Obscene Desserts

Bravery, by any other name

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:27:00 +0000

I'm with Francis on this (and with Terry):

I’m glad that British military and civilian forces are in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban – a barbaric enemy of humankind – and helping the Afghan people build their country. I’m proud of our men and women, in uniform or otherwise, and trust their judgement on whether the struggle is worth it.

As for the fallen, we will remember them.

Exchange 'British' for 'German' and I would still agree, though the ISAF mission is even more unpopular here (i.e. Germany) than there.

I'm in London at the moment, and it's Remembrance Sunday, so maybe I'm being overly sentimental about this, but I think it's worth pointing out with reference to the above that the Federal Republic of Germany, until recently, did not even have a medal recognising bravery in combat. The first ones were awarded in July this year, to four soldiers in Afghanistan:

On 20th October, 2008 in the northern Afghan region of Kunduz a suicide bomber blew himself up near a vehicle carrying Henry Lukacz, Jan Berges, Alexander Dietzen and Markus Geist. The explosion killed two German paratroopers as well as five Afghan children. At the risk of their lives the four soldiers, between 28-33 years of age, rescued a seriously wounded soldier and stood by another one trapped inside the burning vehicle.

It was only recently, in fact, that the German defense minister was willing to use the word 'war' (Krieg) to describe the operation.

I happened to use the word 'tapfer' (brave) in a phone conversation with The Wife earlier tonight (in a very different context): she said the term comes across (linguistically) as a bit old-fashioned.

Which is unfortunate.

As there is no better word to describe the acts of staff-sergeant Geist and master-sergeants Lukacz, Berges and Dietzen.

Which should not be forgotten.

Problem solved

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:19:00 +0000

Perhaps this is too optimistic. And maybe it's a bit simplistic too.

But looking back at the fears that were expressed in 1989 and 1990 about German reunification (many of them expressed by Germans themselves), there is something to it as well:

“The fear was that this thing in the center of Europe, if it were allowed to become unified, was going to be a cancer once again and lead to Act III of the great European tragedy,” said Robert E. Hunter, a senior adviser at the RAND Corporation and an ambassador to NATO under President Bill Clinton.

Instead, Mr. Hunter said, “the German problem, which emerged with the unifying of Germany beginning in the 1860s, is one of the few problems in modern history that has been solved.”

'Solved' is a step too far.

But the article suggests that after its tumultuous, violent, and sometimes horrifying past, Germany might have become a bit, well, normal and boring.

Boring is good. Boring is just fine.

Tearing down the wall

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:07:00 +0000

The New York Times has a nifty set of images of before-and-after photographs along the Berlin Wall.

To get the full impact, you really do have to play with the little slidey back-and-forth effect they offer.

Very cool.

Somehow deeply moving.

Friday historical hyperbole

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:09:00 +0000

A quick dispatch from the British Library, from a book on the popular press in the mid 20th century:

Churchill's first election broadcast, on June 4, was the crucial episode in the early part of the [1945] campaign, and the Express's enthusiasm now found an issue instead of just a mood. The essence of his argument was bannered next day on the front page: Gestapo in Britain if Socialists win, and expanded in the leader:
Voters of Britain! Will you go down to history as the men and women who smashed the inhuman tyranny in Europe but were too tired or too bewildered or too dazzled by your own glory to save yourselves from tyranny at home?

After ripping the Gestapo out of the still beating heart of Germany, will you stand for a Gestapo under another name at home?...

Were you shocked to learn from Mr. Churchill that State control leads to Fascism?

Think hard about it, and see how true it is.
A.C.H. Smith, Paper Voices: The Popular Press and Social Change 1935-1965 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1975)

Heady stuff. (I mean...'ripping the Gestapo out of the still beating heart of Germany'...Strewth! What vivid prose.)

So this is what papers like the Express and Mail did before they had 'political correctness' to freak out about.

(And, of course, this was not all that long after at least one of them had expressed a certain fondness for the dreaded f-word.)

