When Does It Start Growing Ma?????

There is an article on the BBC website today regarding the current controversy in Russia regarding the way in which Western historians are manipulating Russian history. President Medvedev is incensed that there is a plot to destroy Russia’s reputation and to belittle its past. He says that this is becoming “severe, evil and agressive”.

What seems to get Eussians extremely worked up is that they feel that the West is belittling its achievement in beating the Nazis during World War II. They do not like the fact that other countries see the Soviet Union not as liberators but one oppressor replacing another. They don’t believe that this is what actually happened. Neither do they like the fact that the Eastern European and Baltic states also bring the Soviet atrocities to light.

To Russian they were heroic liberators who brought light into the darkness. They don’t mention things like the Katyn massacre, Stalin’s decision to halt the Soviet advance in 1944 and allowed the Poilsh nationalist resistance to be destroyed by the Germans in Warsaw that August. They could have helped the resistors but chose to have them eliminated instead. In addition the Soviets were quite ruthless in overthrowing non Communist governments and parties as they asserted control over post war Eastern Europe.

I remember my history teacher telling us about the Lever Arch History practised by the Stalin regime, where people were airbrushed from pictures and events retold. This is also a major theme of Otwell’s 1984 as the regime rewrite history to fit with current policy.

Russia has always been very insecure about its image, whether controlled by the Tsars, Communists or the current “democracy”. They want to been seen as a strong, confident nation that has a place at the top table of world affairs. Unfortunately they can never carry it off because of that insecurity.

Therefore any criticism by outsiders, or internal opposition, is seen as an attack on the entire nation. Even if the historical record backs up the opposing view, this is not acceptable to the people in power at the time.

Russians do not see themselves as a threat to others but as a benevolent, paternal figure. They fail to see that where they see a big cuddly bear. others see a vicious predator ready to bite.

What may have helped to focus their attention on this is that next month sees the 70th anniversary of the Nazi/Soviet Non Agression Treaty that helped to make WW II possible. Without this Hitler may have had second thoughts on invading Poland.

The Non Agression Treaty is one of those skeletons that Russians would sooner leave in the closet.

We had some very good news today but someone else will tell you about that.

Today has been “Stroppy Boy’s Day of Fun”. We collected him from swimming and took him into town to buy his belated birthday presents. We had lunch at Frankie & Benny’s and then came home, his choice. He is currently watching From Russia With Love and then Quantum of Solace later.

History Today:

 193: Emperor Pertinax is assassinated by the Praetorian Guard.

1854: France and Britain join the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War to halt Russian expansion. It was one of those glorious follies that Britain specialises in.

1930: Kemal Attaturk announces that Constantinople is to renamed Istanbul, as part of his campaign to form a secularised Turkish state.

1939: Madrid surrenders to General Franco and brings an end to the Spanish Civil War. The Facsit Falange Party will rule until 1975.

1969: Former president General Dwight D. Eisenhower dies at the age of 78.

1979: Prime Minister James Callaghan loses a vote of confidence in the House of Commons and is forced to call a General Election. Guess who won?

1990: Jesse Owens is posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by President Bush (the not as dumb as the other one).

Today I have been sermonising again. The Little Chapel That Could had asked me to take their morning service for Mother’s Day. Considering the congregation of 5 women over the age of 50 – most over 75 – it is always an enjoyable experience; you come away feeling appreciated.  I have already been asked to bring my diary to book up for next year.

Today they asked me how I prepared my sermons, as they enjoy them so much. I had to be honest and say that I sit with my laptop and pray for guidance. So far it works as the words then flow. I sometimes have an idea but not always the bones or flesh until I sit down to write.

I’ve discovered that my writing has returned to the same method as when I was writing stories for my O level English. Then someone would give me a title, or theme, and a few hours later I’d have quite a few pages done. For someone reason the plot and story would all come out in one fluid hit. I never learnt about structure  or preparing a synopsis to work with.

I’m glad about this as it means that I learnt how to right short stories with impact, rather than long, developed fiction. People tell me that, if i put my mind to it, I could probably write a book. PersonallyI know my own limitations and understand that it would not be very good as fiction. Maybe I could write a book about music, film or history but I don’t really have the time or patience to do that. If I did then I know that I’ve to spend a long time researching as I hate “cut and paste” books – any half wit can copy someone else’s interviews and put poor link sentences in to pretend that they have “created” something of their own. 

