DUFF & NONSENSE!

Oh, and by the way . . .

Well, as I'm in full Saloon Bar rant-mode I may as well finish the way I began.  The real 'stoopids' amongst the middle-class are the socialists.  At least when the old working class took to socialism it was an intelligent move on their part because, at face value, it furthered their interests at the expense of the middle- and upper-class, but after a century of socialism and the disappearance of the working-class (despite socialism not because of it) it must be clear to anyone with more than three brain cells that socialism destroys the interests of the middle-class.  If you doubt my description then it proves that you are not only deaf, dumb and blind but exceedingly stupid as well.  Just take a look at our very own British middle-class, taxed to the hilt to pay for rubbish schools, an eye-wateringly expensive health non-service in which hospitals should come with a health warning and a benefits system that is a thieves' cornucopia.  In addition you stand an excellent chance of being robbed and/or burgled, your children turned into junkies, and the perpetrators of these crimes will, at most, be spoken to very, very severely by a socialist Home Secretary who is a crook herself.  So, with all that flowing from 60 years of socialism, just how stupid do you have to be to be middle-class and socialist?  Yes, quite - knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing stupid, is the answer!

Oh, it just occurred to me.  As you and others read these grumpy words, somewhere there is a middle-class socialist tapping away at his keyboard to tell me that for most of the last 60 years the government has been Conservative not Socialist.  Please don't send it in because it will only confirm beyond doubt my thesis that middle-class socialists are really and truly monumentaly stupid because, of course, apart from a very brief interlude in the 1980s, all  British governments for the last 60 years have been more or less socialist and such differences you might perceive are, on examination, more apparent than real.  Or, let me put it this way because you are obviously incredibly stupid, could you put a political fag paper between John Major and Tony Blair?  'Nuff said, I think!

(I do hope my sunny disposition returns tomorrow.)

God rot the middle-class!

I don't really mean that, after all, I'm middle-class myself, and anyway, I'm sure God has more pressing matters to attend to.  It's just that the post-modern middle-class are so unbelievably stupid that they never even consider the possibility that they are stupid!  How stupid is that?  Now it doesn't matter if their stupidity confines itself to blogdom where it provides mutual entertainment as we compare and deride each other's stupidities, but it is when this middle-class stupidity oozes out into the real world and actually has an effect that I begin to worry and become grumpy.

I am provoked to this by the sight last night on my television of the ineffable Rachel North blathering yet again on the absolute necessity for a third? or is it fourth? enquiry into the events leading up to the London bombings.  The real reason for her agitation is because the other enquiries failed to produce the answer that Rachel North thinks they should have reached.  You see, Rachel North knows the answers but what she yearns for is some third party to confirm it for her, even if it means that hard-pressed security officers are taken off the jobs they are doing in order to be pilloried by Ms. North and her cohorts.  I'm not saying Ms. North is wrong in her conclusions, I have not the slightest idea one way or the other, but what I do know is that having been subjected to three or four enquiries the matter should be dropped, the security services should stay on the job and the whole matter should now be left to the historians.

To be fair to Ms. North, which I am not so inclined to be, she was merely a catalyst in my near-terminal grumpiness.  Last month I received a letter which I assumed (wrongly) was from my Parish Council telling me there would be a meeting to discuss the future development of my village.  Normally, of course, I would have binned the letter but that old devil, curiosity, got the better of me so I went along.  The room was filled with middle-class people, like myself, but spiced with a few token 'ooo-arrrs' as I call the local yokels.  A very 'naice' lady then gave a long welcoming speech in which she told us everything that the 'main-man' organiser was going to say!  He then stood up and repeated what she had said, and so only 15 minutes into the meeting I was already contemplating homicide.

It transpired that this was not organised by our elected Parish Council but was set up by a bunch of busy-body middle-class nitwits with more time than brains.  They began the meeting by asking us all to stand whilst they asked a series of generalised 'either/or' questions concerning possible activities in the village and then asked us to choose either 'a' or 'b' as our preferred choice by moving to one side of the room or the other.  For most of the questions I caused some consternation by remaining rooted to the centre of the room.  When asked by the 'naice' lady if it was a case of not being able to choose, I replied that it was because, in a very real and fundamental way (the vicar was there) I didn't give a stuff whether there should be more sport or more arts in the village - or whatever the daft questions were.  Anyway, like the 'News of the Screws' reporter of yesteryear,  I made my excuses and left!

Pondering on it later, I became more and more angry.  These 'naice' middle-class people couldn't be bothered to dirty their hands by standing for election to our Parish Council and trudging out in all weathers once a month to decide whether the branches of the oak tree in Friar Street should be lopped, or, the pot-holes in Manor Lane should be filled this year or next; no, no, that's for the little people, they wanted to influence the big picture and, once they had this semi-public meeting over, they would,no doubt, conduct their affairs from the comforts of each other's sitting rooms over an awfully decent Chianti they picked up in Italy last year.

Now, I had to attend two Parish Council meetings a couple of years ago over a matter that effected me and I was seriously impressed by the folk who took on that onerous and eye-stabbingly boring duty .  I could no more do what they do than fly in the air.  They do their best, no doubt they get it wrong from time to time, and if they get it too wrong, then they have to stand for re-election in due time and answer to the villagers. But now we have this self-appointed group of interefering busybodies who are answerable to no-one other than themselves and their own cosy cabal.  They are the adult version of those pig-ignorant 'students' who can be seen at demonstrations wrecking our cities everytime someone, with more malevolent brains in their little finger than a thousand of them possess amongst themselves, tells them that what they should do.  This 'grown up' lot are no better, they're just more polite and smell 'naicer'!

The earth didn't move for me!

