Cenotaph. Armistice Day, 2008

The Cenotaph yesterday morning, bearing the wreaths from veterans the world over remembering their fallen comrades.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row …"

The words of John Mc.Crae, one of many fine poets fighting in the trenches of the Great War, shortly before he died at the front and was himself laid under one of those crosses.

Cold. Windy. Raining. A fitting November day to remember Our Glorious Dead.

Here are dad's pals.

One tiny corner of the Garden of Remembrance in the grounds of Westminster Abbey.

If you've lost a loved one in any war since the Great War, you will find them remembered here. At the entrance to the garden is a guide giving the location of every regiment.

Every person has a cross. Every person is remembered.

Forgive me if I tend to favour the RAF because of dad and Uncle Tony.
If I could post every cross I would do.

Somehow a bright, sunny day would have seemed inappropriate.

My Uncle Tony's in here somewhere among the fallen leaves.
His plane was shot down in the last stages of WWII; he was just nineteen.



"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

In The Meantime

In the meantime, here's one I made earlier:
http://smallglassplanet.blogspot.com/2007/11/remembrance_10.html

All Crapped Out

Sorry.
I really don't feel like blogging right now.

A Day To Remember

So …
Remember, remember, the fifth of November.
Not for the usual reasons: happily burning Catholics alive and celebrating an attempt by religious extremists to blow up Parliament by … er … burning people in effigy and blowing shit up … (non Brits won't have the foggiest idea what I'm on about but that's never stopped me before).
Well okay, we DO celebrate that but this year there were a couple of other things worth partying for.

First up, in a land far, far away across the ocean seas, sixty-two million wonderful and intelligent people did battle with fifty-six million gun-totin' religious fundamentalists and their chums and achieved something rather splendid.

A great day for humanity and a huge step forward for civil rights.

Excellent.
Well done, you lovely Colonials.

Meanwhile, back in the mother country one of our Blogville neighbours celebrated becoming a British citizen, adding to our impoverished country her marvellous skills, her degree and doctorate and her successful career doing amazing things for our local community.
Not to mention her wonderful, warm and generous personality, her charm, wit and intelligence … yup: she's great fun and a smartypants to boot.

I give you our latest British citizen: Her Majesty, the lovely Dr. Joy Barredo!
Yaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!

This is Norfolk County Hall's Council Chamber.
On Wednesday evening, the fifth of November, after lots of introductions and refreshments we were seated around the chamber with the new citizens in the centre and presented with wonderfully tempting little consoles with microphones and voting buttons.
Regrettably, they were switched off.

The citizenship ceremony kicked off with some Handel and then the registration officer introduced the Chair of Norfolk County Council who gave the new citizens a welcome speech extolling the beauties and opportunities of Norfolk, all of which they already knew having been living and working here for many years but it was nice to be reminded that we live in one of the world's most beautiful places.

That's the NCC Chair on the left, wearing the bling.
Lovely chap.
Before the ceremony, both him and the guy on the right had been round and chatted to us all in a very friendly and welcoming manner.

The man on the right is Richard Gurney, the Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk.
The Gurney family (other than their lapse in good taste by founding Barclay's Bank) have been excellent mayors, aldermen and dignitaries in Norwich and Norfolk since 1066 and three of the paintings in my living room, by John Sell Cotman are inscribed to this guy's great, great, great grandfather.
He is a tremendously charming and witty man and later he concluded the ceremony with a splendid address.

After Mister Bling's welcoming speech each of the new citizens (there were almost forty of them) swore an oath (or affirmed it if they didn't want to include the "God" part) of allegiance to the Parasites.
This is why I could never become a British citizen these days.
We had a good chuckle about what Joy called "swearing allegiance to the freaking Queen", but she managed to do it with a straight face.

Here's the oath:

"I swear by Almighty God that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law."

and the subsequent pledge of commitment:

"I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfil my duties and obligations as a British citizen."

After this part, each new British citizen in turn was invited down to the front to be presented with their certificates of citizenship.
Joy (a proud Trekkie) liked this bit as the music they played was "Star Trek VIII, First Contact". Cheesy, but actually quite a fitting piece of music.
As each person received their presentation they were applauded by the whole chamber.
It was a surprisingly moving and dignified ceremony and I felt proud and honoured to be there.