What I am glad about is that writing sermons has reawakened my love of writing. They perform an intellectual exercise that helps awaken my mind. Who knows, when I get some time, I may try the odd short story again, just to see if I can do.

History Today:

1765: The British parliament introduces the Stamp Act, a tax on American documents that ignites revolution. Seems fair to me though. These colonials are so ungrateful.

1895: The Lumiere brothers stage the first public showing of a motion picture usinf film projection in Paris. 2 days later the first porn theatre opened and the sale of dirty macs increased by 500%. (Some of this maybe untrue – I’m not sure as I wasn’t there.)

1945: The League of Arab States is formed. Unfortunately this wasn’t a Pan-Arabic football league but an alliance to with the aim of achieving complete independence from the colonial powers.

1956: Martin Luther King Jr is convicted of organising an illegal boycott by black passengers of buses in Alabama.

1965: Bob Dylan releases Bringing It All Back Home, his first album featuring electric instruments. That worked wonders for his career with everyone but woolly hat wearing, bearded, ale with twigs in drinking, nut jobs. You know who you are…..

1974: The Equal Rights Agreement is passed by the US Senate, but in the following years fails to be ratified by all the states. See how liberal these former colonials are? Land of liberty? My a***!

2004: Sheikh Ahmed Yassin , the spiritual leader of Palastinian militant group Hamas, is killed by an Israeli air strike. Sometimes 2 bombs do not make a right – maybe they do in this case though. They who live by the bomb will die by the bomb, to paraphase someone famous.

2006: Basque separatist group ETA, sounds like a female blues/jazz singer, announces a permament ceasefire.

I have begun reading the new No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book. It is the same mix of gentle humour, detective story, social commentary and  walk through Botswanan life as all the others. It is a book that gives you a warm glow of satisfaction that, in soem corner of our modern world, there is somewhere that clings to the “old” values and where life is slower, enjoyed and where globalisation is yet to hit.

This is what Dan Brown, and many other writers, should be forced to read to learn how a story should be written, characters expanded and plot crafted. If we had a few more writers of this calibre literature would be in  much better state.

Hysteria Today:

1831: The first recorded bank robbery in American history takes place at the City Bank in New York. A few hundred years later and it is the Citibank doing the robbing.

1861: The first Taranaki War ends in New Zealand.

1916: The first American air combat mission takes place as aircraft fly in support of troops battling Pancho Villa.

1932: The Sydney Harbour Bridge is formally opened.

1945: General Friedrich Fromm is killed for his part in the July Plot against Hitler.

1949: The People’s Council of the Soviet Zone of Occipation approve a constitution, a precursor to the formation of East Germany – a land where women look and sound like men and men run and hide.

1982: A group of wandering Argentines land on the Falkland Island and plant their country’s flag.

624 : Mohammed defeats his Meccan opponents at the Battle of Badr.

1762: The first St Patrick’s Day parade is held in New York city by Irish soldiers serving in the British army.

1805: The Kingdom of Italy is founded by Napoleon.

1861: Italy is unified into a single kingdom by a nationalist biscuit, with Victor Emmanuel as king.

1921: Marie Stopes opens the first clinic to advise women about birth control in Holloway, North London.

1984: The annual Varsity Boat Race is postponed by a day after the Cambridge crew sinks after hitting a barge prior to the start.

1992: A car bomb explodes outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people.

2003: Britain and the US abandon their attempts to gain UN backing for the invasion of Iraq. They were only going to do it if the UN agreed – liar, liar, pants on fire.

may not necessarily come down in the same ondition.

Do you remember the British Airways 777  that landed 1000ft short of the main runway at Heathrow in January 2008? What about the Delta Airline flight that had similar fault occur 32000ft over Atlanta the following November?

You may have read last week’s press coverage of the 2 reports released – one by the Americans and one by the British. What you may have also heard was the difference in tone between the 2 reports. The US report said that another incident could happen at any time. The Brits just said that Rolls Royce had to solve the problems as soon as possible.