Not even a teeny-weeny tremor!  And, dammit, it was Earth Day last week!  Anyway, as you cower beneath your sheets, too frit to leave the house lest you catch swine fever (whatever happened to chicken fever?), allow me to cheer you up with a reminder of the prognostications of the chumps experts during Earth Day 1970:

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Blimey!  How on earth did we make it?  ("How on earth", geddit?  You don't get no cheap jokes here at D&N, everyone a winner! Oh, never mind!)  Anyway, I am grateful yet again - much more and I'm going to have pay him commission - to Alan Sullivan, who in turn picked it up from this interesting looking site.  Anyway, you can come out now, you're much more likely to be run over by a No. 9 bus, so get a grip!

Additional: In the whole history of science has there ever been a bigger dork than Paul Erlich?

Events, dear boys, and girls, events!

Sorry to trot out a variation on that old quotational chestnut, it breaks a promise I made to myself never to use it again despite its elegant utility.  It sums up my excuse for the lack of posting recently.  I have been struggling with two mighty projects.

First, I mentioned in an earlier post that I have taken on the job of directing that play about the grumpiest of grumpy old men, King Lear, and the first job, as always with these Shakespearean 'biggies' is to cut the damn thing down to a length that will allow our audience to catch the last bus home!  Once again I prostrate myself in front of the demi-gods of Microsoft and call blessings on their heads for inventing 'Word'.  Oh, the ineffable joy of cutting and pasting compared to running a pencil through various lines in a book, then trying to rub them out because it was a mistake, and then trying to join up two pieces of text . . .  never again . . .  thanks to that nice Mr. Gates.

I would like to say that cutting Shakespeare is a fine and delicate task that entails the sort of careful scholastic skills that are entailed in, say, restoring an old master painting.  Well, as regular readers will guess, I am not much of a scholar.  However, I do seem to have a feel for theatrical production.  Beneath all the poetry, the philosophy and the great truths of human nature with which Shakespeare's plays are filled, there is a simple, old-fashioned story to be told.  My job in planning an amateur production in a provincial town is to tell the story!  Sometimes it is relatively easy, as in Hamlet which is, in essence, the first great thriller ever written; not so much a 'who dunnit', more of a 'will he do it?'  But Lear is trickier.  Just consider the heath scenes in which we have an old man who is really mad, a young man who is pretending to be mad and a Fool whose humour makes Monty Python seem sensible!  Hidden in this tangle of apparently nonsensical non-sequitors there are meanings, references and hints that well-up from the subconscious minds of all three participants.  What to cut?  How much to cut?  As always when cutting I offer up an apology to the playwright and rely on his benevolence as a practical man of the theatre who knew that the main priority was to get the show on!  Actually, with Lear there is some help to be had from the man himself because he returned to the play later in life and altered it substantially.  Even so the mystery of the numbers continues to vex me like a pebble in a shoe.  Why does he keep returning over and over again to 'quantities' and 'numbers'?  It's a mystery!

The other great event in my life is my bewildered shuffle into the 21st century as I grapple with the sophistications of PowerPoint and apply them to my talks on military history.  However, before I could even reach for the computer I had to 'go back to school', as it were, and remind myself of Napoleon's incredible campaign along the Danube in which he completely encircled an Austrian army, and then followed up with the stunning battle of Austerlitz.  Even if you are not that interested in military history, that particular campaign is fascinating, not least in the way it demonstrates the falsity of the Marxist notion that personality in history has no effect.  The way in which Napoleon played on the psychological weaknesses of his adversaries, tricking them into thinking he was at the end of his tether and there for the taking, was genius of the highest order.  Anyway, I think I now have a slick presentation with which I can wow my audiences.  Step up, step up, all the fun of the circus . . .

"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie"

I hardly ever refer to our Chancellor of the Exchequer by name, instead I call him Brown's 'glove muppet' which I hope conveys the image of not only a helpless doll with Brown's hand up its back, but a particularly stupid doll at that.  After yesterday, I think the word 'yellow' should be added because it is now quite clear that the wretched man is a gutless coward.  Perhaps an excuse can be made for his cringing obedience to his master last year when calamity followed calamity, but since then he must have had time to pause and consider.  In the run-up to this budget he was in an impregnable position because no prime minister could lose his Chancellor at such a moment, a resignation would have instantly entailed a general election.  So there was his chance, and apart from any economic incentive to do right, his own self-interest dictated that he should do right so that at least his name would go down in the history books as an honourable man who put country before party.  He failed the test and his reward is to live in ignominy in the political history of our nation.  His tragedy, brought about by personal weakness and cowardice, is almost Shakespearean; it is the equivalent of Gloucester's to Lear's; it is the minor key movement in a tragic symphony written in a major key.  I rarely pray, and usually only when I am extremely frightened, but now I am praying on bended knee out of pure, unadulterated rage that the British people exact a terrible and terrifying punishment on Gordon Brown and all his acolytes at the next election.

A budget for, er, well, Mr. Brown, actually!

There was only ever a snowball in hell chance of these incompetent lying liars ever producing a budget to help us through the current malaise, so I am not too surprised at what Brown's glove muppet produced today.  The borrowing tells you all you need to know about the true state of our finances. The problem is that figures with several naughts on the end do not really impinge on people's consciousness - they're just huge, unimaginable numbers that do not seem to connect to them.  They will do - but not quite yet.  The shyster-in-chief has carefully held back as much bad news as he can prior to an election.  Obviously there are tax increases on beer and fags and petrol, but everyone expects that as a matter of course, and there is the obviously futile increase in the taxation of those earning over £150k pa, futile, of course, because everyone outside of the dimmer tranches of the Labour party knows that the only definite result will be that the government will collect less tax, not more, because rich people know how to avoid it and the more you make it worth their while to make efforts to mitigate their tax burden the more they will do it.

