Just went on Friday to see my actor friend in 'Oh What a Lovely War'. It is an extremely good but very hard watch. I would say that it accurately portrays the stupidity and futility of the Great War of 1914.
For example, accompanying the action on stage was a projector screen showing some of the statistics of the various battles such as Battle of the Somme, one and a half million British soldiers dead, gains = nil. What many people don't realise is that the Battle of the Somme was not one day one battle affair. It was several months of slaughter that nearly killed off an entire generation of young men, all because the old soldiers (generals) who were making the decisions believed in a war of attrition, not a war of mission objectives.
"Old soldiers never die, never die, never die.
Old soldiers never die,
The young just wish they would."
There again says that, considering the mess out in Afghanistan, it seems that the old soldiers are swinging back that way. That or the politicians won't give them a clear cut objective.
The musical side of the play was also very well done, used to great affect to increase the pathos of the whole piece, especially the Christmas Day Cease Fire. I wonder how many people realise that the Christmas Day Cease Fire was not official? The leaders had promised that it would be over by Christmas so the men acted as if that promise had been fulfilled and called the cease fire themselves. I will never understand how they could have made friends over No-Man's Land and the next day go back in the trenches and start killing each other again. I know that they were ordered to and they had to obey or be shot by their own side. That is what my head knows but my heart won't accept that knowledge because I could not kill a friend because he spoke with a difference accent to me.
"A soldier in a far off land
Fighting for peace in that far off land
And if somebody had to kill him
Why did it have to be me?"
The other thing I liked about 'Oh What a Lovely War' was that, especially in the first half, they included a lot of stuff from the point of view of the Germans. The most touching piece was a single man sitting on stage, acting the part of a German soldier writing home, reading out what he was writing:
"The bodies around the guns are piled from the horizontal to an angle of sixty degrees. Two or three men go mad... every day."
As the pacifists said "Nobody wins a war." One side just looses less than the other. And I wonder if those who shouted down the pacifists and pushed their young men into going to die, be wounded or broken for their King and Country every had the decency to feel the weight of their guilt.
One final thing and this one from real life. One of my other friends, her great uncle signed up in 1914 to fight when he was just fourteen years old. In 1918 he came home, having survived everything the Great War had physically thrown at him and threw himself into the Wensum. He was just eighteen.
The cost of War.
Monday, 26 November 2012
Sunday, 18 November 2012
Benefit Frauds
Is nothing sacred any more?
According to the newspaper a women told her young son that he had terminal cancer so that she could claim a bomb load in benefits. Besides the fraud, it's the total breach of trust between a parent and child that horrifies me. This is a child who has gone through years of the fear of waiting to die only to find that his mother, the caring parent who has lavished so much care and attention on him, lied through her teeth to him.
In fact, come to think of it, does this sound like a raging case of Munchhausen By Proxy?
It seems to me that over the years the Western World has gradually lost it's reverence for that which is sacred. Churches have been robbed, graveyards desecrated and the oath upon the Bible has become pretty much meaningless for many. However, I would have thought that the bond between parent and child would remain sacred even when all else is devalued. Children are the immortality of the parents, they are the future of their families and their people. Without the care and nurture of children we would cease to be civilised human beings.
So how come it seems be that in the so called civilised Western World that children are no longer valued? Parents no longer take the time to earn the respect of their children by making them behave. Instead they are pushed off to family members or child minders so that both parents can go out to work. In that light why do people wonder that families are breaking down?
So having a mother who stays at home and does her job of raising her children means that the family might have to stay in a rented home instead of buying their own? So what? Is having happy, well balanced children not worth more than owning a house? Let's put it this way, when my father first left us my mother sat down with me and my sister and put it to us like this "I can go out to work and we can have our own house or I can stay at home and you will continue to be my career but that means that we will have to stay in rented accommodation. Which would you rather?" (Bare in mind that at this time I was eleven and my sister eight years old so we were both old enough to understand the pros and cons of both options, due to the time and effort Mother had put into us because she stayed at home and made us her job.) Having discussed the value of both possibilities between us, my sister and I said that we would rather stay poor and still have a mum.
How many other children would make the same choice if they were given the chance? I don't know but I do know one thing - my sister and I went through Hell at school because we had a Mum who loved us unconditionally and the other kids didn't and they knew it.
According to the newspaper a women told her young son that he had terminal cancer so that she could claim a bomb load in benefits. Besides the fraud, it's the total breach of trust between a parent and child that horrifies me. This is a child who has gone through years of the fear of waiting to die only to find that his mother, the caring parent who has lavished so much care and attention on him, lied through her teeth to him.
In fact, come to think of it, does this sound like a raging case of Munchhausen By Proxy?
