Whatever happened to my poetry season? I've been negligent, distracted.
I'll round it off with this affecting - for me anyway - poem by Padraig Ó hÉigeartaigh*. It is a lament for his drowned son. The English is by Thomas Kinsella.

My sorrow, Donncha, my thousand-cherished,
under this sod stretched,
this mean sod lying on your little body
-- my utter fright!
If the sleep were on you in Cill na Dromad
or some grave in the West
it would ease my sorrow, though great the affliction,
and I'd not complain.

Spent and withered are the flowers scattered
on your narrow bed.
They were fair a while but their brightness faded,
they've no gloss or life.
And my brightest flower that in soil grew ever
or will ever grow
rots in the ground, and will come no more
to lift my heart.

Alas, beloved, is it not a great pity
how the water rocked you,
your pulses powerless and no one near you
to bring relief?
No news was brought to me of my child in peril
or his cruel hardship
--O, I'd go, and eager, to Hell's deep flag-stones
if I could save you.

The moon is dark and I cannot sleep.
All ease has left me.
The candid Gaelic seems harsh and gloomy
--an evil omen.
I hate the time that I pass with friends,
their wit torments me.
Since the day I saw you on the sands so lifeless
no sun has shone.

Alas my sorrow, what can I do now?
The world grinds me
--your slight white hand, like a tree-breeze, gone from
my frowning brows,
and your little honeymouth, like angels' music
sweet in my ears
saying to me softly: "Dear heart, poor father,
do not be troubled."

And O, my dear one! I little thought
in my time of hope
this child would never be a brave swift hero
in the midst of glory
with deeds of daring and lively thoughts
for the sake of Fódla
--but the One who framed us of clay on earth
not so has ordered.

*Or Patrick O'Hegarty in its English version. Fódla, or Fódhla, is one of many poetic names for Ireland.The original Irish can be found here.

I like this entry in Neil MacAlpine's "Pronouncing Gaelic Dictionary", first published in 1832 -
"H, h, this letter is not acknowledged in our Alphabet; but to keep the Gaelic in character with us, who are the BRAVEST and most singular people in the WHOLE WORLD, (as the SCOTS TIMES says,) it is used, not only in every word, but almost in every syllable expressed or understood."

Another entry begins -
"TAPADH ... heroic feat, achievement; thanks, success; tapadh leat thank you, Sir, or Madam - literally may you be a hero or heroine, (the thing uppermost in Donald's noddle) ..."

.. and on.
Another one for the paedophiles.

I don't know if anyone else would be interested in this but I'm posting it here so that I have it to hand. It's about some oddities of the French language. I believe it is the work of one Laurent Develle, though I came to it via Christian Vancau, a friend.

Pour les férus de la langue française, un petit bijou que vous ne connaissiez peut-être pas.

· Le plus long mot palindrome de la langue française est « ressasser ». C'est-à-dire qu’il se lit dans les deux sens.


· « Institutionnalisation » est le plus long lipogramme en « e ». C'est-à-dire qu'il ne comporte aucun « e ».

· L'anagramme de « guérison » est « soigneur » C'est-à-dire que le mot comprend les mêmes lettres.

· « Endolori » est l'anagramme de son antonyme « indolore », ce qui est paradoxal.

· « Squelette » est le seul mot masculin qui se finit en « ette ».

· « Où » est le seul mot contenant un « u » avec un accent grave. Il a aussi une touche de clavier à lui tout seul !

· Le mot « simple » ne rime avec aucun autre mot. Tout comme « triomphe », « quatorze », « quinze », « pauvre », « meurtre , « monstre », « belge », « goinfre » ou « larve ».

· « Délice », « amour » et « orgue » ont la particularité d'être de genre masculin et deviennent féminin à la forme plurielle. Toutefois, peu sont ceux qui acceptent l'amour au pluriel.

C'est ainsi !

· « Oiseaux » est, avec 7 lettres, le plus long mot dont on ne prononce aucune des lettres : [o], [i], [s], [e], [a], [u], [x] .

« oiseau » est aussi le plus petit mot de langue française contenant toutes les voyelles. Eh oui !

I just learned of the death, on Saturday at the age of 87, of Philip Levine, who was Poet Laureate of the USA in 2011 and 2012.
Now I make a confession; I had never heard of Philip Levine, and I wasn't aware that the USA appointed poets to the office of laureate. Reading about the gent I learn that he was "a champion of the working class". That'll do for me. I looked on line for his verse, and the title of this one aroused my curiosity. The named poets hardly feature in the poem, which is really about one Arthur Lieberman, cousin of Levine.