I say again, the worst news is yet to come, and that makes me wonder when the one-eyed twister will call an election.  He has to have a budget review in the autumn, and they might, just, be able to keep a lid on it for that long, but this time next year he will have to announce another budget, and by then 'truth will out'!  This political crook and his henchmen will continue to ramp up government borrowing to the very limit in order to achieve one of two results.  Either, they use the borrowings to bribe the voters and thus squeeze back into government in which case their motto is 'sufficient unto the day there-of'; or, they lose but leave the Tories floundering in a sea storm of debt which will only be coped with by draconian measures, that is, not just cuts in government spending but wholesale amputations of major limbs up to, but not excluding, the privatisation of the NHS.  Either that, or increases in taxation for everyone, individuals and businesses, on such a scale that Labour will stand a chance of returning five years later as, wait for it (and have a sick bag to hand), the party of compassion!

There is a way out of this mess if Cameron has the guts to do it, and that is - cut taxes!  I mean really slash them down; better still, go for a single taxrate for everyone with no tax exemptions.  (The sight of tax consultants queuing up at the labour exchange  will cheer everyone up!)  Yes, cut government spending to the bare minimum as well, but tell people that they are being given their own money back and that from now on they are responsible for themselves.  To put it in a nutshell, turn this country into another HongKong.  Will he do it?  Will he hell!

"Enhanced techniques" = enhanced intelligence

Day by day, week in week out, 'Oprah' slips further down my ratings.  I was prepared to give him a fair crack of the whip, indeed, I mentioned on this blog, my hope that his spiel during the campaign was just rhetoric for the faithful, and that once in office he would revert to some intelligent real-politik. Fat chance!

Marc Thiessen, a former high-ranking 'Bushie', has studied the CIA memos concerned with interrogation techniques which were released by 'Oprah' a few days ago.  He reports in the 'WaPo' that the administration even failed to get their censoring quite right.  Thus, whilst they struck out reams of stuff specifying the positive intelligence results obtained, lest the American voter realised how effective the techniques were, they missed some of it:

"Before the CIA used enhanced techniques . . . KSM [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, 'Soon you will find out.' " Once the techniques were applied, "interrogations have led to specific, actionable intelligence, as well as a general increase in the amount of intelligence regarding al Qaeda and its affiliates."

Thiessen continues:

Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques "led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the 'Second Wave,' 'to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into' a building in Los Angeles." KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that "information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the 'Second Wave.' " In other words, without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York.

Can you imagine the howls of outrage and the calls for his impeachment from the Dems if Los Angeles had been hit on George Bush's watch - after 9/11?  'Oprah's' action in stopping these techniques and releasing secret intelligence reports into the public arena amounts to a dereliction of duty.  The man is not fit for office.

Hat tip to James Forsyth at The Coffee House.

"Give the scallawags a jolly good walloping!"

I have written before on this vexatious question of when does harsh treatment become torture so I will keep this brief.   Incidentally, my title is a quote from an Indian police superintendent in the Singapore Special Branch with whom, years ago, I used to liaise on matters of mutual interest.  He bemoaned the departure of the British because, as he put it in his very Indian accent, "When the British were here we could give the scallawags a jolly good walloping". 

I have read the reports of American procedures in dealing with prisoners and I do not rate any of them as torture.  However, there was one technique which broke my personal code for interrogation which can be summed up as follows: first, apart from guiding a blindfolded prisoner, no-one should lay hands on a prisoner; and second, no technique should be used from which a healthy man or woman could not fully recover physically after a meal and a sleep. Thus, 'walling', in which the interrogator slams the prisoner against a wall, allegedly a specially constructed one that has some 'give' in it, fails on the 'no hands on' rule and if, as I suspect, not all of the walls are 'special', injuries are likely to ensue from which the prisoner would not recover quickly. 

Hitherto, I had asumed that in the 'water boarding' technique, the prisoner was actually dunked head down in a pool (a Gestapo favourite) but now I realise that it is only a wet cloth over the face which is soaked at regular intervals and gives the impression of drowning without the risk of it.  It is a terrifying technique but a healthy man would recover almost instantly, so I see no problem with it.  Similarly, hosing down prisoners with icy cold water, keeping them awake for days, attacking their secret fears (such as introducing insects to a prisoner with a phobia for them - a variation on "Get Me Out of Here" game shows!) and keeping prisoners in confined spaces, all seem perfectly acceptable to me - provided they all recover within a matter of hours.

I suspect, I cannot know, that part of the reason America was safe during Bush's administration was the intelligence gained by these methods.  'Oprah' has tossed this asset away.  We shall see if and when the next atrocity hits his homeland.

Apologies? Excuses? Lies? Evasions? Whatever!

No, no, I am not referring to the poltroons in Westminster, I am, alas, speaking of myself and offering you a mea culpa for my absence from duty in recent days.  I can't remember if I told you (old men always forget what they've said, sometimes before they've even said it), where was I?  Oh yes, my-dog-ate-the-post excuse for not posting very much.  I have shuffled, blinking in bewilderment into the 21st century, or to be precise, I have discovered PowerPoint (PP) and I have just designed an entire show to support my talk on The Battle of Three Emperors, that's Ulm and Austerlitz for those of you who think history (and sex) began in 1964! 

For the first time in my life I have a very slight glimmering of understanding into the complexities of computer programming.  Never again shall I complain or listen to a word said against the Masters of the Universe who work for Mr. Bill Gates.  Splendid chaps - and chapettes, I suppose - to a man, er, and a woman, of course.  It has proven to be a most time-consuming, exacting and pernickety job.  No error is permitted, all commands must follow in strict logical terms.  Regular readers will know, of course, that strict logical terms are not in high demand here at D&N where we prefer assertion and generalisation!  Anyway, my old chalk and talk methods are soooo last century but now I can stand up proudly as a PP graduate of the 21st century.

