Gertsamtkunstwerk

Festival of Remembrance and 90 Years of Armistice

I did not watch last night's RLB Festival of Remembrance, although I have recorded it and played  a few of the musical highlights. The musical highlight for me was Russell Watson (at which point certain readers faint...)

I have never been a fan of Russell "The Voice" Watson. Whenever I have heard him sing classical music or hymns, I thought he sounds like a nightclub singer out of his depth. On last night's programme he sang That's Life, the old Frank Sinatra number.

I thought he sounded really wonderful, it seemed to suit his voice perfectly. Much more pleasant to listen to than Sinatra. In some ways, not really that appropriate for a Remembrance Service but, actually, in a strange way,  it did seem right. I have subsequently done a bit of research (well, you know, Wikipedia) and I discover that it is on an album he released last year, packed with songs of much the same genre. If he sings the rest like he sings that one, I am pretty sure it is a damn good album. If you like that sort of music. I don't especially, not to the extent of buying records, but I find it tolerably pleasant in the right context on TV or in a bar.

So I ask myself, why is Russell Watson being marketed as a classical singer? It makes no sense. He isn't a classical singer: his business model is pop, his background (and lack of training) is pop, his concert performances are pop, the music he sings is pop - be it modern pop, Sinatra-ish type crooning, or old-style Neapolitan songs and the like - combined with a few dodgy renditions of the most popular Italian arias that were standard rep for every Italian pub singer in the late 19th and early 20th century singer. His album to be released next week is full of covers of pop classics.

He claims to have invented 'classical crossover' (obviously forgot to consult with Signor Caruso) but I don't understand why he doesn't market himself as a gifted pop singer. I don't understand why Classic FM had him on their short-list of best 'classical' singers. I think there is a massive market of people wanting to buy decent pop songs by decent pop singers, so I don't know why he calls himself a classical singer nor why he calls himself a 'tenor', when he could totally mint it by being a bona fide pop singer.

Part of the reason I didn't watch the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance (apart from being out) was the disgust I felt at last year's. There's always an uneasy co-habitation between the Remembrance of the First World War, with its iconography and poetry (verbal and visual), and glorification of current conflicts. I have been watching several TV programmes broadcast or repeated as part of the season to mark the (rather odd) 90th anniversary of WW1. In any case, it is a subject I have studied in some depth for quarter of a century.

I was appalled on the news the other day to hear children parroting the lines 'they died so we could be free'. Exactly the same lines that children were made to recite at the RLB FofM last year apropos of Iraq and Afghanistan. In WW1 the willy-waving generals and politicians led millions of young men and some young women to be slaughtered for nothing, other than 'pride' - yes, I know about Belgium - but just as Sarajevo was merely the flame that lit the bonfire, Belgium was just an excuse for Britain to go to war, a war savoured by the jingoists. 

I still haven't worked out what benefit the Iraqi War has brought to anybody, anywhere in the World. Certainly not in Iraq, and I do believe it has served to make Britain less free. (And don't even mention the recession). Afghanistan is more complex; there was a strong argument for hunting down Bin Laden, that required getting rid of the Taliban, but we abandoned it halfway through when we decided to go for Iraq instead. I don't think that my 'freedom' is improved by the slaughter of non-combatants nor of 'Taliban' militias who are, in reality subsistence farmers who signed up to feed their starving families.  I feel it is quite insulting when the propagandists - yes, Huw Edwards - talk about dead service personnel as having chosen to make a sacrifice for their country. Oh yeah? Well, start putting that in the Services' recruitment adverts rather than 'See the World and Learn a Trade'.

I realise I am sitting in my armchair pontificating. Put myself in danger? Not likely. Every year, we have this television spectacular celebrating those who have been killed in military service. Many of the casualties of the two World Wars, and Korea, were conscripts, little more than prisoners, treated worse than convicts, with their liberty and then their lives taken away. But all subsequent conflicts have been with a volunteer army, who signed up for the danger. Nowadays the service also includes the Bevin boys, Metropolitan Police, St John's Ambulance, London Fire Brigade and London Transport in a direct recognition of the Home Front in World War II.

But there is never anything so grand to mark public servants who have died in the line of duty serving the public, or who face danger daily. Because of work, I am aware of National Police Memorial Day, but they are not so far removed from the military.

What about fire-fighters and health workers, Customs Officers and Prison Officers?  I accept that few die directly in the line of duty but many face stress and danger and are invalided out with little media attention.

What about the transport workers, especially minicab drivers,  and Post Office and Betting Shop workers, for whom danger is daily but without whom we wouldn't have 'Freedom'? Or the very many injured in industrial accidents or suffering chronic industrial illnesses. Like the modern armed forces, they signed up, not really thinking about the dangers.