As I pointed out to Rich yesterday, we have a different situation here with regard to immigrants than he has in the States: we have a dwindling pool of young British workers and what will very soon become an unsustainably large elderly population and we desperately need more immigrants to fill our jobs and pay the taxes that will fund our pensions.
It is our turn to say: "“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Anybody in the UK resisting immigration should be made to realise that without it they will be in for a pretty impoverished old age, plus of course a stagnant culture, starved of the vibrancy of our wonderful cosmopolitan community.

Joy, of course embodies exactly the sort of new citizen we are most desperate for: highly skilled, hard working and eager both to embrace our culture (and the lovely Thom) and to introduce us to her own, something she has been very successful at.

Here is Joy's BBF from the office, the lovely Kim, forced under torture to wear a skirt just for this ceremony.

And here they are joined by Amalia, another wonderful friend from South Africa who is doing marvellous work both there and here in the UK.
She is formidably intelligent as well as being tremendous fun.

As we left County Hall, walking down the vast steps, we were greeted by fireworks as all of the Guy Fawkes Night bonfire parties around the city got into full swing.
It was a lovely touch and very apt to our celebratory mood.

After the ceremony, we all piled round to Joy and Thom's house for a celebration soirée.
Here is Joy carrying out her first task as a British citizen: making a nice cup of tea.
Hee hee. We kind of forced her into it but she does make a delicious chai tea.
Yum!

We sat around chatting and munching on Joy's yummy home-made focaccia while Jong set up his chef's kitchen.
Here are Thom's parents with Thom and Joy.

As usual, Jong provided a magnificent spread. Beautiful Filipino food; utterly delicious.
If you want to know what everything is, check out the individual shots on Joy's post.

While Jong was prepping the meal, the girls - Kim, Joy, Marina and Amalia showed me their lovely legs. Which is about as far as Old Dive ever gets. Hey ho.

Also this week, Joy interviewed Thom on her radio show.
At the point where she asked him what it was like: being in a relationship with a Filipino woman, I laughed so hard tears came to my eyes.
It's a great show.
Here's a link to the podcast so you can hear Joy's lovely voice and Thom's deep and sexy tones. He'd make a fortune from cinema ads. Hee hee.

November the fifth, 2008 was a splendid day and gave cause for celebration all over the world.
We will remember it for very personal and happy reasons, too.

Many congratulations, Joy!

Let's Make A Racket - XXXII

Fuck politics; let's dance!

For this Thursday's Racket I'd got a slow acoustic blues lined up: The Blind Willies attempt at Robert Johnson's "Come On In My Kitchen".

That's a lovely song, but I fancy something a little noisier, so I'll do another two for the price of one post and add one you've probably heard already, but which is pretty apt for the US voting public after eight years of rank insanity: "Done Got Wise".

Toodle pip!

The Poisoned Chalice

Well, in seventy-five days the hard work really starts.
Even to begin to repair the damage done will take an incredible amount of time, money and dedication.
And we still have the "forgotten but not gone" imbecile in power for every one of those seventy-five long days; the most unpopular and disastrous President in US history, currently engaged in yet another shameful and disgraceful exercise whilst his countryfolk are distracted by the election; that of cynically and spitefully murdering civilians in Pakistan and Syria in a deranged attempt to bring yet more countries into a state of war against the west and make his successor's task ever more difficult.

The whole world is celebrating today and we thank the voters of the USA for finally engaging their brains and crying for a halt to the eight most horrific years in world history since the two great wars of the last century.

The War OF Terror.
The insane greed of an unregulated free market economy.
Those at least may well be reined in, having been shown to be unmitigated disasters.
I do not - as you know - expect any great change in US foreign policy.
However well-meaning President-Elect Obama (doesn't that just bring a grin to your face?) may be, the juggernaut of US commercial interest and fear of "the left" will stymie any attempt to comply with international law as surely as they did under Jimmy Carter.

But this morning I - together with the rest of the world outside US borders - am filled to overflowing with two emotions:
Relief and hope.

