was a weakness because they could have provided the remainder of the cabinet with a proper briefing on affairs and at full cabinet meetings would have been subject to hard questioning by those ministers out of the loop.

However, as I mentioned in a previous post, there can be no return to more leisurely Edwardian days when the newspapers were only just beginning to flex their muscles and rebellious ministers were only just realising how useful they could be in sabotaging a policy (or a minister) with which they disagreed.  Today, it is the government itself which has climbed into bed with the MSM and in a sort of Faustian pact uses it as a weapon against anyone who gives them trouble.  No editor, wishing his media organisation to be inside the loop, dares to fall out with a prime minister - until, in the natural course of events, that prime minister is so weakened and enfeebled that a shift to the opposition (within or without the ruling party) seems likely to provide good returns - eg: The Sun!

Watching Ms. Short today I could see why she would have infuriated her colleagues and you can understand why Blair was not alone in his mistrust of her.  Also, you have to hand it to the oily chancer, he found her g-spot (er, that's 'g' for 'go along'!) and with enormous skill tickled it delicately until, like the old 'Boxer' she is, she plodded along until it was too late - and that was despite the example of Robin Cook who did the honourable thing by resigning.  However, in her evidence today she did touch on some very pertinent points which do need attention but because they are likely to weaken the power of a prime minister are most unlikely to be addressed.  For example, the House of Commons is more and more resembling an appendix, that is, a useless shriveled-up organ whose original purpose has been lost.  The power of government whips and the influx of professional politicians who depend utterly on grace and favours from their party leadership means that today the House of Lords actually does a better job of scrutinising legislation than the Commons.

One other matter was highlighted today and that was the all-pervading, all-enveloping influence of the UN.  This monstrous edifice needs to be blown up like one of Saddam's statues.  The British government turned itself inside out trying to stay within its approval.  The Americians were entirely right to virtually ignore the whole rotten, corrupt gang of thugs and hypocrites who run the joint.

In the meantime, I can only re-iterate my admiration for Blair's skills as a latter-day Machiavelli.  You may not agree with the policy but no-one, I suggest, can gainsay the dexterity with which he pursued it.  It was statecraft of the very highest order - damn him!

This hurts me more than you!

 I have just finished reading one of the most painful chapters of a book which I have ever read.  It is chapter 2 of Armageddon by Max Hastings.  The book tells the story of the final battle for Germany during 1944/5 following the successful break-out from Normandy.  Obviously it begins with the ill-fated, ill-executed and ill-conceived Operation Market Garden, the airborne assault through Holland aimed at securing a bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem and thus opening a direct assault on Germany through the strategially important industrial area of the Ruhr.   Even for me, an ex-corporal, the notion of an entire army advancing on a frontage only as wide as one road is utterly ludicrous, and yet, it happened!  The 'whys and wherefores' are too intricate and tangled for me to attempt to explain them here in detail but certainly a very large accusatory finger points at Montgomery.  As a soldier he possessed enormous strengths and virtues but was riven throughout with almost Shakespearean fault lines.

Alas, it sums up the British army of that time that 'Monty' was the pre-emminent fighting general that we had.  (I except Brooke who post-1940 was promoted to the political-military machinations of being CIGS; and also Slim whose skills, on a smaller scale, are much admired by students of the war in the East.)  The deeply unpleasant fact which must be faced is that on the whole our generals were useless.  Even worse, it must be admitted, through gritted teeth, that with honourable exceptions the vast majority of our troops were equally inadequate.  There was, I regret to say, a risk-averse feeling throughout the British army.  By and large, the American generals were no better but at the lower command levels at least they had that 'can do' mentality which kept them on the forward foot.

It is tempting to suggest that the British army were already gutted by knowledge of what had happened in the First War.  It is also generally recognised that it was a mistake to use veterans from North Africa and Italy in the attack across the channel because, oddly enough, it is veterans who prove to be very much more cautious than raw recruits yet to be blooded.  In addition, as Hastings points out, once the break out from Normandy began and the allies raced across northern France and Belgium there was a terrific feeling that the war was as good as over and so a very natural caution entered the hearts and minds of the front-line troops, none of whom were keen to be killed or wounded in the weeks (as it seemed to them) before an armistice and surrender by the Germans.

Of course, in true British fashion we now revere the battle of Arnhem almost as much as Dunkirk, despite both of them being monstrous, shameful, inexcusable defeats.  I think there is a good and potentially fascinating book to be written on the subject of our army's poor fighting performance in WWII.  Churchill remarked on it constantly and both Brooke and 'Monty' realised that sacking divisional commanders did no good because there was no-one beneath them who was any better.  If our army was the worst performer, the Americans were only slightly better and both were out-fought, out-manouvred and out-witted by a German army which truly understood the nature of war and had developed a doctrine which was understood and practiced from the generals right down to the corporals.

An important but unanswered question hangs over these historical ruminations - have we improved since?