Without them, my easy life as a pen-pusher would not be as comfortable or tolerable, or as Free. I see that War Veterans (under 60) are now to get free travel on London Transport; I don't see that being extended to those people forced onto benefits by illness,injury or violence at work.

Those of us in low-risk jobs are being bullied into a sentiment not far removed from the propaganda that sent the millions of cannon fodder to die in 1914-18. This time it's the armchair journalists doing it. Not the ones like Frank Gardner, injured as a civilian employee and paralysed when doing his job, shop by Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. But the ones who mislead the public when they stand outside government departments reading a prepared script to camera and kidding us that they have been doing some in-depth investigation when they're just quoting a Press Release and could do so just as easily in the studio.

Oh, and as for Katherine Jenkins. It was a low key performance, at times significantly lower than the key of the orchestra. The dress was relatively modest, almost completely covering her breasts. I did think that I had learnt another bit of Welsh vocabulary - you know how some modern Welsh words just mimic English, like coffi, smokio,  parkio. I thought desolation must be another one. Until she got to the chorus and it slowly dawned on me she was singing in English. I started to recognise half phrases, but only because it's such a familiar poem: They Shall Grow Not Old.

I was well impressed to see yet another example of Barbie not knowing and not giving a flying fuck about the words when, at the line 'At the going down of the sun' ...no, you have to watch it to grasp the sheer stupidity...

Fast forward to 3.05 for the start of the stanza, and 3.30 for the phrase...

Give Women Votes

Today is the 90th anniversary of women in the UK being enfranchised for the first time (well, not exactly, technically, but to all intents and purposes). At the time it was only women over 30 whilst men had the vote at 21.

The discrepancy seems preposterous to us now and was totally unjustified then. But as a gradualist I am often persuaded to accept a partial reform, because history shows that once the fundamental concept becomes the norm and widely accepted, the discrepancies increasingly become seen as irrational. It still amazes me, even though I should know better, how many irrational laws were made by men citing women as irrational and weaker.

I suggest that in ten years time someone organises a big party to celebrate the centenary. It will make it easier for me when people ask me how I will be celebrating my fiftieth birthday - marching on Parliament to commemorate the centenary of Women's Suffrage.

I expect if I mention to this to my mother she will just say "I don't remember there being much fuss about the fiftieth anniversary".

To mark this auspicious day, I give you a link to The March of the Women. We made a recording of this at school for some Open Day exhibition. It was written by Ethel Smyth.

Minutiae of government

The 1944-45 Clothing Quiz is not as exciting as it seems.

If only the Colorado Beetle cards were attached...

Willcock v Muckle has become eerily topical.

If the War Office were wanting the Police's Automatic Pistols, what were the police doing with them in the first place?

No harbouring of deserters allowed. Them being over-paid, over-sexed, over here foreigners is no defence.

Blitz

We have just been watching this amazing two hour documentary from Channel Four about the Fire Storm that all but destroyed the City of London on the night of 29 December 1940.

I expect its viewing figures were miniscule; perhaps Jimmy and I were the only people under seventy, not connected with the programme, who watched it.

An extraordinary combination of eye-witness accounts, written testimony, and archive film footage from the Fire Brigade's Film Unit.

Reality TV, if you like, documenting the experiences of the voluntary firemen, those caught - and killed - in bomb shelters. Amazingly, the deaths were less than two hundred in that one night. And the lessons we learnt were later applied to the bombing of Dresden, now acknowledged as one of the most disgraceful episodes of the Second World War, when one hundred thousand people died in one night.

Very understated, no hysterical hyping up of emotions, just sparing story-telling, the impact greater for its calmness, for the constant soundtrack of roaring, aeroplane engines, incendiary bombs falling, fire roaring, and for the terrible beauty of the footage, the Dome of St Paul's illuminated by fires burning all around.

And the sheer futility. Lives ruined, the bereavements, the loss of livelihood, of home, the theft from people of their right to live in peace. We still bomb civilians, we still try and justify it for strategic means. It's barely news, it hardly scrapes the surface, our attention dims.

We study history to teach us about the present, and we study the present to learn about the past. But I'm not sure we ever learn anything.

Nostalgia

Each week at work they conduct a poll on the intranet. During purdah they deliberately avoided issues that may breach purdah. Last week’s poll wanted to know if we thought nostalgia is everything it used to be, or should we just forget about the 80s and concentrate on the noughties?