To add to my forthcoming travails, I finally made up my mind and offered my services to the local AmDram group to direct King Lear for Spring next year.  I foresee much wailing and gnashing of teeth - no, no, not me, them!  They have no idea what's going to hit them and, oh dear, they all seem such very nice people and they really do not deserve a graduate from the Ghengis Khan School of Directing like me. 

Anyway, maybe later tonight, or tomorrow I will return to duty, here at D&N.  I think my first post will be an explanation as to why I failed to faint away at the so-called torture of prisoners by the CIA which, I can only suppose, actually stands for Comfort In America!

I just choked on my cheer!

In the post before last I offered a loud 'hurrah' to 'Oprah' for sending in the SEALs and bumping off three Somali pirates.  Well, three, skinny, daring pirates are one thing but North Korea (NK) and Iran are something else again.  The former has just kicked out the international and American observers in its nuclear sites, and the latter has announced a ballistic missile test.  So, Mr. President, before I give you the final two cheers to follow the first, let us see your response.  Apparently, so far as Iran is concerned, you are intending to ignore their underlying message and simply proceed with talks without pre-conditions, and as far as one can tell, you will continue with this useless exercise until they have completed all of their military nuclear ambitions.  I doubt that your policy in regard to NK will be any different.  So you will blow hard, and blow hard, and even harder, even if the house does not fall down!

We should be clear, the decisions are difficult.  An attack on NK will almost certainly cause them to attack South Korea (SK) which America will be duty bound to defend.  This might, history sometimes repeats itself, involve a war with China, although I am not completely convinced that China would risk its prosperity fighting for its retard neighbour provided the USA keeps the war (and the SKs) well away from the Yalu River.  However, in these straightened times, the question must be asked as to whether or not the USA can actually afford another war?  Better perhaps to spend mega-bucks building a state-of-the-art anti-missile system that would render NK's missiles redundent.  In the middle east, surely the answer is to provide 'plucky little Israel' with the where-with-all and let them do the job for us.  It will require humbuggery of the first order for 'Oprah' to tut-tut in a suitably outraged style when it happens, but, hey, if anyone can do that it has to be 'Oprah', right?

Additional:  Two further thoughts occurred as I half-watched the 'footie' (I only ever seem to half-watch, even a corker like the current match between Liverpool and Chelsea!) 

First, whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of the two recent American military interventions in the middle east, if Iran goes operationally nuclear then all future operations will be precluded.  The Persian Gulf, through which most of our oil flows, will become Persian in reality as well as name.

Second, there will almost certainly be some people in Peking who will favour a nuclear NK on the grounds that they might, in certain circumstances, be able to severely damage the USA leaving the 'People's Republic' to shrug and say 'it was nuffink to do wiv me, guv!'  Sure, it's a bit like allowing your retard neighbour to play with Kalashnikovs in his backyard but why would would anyone expect Chink pols to be wiser than our lot?

"Now is the winter of our discontent"

Regular readers will know of my scepticism concerning anthropogenic global warming (AGW).  They will also know of my lack of scientific qualifications and knowledge.  Nevertheless, my reaction to the mounting chorus of doom was, I freely admit, conditioned by some non-scientific factors.

First, when the early warming chorus was loud enough to reach my ears, I had just lived through approximately 10 years of 'scientific' alarums telling me in the most frightening terms to beware the coming ice-age.  As the climate gradually became warmer my respect for certain types of climate 'scientists' decreased.  (Incidentally, sundry scientific 'pundits' not far removed from Dr. 'Teabag' constantly remind me that correlation is not causation, so I must be careful not to jump to conclusions!)

Second, when I discovered that the predictions made by these 'scientists' were based almost entirely on computer models, I had difficulty suppressing my giggles - we all know the old equation to the effect that rubbish in equals rubbish out!

Third, given that the 'science' depended on computer models, it was obviously necessary that whatever it was that 'went in' needed to be carefully checked.  Happily, Anthony Watts did just that by organising volunteers to go and check the weather stations in the USA.  Unsurprisingly, they were mostly rubbish so it was confirmed that indeed it was 'rubbish in'.  It was also painfully obvious that none of the so-called 'scientists had bothered to actually check that very basic factor.

Fourth, whilst I do not pretend to understand the intricacies of chaos theory and the mathematics associated with it, I have grasped enough to realise that if you start a long series (zillions squared) of equations in which the result of each iterated operation is fed forward into the next, and that such an activity is based on even tiny variations in the opening condition which you can never know, then totally wierd and wild results will suddenly appear.  It is precisely that, the unknown variable factors in the opening scenario, that constantly fox our weather forecasters and, of course, their computers!

Fifth, it seems obvious to me, even with the scientific black holes that litter my knowledge, that if there is one humungous thing that simply must effect our climate above and beyond all others, it is the sun.  It is, so to speak, the celestial elephant in our particular bit of the universe.  Like the Americam economy, if it sneezes, we catch a cold.  However, so blinded are the climate 'scientists' by their notion of man-made CO2 as the prime cause of our warming climate, that they refuse to even countenance the sun as a factor.  Given their influence in public affairs, that is a pity, because, you see, I have it on very good authority that the sun appears to have been cured of its acne!  Alright, to be more scientific, there has been a very distinct lack of sun spots recently - in fact, none at all - nil - nix - nothing.  Apparently, for all sorts of horribly convoluted reasons this is likely to start a cooling period here on earth.  So, you can expect the likes of Dr. James Hansen and his glove-puppet, Al Gore, to start hollering about a new ice age any minute now - well, actually, it might take a little longer, after all, a complete volte face is never easy, even for charlatans like them.  Now, it might be a good idea to invest in some long Johns (why should I be the only blogger to make a fool of himself by showing a picture of me in them?) but there is no need to panic if you live in the wealthy west.  However, if we do experience 10 or so years of cooling then food production will be the first to be hit, so if you are unlucky enough to live in the third world, expect to go even hungrier.  Still, its an ill solar wind that blows nobody any good, the last two summers have been a washout so there is a goodish chance that the coming one will be the same and that should dish the Aussies from winning the ashes through a series of 'rain stopped play'!