ON THE MEETING OF GARCIA LORCA AND HART CRANE
(Philip Levine)

Brooklyn, 1929. Of course Crane's
been drinking and has no idea who
this curious Andalusian is, unable
even to speak the language of poetry.
The young man who brought them
together knows both Spanish and English,
but he has a headache from jumping
back and forth from one language
to another. For a moment's relief
he goes to the window to look
down on the East River, darkening
below as the early night comes on.
Something flashes across his sight,
a double vision of such horror
he has to slap both his hands across
his mouth to keep from screaming.
Let's not be frivolous, let's
not pretend the two poets gave
each other wisdom or love or
even a good time, let's not
invent a dialogue of such eloquence
that even the ants in your own
house won't forget it. The two
greatest poetic geniuses alive
meet, and what happens? A vision
comes to an ordinary man staring
at a filthy river. Have you ever
had a vision? Have you ever shaken
your head to pieces and jerked back
at the image of your young son
falling through open space, not
from the stern of a ship bound
from Vera Cruz to New York but from
the roof of the building he works on?
have you risen from bed to pace
until dawn to beg a merciless god
to take these pictures away? Oh, yes,
let's bless the imagination. It gives
us the myths we live by. Let's bless
the visionary power of the human--
the only animal that's got it--,
bless the exact image of your father
dead and mine dead, bless the images
that stalk the corners of our sight
and will not let go. The young man
was my cousin, Arthur Lieberman,
then a language student at Columbia,
who told me all this before he died
quietly in his sleep in 1983
in a hotel in Perugia. A good man,
Arthur, he survived graduate school,
later came home to Detroit and sold
pianos right through the Depression.
He loaned my brother a used one
to compose his hideous songs on,
which Arthur thought were genius.
What an imagination Arthur had!

Amiri Baraka, formerly Leroi Jones; under which identity he wrote this I can't say at the moment, so I'll give him his chosen name.

MONDAY IN B-FLAT
(Amiri Baraka)

I can pray
all day
& God
wont come.

But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here

in a minute!

Have I remarked on it before? I hate that word 'cool', so annoyingly middle class.

"Have you got a loyalty card?"
"No, and I don't want one, thank you."
"That's cool."
(Is it really? Is that what passes for cool in your strange world?)

COOL/HIP
(Adrian Mitchell)

cool is a pose
hip is a gift
cool is a mask
hip is perfect pitch
cool is closed twenty-two hours a day
hip is open all round the clock
cool is a suit of armour made of ice
hip strolls naked on the bay of the dock
cool pretends it doesn't go to an analyst
hip is Just William at Prince Charming's Ball
cool is the super-sarcastic panellist
hip's the green lizard on the workhouse wall
cool is a sniper on the hills
keeping going on those mean green pills
hip is a joke
weightless as smoke
or Hamlet stalking
in his Spiderman cloak

Albert Young was an IWW member from Glasgow who was active in the North London branch of the union. He was too old to be conscripted into the armed forces during World War 1, but the poem suggests that, like many Fellow Wobs, he would have resisted conscription. "The Deserter" was published in the Daily Herald in 1915, and later in a collection of Albert's verse entitled "The Red Dawn".

THE DESERTER
(Albert Young)

I refuse to murder or maim this man, my brother,
Or soil my soul in the smoke of war’s red smother.
I refuse to kindle the flame that shall burn this city,
So my heart be murder-stained and dead to pity.

I refuse to obey your command. I have no duty
Other than love of Life and love of Beauty.
Tho’ you riddle my body with lead still I’ll be grateful.
But I’m gone – and you’re left behind, pursuing and hateful.

I fly with the wings of the wind and a hope surprising,
And reach a haven at last, as the sun is rising.
And here till the night-shades fall I sleep in gladness,
Then up, on the dark, rough road, to my home of sadness.

Hard on my track snarl the hounds of Hell’s own breeding;
But again I’m gone and roadway’s ‘neath me speeding.
Soon my garb of shame’s sunk to the depths of the river,
And dressed in the clothes of a man I offer thanks to the giver.

For I will not murder or maim this man, my brother,
Or sink my soul in the slime of war’s red smother.
I’ll get away if I can and in more peaceful regions
I’ll live and love and forget War and its murdering smother.

Joe Corrie's a regular visitor to my poetry seasons. Here he is again.