It seems to me that over the years the Western World has gradually lost it's reverence for that which is sacred. Churches have been robbed, graveyards desecrated and the oath upon the Bible has become pretty much meaningless for many. However, I would have thought that the bond between parent and child would remain sacred even when all else is devalued. Children are the immortality of the parents, they are the future of their families and their people. Without the care and nurture of children we would cease to be civilised human beings.
So how come it seems be that in the so called civilised Western World that children are no longer valued? Parents no longer take the time to earn the respect of their children by making them behave. Instead they are pushed off to family members or child minders so that both parents can go out to work. In that light why do people wonder that families are breaking down?
So having a mother who stays at home and does her job of raising her children means that the family might have to stay in a rented home instead of buying their own? So what? Is having happy, well balanced children not worth more than owning a house? Let's put it this way, when my father first left us my mother sat down with me and my sister and put it to us like this "I can go out to work and we can have our own house or I can stay at home and you will continue to be my career but that means that we will have to stay in rented accommodation. Which would you rather?" (Bare in mind that at this time I was eleven and my sister eight years old so we were both old enough to understand the pros and cons of both options, due to the time and effort Mother had put into us because she stayed at home and made us her job.) Having discussed the value of both possibilities between us, my sister and I said that we would rather stay poor and still have a mum.
How many other children would make the same choice if they were given the chance? I don't know but I do know one thing - my sister and I went through Hell at school because we had a Mum who loved us unconditionally and the other kids didn't and they knew it.
Sunday, 4 November 2012
The Cost of War
O.K. here's some interesting little facts that I've recently unearthed.
In 1921 the Allies handed German the bill for the First World War - £6,650,000,000!
In 2010 the Germans finally managed to finish paying this enormous bill off!
I had no idea that no lessons were learnt from the Second World War and that we left Germany with that millstone around their necks. I have to admit I have no idea what sort of bill we gave them for the Second World War.
What I mean by lessons from the Second World War is this - we will hand a country an extortionate bill for a war they didn't actually start (if you look at your history books) having already crippled it by taking away its best industrial and agricultural land. We will then wonder why a nutcase of a leader gets into power by telling his people "it is the Allies who have crippled our country, who have robbed us of our land and of our jobs. It is the Allies who have destroyed our national pride, our national standing, who have reduced our homes to squalor and our families to poverty." At which point his people agree with him because he is right, when you stop and think about it, and go out to give the Allies a right good kick up the back side.
Hang on a minute, am I talking about pre-Nazi Germany or modern Afghanistan here? Because put in those terms I'm not sure if there are any differences.
From where I'm standing, Developed West hasn't learnt one single thing from the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles. We crippled a country and then wondered why it turned round and tried to bite our leg off. Using a not-so-open trading market we are doing the same to Afghanistan and Africa. Africa can grow sugar cane more economically and environmentally friendly than any where else in the world. However, they cannot sell on the open market because the cane farmers in America are subsidised one hundred percent before they even put a seed in the ground. The African farmers cannot compete with the prices of their subsidised rivals so they remain poor.
It is the same in Afghanistan, only in Afghanistan they had a leader turn up who gave them a target for their understandable anger - the West. Throw religious fervour into that mix and it's a powder keg just waiting to explode.
And explode it did, taking the Twin Towers and hundreds of people as trapped in the system as them with it.
I totally agree that the Taliban are evil but, like the Nazi Party before them, they are an evil that could have been prevented if the governments of the West hadn't been so damn greedy.
In 1921 the Allies handed German the bill for the First World War - £6,650,000,000!
In 2010 the Germans finally managed to finish paying this enormous bill off!
I had no idea that no lessons were learnt from the Second World War and that we left Germany with that millstone around their necks. I have to admit I have no idea what sort of bill we gave them for the Second World War.
What I mean by lessons from the Second World War is this - we will hand a country an extortionate bill for a war they didn't actually start (if you look at your history books) having already crippled it by taking away its best industrial and agricultural land. We will then wonder why a nutcase of a leader gets into power by telling his people "it is the Allies who have crippled our country, who have robbed us of our land and of our jobs. It is the Allies who have destroyed our national pride, our national standing, who have reduced our homes to squalor and our families to poverty." At which point his people agree with him because he is right, when you stop and think about it, and go out to give the Allies a right good kick up the back side.
Hang on a minute, am I talking about pre-Nazi Germany or modern Afghanistan here? Because put in those terms I'm not sure if there are any differences.