-

I have spent this campaign studiously avoiding bad-mouthing Senator Mc.Cain as I both like and respect the man. But twenty-twenty hindsight reveals that he faced an almost impossible task from the beginning.
He was forced to fight a campaign on two fronts: one against a resurgent and angry centrist population of Democrats and the other against the appalling legacy of his erstwhile colleague George W. Bush and his neo-con clique.

Senator McCain is essentially a decent man and in my view his position at the more liberal and reasonable end of Republicanism, together with his sane and thoughtful policy on immigration made him the last great hope for a Republican victory.

Yet he was borne down by two disastrous burdens that saw moderate and intellectual Republicans fleeing from him:

- To ensure the support of the white-supremacist, neo-nazi bloc of extremists within his party (we have those in Europe but they are not allowed to hide behind a "neo-con" label and join the major parties and therefore are marginalised and wield less influence here), he was forced to renounce his deeply-held belief in fairness toward immigrants; a mistake that did not merely alienate fellow moderates but that labelled him as a man too weak to maintain the strength of his own convictions and one who buckles under pressure; and,

- What at first sight seemed a tactical masterstroke of choosing a woman as a running mate when it became clear that Senator Clinton would not be chosen as the Democratic running mate.
This produced a wave of panic amongst Democratic supporters around the world until the woman who shall be forever known as Caribou Barbie opened her mouth and sent whatever moderate voters who remained faithful to Senator McCain running for the hills.
The choice of a more moderate woman as running mate may well have rescued him but pandering to extremists to gain their support would always risk losing moderate voters and this is clearly what happened yesterday.

In the midst of my whooping it up I felt a pang of sorrow and sympathy for Senator McCain, especially whilst listening to his final speech.
The man is truly gracious in defeat and what he said last night will assure him at least a place in history above the mire and disgrace of the fall of Bush and the world's disgust at the neo-con legacy.

As for President-Elect Barack Obama …
I can only have sympathy for him as he accepts the poisoned chalice.
His will be one of the toughest tasks ever faced by a US President.
But his victory does indeed bring relief and hope.
With the possible exception of the fall of the Berlin Wall, not since the end of World War 2 has the whole world been given such a gift and such a reason to celebrate.

Thank you, the people of the United States of America.

Meanwhile, Here Is Some Light Music

Hokay, Yanquis.
In a few hours the sun will be coming up on the US of A.
Get your asses out there and vote.
Remember: any person who does not exercise their right to vote does not deserve to live in a democracy.
Do the right thing as you see fit.

Whatever happens, at least the USA will once again have a President capable of correctly pronouncing his own middle initial.

There's bugger all I can do to influence things from over on this side of the pond, so while you Colonials decide how you're going to fuck up the world for the next four years I'll just dance to old jazz records …

Regime Change

Some of you may have noticed with surprise that over the past few months, out of respect for my Republican blogpals I have - with a tremendous effort of will - refrained from posting about tomorrow's US Presidential election.

I have watched from a safe distance, with varying degrees of horror, fascination and hilarity, the Clinton-Obama bitch-slapping fest, Senator Mc.Cain betraying his own admirable liberal beliefs on immigration to secure the support of the white supremacist, neo-nazi bloc within his party, the exceedingly clever choice of a female Republican running mate when Clinton was dropped by Obama, followed by successive waves of horror (at the realisation that Palin is a God and gun nut) and laughing my fat ass off as soon as she opened her mouth and wrecked any serious chance Mc.Cain might have had.

I have sat and giggled at YouTube videos from both parties ridiculing the other (though I've yet to discern any trace of a policy from either side).

And I have kept my mouth shut until today.
Today, I am not a happy bunny.
Let's get the backlash in early …

While it is true that an Obama victory would be a huge leap forward for black civil rights and humanity in general and would be a cause of worldwide celebration (whereas a Mc.Cain victory would bring hope to the elderly and to Christian fundamentalists but send the rest of the planet running for cover), I remain cynical.

Republican … Democrat …
We've seen them chop and change so many times before and yet US foreign policy - both military and commercial - remains the same shameful and disgusting cesspool of greed, arrogance, criminality and cowardly bullying whoever is in power.