MINERS' WIVES
(Joe Corrie)

We have borne good sons to broken men
Nurtured them on our hungry breast
And given them to our masters when
Their day of life was at its best

We have dried their clammy clothes by the fire
Solaced them, tended them, cheered them well
Watched the wheels raising them from the mire
Watched the wheels lowering them to Hell

We have prayed for them in a Godless way
(We never could fathom the ways of God)
We have sung with them on their wedding day
Knowing the journey and the road

We have stood through the naked night to watch
The silent wheels that raised the dead
We have gone before to raise the latch
And lay the pillow beneath their head

We have done all this for our masters' sake
Did it in rags and did not mind
What more do they want? what more can they take?
Unless our eyes and leave us blind

The Green Surge effect, local Labour MP caught telling fibs.
It's clear that Labour sees the Greens as their biggest threat, in spite of the jackal press nudging Labour supporters towards UKIP. We proles are all racists you know, and love a politician who pretends to like beer*.
I'm not a Green, or even a fan, but anti-austerity, anti-racism, pro-NHS, will get my support. Which of the parties with a realistic chance of winning seats is talking that kind of talk?

*Has anyone ever seen that posh git Farage finish a pint?

Video Israel Doesn't Want You to See

More heroics from "the most moral army in the world".

A verse from Apollinaire's "Bestiaire" that I like, with an English language version by the great Edwin Morgan.

LE CHAT

Je souhaite dans ma maison:
Une femme ayant sa raison,
Un chat passant parmi les livres,
Des amis en toute saison
Sans lesquels je ne peux pas vivre.

THE CAT

Mine be the house where you would find:
A woman in her right mind,
A cat to walk among the books,
And friends about at any time –
I bear no fruit without these roots.

Time, I think, for a poetry season.
Idris Davies has appeared here before, and no doubt will do so again.


A VICTORIAN PORTRAIT
(Idris Davies)

You stood behind your Bible
And thundered lie on lie,
And your roaring shook your beard
And the brow above your eye.

There was squalor all around you
And disaster far ahead,
And you roared the fall of Adam
To the dying and the dead.

You built your slums, and fastened
Your hand upon your heart
And warned the drab illiterate
Against all useless art.

And you died upon the Sabbath
In bitterness and gloom,
And your lies were all repeated
Above your gaudy tomb.

... and on ad nauseam.

Cloned from Raymond Deane's facebook thingie.

Back again. The blog police are playing cat and mouse with me. I may stop playing their games and go over to wordpress.

I've been locked out of this blog for several days, but the blog police have let me back in.

"Palestinian and foreign activists and journalists within the 40 kilometer-long strip of open-air prison tweeted and live-streamed images more horrific than the best Hollywood productions. Weathered journalists broke down sobbing at the sight of Palestinian civilians, especially children being targeted like prey by one of the world's most wickedly powerful armies and navies. Doctors who have seen the mutilated corpses and scarcely-living bodies of Palestinian elderly, men, women and children many times before were yet still appalled by the brutality of these latest attacks."

Eva Bartlett

SAINT JOHN OF BEVERLEY/SAINT JEAN BRÉVELAY

A few years ago, I can't remember the year, I was following the Tour de France on a circuit that passed through Brittany. One place name on the route intrigued me, Saint-Jean-Brévelay. Who was this Saint John? The full name was reminiscent of Saint John of Beverley, an early medieval bishop in my home territory.
Saints featuring in Breton place names have a variety of origins, but usually, as far as I could tell were Celtic, Ronan (Irish), Aneirin (British), etc. John of Beverley was an Anglo-Saxon and had never visited the ancient nation of the Bretons. So how did his cult take root here with enough devotion for him to leave his mark on the topography?
As sometimes happens I found the answer among the literature lying about at home while looking for something else.
An article in "The East Yorkshire Historian", volume 4 (2003) was entitled "The Life and death of St John of Beverley". It was by Pamela R. Hopkins.
I quote -
"Abroad, by the eleventh century, his feast day was included in Breton church calendars at Vannes and Nantes. Saint-Jean-de-Brevelay (sic), in Brittany, claims to have part of the skull of saint John of Beverley. Susan Wilson, in her thesis The Cult of saint John of Beverley states that these relics could have been given by King Athelstan to his godson, Alain Barbe-Torte, when he returned to Brittany to reclaim his land, after having taken refuge at Athelstan's court for many years."

Athelstan was "King of the English" in the first half of the tenth century.
Alain Barbe-Torte, Duke of Brittany, died 952.
Wikipedia gives the name of Saint-Jean-Brévelay as Sant-Yann-Brevele in the Breton language. No date given for the founding of the settlement.
It appears, surprisingly, that neither the Yorkshire town nor the Breton commune have considered twinning.