Sixth, and finally you will be glad to read, when I began, a few years ago, to take an interest in the subject, I simply did not care for both the scientific and public relations stance of the 'warmists'.  Their attacks on fellow scientists who dared to question their orthodoxy was shrill and vicious.  Similarly, their representatives on earth, the blogger 'warmists', re-acted almost by rote in abusing or censoring or banning any dissident voices irrespective of how politely the comment might be phrased.  I have lived long enough to recognise the type and to sense the gentle slap of the truncheon along their thigh.  The likes of Tim Lambert and 'Little Willy', to name but two, crawl out of society's woodwork regularly under any pretext that's going.  The worst thing is, that when this AGW nonsense is finally seen for what it is, there will be yet another 'cause' for these swaggering ninnies to support.

 

Let's hear it for the SEALs - and 'Oprah'!

Details are hard to come by but the end result is crystal clear - three dead pirates, one captured and one American hostage released.  It sounds like a bit of a turkey shoot, but hell, it was still damned fine shootin'.  In my army days I would have had trouble hitting a barn - even if I was inside it!  So, well done the SEALs and, let it be said loud and clear, well done 'Oprah'.  He is the CinC and if it had all gone wrong, if for example they had had the equivalent of 'Dead-eye Duff' on board they would have been forced to bury the hostage at sea because he would have been so full of lead.  So, the fact that it all went well earns 'Oprah' a whole-hearted hurrah from me. 

Also, and here it grates even as I write it, well done the Hungarian dwarf for rescuing the French hostages, even if one of them collected a bullet in the process.  Thank God there aren't any British prisoners because whilst I have every faith in the abilities of the Special Boat Service I have none what so ever in their political and military masters who would probably prefer to send in a squad of one-legged, lesbian, out-reach, social workers to try and get the Somali pirates in touch with their feminine side!

"Don't mention the war!"

Sorry, but I must; but not the last one, I mean the one before! 

(Before I go on, a brief history primer for those unfamiliar with the lunatic asylum that was Wilhemine Germany in the run up to WWI which all you experts can skip.  In the 19th c., Germany had grown like a cuckoo in the European nest under the brutal but shrewd real-politik of Bismarck.  He recognised the danger for Germany facing an enemy to the east (Russia) and to the west (France).  Thus, acknowledging that France would never be mollified so long as Germany held Alsace and Lorraine, he made every effort to act 'nicely-nicely' with Russia.  Alas, when the impetuous and moronic William II became Kaiser, Bismarck was dropped and William spent the next few years blundering about Europe upsetting everyone and raising fears about German intentions.  This eventually drove the Russians into the enticing arms of the French.  However, in 1904/5 the Russians were involved in a humiliating war with Japan which they lost.  Even so, the head of the German General Staff (GGS), Alfred von Schlieffen, in considering German strategy for a probable war on two fronts, devised a plan of awe-inspiring daring.  Based on his belief that Russia would, as it had done in the past, lumber into action very slowly, he suggested that 90% of the German army be deployed in the west against France and only a small holding force be left facing Russia.  Again, based on his belief that France would mass its army in the south against the existing border in order to attack and retake Alsace-Lorraine, he suggested that of the 90% of the German army in the west, the huge majority would be used on the right-wing to march through Belgium and Holland, ignoring their neutrality, and thence into northern France in a gigantic right hook that would pass either side of Paris and then swing round to the east to catch the French armies in rear and utterly destroy them against the southern German armies defending the Rhine.  If his southern flank in Alsace-Lorraine was forced back under French pressure, so much the better, thought Schlieffen, because the further the French pushed forward into the sack, so much the better for the Germans coming up behind them.  The total defeat of the French army was calculated to take no more than six weeks after which the magnificent, and fully militarised, railway system would rush the German armies over to the east to deal with the oncoming Russians. This plan was formulated in 1905/6 but Schlieffen was then retired and his place taken by Helmuth von Molke, the nephew of the great von Molke 'the Elder' who, under Bismarck, had beaten the Danes, then the Austrians and finally the French, and whose reputation deservedly places him in the ranks of the 'Great Captains of History'.  Alas, his nephew, Moltke 'the Younger', was not at all of the same stamp and under his leadership the Schlieffen plan was altered and in the view of some (most?) he weakened it fatally and it resulted in the Battle of the Marne in which the French army was able to redeploy and (with a little help from its friend!) fight back, thus forcing the Germans to retreat, after which four years of stalemate and slaughter in the trenches ensued. Map from Wikipedia)

 

 

A few weeks ago I contacted a lady by the name of Annika Mombauer.  She is a fearfully learn-ed historian specialising in Wilhemine Germany and I came across one of her papers published on the net by The Institute of Strategic Studies.  Unfortunately I couldn't open it but following my contact she very kindly e-mailed me a full copy.  So impressed was I that I felt compelled to buy a copy of her book: Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War.  The book, being more than somewhat specialist and scholastic and thus not designed for a mass market, is tremendously expensive but via 'abebooks' I obtained a second-hand copy.  It was worth every penny!