It is left only to admire the clear-eyed vision with which the Express editorial noted above accurately predicted the terrorised Gleichschaltung that followed Labour's victory in 1945.

Well done, chaps. Stay vigilant.

Thursday one-hit wonder

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:40:00 +0000

Does anyone out there remember this?

Thanks to Radio Rockland for bringing on the old prepubescent depression.

Actually, no: 1979 was my last good year before my long decline into teenage frustration - which only ended - oh, like - last autumn.

Serious business

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:43:00 +0000

One legacy of an earlier period of job seeking is a daily job-vacancies email I receive from Monster.com. I've never bothered to suspend it (partly out of laziness and partly out of the feeling that, who knows, maybe something worthwhile would come along), and I usually take a quick look through the offerings.

Today, among the usual openings for 'Lead Consultant SAP', 'Junior Berater für den Bereich Business Development' and 'Leiter, Abteilung IT-Entwicklung' was one that I've never seen before.

Clown.

This is for German-speakers only it seems, (the full-time, permanent position is in Würzburg), judging by what is probably the most poetic job description I've ever seen.

But I note that along with a salary of €20-25k it offers not only a costume but also a tent ('Zelt').

What more could you want?

'Spoken with the charm and purity of English vowel sounds.'

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:28:00 +0000

A few passages from one my current reads:

There is a continuing debate about how much blame the British motion picture industry must accept for the American domination of the inter-war market. At the peak of production British studios made only 30 per cent of what was on offer to British cinemas. But there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that the American invasion met with only token resistance -- even though, initially, the natives were far from friendly. 'The public at first found the American accent bewildering and missed much of the dialogue.' Instinctive resistance was, naturally enough, strongest outside London. 'The English working class and the northern working class in particular exercised a strong suspicion, not to say hatred, of the American idiom.'

Some British producers attempted to capitalise on what they hoped was anti-American sentiment. British International Films advertised its productions as 'Spoken with the charm and purity of English vowel sounds'. Gradually the cultural chauvinists were won over. By 1935, when Winifred Holtby wrote South Riding, the working class had actually absorbed the idioms they heard at the cinema. Elsie, the South Riding housemaid, was 'like most of her generation and locality...trilingual. She talked BBC English to her employer, Cinema American to her companions and Yorkshire dialect to old milkmen like Eli Dickson'. She, no doubt, subscribed to the ideas advanced by a working man in the Bolton survey.

British films are tame. The actors are self-conscious and wooden, the setting easily recognised as the work of novices. The man in the street likes pictures which advertise an American cast. One often hears the remark, 'It's a British picture, let's go somewhere else.'

From Roy Hattersley, Borrowed Time: The Story of Britain Between the Wars (London: Abacus, 2007), pp. 310-11.

A message from the past (or: Richard Dawkins slandered by German bishop)

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:13:00 +0000

There's so much wrong in the attack that Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Bishop of Cologne, launched against godless Dawkins in his All Saint's Day sermon that even the attempt to unravel this jumble of flawed, stupid prejudice seems futile:

"Ähnlich wie einst die Nationalsozialisten im einzelnen Menschen primär nur den Träger des Erbgutes seiner Rasse sahen, definiert auch der Vorreiter der neuen Gottlosen, der Engländer Richard Dawkins, den Menschen als 'Verpackung der allein wichtigen Gene', deren Erhaltung der vorrangige Zweck unseres Daseins sei ...."

("Like the Nazis, who saw the individual primarily as a carrier of his race's genes, the pioneer of the new atheists, the Briton Richard Dawkins defines human beings as 'containers for genes', whose preservation he considers to be the ultimate rationale for our existence.")

Sigh. Sometimes life is like hitting your head against a concrete wall, repeatedly. And I've been having a headbanging hell of a time lately, even without this benighted nonsense.

Sir Christopher, Master of the Darkness

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:04:00 +0000

Christopher Lee was knighted today. Which, though I don't hold much to these sorts of things, makes me strangely happy.

The Guardian photo series makes much of Lee's roles as Dracula in a series of Hammer horror films and, to a lesser extent, his role as Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels.