The story behind a song; the creative process, the influences, the contributors, the differing memories and accounts. I love it. I love the song, I love the video, and I miss Kirsty MacColl.
Here

More of the same - these provocateurs pretend to be Palestinians, then kidnap children. Anyone who tries to rescue this poor kid is threatened with shooting.
We are witnessing the accelerating disintegration of Ersatz Israel, a failed experiment in colonisation, and transplantation of populations. Many innocents on both sides will suffer in the coming débacle. Palestinians like this lad at the moment, but when the opportunity for retribution presents itself can we expect to avoid bloodshed and persecution?

Bland Aid (fleece the world)

No knighthoods, honorary or otherwise, for these folks.

Last week the death was announced of María del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y Silva, 18th Duchess of Alba. Now in addition to the Dukedom of Alba this lady held four other Dukedoms, including the Berwick title of the Fitzjames. Then there were the 18 condados (countships) amongst a muliplicity of titles of nobility and grandeza.
Now the original Dukedom of Alba was held by a family called Álvarez, then passed by marriage to a family named Silva, then to Fitz-James Stuart. This hoovering up of titles by means of marital alliances seems to be particularly common in Spain. Some systems of nobility don't allow titles to pass through a female line. The Alba example of titles sticking together like flies on flypaper suggests to me the possibility that one day, in the distant future all Spanish titles of nobility might be invested in one individual staggering under the weight of a redundancy of noblesse.
My interest in the Irish diaspora once brought to my attention a Spanish gent styled the Conde de Morphy, anglicised as Count Morphy. He was the grandson of an Irishman named Murphy and was ennobled by reason of a post as secretary to the then Queen of Spain.
The count died sine prole, that is, childless. So did the title die with him as it surely would have in Britain? No, it passed by some means to an Irish niece, and as far as I know is extant. The last named holder of the title that I found had one of those multiple surnames, all Spanish, favoured by the hidalguía. This individual was probably completely deficient of the Murphy gene, but the Condado de Morphy lives on.

Addenda: It turns out that I short-changed this lady on the list of her baptismal names She was María del Rosario Cayetana Paloma Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Fernanda Teresa Francisca de Paula Lourdes Antonia Josefa Fausta Rita Castor Dorotea Santa Esperanza Fitz-James Stuart, Silva, Falcó y Gurtubay.

I also underestimated the number of titles that became attached to her person. There is a fuller list on Wikipedia

So now we know why it goes on and on and on ...

Sexual Abuse Against Palestinian Child Detainees Reported

"... the Queen mother famously stated that she would have been happy for the Nazis to invade the UK, as long as they kept the Royal family."
God bless yer, Ma'am (tugs forelock).

The contrasting fates of Alan Turing and Lord Sempill

(Carlos Latuff)

... and on and on and ...

Now it's two-year-olds.

I'm struggling at the moment with a work called "Against World Literature" by Emily Apter (Verso, 2013). Struggling because it is in great part written in academic language of theoretical discussion, far above my head. Let me cite an example -

"The emergent paradigm of a prophetic, discontinuous chronotope capable of releasing the now-time while projecting a narrative hologram of divine program, can be seen as nothing short of an attempt to reconcile worldly 'reality' (Weltwirklichkeit) with messianic eschatology."

(p.197)

Yet there is so much of interest in this book for me. Its theme is translation, translatability and untranslatability, a subject that does exercise my mind from time to time. There are essays here that I want to read, and will, perhaps without taking as much from them as one dedicated to the study of language and translation. I'm sure it was not intended for the lay person.
I didn't know that Eleanor Marx Aveling, daughter of Big Karl, translated Flaubert's Madame Bovary into English.
I was interested that the author discusses Wu Ming and the Novel "Manituana"; and I was pleasantly surprised that Umberto Eco is nowhere mentioned.
But most intriguing for me is a chapter entitled "Paranoid Globalism which covers the fiction of writers such as Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon, and apprises me of an American artist named Mark Lombardi, until now unknown.