I have read the book only once, fairly quickly, so my remarks are impressionistic rather than scholarly.  She seemed intent on upholding Moltke's battered reputation but in that I think she failed.  However, she puts to flight the more extreme of Molke's critics whose main purpose was to uphold the reputation of his predecessor as Chief of the GGS, von Schlieffen, and his daring plan to defeat the French in 6 weeks.  These German critics came out of the woodwork shortly after the war ended and a considerable part of their motivation was to explain away Germany's defeat - and their part in it!  Blaming it on Moltke for having the temerity to alter Schlieffen's 'master plan' must have seemed like a good idea.  Ms. Mombauer makes the very good point that even if Schlieffen himself had remained in the job from 1906 to 1914, the plan would almost certainly have been altered in some way to fit changes over time - for example, the growing strength of Russia which by the 2nd decade of the 20th c. had recovered from its humiliation at Japanese hands.

Nevertheless, my impression is that she fails to aquit Moltke of the main charge, that is, that he lacked utter, total, ruthless and uncompromising commitment to the Schlieffen concept.  For example, he could not, as Schlieffen was prepared to do, contemplate even the possibility of the Russians setting foot on German soil in the east, or the French doing so in the west.  This prompted him to re-inforce both the eastern and southern flanks at the expense of his forces in the north.  To put it in boxing parlance, he had a deadly right-hook, but in the event he ever so slightly pulled his punch!

There are it seems to me, two fascinating 'what if' questions - and if you are not interested in 'what if' questions then you are not interested in history!

First, would an updated version of the Schlieffen plan have been successful if the man himself had commanded?  Despite Ms. Mombauer's superb book, I think it probably would.

Second, would it have been, in the words of Sellar & Yeatman, "A Good Thing" if it had?  Here, I am supposing that the British army had continued its flight towards Bordeaux and escaped via the Royal Navy.  Again, I am assuming that the French navy would have been either sunk (by us) or came over to us.  The situation would then have reverted to the familiar one of Britain standing more or less alone in its island fortress.  Such a situation would not have been a total disaster and whilst fraught with dangers it would have avoided four years of trench warfare and the horrific casualties that resulted from it.(*) 

At this point I should add a rider.  As Ms. Mombauer makes clear, the Schlieffen concept was the only one on offer at the time.  In retrospect, it is now clear that in the age of the machine-gun and high explosive, the weight of advantage had shifted to the defensive and against the offensive.  Unfortunately, for complex reasons only to be found in a geo-political and historical study of northern Germany, the Prussians were deeply imbued with the spirit of the offensive, at whatever cost.(**)

Let me end by recommending Ms. Mombauer's book for providing a piercingly clear picture of the lunacy that took over Germany under a psychotic king and the influence of an ultra-secretive, so-called expert collection of military technocrats.  There's a lesson for all of us in that, not just Germany. 

* Re-reading this later I see that my remarks might lead you to suppose that I support the idea that we should have remained strictly neutral.  I do not, and nor do I think it would have been possible.  However, there might have been an advantage to us in retreating behind our navy and slowly strangling Germany and its vassal states into poverty and hardship - although, as Nial Ferguson has made clear in his recent book, The Pity of War, blockade was not nearly as effective as some believed at the time.

** Although Bismarck had unified all of the 'Germanies' into an 'empire', nevertheless, the ruling military caste was predominately Prussian, with all the vices and virtues that are associated with that nation.

"It's a mystery!"

That, of course, was the oft' repeated catch-phrase uttered by the long-suffering but phlegmatic Philip Henslowe, Shakespeare's theatre manager, as played by the superb Geoffrey Rush in the film Shakespeare in Love written, needless to say given its wit and intelligence, by Tom Stoppard.  I am provoked to this further essay on acting by my e-pal, 'Dearieme', who used the self-same phrase in a comment to my previous post.  I am ashamed to admit that on that occasion I allowed my grumpiness, produced by the silly luvvies in the TV documentary I had watched, to overcome what remains of my intelligence.  Ever since, I have been pondering more on the subject of acting and, indeed, it is a mystery!

First, it has to be stated that brilliant actors can be possessed of enormous intelligence - or they can be as thick as a sack of spanners.  It seems to make no difference because the end result is still brilliant.  So what is it in them that produces such marvellous performances?  I don't know - it's a mystery!  Happily for the mediocre rest of us, brilliant actors are in a tiny minority which means that we have to work at it.  So what is required to be done?

First, of course, you have to read the entire play.  This is a relatively modern concept because in Shakespeare's day when the cheapest means of reproducing a text was the quill pen, actors were only given their parts - hence the origin of the phrase (and its variations) - 'getting a part'.  Today it is necessary to read the play over and over in order to search for various clues.  You need to analyse what your character says about himself; then, and perhaps more important, what he actually does; finally, most carefully attend to what the other characters in the play say about your character.  For a very easy example, it is blindingly obvious to the audience that Iago is a double-dyed villain but an actor who plays him throughout as a sort of moustache-twirling, cloak-swishing, sinister rotter will have missed the fact that throughout the play everyone else constantly, repeatedly, refers to him as "good Iago", or variations of that phrase.  So it is necessary in many scenes to play him as an honest, 'hail-fellow-well-met' type possessed of Falstaffian good humour.

Second, and on the assumption that we are talking of a classic play, it is best to read every possible critique of the play you can lay your hands on.  You may not agree with many of the interpretations offered by various intellectual literati but it will, so to speak, force you to a reasoned rejection of their opinions and in doing that you learn more.  I have still not forgotten reading an essay on Measure for Measure by a lady I had hitherto written off as yet another tendentious American 'feminasti' but whose scholarship and insight into the relationships beteeen men and women in the Elizabethan era was so rigorous and exacting that it made me revise my entire approach to the play.

