DUFF & NONSENSE!

Mea culpa, or mea caught out?

I am sorry (and I really do mean that because she is a horrible subject) but I cannot help returning to that dreadful woman, 'BionoOc', who has figured in several posts below.  Her last mention here came about because of a post she published on her site making a joke over the murder of a Jew in Jerusalem.  Even comradely Lefties held their noses over this, and told her so in her comments section.  They deserve great credit for doing so.  She has now withdrawn the entire post because it "could easily have been construed in a way I didn't intend. Specifically it could have been taken as gloating over the killing of an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem."  She continues,  "...I've pulled the joke so as not to give the false impression that I'm in any way amused or gratified by the death of that poor innocent."  Perhaps this is the place to re-print her entire retraction:

"I had a post up here which, it seems to me now, could easily have been construed in a way I    didn't intend. Specifically it could have been taken as gloating over the killing of an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. Be assured, that was not at all my meaning. I was amused (macabrely, I grant) by the photograph accompanying the story, and a joke came to mind.

Having thought it through in the light of day, I've pulled the joke so as not to give the false impression that I'm in any way amused or gratified by the death of that poor innocent. Mea culpa for posting past my bedtime."

All of us behave badly from time to time, and we know that in those circumstances the only thing to do is to offer up an unreserved apology and depend on the good nature of our friends to accept it in the spirit in which it is offered.  Returning, reluctantly, to 'BionOc', I am forced to ask, is this an apology?  I ask because nowhere do I see the word 'sorry'.  Apparently, she is worried that she might be misconstrued by readers who might think she was "amused or gratified by the death of that poor innocent" even though she admits she was indeed "amused (macabrely, I grant) by the photograph accompanying the story, and a joke came to mind. "  She uses the phrase "mea culpa" which is only an admission of fault or error, not an indication of remorse and repentance.  It should be born in mind by readers that this is the same woman who dismissed 8,500 men, women and children, repeat children, as  "fascist, racist, murderous scum" simply because they were Israeli settlers being moved off the land to be handed back to the Palestinians.

I think the best thing she could do is pull the plug on her entire, hate-filled site and do us all a favour.  But no such luck.  She is now sharing 'Lenin's Tomb', and I can only hope that she, and the equally rabid 'lenin', are happy together - they deserve each other.

A real hero:

Perhaps no word has been gang-banged out of all of its original meaning more than the word 'hero'.  It is used constantly and indiscriminately by the media to describe, for example,  footballers, cricketers and any over-paid, over-hyped, 'muddy-metalled rascals' who play silly games in which the greatest risk is a twisted ankle.  But just occasionally, a real hero dies, and in the slight hush that ensues, one has a chance to be reminded in the obituaries, of true heroism of the rarest kind.

The death of Gerry Fitt is just such an occasion.  No need for me to rehearse all that has been written of his life and works.  Suffice to say that he was born in humble circumstances into the Catholic side of Ulster's divided society.  During the war he served on the Murmansk convoys, in my opinion, one of the most horrific and heroic of all the campaigns fought by British forces during WWII.  After the war he entered politics as both a socialist, and as a campaigner for a more equitable polity in the gerrymandered political scene in Ulster.  In the end, his cause and his people were snared and trapped by the murderous, vile and corrupted romanticism of Sinn Fean/IRA.  This was his testing time.  Almost all of his colleagues and friends and constituents shrugged and trimmed.  But not him!  At great personal danger he stuck to his belief in democratic politics.  He demonstrated, not only physical courage, but even more difficult  - intellectual courage.

Gerry Fitt was 'the real thing'!

British is as British does:

Funny how often disparate things suddenly come together.  A few weeks ago, 'N.I.B.', who when I hang will own the most boring blog in Britain, asked me if there was anything about modern Britain that I liked?  That very simple question has given me a real pain in the brain ever since!  At the same time, some of my fellow bloggers were becoming excited over the concept of what it was to be British, and coming to no very clear conclusions.  Personally, I like my country, but not in its entirety.  The wretched fact is that the things I dislike appear to be more numerous, or at least, more obvious than anything I admire.  So, like having an itchy scab, I have spent the last few weeks returning to the subject for a good scratch.  Alas, all to no avail, until yesterday ....