Someone called "Steve" said

Watching Dr Who on a Saturday evening; sunny bank holidays; England with a real chance of winning the Ashes; English footie teams winning in Europe; bands with guitars and attitude; looking forward to the next episode of Star Wars…..

The Editor said "Spooky..."

"Sue" said

I’m preparing to retire this summer, and I wonder how many other geriatrics remember these delights from the mid-sixties?

Hard sheets of toilet paper, each one stamped “Government Property”.

The requirement to prove to the stationery clerk that your biro pen refill had run out before you were reluctantly issued with another – single refill! Woe betide you if you actually broke the plastic case!

The issue, every Friday afternoon, of a clean towel and small bar of soap for personal use, the used towel being taken away for laundering.

In cellular offices, the visible sign of your grade – SEOs and above had leather chairs and fitted carpets, HEOs had carpet squares, but EOs had to make do with linoleum.

No flexi-time. Signing the attendance book every morning, with more draconian managers drawing a red line after the last 8.30am entry. Anyone arriving after that had to report to the manager’s office with an explanation of why they were late!

Finally

Getting up in the morning at ‘alf past ten at night, ‘alf an hour before we went to bed, working 25 hours a day in’t mill, week in week out, and pay ‘t’mill owner for permission to go to work……

Quick general knowledge quiz

1. In which did the First World War finish?
2. What year does your local War Memorial say it finished?

and, bonus question - which place is still technically "fighting" the First World War?

JP2 did not bring down the Berlin Wall

I find it really quite galling how easily history gets re-written. I suppose the collapse of Communism was the first Global Event that I had any real insight into - 1987/88 was an extraordinary academic year in which to study Soviet and East European Politics, especially when one decided in December 87 to defer the exam until June 1989 (the ultimate political misjudgement, well, apart from buying an Atlas literally two days before the wall came down...).

I was appalled by the suggestions last summer that Ronnie Reagan caused it to happen, and I welcome Jonathan Steele's piece on how We are rewriting the history of communism's collapse; Slate's headline is The Pope Didn't End Communism

I suspect, sadly, we will have to wait until Mikhail Gorbachev dies, and then some, until we get a proper analysis of his legacy. I was always a big Gorby fan, sometimes beyond my better judgement, I have to say, and I feel that he is the forgotten marginalised man despite the fact that he, more than anyone else in my lifetime changed the world. Even his official website is three years out of date. He is 74 years old. China Daily states that he is now politically a Social Democrat.

Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue'

I love the comment The extraordinary find, at an archaeological dig in Saxony, shatters the belief that sex was a taboo subject in that era

Or rather, I would ask, why on earth would historians and archaeologists believe that sex was taboo before the dawn of organised religion? Perhaps one day we weill return to a world which can view sex in an adult way as a healthy normal pastime.

John Ruskin

We discussed John Ruskin briefly earlier this week. The Guardian has taken up the theme in its books pages - Morbid love

WS Churchill

The BBC has a quiz on the sayings of Churchill. As it happens, I can't play it right now because it requires Flash, which is not allowed on the network at work.

But, I wonder, if a random BBC reporter were to wander onto a random street in a random town and quiz random strangers, especially those under a certain age, how many of them would know who Churchill was? A depressingly low number, I would wager.

It is forty years since his funeral. It was one of those General Knowledge questions when I was young - whose was the last State Funeral? I am pretty sure that the Queen Mum (gawd bless 'er soul she was 173 when she snuffed it) had one. But I adopted a pose of studied indifference. Until the Lancaster and two Spitfires flew past my office window, at eye level, really quite close.

I take it you're still with me when I mention Lancasters and Spitfires...?

What I have learned today...

Greek mythology is one of those subjects that has always almost fascinated me. We studied it quite extensively, if necessarily superficially, in first year at Secondary School, both in History and in English, where we read an abridged child-friendly version of Homer's Odyssey. We also alluded to it in Political Theory at University when studying the Great Philosophers, notably Aristotole, Socrates, and my favourite, Plato. However, it has never fascinated me enough to do any serious reading.

have seen various references to Sisyphus, both in the blogosphere and on Usenet, and today I discovered that the gods set Sisyphus the task of rolling a stone up hill; when he got near the top it rolled back down again. It serves as an apt metaphor for so many futile tasks. I found a thought-provoking use of the metaphor on Thor's China Diary.

I was also quite shocked to find out a few days ago that Odysseus had sex with a woman other than Penelope on his Odyssey. I think they cut that from the abridged version. I think I deprecate abridged versions; you tend to think that they allow you to tick the 'Read already' box, but by arbitrarily cutting the sexual bits they omit the bits about real life, and, arguably, only tell part of the story.