The 777 is a replacement for the 747 in terms of range but only requires 2 engines. Therefore it’s routing means that it has to be within 90 minutes of an airport for its entire flight. Many of these aircraft are routed over the Artic – the cold, white bit at the top, inhabited by Polar Bears, Killer Whales, Seals, idiots (sorry Inuits) and idiots on treks to the North Pole in their Y fronts or by party balloons. 

It may not have escaped your attention that the Artic is very, very cold – even with global warming – during the winter. So the fault in the Heat Exchange must be a worrying problem for someone. Not for our British Air Accident Board though. They don’t like to make a drama out of a crisis.

The airlines refuse to ground the aircraft until the fault is resolved – at current estimates in 12-18 months time. This would cost them to much money in lost revenue. However what this means is that should another 777 have an “incident” then they leave themselves open to massive compensation claims.

BA have announced that they will not tell passsengers whether or not the 777 they fly will have (un)safe Rolls Royce Trent engines or the uneffected GE90 engines. According to BA this is not possible for them to do – even though which aircraft are and aren’t absolutely safe.

Personally I would play safe and  book with another airline not operating 777’s on that route or can guarantee using only GE90 engines. Is it worth spending another hundred or so knowing that you will have a much better chance of arriving   landing safely.

If you don’t believe that Trents are a problem then let me just say that Rolls have issued at least 3 notices for part changes in the past few months – these are circulated to the airlines and made known in the trade press. As I much as I believe in supporting British industry, for something this serious I would sooner buy foreign.

History What Did ‘appen:

1190: People in York celebrate a special event – St. Pogrom’s Day – by massacring 150 Jews.

1660: The Long Parliament dissolves itself.

1802: The military academy at West Point, New York is founded.

1872: The first FA Cup Final is played between Wanderers and Royal Engineers at the Kennington Oval. Wanderers are the winners.

1926: Robert H. Goddard successfully launches the world’s first liquid fuelled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts. This helped to give reality to man’s dreams of reaching the stars – though Charlie Chaplin did complain at this intrusion on his privvy.

1953: Marshal Tito, of Yugoslavia, becomes the first Communist head of state to visit Britain.

1968: US troops slaughter between 200 & 500 unarmed villages at My Lai in South Vietnam.

1976: Harold Wilson unexpectedly resigns as Prime Minister. It may have been to do with Alzheimers  - or because of his holidays on the Sciliy Isles every year.

1978: Aldo Moro, a former Italian Prime Minister, is kidnapped by the Red Brigade in Rome. He is later murdered.

1988: Sadaam Hussein’s forces mount a chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing about 5000 people.

This week I have mainly been rewatching Last of The Summer Wine. Paramount Comedy 2 have temporarily removed Third Rock From The Sun so I have had to search for alternative viewing to help me recover from a day of work (or lack of).

For those who are not of these islands – it is a gentle, somewhat repetitive sitcom following the lives of 3 Yorkshire pensioners and their meanderings around the local area. It has been going for almost 40 years  and survived the retirement and death of several actors and actresses. Think of it as a rest home for elderly thespians who are awaiting the great audition in the sky.

It is ideal viewing for those needing to de-stress as the storylines are structured very similarly, are well acted, predictable but still enjoyable.

Today In History:

1781: Youranus Uranus is discovered by William Herschel. Wonder if he used both hands to find it!

1865: The Confederate States of America reluctantly decide to use African American troops.

1884: The siege of Khartoum begins in Sudan as the British troops, led by General Gordon, are beseiged by the Mad Mahdi’s army.

1900: British troops occupy Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State, during the Boer War. Many exciting wars occured before and after this one!

1943: The Nazis carry out the final liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto and transport the Jews to labour and concentration camps; they murder those not deported. This is a the “Girl in a Red Dress” moment in Schindler’s List.

1954: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu begins in Vietnam. The death knell for French colonisation of the north of the country.

1979: A coup takes place in Grenada overthrowing Sir Eric Gairy, the Prime Minister. Ronnie Raygun orders an American invasion soon after to retake the island from Communist forces.

Sometimes I wonder how I managed to pack so much into a week. These days I have a struggle trying to find a way to fit everything that I’d like to do in and find time for FW and myself.