Just recently I have written two posts on the subject of that malignant woman, 'Bionic Octupus', here, and here.  In the latter, she responded via the comments section.  I must leave it to my readers to decide for themselves, but for me her writings are a litany of hate.  I suspect, but obviously I cannot know for certain, that this hatred stems from inside her psyche and that, in reality, the targets of her hatred are entirely contingent.  For her, it is sufficent that there is some-one to hate. (But see post above)

Then, a few days ago, Will, a Left-wing radical whose political views I abhor, linked to my site and in doing so pointed out (I paraphrase rather loosely) that although I was a rotten old re-actionary he would still be willing to have a pint with me.  In the unlikely event of that meeting taking place there can be no doubt that within half an hour we would be on our feet, nose to nose, shouting our various disagreements at each other.  It is equally clear that when we were both silenced by hoarseness and thirst, I would get the next, and subsequent,  rounds in (well, he's a socialist, so me buying the drinks would be his bit of class action) and we would probably fall to discussing the travails of Newcaste United - he being a Geordie.

So far, so tedious, but then the light-bulb lit up in what passes for my brain.  In a sort of "Eureka!" moment, I suddenly realised what it was about Britain (or to be precise, England) that I liked - it was the absence of hatred.  Of course, there is the tiniest of tiny fringes in England that fester in hatred, but the overwhelming majority who might be riven by severe disagreements on matters of huge importance simply do not hate each other.  More important, they do not kill each other.  That (excluding the Celtic fringes) is what it is to be British, and I like it immensely, and I'm proud of it, too.

Theresa Maybe-maybe-not!

I have just driven home from my Monday morning 'swim 'n' gym' and was forced to listen to a leading member of the 'Stupid party'.  I say, 'forced' because I was in my usual catatonic state of utter exhaustion, which follows my every visit to the sports centre, and was thus unable to find the energy to hit the 'Off' button.  Theresa May is the shadow minister of, er, well, I can't quite remember all the subjects her portfolio covers, but it's a sort of dustbin of activities, almost all of which any decent government would leave well alone.  I do remember that 'culture' was one of her headings. 

Anyway, she was rabbiting on about the fact that Jack Straw, our Foreign Secretary (please don't laugh, it's rude!), has written to the cricket authorities asking them to exclude Zimbabwe from international cricket.  According to 'Maybe-maybe-not', this was all too feeble and too late. The interviewer said that if she was so keen to stop English cricketers providing Mugabe with a cloak of respectability, why was she not also calling for British Airways to stop their service into Harare?  This stupid woman simply ignored the question despite it being repeated to her three times.  It's fair enough for an opposition spokesman to tweak the tail of a government, but you would hope that they would have the intelligence to be ready to deal with the obvious riposte.

The end result of Theresa 'Maybe-maybe-not's excursion on to the airwaves was to convince me, at any rate, that she was brain-dead and unfit to run a Parish council.  But this was, of course, the same  woman whose peculiar approach to politcs is to go round speechifying in public that her party is made up of nasty, horrid, selfish people whilst simultaneously aspiring to lead it!

The other lesson that any sensible politician would learn from this nonsense is to keep out of things that don't concern them.  If various "muddy-metalled rascals" wish to go off and play games with those of a similar bent, then, provided we are not actually at war, let them.

The Sunday Rumble 21/8/05

Indo-Sino-problemo!

I am obliged, yet again, to The Business ("Britain's Best, Britain's Only Newspaper", says David Duff.  David who?)  In its always thought-provoking, not to say shiver-inducing, regular column entitled 'earlywarning', it points to a shift in American policy towards India, prompted by American fears of growing Chinese power.  All right as far as it goes, but alas, it goes as far as Pakistan, which is not at all happy with these policy indications.  President Musharraf may, to delicate Left-wing sensibilities, be a 'bastard', but at least he's 'our bastard', so to speak.  And when I write "our", I mean "our", as in British.  We are host to an enormous Pakistani immigrant population, and it did not pass me and a lot of people un-noticed that several of the recent terrorists had very strong links to Pakistan.  Thus, we depend more than somewhat on president Musharraf's survival, for he, at least, is prepared to put pressure on the terrorist sympathisers (and trainers) who abide in such numbers in his country.  I dread to think of  of the consequences if he is overthrown and replaced by a militant Muslim cleric.

From 'A' grade to 'Z' grade lunacy:

The annual farrago of so-called A-level passes comes round once again.  It is fortunate for the daily and weekly prints, and entirely appropriate, that the news comes out in August, traditionally the 'silly season' in which the news-starved media stuff themselves with any old nonsense just to fill the pages.  Is there anyone, outside of the educational(?) establishment, who believes these Stakhanovite statistics, and who doubts that A-levels are not worth the paper they are printed on?