I like Lee's Dracula plenty (I watched Dracula, Prince of Darkness just the other night), and he was one of the better things in the Star Wars prequels.

Still, I prefer to honour him for his roles as, say, Lord Summerisle in The Wickerman (this particular scene belongs more to Edward Woodward, but it seems to be all that YouTube offers), the Duc du Richelieu in The Devil Rides Out or Saruman in the Lord of the Rings.

In any case, congratulations, Sir Christopher.

Stay evil.

"I figured well, I guess I’ll get to come home after this."

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:07:00 +0000

Of all the various things I've read in the debate around Roman Polanski's (possible) pending extradition to the US, Jenny Diski's 'Diary' essay in the LRB (free access) was certainly the most worthwhile.

There is sentence that opens a paragraph about a quarter of the way through that slaps you awake, and what follows is an effective distillation of two truths that are perhaps too often seen as contradictions: 1) human beings (especially young ones) react to threatening situations in complex and ambiguous ways, and 2) some moral judgments are, really, not all that difficult.

Notes from the War on Terror, 1901

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:05:00 +0000

David Cole has an interesting review (subscription-only unfortunately) in the LRB of Moshik Temkin's recent book on the the Sacco-Vanzetti affair.

I was particularly intrigued, as, in the context of a research project on concerns about police powers and civil liberties in late 1920s Britain, I've been spending a lot of time reading the period's (British) newspapers.

The issues of the Daily Herald from 1927 were on my agenda in the last few weeks, so I ran across coverage of the remarkable attention--and anger--that the execution of the two men inspired, including large demonstrations in London. (Which, in their turn, raised complaints about heavy-handed policing.)

The degree of attention to the matter may have something to do with the source: the Herald was at this time owned by the Trades Union Congress and close to the Labour Party. It also, more-or-less consistently, expressed opposition to the death penalty.

(Another reference I ran across the other day was the Manchester Guardian's quotation of the Berliner Tageblatt dubbing the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti 'the spirit of the Cheka in a capitalist incarnation.')

In any case, I was struck by reading this paragraph in Cole's review of Temkin's book:

The trial took place after a co-ordinated series of bombings in 1919, attributed to Italian immigrant anarchists, had sparked a nationwide round-up of ‘radical aliens’. Federal officials, directed by a young J. Edgar Hoover, arrested between five and ten thousand foreign nationals in what came to be known as the ‘Palmer raids’, denied them access to lawyers, coerced confessions from them and ordered them to be deported, frequently on the grounds that they associated with Communist or anarchist groups. (None of the detainees was found guilty of the bombings.) Then, shortly after Sacco and Vanzetti’s arrest, another bomb went off in Wall Street, killing 39 and injuring hundreds more – also apparently the work of militant anarchists. Anarchists were seen as a real threat, committed to violence and able and willing to carry it out.

There's nothing new here, of course. I dimly recall learning about the 'Palmer raids' in high school as well as about the post-war 'red scare', which offered premonitions of the one that followed the next war. (My history and social studies teachers were hippie liberals, so they emphasised those kinds of things.)

Still, there is something remarkable in thinking about this context: I would imagine that many Americans (and others) might find it surprising that only a few generations ago, the main terrorist threat to the nation--including several urban bombings--was seen to originate among 'militant anarchists' and the ethnic group with whom that threat was most associated were Italian.

(And I see a new book is out that makes such connections more broadly: Beverly Gage's The Day Wall Street Exploded.)

As Cole points out in his review, the domestic reaction to terrorism was followed--and alternatively praised or (more often) criticised from abroad--in ways that sound quite contemporary. (Cole's review actually opens with world reaction to the imprisonment of 'enemy combatants' at Guantánamo Bay.)

He cites, for example, H. G. Wells's critical articles published in the New York Times condemning a distinct 'American mindset' that allowed the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Angry letters flooded into the Times, which refused to publish any further articles. Wells responded, asserting the right of those in one nation to criticise those in another:

The world becomes more and more one community, and the state of mind of each nation has practical reactions upon all the rest that were undreamt of half a century ago. The administration of justice in Massachusetts or Italy concerns me almost as much as . . . in London or Glasgow. Particularly when the lives of aliens are involved . . . The world becomes my village . . . part of me walks down Main Street and defies all America to expel it.