"Anti-market cyber communism emerges as the tain of capitalism's paranoid mirror; both are world-systems that are everywhere and nowhere reliant on their formal invisibility to mobilize paranoid projection as a social imagery. It is a credit to the acuity of the artist Mark Lombardi that he devised ways of making visible this highly elusive relationality of the virtual world, mapping unseen economies that contour the globe. In a series of diagrams (assembled in his 2003 'Global Networks' retrospective at the Drawing Center in New York), based on information and statistics mined from public databases, Lombardi transforms corporate and political scandals into cartographies of conspiracy. He charts capital flow using a system of delicate skeins, arrows, and hubs that indicate the paths of illicit money transfers, laundering operations, and offshore accounting. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International is thus revealed in a compromising web of connectedness to the Saudi Bank of Paris, Osama Bin Laden, the Houston Main Bank, and George H. W. Bush. Whether it is Meyer Lansky's financial network circa 1960-78, Oliver North's Iran-Contra operation of 1984-86, the Keating savings and loan debacle of 1978-90, or the Harken Energy scam of 1979-90, Lombardi's maps of corporate kleptocracy clearly illustrate how all the dots are connected in ways that were always suspected but rarely worked out in such detail. Little surprise, then, that FBI representatives appeared at the opening of his posthumous retrospective and expressed their incredulity that an artist with access only to information in the public domain, and working without a computerized database, could have plotted the scandals with such accuracy. Rumors also flew that the artist's apparent suicide was actually a murder motivated by any number of possible parties whose illicit finances he had exposed."

(p.93)

More on Mark Lombardi here.

On the 28th February last year I published a photograph of a gang attacking a Palestinian woman under my "Zionist Heroes" label.
It turns out that three of the women assailants in the photograph are now suing the photographer for defamation. It seems that they are upset that the world has witnessed their thuggery.

"By all appearances, Google’s bosses genuinely believe in the civilizing power of enlightened multinational corporations, and they see this mission as continuous with the shaping of the world according to the better judgment of the “benevolent superpower.” They will tell you that open-mindedness is a virtue, but all perspectives that challenge the exceptionalist drive at the heart of American foreign policy will remain invisible to them. This is the impenetrable banality of “don’t be evil.” They believe that they are doing good. And that is a problem."

... and on, and on ...

Those poor settlers, struggling against olive-picking female terrorists. Olives contain stones, you know, and stones are the Palestinians terrorists' weapon of choice. Why do the US media ignore such stories of heroism?

Arrest of 5-year-old Palestinian child causes outrage around globe

Back in April of 2012 I posted a piece about Roman East Yorkshire and the civitas of Petuaria near Hull.
I stated that the forerunner of Hull, Wyke came into existence in late medieval times, and inferred that there was no settlement in the Hull area in Roman times.
I was wrong. Though the evidence for a settlement in the area is archaeological and no written record has turned up to date.
I quote here from a recent publication, "The Parisi: Britons and Romans in East Yorkshire" (The History Press, Stroud, 2013), the work of Dr. Peter Halkon of Hull University.*

"For many years ... it was supposed that much of the lower Hull Valley around the City of Kingston upon Hull itself was devoid of Roman activity because it was under water and the few Roman finds handed in to Hull Museums were attributed to servicemen returning from overseas losing the ancient souvenirs picked up during their foreign postings in the First and Second World Wars ... In the series of excavations undertaken in the Old Town, the discovery of Roman pottery showed that buried Roman land surfaces may exist (Bartlett, 1971), but it was not until 1984 that this suspicion was confirmed when the owner of a new house at Greylees Avenue, on the outskirts of the city just off Beverley High Road, not far from the West Bank of the River Hull, recognised samian and other Roman pottery as he prepared his new garden. The occupant informed Hull Museums and the subsequent excavation yielded 4,000 Roman finds from the later first to fourth centuries AD, including building remains and ditches suggestive of land management."
(Halkon p.156)

"Excavation in the 1990s in the Sutton Fields Industrial Estate at Malmo Road, to the east of the River Hull, revealed drip-gullies from rectilinear buildings, postholes, pits and ditches and a 60m cobbled trackway ... Further investigation was undertaken here in 2005 ... with finds including ceramic building material, animal bone and pottery from the second and third centuries AD. The ceramic building material included tiling from both roofs and central heating systems and a fragment from a stamped tile of the VI Legion. These find are intriguing: is this a demonstration that people local to the area here had fully absorbed Roman lifestyles. or was the site in some way connected along the river system to the legionary fortress at York?"
(ibid., p.157)

The reference to Bartlett, 1971, is to a report on excavations in Hull's old town in the Kingston upon Hull Museums Bulletin, nos.3 and 4, 1971, by John Bartlett, and entitled "The Medieval Walls of Hull".
I quote -
"In the museum there are a number of complete Roman pots from Hull i.e. from Thoresby Street and from National Avenue, and extensive collections of sherds from the neighbourhood of Haworth Hall, from the Barmston Drain near Endike Lane and from Saltend. It is therefore not true, as has sometimes been suggested, that before the foundation of medieval Wyke the site that was to become Hull had always been uninhabited. How important Romano-British settlement was around the lower reaches of the River Hull cannot yet be estimated. It seems likely that a Romano-British land surface exists below the town at considerable depth sealed by sterile layers of river alluvium laid down in Saxon times. It is only very exceptionally that there has been any penetration in modern times down to these depths."
(loc cit., p 26)

I feel the need for some names, locative or personal, to place these artefacts in a human context.