Super Supermarkets:

In discussions (oh, alright then, arguments) with various members of the 'Trot-lot Tendency' I have often asked them to compare the skills and abilities of the supermarket industry with the nationalised Health Service.  The usual exercise, involving an absolutely implaccable determination not to see what is plainly before their eyes, then ensues.  But I would ask you, dear reader, the next time you go into a Tesco store, or Sainsburys, or who-ever, just pause and look about you.  Tens of thousands of products and foodstuffs brought to you from all over the world, packaged, displayed, fresh, clean, cheap and ready to go 365-days the year round! The customer, you, is king.  Any complaints?  Money back or a replacement.  Imagine for a moment the intellectual brilliance of the people who make all this possible.  It is a staggering operation and my admiration for those responsible is immense.  Now consider the NHS, oh, on second thoughts, don't bother, it's too, too depressing.  What is the one difference between them?  A six-letter word considered so foul and horrid that even the four-letter men of the 'Trot-lot Tendency' won't utter it - profit!

"And Pity, like a new borne-babe..."

Sorry if I risk 'Boring for Britain' by returning to that, literally, hate-full woman, Bionic Octupus, but no sooner had I drawn attention to one of her prize specimens of bile (see below), which at least had the saving grace of some humour, even if it was totally unconscious, than she spewed forth yet another torrent of execration, aimed this time at the Jewish settlers being forced to vacate their homes.  Read, if you have the stomach for it, her post of last Wednesday, entitles "Disengage this".  But for a flavour of it, try this:

"And I watched all this, watched all these people unblinkingly asserting the horror and misery of 8,500 fascist, racist, murderous scum..."  She is referring, of course, to the Jewish settlers, men, women and children, who, no doubt, contain within their ranks the usual percentage of evil-doers, or at least evil-thinkers, contained in any group of 8,500 people anywhere in the world.  But no such balance, no effort to discriminate, no attempt to empathise with people caught up in the relentless process of real-politik, is permitted by this she-wolf.  Her fangs are bared, pity is a bleeding corpse, and all is unmitigated hatred; young or old, male or female, the sick, the healthy, the good, the bad, each and everyone of them, is defined by her in a single, spat-out lump of hate-filled phlegm as, "fascist, racist, murderous scum".  She ends her malevolent diatribe, thus: "I think of Israel and I am sick with rage and horror and vicarious shame. Not. In. My. Fucking. Name."

The world of Blogdom is a truly wondrous place.  In my fairly comfortable, middle-class life, it is rare to come face-to-face with pure, undiluted hatred.  No, not rare, because for me, it has never happened; not once, hitherto.  Sure, I know a few people whom I dislike, and I know of considerably more people who I suspect I would dislike if I ever did meet them.  Most of those inhabit my newspaper on a regular basis!  But in Blogdom one does come up against undiluted hatred time and again.  One thinks of 'lenin', a self-regarding, semi-intellectual, whose brutal, knuckle-cracking instincts are rarely well disguised; or Mark Elf, another Israeli-hater; or even Meaders, apparently(?) a more urbane character than the thuggish 'lenin', but whose true instincts can be gleaned by his approval of the SWP slogan "By All Means Possible" directed at Iraqi insurgents.  All these bloggers, including the vicious, little harpie, 'Bionic Octupus', share one characteristic, they hate!

They pretend, in their Marxist fashion, to hate institutions, but what they really hate is - people.  They will disguise their people-hating leanings by lumping the people they hate into various categories, such as, the bourgoisie, capitalists, Jews (oh, no, sorry, never Jews, always Zionists, of course!)  That way they can avoid thinking in terms of men, women and children, or their neighbours, or their work colleagues.  'Bionic Octupus' gave it away (well, she's not very bright, you see) when she talked in one of her posts about how desirable it would be if people had a little 'x' on them that you could click on and make them "disappear".

However, there is a danger for those of us who try, not always successfully, I admit, to see both sides of a ghastly situation.  In dealing with the 'haters', there is the very real possibility, verging on probability, that we, in turn, will hate them!  I confess, I can feel the bile rising in my throat when I read some of the malice that seeps out of some of these blogs and I do try to swallow it down.  If I fail from time to time, I rely on my readers to pull me up short.

Good God, Jenkins, they want me on Panorama!

Just enjoyed, at one of the local taverns,  a very decent supper washed down with a more than passable Tempranilla, so I make no apologies for any typos that might fall off the end of my keyboard.  I do apologise for the fact that the mythical "Jenkins" and his equally mythical boss have re-appeared following my posts  here, here and here, to say nothing of here.  Blame 'JackSc' who is currently in his local A&E centre receiving treatment for the shock he has received from discovering that he actually agrees with me!