Not since FDR has the US Presidency been worthy of respect in the eyes of the world.
Much as it pains me to say it, I don't see an Obama victory changing a damned thing.

Sure, I'll whoop it up if he wins and start digging a fallout shelter if he loses, but will an Obama victory (even with a huge majority in Congress) bring about a Palestinian state on the lines of the UN resolution?
Will it bring about the end of the embargo on Cuba and compensation for that disgraceful policy?
Will we see a complete military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and genuine help to rebuild those countries along the lines THEY choose?
Will it bring about a sea change in US environmental policy?
Will it see an end to the terrorist destabilisation of legitimate and democratically elected left-wing governments in Central and South America by CIA subversion and financial and military support for illegal coups and extreme right-wing dictatorships?

Will we - in effect - see any vestige of respect for international law?

I somehow doubt it very much.

Sad to say, but if Obama becomes President, after the initial euphoria things will remain pretty much the same.

Over here in England we have a similar problem: people will vote for what they see as the lesser of two evils rather than any party that truly represents them. We have not had a major party worth voting for since the war. And those in power slavishly toe the US line in cowardly betrayal of any semblance of justice or indeed reality.

Democracy is a precious and a wonderful concept but we do not live in a democracy. In the current system our votes count for very little.
The United States Declaration of Independence states that:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Tomorrow's vote will be yet another charade and a mockery of the principle of democracy.

For some light relief, here's Simon Schama in today's Guardian on the disgusting legacy of the Bush years that tomorrow's victor will be burdened with.

Pimp My Dante

Hoorah for Lynn!
She's saved me the bother of actually writing about anything today by asking that I post a few pics of some of my books to tie in with the DPP folks' Books Theme Day.

Some of you know that I kinda like to read.
A seven hour per day commute, plus reading myself to sleep at night and my weekends spent in the big old reading chair all add up to a whole lot of book time.

Plus I don't watch TV. It's Radio 3 and a good book for me every time. The picture is always so much better.

So anyhoo … This is the part of my dining room cum office where I keep some of my favourite books.

Ever since college I've been trading up my tatty and much-loved paperbacks for hardbacks and then fine editions, like the facsimile of Shakespeare's First Folio sitting here next to my Kelmscott Chaucer.

If I'm going to read a book over and over then it may as well look and feel nice.
This is Shakespeare's Sonnets tarted up in leather and crushed silk, which looks either blue or deep red depending on how the light catches it … Groovy!

Pimp my Dante. Morocco and moiré silk bindings.

Here's my big old Chaucer. It's in the original Middle English and I love reading aloud from it on winter nights.
The book was produced by William Morris and Edward Burne Jones with their exquisite designs bringing the words to life. Click on any of these to make 'em a little bigger.

I have a fair few Bibles knocking about the place, but this is my favourite if I want to read the Gospels.
Eric Gill was probably our greatest stonemason and engraver (he also designed fonts, such as Gill sans).
The Golden Cockerel Press commissioned him to produce this so that people could read Jesus' words in a book fit for them.

Here's an apt passage for the coming season.

Gill's beautiful, stylised illustrations and hand-carved fonts fit the text perfectly.

Enough of that. Let's browse some shelves.
Here be Dickens. My primary winter fodder, together with Tolstoy.
That's Smollett's History of England - the 1756 edition - on the middle shelf, from back in the days before those pesky Colonials rebelled.

Up here we have more Shakespeare and Winston Churchill's war books from The Great War and World War 2, together with his History of the English Speaking Peoples.

Hey ho … Moving on: Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in a nice vellum binding with Hodgkin's brilliant Barbarian Invasions books (in Roman imperial purple) taking us through from the fall of Rome to Charlemagne.

Under those are T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom and Pepys' Diaries with a few battered old Dickens first editions I've had for donkey's years.

More general fiction, plus Darwin's writings to annoy our Godbotherers and various other odds and sods.

We'll whizz through the remaining bookshelves in the dining room.
Here's some art stuff.

Architecture and cookery and general nonsense.

Homer, Aristotle, Plato, Plutarch, Tacitus, etc. You get the picture.

English history, Stanley's In Darkest Africa next to Livingstone's diary and on the top shelf the lovely Complete Peanuts series that Fantagraphics have been bringing out, two per year.