I don’t think it helps that I get home from work some nights feeling worn out and don’t want to interact with anyone until I’ve had chance to chill out. By the time I finish and eat my tea it feels to late. Also, because of my earlyish starts I need to sleep by 10:00-10:30. This can hard on FW as I head to bed at 9, well I need sometime to read!

It also means that I sometimes find it hard to juggle weekends. There is so much that I want to do and need to do that I can’t always fit it in. The 6 Nations doesn’t help this; it is my annual occasion for blocking off entire weekends to watch the rugby. Very little interrupts my time then.

History Today:

1801: Czar Paul I is assasinated and succeeded by his son Alexander I.

1861: During the American Civil War, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas adopt the permanent constitution of the Confederate States of America. That ended well!!

1941: The US government passes the Lend Lease Act to allow the to make huge war loans to Britain, and later the Soviet Union.

1942: General MacArthur finally abandons the island fortress of Corregidor as the Japanese conquer the Phillipines. However he does promise: “I will return!” He does deliever his promise. 

1985: Mikhail Gorbachev, a reformer, becomes the new, and final, leader of the Soviet Union.

1990: Lithuania becomes the first republic to declare independence from the USSR. To show their appreciation the Soviet Union sends in troops. It wasn’t until September 1991, as the Soviet Union crumbled, that it was finally granted.

2004: Ten bombs planted on rush hour trains in Madrid kill 191 and injure 1800.

History Today:

 241BC: The Roman navy defeats the Carthiginian fleet at the Battle of Aegusa and end the First Punic War. The amazing thing is that the Roman’s didn’t have a navy at the start of the war and the Carthiginians had the mightest fleet that frescos had ever seen – to this point.

1629: Charles I begins the 11 “years of tyranny” – personal rule to us – by dissolving parliament. Think how long is was before they invented dissolvable tablets.

1801: The first official census is undertaken in Britain, revealing apopulation of approx. 10 million.

1831: King Louis Phillippe does all men a favour and establishes the French Foreign Legion.

1952: Fulgencio Batista satges a coup to sieze control of Cuba. He only lastest 7 1/2 years before being overthrown by Fidel & Che. Vive l’Revolution!

1969: James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr and is sentenced to 99 years imprisonment. He later pleads innocence.

1970: The U.S. army accuses Capt. Ernest Medina and 4 other soldiers of committing crimes at My Lai in Vietnam, in March 1968.

Saturday afternoon was spent out in nature.

I left FW to do some gardening for the afternoon and drove off to spend some time beside the river in a nearby village. It is a very quiet place, if you ignore the main road running past with few people to disturb your concentration.

Thankfully all this boloney was interrupted by a rugby match. And the rain.

In the end it was a miserable afternoon stood under some fir trees trying to stay sheltered from the rain. My rugby team performed like a bunch of headless chickens – without the organisation. This is no exaggeration but even I, at the age of 44 and unfit, could have done a damn sight better.

Maybe I should come out of retirement and start training…..

History Today Yesterday:

1074: Pope Gregory VII excommunicates married priests in a bid to impose strict clerical celibacy. When has biblical accuracy challenged some parts of the Catholic church? Not offense intended mind.

1796: Napoleon – the midget corporal – marries Josephine de Beauharnais. We don’t know whether ”not tonight Joesphine” was said or not, at this time.

1862: The first ever clash of “ironclads” takes place between the Minitor and the Merrimack in the American Civil War.

1916: Francisco “Pancho” Villa leads a band of Mexican rebels across the US border in a raid. The Americans retaliate by launching a Persching missile.

1932: Henry Pu Yi, formally Hsuan-T’ung the Last Emperor of China, becomes the regent of the Japanese puppet state of Manchuko. In 1934 he was promoted to Emperor of Manchuko until he was captured by Soviet soldiers in the last few days of WWII. In 1950 he returned to China and was imprisoned until released by Mao Tse Tung in 1959. He lived out his days working in a mechanical repair shop in Peking.

1945: American bombers begin the “firestorm raids” over Japan in which 250,000 people die.

1967: Jospeh Stalin’s daughter requests political asylum at the US embassy in India. 

1987: U2 release The Joshua Tree. Today, to celebrate, I bought the latest one.