Jack the Ripper condoms

I'm not quite sure how to react to this. I think it's funny, but my colleagues have told me it's sick, and I'm sick for finding it funny: Outrage at Ripper sex kit

12,000 year old art in Derbyshire

Britain's 'earliest' prehistoric cave art

Jolly good stuff. I always feel we are a little lacking in pre-history.

"The art is partially obscured by 1940s graffiti" says the Beeb website.

Were they thick or something in the 40s? I mean, you go in a cave, you see some pictures, you decide they're rubbish, and you draw over them, never pausing to think that, perhaps, fame and fortune could be yours if only you mention them to a passing historian.

Don't assume that educational standards have gone down hill!

Casualties of War

I haven't done any serious news/current affairs blogging for a while. I have found the Iraq situation deeply depressing. I have found the lies we were told to justify it depressing, and a callous disregard for life displayed too often. I have found the arguments of pro-and anti- camps often sliding into the simplistic, my own included. I have despaired at the situation post-war. I stopped believing a long time ago in the sweet smell of victory.

Removing Saddam has been at a high price, lives lost, infrastructure destroyed - leading to more loss of life. I can view the rise of the religious groups with some trepidation. I fear for a world where there is one hyper-power, with its three disreputable poodles allies, fuelled by an ideology called 'neo-con' that needs hegemony in the Middle East. I am disturbed by the polarised rhetoric from right and left, whatever right and left may be, the anti-this, pro-that, my religion's better than your religon. I want a world where people are free and able to lead boring lives. (I recognise that I'm being hopelessly naive - of course it will never happen).

Loss

Read this post at Making Light, read the eloquence of the comments and reflect on the Barbarism which has been allowed to happen.

Only three months ago I spent a day in Cairo, barely touching the surface, but seeing the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx and the remains from Tutankhamen's tomb. Treasures that are three thousand years old. Our guide for the day was an Egyptologist, Hannan, and she described the centuries of looting that had removed precious artefacts from such a historic place. Three thousand years ago, the Egyptians were creating this spendour. Two thousand years before this was the Sumerian civilisation.

Destroyed in a day.

How can this be compared to the loss of human life? It can't. But what are we without civilisation?

Utterly uncivilized.

When history has forgotten Geworge Bush and Saddam Hussain, and Jennifer Lopez and whatever counts as culture today, history will remember the desecration of civilisation.

From the comments ' Donald Rumsfeld quipped,

"The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?'"

Heroes

Pupils 'need heroes in history', says the chairman of the Society of Headmasters and Headmistresses of Independent Schools. I agree with the headline but not the substance.

In my view, Nelson nor Churchill could ever be a hero to me, and could not have been as a child. Heroes are people that others aspire to emulate. I don't have a problem with children hero-worshipping Beckham, if it means that they are going to work hard in their chosen field, are going to display good manners, and be a good father. However, I think there are many figures from history more inspiring. One of my personal favourites was Elizabeth Fry, prison reformer, or Josephine Butler, who fought for the rights of women exploited in prostitution. I think people like Chad Varah, founder of the Samaritans, or Edmund Hillary conqueror of Everest are remarkable figures. George Stephenson, Florence Nightingale, Charles Babbage, Marie Curie will appeal to others. I haven't even mentioned art, music, and literature.

Sure, I know Nelson was a great Admiral, and I also recognise that in 1940 Churchill was 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' (but he made some dreadful mistakes earlier and later in his career). I find it belligerent, old-fashioned and patriarchal to imply that heroism can only be demonstrated in wartime.

Although, perhaps, terribly topical.

Top Ten Britons

I was going to write loads on this topic but Sarah saved me the bother.

Princess Diana? Ugh, purlease! Okay, she was smart enough to use her hyperstar status, not only to publicise the landmines, but also to increase public acceptability of AIDS. But so what. What about Alexander Fleming who invented penicillin, or Jenner who invented vaccination?

And I'm not too taken by John Lennon. Sure, I'm a pretty big fan, but I couldn't put him in a Top Ten of Great Britons. Especially one that doesn't contain Charles Dickens.

Perhaps Diana was put there as the token woman-who-wasn't-Elizabeth-I, but I would have thought that Florence Nightingale, or Jane Austen could have qualified there. Or Elizabeth Fry. Or a Pankhurst or two. Sometimes I despair at the Great British Public. Not that I voted in this, you understand. Not me.

I gave up on that sort of thing around the turn of the Millennium, when the Beeb were asking for the greatest invention of the millennium. I said the steam engine. The computer won. Because, obviously, the computer has radically transformed the entire structure of society and demography, economics and history in the way that the steam engine did.