*In my earlier post I referred to this local population (tribe?) as the Parisii, because that was the spelling I first encountered. I know also that I've seen Roman Brough called "Petuaria Parisiorum", only later did I see the spellings Parisi and Parisorum. I have not emended my earlier post.
Halkon does discuss a connection between the the Parisi of Britannia and the Parisii of Gaul, and cites favourable evidence while remaining neutral on the topic.

[Salman] "Abu Sitta went to Geneva for a week to check out the newly-opened archives of the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross]. According to him, the archives were opened to the public after accusations that the ICRC had sided with the Nazis during World War II. It was an opportunity that he could not miss in terms of seeing what the ICRC had recorded of the events that occurred in Palestine in 1948. It was there he stumbled onto records discussing the existence of five concentration camps run by the Israelis."

Hidden history - first I've heard of a planned coup to oust Franklin D. Roosevelt, or of the Black Legion.

Headline I read today
"IS wants to destroy civilisation"
Well, IS, or whatever your name is this week, all you have to do is sit back and watch the news. The US is doing a damned good job of global destruction.

"For years, reporters have watched Israeli soldiers bait Palestinian children by abusing them through loud-speakers. Then they shoot them dead. For years, reporters have known about Palestinian women about to give birth and refused passage through a roadblock to a hospital; and the baby has died, and sometimes the mother.
"For years, reporters have known about Palestinian doctors and ambulance crews given permission by Israeli commanders to attend the wounded or remove the dead, only to be shot through the head.
"For years, reporters have known about stricken people prevented from getting life-saving treatment, or shot dead when they've tried to reach a clinic for chemotherapy treatment. One elderly lady with a walking stick was murdered in this way - a bullet in her back."

(John Pilger)

... and on and on ...

... and on and on and ...

On and on it goes, but look out brave warriors, the headscarves are coming.

Funny thing -
I'm looking round the garden this morning and see a butterfly, a Red Admiral on the bird table. Surely it's not eating crumbs. Maybe it's on the way out and has flopped there. I approach the table and the butterfly takes off. So I continue walking round, then I turn and see the butterfly is back. Now it's on the inside of a bowl of water and looks like it's taking a drink. This is weird!
I go over to the table and see that there's something in the water - a pigeon feather? A closer look informs that it's a large moth and the butterfly seems to be touching it with it's nose, or whatever protrudes at the forward end of a butterfly. I take hold of the bowl and the butterfly's off again. I drop the bowl on the grass to get rid of the mucky water and the dead creature, and what do you know? 'Dead' creature starts to flutter about the ground.
What can I do? Nothing, is my decision. I leave the moth (or is it a colourless butterfly?) to dry out survive or perish, or make a meal for a passing bird. Well, I couldn't take it to a vet and I don't know any hospital for lepidoptera.
Later my missus goes in the garden and sees that the Red Admiral is back and on the grass keeping the moth company.
Sad end to strange tale; the moth died and it's companion disappeared.

How to explain? I can't. Insect solidarity? Empathy? Altruism? I'm stumped.

Correction (6.9.14): The butterfly was not a Red Admiral but a Peacock, the missus tells me.

This week I finally got my hands on a record I've been after for years. It's the incidental music from a film of Roger Vadim call "Sait-on jamais ...". I give the original title because nobody seems to agree on its English name. I've seen it under the name "When the Devil Drives" and "One never Knows". The title on the album was "No Sun in Venice", which is maybe what it was called in the USA.
The music is by the Modern Jazz Quartet, and I love it. Now at last I've got it, along with three other MJQ albums on one CD - bargain.
The film itself has always fascinated me. I've referred to it before as a portent of the Nouvelle Vague. I have seen a review of the film by J-L Godard, vaguely positive is all one can say of that. It is for me a cult film whose only adherent is my sorry self, though I think I remember somebody I met in the army who knew it and approved.
Here's some bella musica, from John Lewis's score -


In addition to the MJQ's music, we were treated to a Gerald McBoing boing cartoon, a song by Juliette Greco, and snatches of a favourite song of mine, Bécaud's "Alors Raconte". Then there was my favourite screen villain, Robert Hossein, doing his nasty thing. To ask for more would be greedy.