All of this is time-consuming and sometimes tedious but if you are a mediocrity it is essential.  Usually it provides the actor with too much information and forces on him the necessity of choosing, but at least he will choose on a rational basis rather than what so many of us (particularly amateurs like me) are prone to do - rely on gut instinct!  And all of this is preparatory, there is still the intense business of developing the character in the rehearsal room where your plots and plans clash against those of your fellow actors and, naturally, the director's.  It is this clash that produces the (usually) mythical 'blood on the rehearsal room walls'!  It is at this point that one's individual efforts, which are hopefully rational and well-thought out, merge with others to form a collective act - and this is precisely where and when the mystery begins.

I try not to use scientific metaphors because mathematical pedants like Dr. 'Teabag' are sure to leap in and point out the errors, but in this instance I think it is even scientifically true that detailed analysis of any collective human action is virtually impossible.  A sort of chaotic dynamic takes over which seems to have a will of its own, and causes and effects become too blurred for observation.  Anyway, I am sure that holds true for the process of putting on a play.  It's a mystery!

Luvvies! Don'cha just hate 'em?

A good friend knowing my interest in theatre tipped me off to the fact that last night the Arts Channel had a programme entitled "Inside the Actors' Studio which purported to show the rehearsals of an Australian production of Hedda Gabler. Gratefully I settled down to watch but fairly soon I began to wince and fidget, and then to mutter and growl, and finally, to hurl abuse as I struggled to find the 'do-flicker-thingie' (sorry for the tech-speak) to switch the damned thing off.  Honestly, actors do talk such utter and complete bilge!  I just knew, but hoped I would be wrong, that within minutes some luvvie would start wittering on about 'finding the Truth' in his or her roles.  There is no bloody truth, I shouted at the screen, it's all pretend!  Then another actor airily dismissed what he had been taught at drama school, that is, to search the text and list every bit of information concerning the character of your role, and opined that he found all that he needed in the emotional moment of delivery.  Most actors do that which is why so many of them are totally mediocre.  A scholarly analysis of the text is 'boring' or 'hard work' and it's all so much easier just to stand up there and emote all over the place.  Pillocks!

Then they wheeled in the writer - yes, I thought the play was written by Ibsen, too - who had, dread word, 'adapted' the text.  Now, there is a huge difference between an 'adaptation' of a classic and a translation.  The first is always but always to be treated with extreme caution.  This Aussie man of letters began by telling us, in effect, that Ibsen's text simply didn't work these days because so much of the play depended on the characters' fear of losing their respectability.  Thus, was the imaginative powers of an audience dismissed out of hand.  It was about then that I found the 'OFF' switch.  Grrrr!

Following my post below on the subject of the TV series The Wire, I mentioned that the 'hero' of the piece is a hunky, handsome, and white, police detective played by an actor, hitherto unknown to me, called Dominic West.  He is exactly right as the hard-bitten, foul-mouthed, boozing American cop, so imagine my surprise when I learned that he was born and raised outside Sheffield and went to school at Eton at the same time as David Cameron!  Incidentally, there is another actor in it called Idris Elba who plays a black drug dealer and he was born and raised in Hackney and appeared in such Brit TV gems The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.  The Wiki piece I link to is worth reading for the background to what is by any standards a very superior piece of TV drama.  I was particularly pleased to see that the writer/producer worked on my old favourite Homicide: Life on the Street.

Art, Artistry, or Artiface?

In a thread down below I have been discussing the nature of 'Art' with my e-pal, 'Bongers'.  I used the example of Paul Klee's so-called 'magic squares'.  Here is an example and I would be delighted if any, or all of you, tell me what your reaction to it is.

"No Country For Old Men" & "The Wire"

I raved last year on the subject of the Coen brothers' film No Country For Old Men, and last night it opened on Sky Movies.  It is superb; in my opinion, one of the very greatest films ever made.  It is apocolyptic in exactly the way that Apocolypse Now wasn't!  It spells out, not stridently, but inescapably, that western civilisation is decaying from within and that the malignant forces applied from without are going to win.  Anyone watching the film should take careful note of the ending in which the decent, old-timer sheriff retires early having given up the fight, whilst the psychopathic killer, despite being wounded, lives on.  When I first saw it, I had no idea how prescient it was concerning the southern border states of the USA.  It was only the publication earlier this year of the CIA's annual, risk-assessment report to the President in which, apart from the usual suspects, they included - Mexico!  That made me sit up and wonder, and since then there has been more and more news concerning the war going on to control the drug trade along the whole Mexican/USA border such that the murder and kidnap rates are now astronomical.  Even so, I do not think the Coen brothers intended their film to be parochial.  It stands as a metaphor for the free world in its current, many faceted war against the totalitarians.  Can we stand up to the fight, or shall we follow the old sherriff into early retirement?

All of that brings to me to The Wire, a police procedural series on TV much admired by the critics and which the BBC are now running exceedingly late on BBC 2 every weekday night.  I have watched all five episodes so far and I must confess to a bias in that the series is based in the Baltimore Police Department which was, of course, the home of the very excellent but now very elderly series Homicide: Life on the Street.  Watching The Wire one thing struck me immediately, not so much what was in it but what was not in it - colour!  Actually, around 80% of the cast, police and villains, are black but nobody refers to those old racial divides.  Any series of 20 years ago trying to be up there on the cutting edge of authenticity would have had to include references or even a story line showing up the great racial divide in America.  Not so in The Wire where no-one mentions it and everyone, to quote a phrase, seems 'comfortable in their skin' whatever colour it is.  They are all, the good, the bad and the downright ugly, just Americans.

Even so, some things never change in LA-LA Land (the home of American TV production) and the hero cop is white, tough, principled and good-looking - natch!  However, his right-hand girl, so to speak, is black - no change there - but she is not beautiful - and that is!  She is also (sigh of irritation) lesbian and the producers could not allow the chance of a bit of female canoodling to pass them by.  Like most men I find the sight of lesbian activity quite exciting, even at my age, but not when it is so obviously superfluous to the story and even more obviously only inserted to gain the series a bit of notoriety.  Also, having watched that, I just knew with a sinking feeling that a somewhat unlikely homosexual development amongst two of the nigger gangsters was almost certainly going to develop into a snogging session which, as surely as the Missouri runs south, it did.