Cole points out that Wells himself--like some other international critics--had offered a blanket condemnation on the basis of the case (which had outraged many Americans); still, regardless of the merits of the case (or Wells's intervention), I'm struck, as ever by the distinctive mix of the familiar and the strange apparent in discussions from the early twentieth century.

On that note, the LRB review reminded me of an article I had found in the course of my project, published in the Scotsman in 1901 in the wake of the assassination of President William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz at an exhibition in Buffalo, New York.

It's rather long, though I've edited out various bits to try to shorten it. (And I have added paragraph breaks.)

Still, I think it's worth posting, as it's fascinating on many counts, not least for the atmosphere it evokes of panic, vengeance, suspicion and confusion that followed McKinley's assassination.

(It is also the earliest use I've found in any British sources of the originally American phrase 'the third degree', in the sense of the use of violence or intimidation in police questioning. But if you happen to know of an earlier one, I'd be pleased to know.)

THE ANARCHISTS IN THE UNITED STATES

New York, September 14.

We are in a quandary. We do not know what to do about the dreaded Anarchists. As the Yankees say when things are at their worst, we are in a ‘state of mind.’ In the past week everybody of any consequence has spoken on the subject, but one can recognise only the confusion of tongues. The New York ‘Herald’ has interviewed nearly all the statesmen in the country, from Cabinet Ministers and Senators to Governors and Representatives, demanding an answer to the perplexing question, ‘What is to be done?’

The editors of many thousands of newspapers and the preachers in thousands of pulpits have set out their clashing opinions. Everybody has been ready to make a red-hot speech anywhere on the all-engrossing theme. ‘Crush the Anarchists,’ Drive them all out of the country,’ Shut them all up in the madhouse,’ ‘Put them into dungeons,’ ‘Torture them,’ ‘Lynch them as blacks are lynched’—such are among the innumerable frenzied outcries that have rent the air since Friday of last week.

The more rational people desire that law shall somehow be brought to bear against the Anarchists; the more irrational want to see them tortured or crucified in some one of the ways described by the Chinese Minister as customary in China. It may seem surprising that much of the cruelest language has been uttered by clergymen. Almost the only reasonable newspaper in this city has been the leading financial organ, the ‘Evening Post.’

The most terrorising revelation of the past week has been that made by the thousands of Government and police and private detectives engaged in ‘unearthing Anarchists.’ Every day these parties give the papers stories about the Anarchist hordes that lurk in all parts of the country; every day they tell of ‘plots, conspiracies and mysteries.’ Chicago has a ‘nest of Anarchists,’ and there are such ‘nests,’ not only in New York and other large cities, but in smaller places, such as Paterson, Buffalo, Cleveland, M’Keesport, Detroit, Indianapolis, Wheeling, Haverhill, and many others. The ‘sleuths,’ as secret service agents are called, have a great time now in ‘rounding up’ the Anarchists everywhere; the whole police force of this city are under orders to round up all they can see.

Most people had until this time supposed that there were very few characters of that kind in the country; the but the sleuths are earning money, and frightening the Italians and the Jews by discovering rampant battalions of them. It will be said that there were plenty of these sleuths ‘guarding’ the President at Buffalo, but it was not until after Mr McKinley had been shot that they began to display their talents. The truth is that they are mostly clumsy humbugs, who hardly ever ‘detect’ anything at the proper time, but who are sure to be wildly active after they have been discomfited. [...]

It is hard to say what can be done to prevent violence on the part of Anarchists here. The best and most practicable suggestion yet made is that the existing law be turned against those of them who violate it in any way. The enforcement of the law would surely be more effective than popular vengeance, more so even than lynching under the direction of those crazy clerics who have advocated it.