Today, being under the weather and unable to go anywhere, I watched a film I've borrowed - Inside Llewyn Davis, a Coen Brothers film about a sixties folk singer.
Now I was a haunter of folk clubs in the sixties, so this was something of a nostalgia trip for me. I knew pretty much all the songs, though sometimes with slightly different lyrics, and I sang along with as much gusto as my weakening vocal chords would allow.
The main character, Llewyn Davis is supposed to be based on Dave Van Ronk, an influential figure in Greenwich Village, New York, USA, in the early sixties. If D.V.R. was anything like Llewyn D. then he was an objectionable twat. I hope that's not the case. D.V.R. was a Wobbly, an IWW, for some part of his existence, and passed through a selection of the 57 varieties of Marxist groupuscules in his time.
One of the characters in the film, Roland Turner, is played by John Goodman, a Coen regular. His parts seem to get weirder and weirder in the Coen stories and Brother Turner is a doozy. I have to say I was left wondering about the fate of Roland and his chauffeur/nurse, Johnny Five, whom Davis deserted in fraught circumstances on the road from New York to Chicago. But then he tends to desert everybody after sponging off them for a while.
After watching the film my interest in its place and time was awakened. I went online to try and obtain a copy of the late Suze Rotolo's memoir, but it seems to be available only in download form or in expensive second-hand. Sod that!
I have some D.V.R. stuff and must admit that there are better interpreters of the material, but he was a father figure and tutor(?) to more famous people, so he has his place in history. Apparently he too published a memoir. I'll see if it's available and in my price range.

Addendum, 22.8.14: something I noticed in the film credits and forgot to mention. At the very end where they do the "No animals were hurt ..."etc, there was a little seal bearing the words, "Kosher for Passover" - a Coen joke?
Mention of animals reminds me of a funny quote involving a poor cat Llewyn D. was looking after for someone, "Where's his Scrotum Llewyn? Where's his scrotum?"

I've been hankering after a poetry season and thought one was due. However, it turns out that it's only six months since the last one. I'll just have to give myself a booster shot, i.e., a single poem. I turn to the old master Sorley MacLean.

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IRELAND

In these evil days
when the old wound of Ulster is a disease
suppurating in the heart of Europe
and in the heart of every Gael
who knows that he is a Gael,
I have done nothing but see
in the National Museum of Ireland
the rusty red spot of blood,
rather dirty, on the shirt
that was once on the hero
who is dearest to me of all
who stood against bullet or bayonet,
or tanks or cavalry,
or the bursting of frightful bombs:
the shirt that was on Connolly
in the General Post Office of Ireland
while he was preparing the sacrifice
that put himself upon a chair
that is holier than the Lia Fail
that is on the Hill of Tara in Ireland.

The great hero is still
sitting on the chair
fighting the battle in the Post Office
and cleaning streets in Edinburgh.

ARD-MHUSAEUM NA H-EIREAN

Anns na laithean dona seo
is seann leòn Uladh 'na ghaoid
lionnrachaidh 'n cridhe na h-Eòrpa
agus an cridhe gach Gàidheil
dh'an aithne gur h-e th'ann an Gàidheal,
chad'rinn mise ach gum facas
ann an Ard Mhusaeum na h-Eireann
spot mheirgeach ruadh na fala
's I caran salach air an léinidh
a bha aon uair air a' churaidh
as docha leamsa dhuibh uile
a sheas ri peileir no ri béigneid
no ri tancan no ri eachraidh
no ri spreaghadh nam bom éitigh;
an léine bh'air O Conghaile
ann an Ard Phost-Oifis Eirinn
's e'g ullachadh na h-Iobairt
a chuir suas e fhéin air séithir
an naoimhe na'n Lia Fàil
th'air Cnoc na Teamhrach an Eirinn.

Tha an curaidh mór fhathast
'na shuidhe air an tséithir
ag cur a' chatha 'sa Phost-Oifis
's ag glanadh shràidean an Dun-Eideann.

(1971, English translation by the author)

Eighty-one congressmen, or about 20 percent of the US House of Representatives, will visit Israel over the next three weeks during Congress’s summer recess, with the first group of 26 Democrats scheduled to arrive on Monday.
...
The week-long trips are sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, a charitable organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which brings large delegations of congressmen here every other August."
...