No-one knows for sure what happened with the unfortunate Mr. Menezes, but it can be agreed that following his death the re-action of the Met in general, and it's C-in-C in particular, has been inept, to say the least.  My regard for the those who set themselves up as our leaders has never been high, but it is now diminishing at a rapid rate.  In particular, I have stated before that the so-called 'officer corps' of the police service appears to be filled with second-raters.  Given the laughable (when one is not weeping!) standard of our 'education'(?) service, it cannot be a surprise that the higher ranks of all our government services are peopled with semi-educated idiots.  The tragedy is that they now take their cue from the equally pig-ignorant pols who add malignancy and corruption to their stock in trade.  Sorry to repeat myself, but I have stated before, both here, and even to the eminent Oliver Kamm, no less, that Blair's administration is a lie-producing machine.  Where he, Blair, and they, set the example, the rest of government follows, with disasterous results.

The dangers of producing a policy in secret, particularly one as potentially serious as 'shoot-to-kill, is obvious to anyone with more than three brain cells, but the premium that has been set on spin and presentation (or non-presentation, in this case)  by ministers and their henchmen has over-ridden all common-sense and common decency.  Happily, I cannot speak for the children in the 'Trot-lot creche' who are practically gagging with pleasure disguised as mock outrage over this particular imbroglio, but as some-one who wishes desperately that our country should act with intelligence and propriety, this is just the latest example of the insidious corruption of the public good begun and perpetrated by that arch manipulator, Alistair Campbell, and condoned by the prime minister.

There were good and sufficient reasons to go to war with Saddam.  Everyone in the world, including Saddam himself, thought that Iraq had WMD.  However, Blair exaggerated, or lied, take your pick,  about the strength and the efficacy of these weapons, whilst hiding the true reason for the war.  Trust is like money in the bank.  It's easy to spend, but very difficult to regain.  On matters of international war and peace, Blair is broke!  No-one will believe him ever again.  That is highly dangerous as we move into yet another danger area from the middle-east - Iran.  Again, one has to work on the assumption that they will develop a nuclear capability.  As with Saddam, one shudders to think of this technology being in the hands of a militant theocracy.  (The 'Trot-lot' would sneer at his concept, but were one to suggest that  some mid-western, fundamentalist Christians be allowed to get their hands on the bomb, they would soon change their tune!)  In this developing situation, one can only hope that the Israelis and/or the Americans do what has to be done.

Returning to home policy, regular readers will know my thoughts on the establishment of a proper interrogation centre.   I should re-emphasise that this organisation should only be set up in the face of a very definite indication of a sustained terrorist campaign, 'commanded and controlled' by a leadership.  None of us can be certain as to whether or not that condition prevails.  The recent attacks have the appearance of over-enthusiastic amateurs acting out what they probably believed their notional leadershipt wanted of them.  (I should add, that there are indications that the man held in Italy might be of a different order altogether.)  Even so, we must, perforce, rely on our security forces to ferret out the probable risks facing us.  (One, for example, is the possibility of European moslems from the Balkans being employed as terrorists.)  If they do so decide, then the interrogation centre must be set up along the lines that I suggest, but, it must be doen publicly.  Obviously, one would not disclose the actual techniques to be used, but the general principles must be publicised, discussed, debated and agreed.  In other words, the exact opposite of what occurred with the shoot-to-kill policy.

Book Tips #4

Mister Candy by Jules Hardy

In a lifetime of being wrong about more things than I am right, you would think, by now, that I would have honed my judgement to a sharper edge.  Not a bit of it!  Still as wrong as ever I was; as, for instance, my recent throwaway line to the effect that women were no good at writing thrillers.  Within days I had borrowed from the library a book entitled Mister Candid by Jules Hardy.  Now I'm not one to threaten my local library with an action under the Trade Descriptions Act, but the fact is that 'Jules', in this case, turned out to be a woman.  Nevertheless, unflagging in my duty to this blog, to bring to the attention of my equally low-brow readers the very best of 'pulp fiction', I persevered, and I have to admit that Ms. Hardy has written a winner!

This is all the more surprising in view of the fact that Ms. Hardy is not only a woman, but English!  However, the book is set entirely in America and spans three generations.  If I describe the form as 'Gothic' (or perhaps neo-Gothic, is more accurate) I do not wish to put off those readers (like me) who just look to 'pulp- fiction' for a good series of 'crash-bang-wallops-and-thrills'.  There is plenty of violence, some of it eye-wateringly awful, but the intricate plotting over several decades is cleverly handled, and the main thrust of the story never lost.  It is peopled by a gallery of vividly drawn characters, and the book ends sadly, but satisfactorily.  For those jaded by too many thrillers of the same type, this comes highly recommended as brilliant in its own right, but also utterly different from anything you might have read before.