The New York ‘Herald’ of the day before yesterday told a hideous tale of the torturing of Czolgosz in his cell at Buffalo by police agents, who were determined to get from him such a confession as they desired; they were ordered to subject him to what is called the ‘third degree,’ but, according to the ‘Herald,’ they intensified it tenfold, without success. The insensate men who have been crying for the torture or execution of all Anarchists as a sure means of putting an end to Anarchism are ignorant of the nature of the thing to be dealt with. The Anarchist who shot the President foresaw his own doom, and was ready to give his life for the ‘cause.’ Ordinary murderers are subject to punishment or execution, but this does not put an end to murder. [...]

Within a day or two the frenzy in the community on the President’s account has abated, and everybody seems to be willing now that his assailant shall have a legal trial. It is well for the honour of the country and its good name. Reason is regaining its ascendancy; the newspapers are growing more calm; and even the preachers of lynching are curbing their tongues.

Nowadays, there are about as many detectives as speculators in the Wall Street quarter. The apprehension of danger among the financial magnates has been keen for a week past; they know of threats against them. There must be as many as fifty ‘sleuths’ guarding the life of Mr Morgan, watching his business offices, following him wherever he goes, and never losing sight of him until he sails off in his yacht. [...]

Possibly as many as a hundred terror-struck persons, the recipients of threatening letters are under special protection against assassination. It is feared that there are men, other than Anarchists, ready to imitate the example of Czolgosz, men whose reason is affected by the daily diatribes against plutocracy by the ‘yellow’ organs and orators.

Strangers in the Wall Street district have had unpleasant experiences this week; they speedily become conscious that they are under suspicion, and are watched by armed men, and had better not loiter near the offices of a number of leading financiers. A wandering Scot, fresh from Glasgow, who turned up there yesterday, looked so much like an Anarchist that two sleuths were ordered to keep their eyes on him; he got safely to his hotel. [...]

The loose use of the dreaded word ‘Anarchist’ in this country is a piece of folly. In the Presidential campaign of last year, for example, the McKinleyite speech-makers and newspapers constantly characterised and denounced millions of Bryanites as ‘Anarchists,’ and the word became so familiar in politics that it lost its proper meaning, while one could often hear peaceful citizens proclaim that they were ‘Bryan Anarchists.’ It seemed to me foolish to throw the word at the Democratic head till it ceased to be alarming.

There is no doubt that one of the things that has most seriously frightened the conservative interests of the country during the past week has been the prospect of Vice-President Roosevelt’s succession to the Presidency. Mr Roosevelt has done so many indiscreet things, has stultified himself so often, and has roared so loudly during the few years of his career as a politician, office-holder, ‘Rough Rider,’ cowboy, sportsman, and stump-speaker that he has but little reputation for sound sense and no reputation at all for statesmanship, or even political acumen. [...]

On account of his belligerent disposition there has seemed to be danger that he would fall foul of some other Government, or get this country into trouble of some kind. ... I know much about Mr Roosevelt, who likes to be compared with the wide-awake German Kaiser, and I feel it safe to say that as a ruler he would be no more disposed to belligerency than is William II. An American President is, after all has been said, pretty closely hedged in.

It is a curious fact that as soon as Mr McKinley had been shot, the question one heard on every side and in all quarters was—‘How will it affect Wall Street?’ or ‘Do you think it will break the market?’ or, ‘Has it knocked stocks down?’ or something of that kind. For a moment it seemed to paralyse the moneyed giants of the stock market; but, as all the world knows, they immediately joined hands and forces, making a combination of interests by which, with the help of the Government, a crash was prevented. At the hour of this writing there is news from Buffalo that is not invigorating, but the situation may be more satisfactory to-morrow. One Anarchist, or a hundred Anarchists, cannot upset this country.

The Scotsman, 23 September 1901, p. 7

Peaches Geldof ...

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:41:00 +0000

... Just 4 ur info.

L. Ron Hubbard and J.G. Ballard do not got together. A "total sci-fi nut" like you ought to know that.

But it seems you don't.

Similarly, a reading diet of Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins seems a curious (to put it politely) inspiration to "spirituality" and a "religious path". Let alone to thetan-status.