Incidentally, could someone fetch a glass of water for poor Dr. 'Teabag' who, if he is reading this piece, has just fainted away at my use of the word 'nigger'.  Now, I have been told, many a time and oft', by the Great and the Good, especially the likes of 'Teabag' and his fellow language commissars, that the n-word is definitely and irrevocably forbidden, but guess what, in this film the niggers keep calling each other niggers!  Don't they read The Grauniad?  Has Dr. 'Teabag's' famous organ bearing his politically correct message failed to reach them?  Honestly, watching and listening I felt like standing up and telling them that never mind the drugs and the murders, they were all very, very naughty boys for using the n-word even if, er, they're actually niggers themselves!  Where was I . . . ?

The series is very good at showing the low politics of high-ranking police bureaucracies, all of it so like our very own dear local police authorities.  I also enjoyed the portrayal of two 'good ol' boy' detectives who in any other series would have been real 'straight arrows' but who in this are the most incorrigible cheats and layabouts ever to disgrace a detectives' squad room.  As always with modern American films I have difficulty with the language, particularly from the black gangsters, but I apply the same technique as I use with Shakespeare, I don't strain to catch every word, I just relax and let it flow over me and gradually the brain seems to tune in to it.  I also have difficulty distinguishing one black from another - yes, they really do all look the same, don't they?  Actually in this film they do because they all dress alike in baggy street cloths with hoods and caps and collars pulled up, and all of that plus their incomprehensible argot makes identification difficult.

Still, I am, with some reservations, enjoying it so far.  I am glad that the main storyline is being told over many episodes in order to provide the sense of time passing, a facet which is totally ignored in those silly Law and Order series in which murder, detection, trial and sentence all get done and dusted in one hour flat.  If you haven't already started watching The Wire it may be too late to pick up exactly who is doing what to whom but if they run a second series I would recommend it.  Incidentally, foul language pours forth in torrents, and it is exactly right that it does so, this is how these people speak.  The series is similar in one respect to the Coen brothers' film in that it describes a society under attack from the drug trade.  I am just curious to see whether the producers have what it takes to come to the same grim conclusion that the Coens came to, that is, that the druggers are winning! 

Home again!

Well, sort of, you see, last month 'SoD' shovelled all of my old computer memory into something called a 'memory stick' and then promptly went on the missing list.  In the meantime I bought a nice, shiny new computer which had all the basic requirements but none of my memories, so to speak.  It was a bit like buying a brand new house which has everything in it including the kitchen sink but none of the beloved items that go to make it a home.

However, yesterday 'SoD' re-appeared and did whatever it is one has to do to a memory stick in order to make it disgorge its precious memories.  Oh, the joy of clicking on 'Favourites' and immediately finding the likes of 'Grimmerupnorth', 'Terry Kelly' and 'Stroppyblog' - I wonder if they've missed me?  (Take that as a 'no', shall I?)  Anyway, I feel that all is now well with the world, I am re-invigorated and you can now expect a . . . something? . . . of posts.  Well, what is a suitable collective noun for several blog posts?  Depends who is writing them, I suppose.  How about a 'spew', a 'splutter', a 'snore' . . .?

Praise the Lord there is . . .

. . .  a heaven, and it's in Devon (and I'm a poet and I don't know it!)  One of the abiding pleasures of my life is in enjoying the pleasures of friendship with people I have known for 30, 40, or even in one case, 50 years.  Because this is our 70th year, one of the couples we know took us away on a sort of 'magical mystery tour' for two nights this week.  We didn't know where we were going but it turned out to be a sort of heaven on earth, or to be more prosaic, the tiny village of North Bovey in Devon.  The village itself, which lies just on the edge of Dartmoor, is a delight, surrounding a wooded village 'green', with mostly thatched cottages, an old church and an excellent and genuinely friendly pub serving good food. 

For those who work for the government and are thus possessed of a large expense account, you can follow the stream that flows through the village for 10 minutes and come out on the 18-hole golf course which is part of the grounds of Bovey Castle which is not, of course, a castle at all, but an old 19th c. country pile which has recently been in the hands of Peter de Savary, a multi-zillion pound property developer who has turned it into a luxury hotel - and I do mean luxury!  To his, or his architects, great credit, they have done a superb job.  Everything from the faux Baronial Hall to the Regency Lounge is beautifully detailed, all the furnishings and fabrics and decorations carefully and tastefully chosen.  I doubt I could afford a starter in their proper restaurant but happily they have a brasserie-style cafe in which we all enjoyed a pleasant - and affordable - supper.

The next day, following a two-hour walk through beautiful English countryside our friends sprang the final surprise - lunch at Gidleigh Park.  For the benefit of my American readers, Gidleigh Park is one of the premier hotels and restaurants in the country.  It is just such a pleasure to a grumpy, cynical, old buzzard like me to see a task, or series of tasks, carried out excellently and apparently effortlessly.  We arrived late for lunch at 1.45, having taken longer over our walk that we had intended, but that was dismissed airily by the young staff who attended to us.  The food was mouth-wateringly good and the service superb and good-humoured.  The view across the Devon countryside was spectacular, er, well, 'spectacular' in an English sort of way, if you know what I mean!  Anyway, if any of you find yourself in that part of Devon, save up your pennies, or cut down on your stay if you have to, but do try and have lunch at Gidleigh Park.

Tonight I am eating cold meatloaf with coleslaw; that's called coming down to earth with a bump!  (Mind you, don't tell her, but the 'Memsahib's meatloaf and home-made coleslaw is to die for!)