As a service to my readers (We try harder!), I have provided the following links to my previous book tips:

#1:  The Search for Klingsor by Jorge Volpe

#2:  Good News, Bad News by David Wolstencroft

#3:  The Interrogation by Thomas H. Cook

Humbuggery of the first order

Here is the first paragraph from a post by Bionic Octopus, an American harridan who occupies, no doubt with pride, a place on my Street of Shame.  I once implied that she was somewhat humourless.  That was a gross understatement.  For example, this 'Rosa Klebb' fails to see the irony in her own writing.  She describes in detail how she shouts her vituperation at, presumably, some Right-wingers (for which, read, anyone who disagrees with her), in terms that would silence a barrack-room, and is then affronted at the re-action described (and high-lighted by me) in her last sentence.  If she (or anyone) spoke to me in those terms, I'd punch her lights out, although being a gentleman of the old school, I would first raise my hat, of course.

"Hello hello hello, bloggy friends. What a pleasure to see you all again after so long away interacting with actual real people in the real world who have faces you can see. All very disconcerting. And you know the inconvenient thing I discovered? When you shout at a 'person' in the 'real world' that they're an ignorant asshole lacking any scrap of analysis or historical rigor and they should shut the fuck up and stop polluting the universe with their warmongering filthy spew, there is no little 'x' in the top corner of them you can then click to make them disappear. They remain stubbornly present, as do the violent invective and fisticuffs they then proceed to direct your way."

I am grimly aware, and have pointed out before, that one of the dangers of blogging is that the act of writing gives away so much more about you than perhaps you are aware.  Moving rapidly past her version of free speech, "shut the fuck up", to take as an example, this, from 'Rosa Klebb's' post,   

"..there is no little 'x' in the top corner of them you can then click to make them disappear." 

Relish the 'Freudian slip' in her language, and remember that she is writing of human beings.  Linger, if you can bear it, on her use of the word "disappear".   Then shudder, and pray that this people-hating woman, or her ilk, never get their hands on political power. 

Street of Shame #5

I haven't had reason to take you down to the 'Street of Shame' for quite a while.  I expect you thought that I was getting soft in my old age, and failing to raise the usual welts and bruises on the thin skins of the 'Trot-lot Tendency', as is my wont.  However, to save my reputation, up pops Justin Horton, just in time (boom-boom!), a rather delicate flower, but one who is unafraid of laying out his private anguish for all to see and read here, or here, for example.  He writes extremely good prose, and for that alone I actually recommend his blog.  It is so good, that when you first read one of his personal pieces of introspective angst, you are moved to sympathy.  Unfortunately, like many who are self-obsessed, he cannot forbear to pick again and again at the scabs of his unhappiness, so that one senses he would be even more unhappy were these discontents assuaged.  His furious, spitting vituperation aimed at those he considers to be his political or philosophical foes indicates, to me at any rate, a degree of self-hatred.  I made a reference to this in a comment which I suspect is the cause of my banishment, but in my view, if you hang out your tear-stained laundry for all to see, then you must expect readers to comment on it.

However, some Good News - Bad News.  The Good News is that Ed Rooksby has relented and allowed me back on to his site despite my nuisance factor, the Bad News is that I have now got to move him back again from the Street of Shame to the Role of Honour.  (I wish he'd make up his bloody mind!)

The Street of Shame: Those Left-wing blogs whose owners' belief in freedom of opinion and speech is limited to those speeches and beliefs that co-incide with their own.  Anything else is banned!

chttp://www.pootergeek.com/  To be fair, more of a misunderstanding than a political act, but Damian Counsell is still ultra touchy.  Late news: pootergeek is in abeyance.  A pity because it was a sparky site even if the host and I fell out.  Late, late news: He's back again and as amusing and interesting as ever.

The Virtual Stoa  (or pseuds corner, as I think of it.)

Jewssanfrontieres (a particularly nasty site that I was glad to be thrown off.)