Exhibit C (ohne Worte):

Ms Geldof falling onto the religious path.

More from the recent Scientology meme: here and here.

Ur doin it wrong!

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:10:00 +0000

Zombie-fighting fail:

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Iowa City police are investigating an early morning assault in which a man accused another of being a zombie, then punched him twice. Police said the assault occurred at 1:17 a.m. Sunday at an Iowa City restaurant south of the University of Iowa campus.

A man was ordering food when he was approached by another man who called him a zombie, then hit him in the eye. When the victim tried to call police on his cell phone, the man punched him again, breaking his nose.

The man then ran out a back door.

The victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital.

As anyone knows, a real zombie would remain largely unfazed by a broken nose.

I mean: duh.

Of course, I feel bad for the obviously non-zombie victim and am very glad that his -- equally obviously -- deranged attacker didn't try a more effective anti-zombie attack, which usually involves decapitation, fire or, alternatively, destruction of the brain through high-powered weapons.

'Always aim for the head' is excellent advice. But always check those targets first.

And if your target is standing in line, ordering food, he's not a zombie.

(Via io9)

Quote for the day

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:41:00 +0000

At a conference I attended earlier this year, a Lacanian from Norway told me with a dismissive little smirk (quote): "I don't buy the whole evolutionary psychology thing."

Of course she "bought" the whole mirror stage thing - just like I had done (silly me!) when I was younger (though said Lacanian was much more mature than I was then and the mother of several children - who apparently had all successfully mastered their mirror stage and the accompanying trauma).

I don't get it - what in the following quotes makes it so preposterous and provocative that it would deserve the scorn of the ignorant (for surely the Scandinavian Lacanian had never read any of the evolutionary psychology that she discounted so flippantly)?

… all normal human minds reliably develop a standard collection of reasoning and regulatory circuits that are functionally specialized and, frequently, domain-specific. These circuits organise the way we interpret our experiences, inject certain recurrent concepts and motivations into our mental life, and provide universal frames of meaning that allow us to understand the actions and intentions of others. Beneath the level of surface variability, all humans share certain views and assumptions about the nature of the world and human action by virtue of these human universal reasoning circuits.

Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer

Sounds perfectly sane to me.

Maybe they don't have evolved rational capacities in Norway (or sanity, for that matter). That's what a national diet of liquorice and akvavit does to your brain. Which is why that woman and I would never be able to understand each other, but can only serve as one another's objects of desire/knowledge, caught in the self-constituting gaze of the distant/masterful anthropologist.

Why.Do.People.Think.That.Way?

Ambulances, riot vans ....

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:09:00 +0000

... it's all go over at Auntie's.

And of course the Guardian live blogs every time a policewoman clad in a day glow jerkin scratches her bum.

At the risk of sounding facetious: The only way to really piss off the ugly little man is to give him short shrift. Ignore him.

'I've never seen anything so ridiculous in my life'

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:49:00 +0000

Bernie Heinink, Simon Weston and the other military veterans in this video (via Francis Sedgemore) are worth more than a million Guardian columnists in discrediting the British National Party's efforts to re-brand themselves as a mainstream party.

Mr. Heinink's comment on seeing a piece of BNP propaganda evoking the Battle of Britain, which serves as the title of this post, puts it succinctly.

As I'm in Britain this week, I've been catching a bit more of the discussion around the BNP's hijacking of Second World War imagery than I otherwise would.

And, having a number of veterans (British and American) of that war in my family, I take this rather personally.

So, as I opened the hotel's complimentary issue of the Daily Mail this morning, I was pleased to find not only outrage at Nick Griffin's comparison of British army generals with Nazi war criminals but also a condemnation of Griffin as a 'racist' and 'bigot' that includes some charming highlights from what the paper refers to accurately enough as his 'vile words'.

That this sort of criticism can be found in the Mail of all places is encouraging. And I would like to think it would continue.

Of course, if the Mail and other like-minded rags hadn't spent so much time whipping up the kind of fears that the BNP and other fascists have so successfully capitalised upon, I would take their outrage a bit more seriously.