From where I'm standing, Developed West hasn't learnt one single thing from the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles. We crippled a country and then wondered why it turned round and tried to bite our leg off. Using a not-so-open trading market we are doing the same to Afghanistan and Africa. Africa can grow sugar cane more economically and environmentally friendly than any where else in the world. However, they cannot sell on the open market because the cane farmers in America are subsidised one hundred percent before they even put a seed in the ground. The African farmers cannot compete with the prices of their subsidised rivals so they remain poor.
It is the same in Afghanistan, only in Afghanistan they had a leader turn up who gave them a target for their understandable anger - the West. Throw religious fervour into that mix and it's a powder keg just waiting to explode.
And explode it did, taking the Twin Towers and hundreds of people as trapped in the system as them with it.
I totally agree that the Taliban are evil but, like the Nazi Party before them, they are an evil that could have been prevented if the governments of the West hadn't been so damn greedy.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Superstorms
To the victims of Superstorm Sandy - Our thoughts and our prayers are with you. May God bring comfort to the bereaved and relief to the injured and homeless.
The freshness of the images in our newspapers and on our televisions and computer screens does not change the fact however that this has been the worse decade of hurricanes, typhoons and superstorms in history. Not a year has gone by without at least one storm killing and leaving a trail of destruction across whole countries. Have people forgotten 2005 and the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina? When are people going to admit that human industry is mucking up our weather patterns?
I will accept that the earths climate has changed in the past. I'm a natural history freak and I know that in 1066 the world climate was so warm that they could grow grapes in England all the way up to Yorkshire, whereas by the 1800s the world climate was so cold that the London Christmas fair was held on the ice of the Thames river. The world climate has cycled between hot and cold since it began. The Chinses round 1066 sent a fleet that circum-navigated the world by sailing above Russia and what is now Canada. That is how much the climate has changed.
But
Think about how long the climate took to cool down. From 1066 to the 1800s is nearly eight hundred years. Now consider that from the 1800s to 2012 is only just over two hundred years. That and consider the historical Revolutions that happened in the 1800s. The Industrial Revolution takes place and in less than two hundred years not only is the Thames no longer freezing, its rare if snow falls in Norfolk. The run of snowy winters in England for the last part of the first decade of the twenty first century was a buck in the trend.
Yes the climate natural cycles between hot and cold. What humans have done with our industry and pollution is speed up the yo-yo by about four times. The world climate is bouncing and bouncing hard. And we wonder why species the world over are crashing and crashing hard. I'm not just talking the big iconic species like elephants and pandas, I'm talking the small, extremely necessary species like the honey bee, without whom most of our crops won't be pollinated. Let's think about the implications of that the next time we choose cheapness over envirmentally friendliness.
On a final note, I know of a gentleman who is now in the later years of his career. Apparently his grandfather said one day "If we keep spraying stuff on the land and smoking stuff into the sky, we're going to muck up the weather". At the time his family thought that he was just being cranky. I ask you - how cranky is he now?
The freshness of the images in our newspapers and on our televisions and computer screens does not change the fact however that this has been the worse decade of hurricanes, typhoons and superstorms in history. Not a year has gone by without at least one storm killing and leaving a trail of destruction across whole countries. Have people forgotten 2005 and the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina? When are people going to admit that human industry is mucking up our weather patterns?
I will accept that the earths climate has changed in the past. I'm a natural history freak and I know that in 1066 the world climate was so warm that they could grow grapes in England all the way up to Yorkshire, whereas by the 1800s the world climate was so cold that the London Christmas fair was held on the ice of the Thames river. The world climate has cycled between hot and cold since it began. The Chinses round 1066 sent a fleet that circum-navigated the world by sailing above Russia and what is now Canada. That is how much the climate has changed.
But
Think about how long the climate took to cool down. From 1066 to the 1800s is nearly eight hundred years. Now consider that from the 1800s to 2012 is only just over two hundred years. That and consider the historical Revolutions that happened in the 1800s. The Industrial Revolution takes place and in less than two hundred years not only is the Thames no longer freezing, its rare if snow falls in Norfolk. The run of snowy winters in England for the last part of the first decade of the twenty first century was a buck in the trend.
Yes the climate natural cycles between hot and cold. What humans have done with our industry and pollution is speed up the yo-yo by about four times. The world climate is bouncing and bouncing hard. And we wonder why species the world over are crashing and crashing hard. I'm not just talking the big iconic species like elephants and pandas, I'm talking the small, extremely necessary species like the honey bee, without whom most of our crops won't be pollinated. Let's think about the implications of that the next time we choose cheapness over envirmentally friendliness.
On a final note, I know of a gentleman who is now in the later years of his career. Apparently his grandfather said one day "If we keep spraying stuff on the land and smoking stuff into the sky, we're going to muck up the weather". At the time his family thought that he was just being cranky. I ask you - how cranky is he now?
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