Lenin's Tomb (run by a man who actually chooses to write under the name of a mass murderer.  A bit like calling yourself 'Himmler'.)

http://bionicoctopus.blogspot.com (this humourless tribune of the people can talk with a straight face about "the socioeconomic circumstances of my upbringing and consequent position in life" - probably because a straight face appears to be all that she possesses!

http://fairshot.typepad.com/ His words: "Who is paperwight? My name isn't important, nor am I, really. [...] I'm a mid-thirties straight white guy (race blah blah sex blah blah privilege blah blah identity politics). "  Yeeeees, quite!  As Jeremy Paxman might say.

http://theproles.blogspot.com/ - A rare thing - a very, very fearful Canadian!

http://justinhorton.blogspot.com/ Although I'm banned, I still recommend it as one of the most elegantly written sites in Blogdom.

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

Roll of Honour: the following are some, but not all, of those 'Trot-lot' sites that do not fold under incoming fire:

beatniksalad - alas, about to disappear.

http://deadmenleft.blogspot.com/ - I sometimes sense Meaders' knuckles cracking but so far he puts up with me.

http://bartlettsbizarrebazaar.blogspot.com/ - but he spends most of his time reading comics, and may not realise what a nuisance I am.

http://fruitsofourlabour.blogspot.com/ - another Yankee site, but always (so far!) polite.

http://www.stalinism.com/shot-by-both-sides/ - but unfortunately missed by both sides as well!  Only joking, 'John B' is a tolerant host despite the despicable title of his site.

http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/ - run by a very fierce American feminist who I suspect has narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at some of my comments, but who has bigger balls than the men on the Street of Shame, and stands her ground.

http://introoksbyism.blogspot.com/  11 Aug 05: Yes, he's back in favour again, despite (see his post 27 July 05) his disgusting carryings-on with an unsuspecting duck!  (The rest of this is the history of his moves to and fro the Street of Shame. )  "[J]ust arrived in the Street of Shame direct from the Roll of Honour where I wrote the following:  "I worry for Ed Rooksby who shows alarming deviationist tendencies, like the occasional flash of intelligence and humanity, and I hope no-one tips off any of the SWP grunts like 'pol pot' - damn! damn! damn!  I've done it again, I mean 'lenin', of course.  (Added later today: I go out for a couple of hours, and lo and behold, I'm banned by Rooksby!  Sadly, I will have to remove him from the Role of Honour to the Street of Shame.  Pity!)"

Poem #9:

It has been a while since I gave you a poem.  This is an anti-dote to most of the other WWI poets whose personal views of the war not only tinged and singed their magnificent verse, but also, alas, coloured just about everyone's judgement of that very neccesary war.  It is a sentimental poem, but for me, it is a sentiment with which I feel comfortable.  I understand, what might be called in rather high falutin' terms, the 'warrior code'.  In Britain we call it the 'regimental system'.  It means, in practical terms, that if I ever meet any former member of my old regiment I am automatically, so to speak, on his side.  It is by Gilbert Frankau, who was a member of the distinguished Anglo-Jewish family that has added so much to our culture over the last hundred plus years, and who served as an artillery officer at the front.  (When I get the time, I am going to add the links to my previous poetry selections so that you can easily flick back to read anything that takes your fancy.)

                 How Rifleman Brown Came to Valhalla by Gilbert Frankau (1884 - 1952)

To the lower Hall of Valhalla, to the heroes of no renown,
Relieved from his spell at the listening-post, came Rifleman Joseph Brown.
With never a rent in his khaki nor smear of blood on his face,
He flung his pack from his shoulders, and made for an empty place.

The Killer-men of Valhalla looked up from the banquet-board
At the unfouled breech of his rifle, at the unfleshed point of his sword;
And the unsung dead of the trenches, the kings who have never a crown,
Demanded his pass to Valhalla from Rifleman Joseph Brown.

"Who comes, unhit, to the party?" A one-legged Corporal spoke,
And the gashed heads nodded approval through the rings of the Endless Smoke:
"Who comes for the beer and the Woodbines of the never-closed Canteen,
With the barrack-shine on his bayonet and a full-charged magazine?"

Then Rifleman Brown looked round him at the nameless men of the Line -
At the wounds of the shell and the bullet, at the burns of the bomb and mine;
At the tunics, virgin of medals but crimson-clotted with blood,
At the ankle boots and the puttees, caked stiff with the Flanders mud;
At the myriad short Lee-Enfields that crowded the rifle-rack,
Each with its blade to the sword-boss brown, and its muzzle powder-black:

And Rifleman Brown said never a word; yet he felt in the soul of his soul
His right to the beer of the lower Hall, though he came to drink of it, whole;
His right to the fags of the free Canteen, to a seat at the banquet-board,
Though he came to the men who had killed their man, with never a man to his sword.