Still: if this is some sign on the part of at least some people in the right-wing press have begun to recoil from the monster they've helped create, then all the better.

But they should really stop feeding him.

(Nothing British)

And more from the department of the bleeding obvious ...

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:18:00 +0000

No comment.

How not to start an article

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Discovered, today, in The Guardian: the gratingly gauche opening of Will Self's article on Roald Dahl (on the occasion of the release of Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox):

A few months ago, I was coming out of the lavatory at Maison Bertaud, a fusty old patisserie in Soho, when I saw the familiar full-moon face of Simon Callow – actor, playwright, director, indeed all round homme de théâtre – eclipsing the window.

Need I say more? This sentence essentially killed the article for me. "A fusty old patisserie in Soho" my arse!

Of course, alarm bells should have started ringing when I read the article's subheading:

Roald Dahl's children's books are full of barely submerged misogyny, lust and violence.

Well, duh!, Will "Rip van Winkle" Self (or whatever 12-year old subeditor is responsible for this bracing display of le lieu commun). Where have you spent the last two and a half decades? Next thing you know we'll be encountering the path-breaking revelation that Alien is brimfull with Freudian undertones.

Now, who'd have guessed?

I have all the self-loathing of a wolf in sheep's clothing

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:52:00 +0000

And, finally, on a Friday evening, something from the vaults:

Billy Bragg, 'Accident Waiting to Happen', 1992

But can you see that young star overhead, it's the one that designed my undoing.

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:58:00 +0000

The Mountain Goats are on tour.

In Europe.

But nowhere near here.

Still, it means that some nice video may be making it online in the near future.

Like this, from Paris. A few days ago.

'California Song', by the Mountain Goats

Friday horror

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:42:00 +0000

Loyal (and sympathetic) readers out there might have been wondering why a person like ~~myself~~ me would be so ~~acerbic~~ angry, bitter and enraged, when clearly I ought to be happy as Larry?

It's Zolaesque aesthetics of my early media training in the 1970s, stupid!

The disturbing evidence:

Die Sendung mit der Maus (German children's programme), 1972. No joking - this was shown on a Sunday morning on TV.

For children.

Small wonder that the more sensitive of our students find me a tad sarcastic. This is the kind of realist fodder that forever makes you immune to Prinzessin Lillifee and adolescent Vampire kitsch.

Meat.

Bone meal.

'An awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite'

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:19:00 +0000

As Charlie puts it:

It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.

Indeed.

Although, one might say it's just like any other day at the Daily Mail, which is kind of like the Two Minutes' Hate, only in handy, portable tabloid form.

But today it seems to have struck an unusually vibrant chord.

Excellent.

[UPDATE] I see now that about ten minutes before me, Geoff got there to make the same point. It's nice to be on the same wavelength with someone as sane as Geoff, let me tell you.

Is it because I is grey?

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:42:00 +0000

Having been attacked by marauding hordes of grey squirrels in London parks and gardens in the past (in fact, only recently), I stand firmly by my opinion that - while cutely Disneyesque - the grey squirrel has the makings of a vandal in it.

I don't trust these overfed, overweight and over here critters and their bolshy "Oi - less 'ave yer spare nuts" attitude. Give me an elegant, sinewy red squirrel - like the ones that sometimes frolic in our garden - any day. I'm convinced they speak foreign languages, too.

My pro red squirrel bias would not stand me in a good stead with Dr. Ian Rotherham of Sheffield Hallam University, who according to this article in the Telegraph (and this),

said controlling grey squirrels was “eco-xenophobia”. He said of schemes involving population management “that they resonate with ideas growing with the BNP in the UK, and with other right-wing groups across Europe”.

The "schemes" here referred to are probably those pursued by the Friends of the Anglesey Red Squirrels, which seems to have been a rather successful conservation project.

Well, what can you say?

"Political correctness gone mad!"

(picture via; more from squirrel expert da Wife, with embarrassing evidence of stylistic repetitiveness, here)

Bowled für sechs

noreply@blogger.com (John Carter Wood) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:45:00 +0000

I'm wondering whether you find the same thing...odd...about the following article I ran across last week as I did.