Look out! It's the God shelf.
My big Bible, a couple of Qur'ans - including Tarif Khalidi's stunning new translation; more stuff to freak Shan out (The Gnostic Gospels and The Book of Common Prayer) together with a smattering of reference works on Christianity and Islam and associated bumf.

And to go with religion … politics.

Marx, Cuba, Palestine, good guys like Benn, Lenin, Cromwell, Arafat, Castro and Ho Chi Minh; bad guys like Hitler, Stalin, Kissinger and Nixon.
Plus Chomsky on the Yanks.
Fun and games for all the family.

My totally trashed old Roget and his chums.

More stuff on American history and the folly of war.

And more lessons from the past from which nobody appears to have learned a damned thing.

A good shelf for general reading. Orwell, Steinbeck, Swift, Melville, Hugo, Marquez, Eco, Conrad, Solzhenitsyn et al, including To Kill A Mockingbird (for Robyn) and Maya Angelou.

More tosh, including some of those fun old Punch compilations that seem to find their way into everybody's library.

An odd shelf; from Einsten to Mark Twain.
It really annoys me when people say "I read A Brief History Of Time but didn't understand it".
Twats!
It is the best introductory physics book for twelve year olds ever written. Stick Hawking alongside Newton's Principia Mathematica, Richard Feynman's quantum physics lectures, Einstein's own book on Relativity and Schrödinger on genetics and you have the basics for understanding what the fuck is going on.
I honestly can't understand people who can't understand this stuff.
Sheesh!

Moving on again … Some old paperbacks including my much travelled and trashed copies of Dylan's Tarantula, The Catcher In The Rye and a bunch of Burroughs.

Some old Solzhenitsyns and general stuff.

Moving away from the dining room, there's this crap in the box room, plus around twenty big boxes of books that have nowhere to sit (there are many more boxes in the attic).

Some stuff from the landing bookshelves.

More stuff tucked away upstairs including all of my Saramago, a bunch more classics and some modern Japanese and American fiction.

Yet another bunch of books in a cabinet.

My Japanese textbooks sitting on top of the tallboy in my bedroom.

And there are many, many more volumes scattered around the house.

So, Lynn … psychoanalyse me from that lot.

Books (like guitars) are lifelong friends that have never dumped me.
I kinda like books.

Some Conversations Just Go Sideways

Hey ho.
I had intended writing a piece on how derivative, uninspiring and blah modern rock music has become (after Lynn pointed me at Amy Winehouse yesterday) and how there's nothing around today that hasn't been done before, usually many times and always better …
Shit! These people can't even take drugs properly.

But then I got talking with Mikey about the new Lara Croft game coming out later this month and - as usually happens when anyone talks to Mike - the conversation went a little sideways and things got progressively weirder until he suddenly came up with a brilliant idea to stop wives and girlfriends moaning about all the time blokes spend watching Lara Croft's ass wiggle on their game consoles.
Something to get weemen interested in video games.

If only we could develop this in time for Christmas …
Mad Mike, in association with "Women! Know Your Place!" Productions, brings you: "Virtual Housework" for the PS3 or the Wii.

Make your laydee-partner feel fulfilled and needed for £39.99!
While you're playing with Lara Croft, your wife / girlfriend can be doing the real housework.
Then, when you've had enough of guns and boobs, hand your spouse the controller and plug her into Virtual Housework!

See her face light up as she is presented with room after virtual room, each coated with a thin layer of dust and grime, all ready to delight her.

Watch her hone her cleaning skills as the difficulty levels mount up!
Starting with just a dusty bookshelf things soon get tough.
Polish that cutlery, wench!
Make those glasses shine!
Can she clean Buckingham Palace before the Queen comes home expecting her dinner on the table?
Oh, no! The corgis have trodden muddy footprints all over the floor!
Come on, woman! Get your mop out and go for it!

What thrills! What wild, womanly excitement!
If you use the Wii controller she can slim down those flabby hips and shape up that fat arse while she's dusting, vacuuming and polishing in a fabulous fantasy world of grime.

What women could resist such a wonderful concept?

Go on! Show her you love her this Christmas; buy her Virtual Housework!

er …