"Who speaks for the stranger Rifleman, O boys of the free Canteen?
Who passes the chap with the unmaimed limbs and the kit that is far too clean?"
The gashed heads eyed him above their beers, the gashed lips sucked at their smoke:
There were three at the board of his own platoon, but not a man of them spoke.

His mouth was made for the tankard froth and the biting whiff of a fag,
But he knew that he might not speak for himself to the dead men who do not brag.
A gun-butt crashed on the gateway, a man came staggering in;
His head was cleft with a great red wound from the temple-bone to the chin,
His blade was dyed to the bayonet-boss with the clots that were scarcely dry;
And he cried to the men who had killed their man:
"Who passes the Rifleman? I!
By the four I slew, by the shell I stopped, if my feet be not too late,
I speak the word for Rifleman Brown that a chap may speak for his mate."

The dead of lower Valhalla, the heroes of dumb renown,
They pricked their ears to a tale of the earth as they set their tankards down.



"My mate was on sentry this evening when the General happened along
And asked what he'd do in a gas-attack,. Joe told him:
'Beat the gong.'
'What else?'
'Open fire, Sir,' Joe answered.
'Good God, man,' our General said,
'By the time you'd beaten that bloodstained gong the chances are you'd be dead.
Just think, lad.' 'Gas helmet, of course, Sir.' 'Yes, damn it, and gas helmet first.'
So Joe stood dumb to attention, and wondered why he'd been cursed."

The gashed heads turned to the Rifleman, and now it seemed that they knew
Why the face that had never a smear of blood was stained to the jawbones, blue.
"He was posted again at midnight." The scarred heads craned to the voice,
As the man with the blood-red bayonet spoke up for the mate of his choice.
"You know what it's like in a listening-post, the Very candles aflare,
Their bullets smacking the sand-bags, our Vickers combing your hair,
How your ears and your eyes get jumpy, till each known tuft that you scan
Moves and crawls in the shadows till you'd almost swear it was man;
You know how you peer and snuff at the night when the North-East gas-winds blow."
"By the One who made us and maimed us" quoth lower Valhalla "we know!"

"Sudden, out of the blackness, sudden as Hell, there came
Roar and rattle of rifles, spurts of machine-gun flame;
And Joe stood up in the forward sap to try and get on to the game.
Sudden, their shells come screaming; sudden, his nostrils sniff
The sickening reek of the rotten pears, the death that kills with a whiff.
Death! and he knows it certain, as he bangs on his cartridge-case,
With the gas-cloud's claws at his windpipe and the gas cloud's wings on his face . . .
We heard his gong in our dug-out, he only whacked on it twice,
We whipped our gas-bags over our heads, and manned the step in a trice -
For the cloud would have caught us as sure as Fate if he'd taken the Staff's advice."

His head was cleft with a great red wound from the chin to the temple-bone,
But his voice was clear as a sounding gong, "I'll be damned if I'll drink alone,
Not even in lower Valhalla! Is he free of your free Canteen,
My mate who comes with the unfleshed point and the full-charged magazine?"

The gashed heads rose at the Rifleman o'er the rings of the Endless Smoke,
And loud as the roar of a thousand guns Valhalla's answer broke,
And loud as the crash of a thousand shells their tankards clashed on the board:
"He is free of the mess of the Killer-men, your mate of the unfleshed sword;
For we know the worth of his deed on earth; as we know the speed of the death
Which catches its man by the back of the throat and gives him water for breath;
As we know how the hand at the helmet-cloth may tarry seconds too long,
When the very life of the front-line trench is staked on the beat of a gong.
By the four you slew, by the case he smote, by the gray gas-cloud and the green,
We pass your mate for the Endless Smoke and the beer of the free Canteen."

In the lower hall of Valhalla, with the heroes of no renown,
With out nameless dead of the Marne and the Aisne, of Mons, and of Wipers town,
With the men who killed ere they died for us, sits Rifleman Joseph Brown.

Book Tips #3:

The Interrogation by Thomas H. Cook.

This is red-hot off the presses, by which I mean that I finished it two minutes ago.  It's an absolute corker, and at long last, I can say with hand on heart, that unlike my two previous book tips, it is 'pulp fiction', that is, an American crime thriller.

Not the usual "Wham-Bam, thanks, Ma'am" stuff, this is an immensely taught, and fraught, thriller set in the early 1950s.  A suspected child killer has been arrested but  the police lack any crucial forensic evidence.  There are twelve hours to go before the man must be released back on the streets.  The Chief of Detectives orders the two case officers to interrogate the man and get a confession before 6.00 am.  All three policemen carry inside themselves their own personal demons, as they struggle to bring the case to a conclusion.  Suffice to say that it is not a happy one!  This is a highly intelligent book that kept me up last night, way past my cocoa time, in a fruitless effort to reach the ending.  And joy of joys, Thomas H. Cook, a newcomer to me, has written 16 other non-fiction stories, so there is more to come.  Goody, goody!