OVAL APOLOGY TO GERMANS

Not Allowed on the Stand

Why Seats Were Not Given

A Blunder

'Quite Unintentional Slight'

An apology has been tendered to the German cricketers, now on a visit to this country, by Mr. R. C. N. Palairet, secretary of the Surrey County Cricket Club.

The German eleven visited the Oval on Saturday to see the Surrey v. Notts match, but were informed that they could not be given complimentary seats in the stand. They had previously paid for admission.

'I trust,' writes Mr. Palairet, in a letter to Mr. G. Henderson, who arranged the visit of the team, 'that you will convey to the members of the German eleven my sincere apologies for the quite unintentional slight offered to them.'

He states that at about 12.30 p.m. on Saturday a verbal message was brought to him which he understood to be that a man below was asking if any privileges had been granted to the German eleven for the Test match.

GERMAN REPLY

'To this,' he adds, 'my reply was "No"; no privileges having been asked for.'

'If I had realised that all the members of the team were present, and were asking for admission for the day, I would at once have arranged for their admission, this being the usual practice at the Oval.'

Mr. Kirloskar, the only member of the team who understands English, however, has made it clear already that in speaking to the man who conveyed Mr. Palairet's message he did not mention the Test match, nor did this man representing the secretary do so.

'I think,' he added, 'that he understood perfectly the nature of our request.'

There was a general feeling among cricketers yesterday that an apology was called for.

M.C.C.'s HOSPITALITY

Hospitality is, however, to be given to the team on Thursday at Lord's, where tehy are to be the guests at tea of Sir Kynaston Studd, president of the M.C.C., and they will witness the Army versus Police schools match.

The invitation was sent to them before their arrival in England by Mr. W. R. Findlay, secretary of the M.C.C.

It was this fact which made their reception at the Oval all the more puzzling.

Daily Herald, 5 August 1930, p. 9

Yes, it was the phrase 'the German cricketers'.

'German cricketers'?

'German cricketers'?

There are many odd things I have learned about my adopted homeland recently (such as the fact that it was once the chief cocaine producer in the world), but the intimation that Germany had a cricket team is one of the more unexpected.

However, given that a quick internet search of the terms 'German' and 'cricket' (though I admit I never would have thought to enter them before) brings me to the Deutscher Cricket Bund, perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised.

And from their history page comes not only some information about the sport's past in this country, but also a glancing reference to the circumstances in which the above-mentioned slight occurred (my, rather hasty, translation):

The earliest known reference to cricket in Germany was in 1850, when a group of English and Americans founded the first cricket club in Germany.

Another club, which called itself Berlin CC, was founed in 1883. Until 1907, there were seven clubs in Berlin that participated in the Berlin Cricket League. By the outbreak of the First World War, this number had grown to 14.

The 'German Cricket and Football Federation' [Deutsche Cricket und Fußball Bund] was founded in 1893, the first German cricket federation in 1913. The clubs came from Berlin, Nuremberg, Fürth, Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Hamburg.

Although this cricket federation published a newsletter, very little is known about its activities. Between 1860 and 1991, several foreign teams toured through Germany, e.g., from Denmark, the Netherlands, and also the Leicestershire county CC.

The first tour of a German team in England occurred in 1930, and in 1937 the 'Gentlemen of Worcester', bolstered by four former professionals, played two 'Tests' in Berlin.

If anyone out there knows more about the history of German cricket, I'd be happy to hear from you. (Sounds like a sports history dissertation in the making to me....)

[UPDATE]: more info here. And here.

Midweek music

noreply@blogger.com (The Wife) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:08:00 +0000

For me, one nice thing about ~~having to go~~ going to work is potentially getting to hear good music on the radio as I'm travelling there. Like this here (pity it's only a teaser), by The Burning Hell:

I also like this track, which I caught this morning, though the live version emphasises that somewhere deep in its heart this song is a shameless imitation of "The Passenger":