Look out, Jenkins, here come the lawyers!

When I began this blog I had no idea that the subject I would be forced to dwell upon, not once, not twice, not even three times, but now for the fourth time, would be: torture v. harsh treatment v. raising your hat and asking nicely if the Muslim gentleman would care to say anything?  For those whose soccial life is as dismal as mine, previous posts and their comments can be read here, here and here.  I am thus provoked (in the most gentlemanly manner) by 'JackSc', an old adversary in the comments section, who sent me this:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201941.htmlnother

Torture or harsh treatment?
The man walked off the street voluntarily and was beaten to death.
Can we at least declare this torture? Can we at least say this is wrong? Can we at least stipulate that this incident hurts our cause rather than helps it?"

The reference is to an article in the WaPo headed, "Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs", and tells the 'story' of how a former Saddam general and loyalist, walked into an American post/police station in an attempt to gain the release of his sons.  As he was reckoned, and apparently admitted, to being one of the leaders of the local insurgency, you can imagine the reception he received.  (I am tempted - and will surrender to the impulse - to suggest rather flippantly that the general forgot the first rule learnt by every soldier - never volunteer!  I learnt this lesson as a recruit when the corporal asked if anyone had any 'O' Levels.  I put my hand up and was instantly given the job of moving the NAAFI piano to the corporal's mess!)  Neither my correspondent, Jack, nor I, can judge the truth of what went on, not least because the defence has yet to state its case.  But let  us, for the sake of conversation, assume that what this newspaper purports to have happened, did indeed happen.  Jack wants to know if it is torture.  In my view, definitely; and murder, as well! 

However, it has no, or at least, very little, bearing on my case for harsh treatment of terrorist suspects, and the very rare use of torture in a 'ticking bomb' scenario.  In my first post, I suggested that a proper interrogation centre with a trained team of interrogators plus their back-up staff was needed.  This case in Iraq makes my point better than I can, and the clue is in the heading: "Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs [my italics]".  Interrogation is, or should be, a very sophisticated activity, requiring real flare, intelligence and skill on the part of its practitioners.  GI's, whose mates have been murdered by the suspect, are hardly ideal for the job.  I know where-of I speak, because, for a short while, many years ago, I was an interrogator.  Whilst many of the facts in this case are murky, one thing is for sure, and this thing demonstrates the absolute stupidity of those involved - the suspect is dead!  You can be the best interrogator in the world, but getting a corpse to speak is impossible.

For those unaquainted with the military, it is important to understand the different levels of interrogation.  In a war situation, a battalion might have orders to advance at dawn, and during the night they might take a prisoner whom they suspect knows the location of the enemy's machine-gun posts.  Almost certainly that man in that situation can expect very rough treatment from soldiers likely to be facing those guns in the morning, unless he 'coughs' rather quickly.  That, if you like, is an example of tactical interrogation.  But in our conversations here, we have been discussing strategic interrogations.  Setting aside the 'ticking bomb' scenario, time is on our side.  It is important to remember that the objective of the interrogation is not a confession, but information.  Harsh treatment (cold, hunger, fear, hooding, dis-orientation techniques, etc) reduce a man's ability to resist, and just as important, reduce his ability to think straight.  In that condition, the skilled interrogator with time on his side, can arrange 'ploys' and 'tricks' that will sow doubt in the subject's mind and further lower his resistance.  None of these techniques can be applied by untrained personnel on the basis of "improvisation", otherwise you end up with the sort of calamity that is described in theWaPo report.  In the case of a 'ticking bomb' scenario, I am not an expert on the infliction of pain on a human being, but commonsense tells me that it can be done without being lethal.  Such methods should be investigated now, agreed upon and held ready for use in dire emergency.

This brings me to my final point.  It seems to be apparent that neither the British or the American authorities have thought through the requirements in this area for use in this unique war that we are engaged in.  Such decision-taking processes as have been gone through, have been in done in secret, thus leaving out of the loop those who suddenly find themselves in charge of events, such as reservist military policemen (and women), enraged marines whose comrades have been killed, and sundry special forces masquerading as CIA.  It should all be brought out in the open.  Not, obviously, the specific techniques to be employed, which would simply warn the enemy, but the whole proposition that such a centre should be organised.  In other words, our very own Guantanamo.