In a related development, The Israel Project will be bringing a group of 18 Washington-based ambassadors from Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America to Israel on Monday for a weeklong tour and high-level meetings. Like the congressmen, they will also go to Ramallah, for a meeting with PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
Among the countries represented on the trip are Albania, Barbados, Belize, Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Macedonia, St. Lucia and Uganda.
Some of these countries have been mentioned by officials in Jerusalem as likely candidates to either vote against, or at least abstain, when the vote on Palestinian statehood comes before the UN in September.

(Jerusalem Post, August 13th 2014)

"One must remember that, just between the beginning of 2012 and the end of 2013, pro-Israel lobby groups donated over $8 million dollars to Congressional and presidential candidates. Over the last couple of decades, these lobbies have donated tens of millions of dollars to candidates. And there are few more self-serving bodies in the world than the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. So what if babies, sleeping in their cribs, are savagely ripped apart by weapons that violate international law? Criticizing such murders might reduce the size of the check from some Israeli lobby or other. No, the risk there is far too great.
"So, while barely murmuring a whisper in opposition to Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, the U.S. finances it. While indicating some displeasure with Israel’s decision to bomb a U.N. school housing thousands of Palestinian refugees, the U.S. actually sends more weapons to Israel, so it can continue ‘mowing the Gaza lawn’."
(Robert Fantina)

THE DESPERADOES' REPUBLIC
La República de los Desperados

Many years ago I read a book called "Gentlemen Convicts" by one François Poli. It was translated from the French ("Gentlemen Bagnards") by one Naomi Walford. The original was published in 1959, the English translation in 1960.
The story told was of the adventures of some escapees from the penal colonies of French Guiana. The main characters survived many ordeals and became, under assumed identities, successful businessmen in the Caribbean.
One of the men, Elizondo, spent some time in a place known as the Desperadoes' Republic. When I read the account I wasn't sure whether the Republic was a real place or a product of the author's imagination. I still don't to be honest.
however, a few years later I read an article in a magazine about the republic. It didn't appear to be based on Poli's book. A couple of names occurred in both accounts; the town of Camaia, the American Marcus, or Markus. One additional detail from the magazine article; the authorities in Colombia, or Venezuela, or both, had had enough of the Republic. bombed it from the air, and ended its existence.
Once I got access to the internet I went in search of more information on the Desperadoes' Republic. To my astonishment I found none. Not in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. Could the whole thing have been a tall story?
I have decided to post this so that some account exists on the internet. First, as a starting point for anyone undertaking a search, as I did. Second, to draw out any information that is held by others but not yet published. The following is quoted direct from Poli's book (novel?).

It is called the Republica de los Desperados because it is peopled exclusively by ex-convicts, murderers, thieves and gangsters whom no country in the world will receive within its borders. It lies on the borders of Colombia an Venezuela, between the Rio Negro and the Orinoco. The story began in about 1930.
The first outlaws to settle in this territory, which is half the size of France and is covered with virgin forest, had only one aim; to escape the police who were on their trail. There were all sorts among them: Mexican, Venezuelan and Colombian bandits, escaped convicts from both American prisons and from Saint-Laurent-du-maroni. For some the only law recognised was was that of the knife and the Colt. Then a leader was appointed; he collected "ministers" about him and drew up a code of laws which the outlaws agreed to respect. And they did respect it. there was honour among thieves. The penalty for the first offence was expulsion from the Republic; for the second, a bullet. They had law courts, police and an executioner. But they had to live, and as panning for gold did not bring in enough, the desperadoes organised periodic raids beyond their borders with the object of attacking shepherds and robbing them of their flocks. Complaints reached Caracas and Bogota and the existence of the Republic was revealed. The police sent in punitive expeditions, which failed. Robbery continued. New arrivals crossed the frontier every week, the greater number coming from American prisons and the French penal settlement in Guiana; but there were also women from the casitas of Rio, Buenos Aires and Caracas. How did they get through the forest? No one knows. They arrived in a state of exhaustion,lured by gold and diamonds and by these men, who had the reputation for being open-handed. Saloons on the western model were opened, and a whole town grew out of the jungle; it was called Camaia. Hostilities at an end, a deputation of outlaws went to Bogota and concluded a strange treaty with the Colombian government. The desperadoes would refrain from stealing livestock on condition that no police ever entered their territory, and that they might be allowed to live in peace.

...

[Here Elizondo is speaking]

"The man who is president today is called Markus: an escaped prisoner from America. The mayor of Camaia, the second man in the state, is an Italian; the chief of police is a Corsican. Nearly all the traders are from Central Europe; the builders from Italy. Many of the sheep-men are American ex-convicts. Altogether there are between fifteen and thirty thousand men in the Republica de los Desperados, but there are no statistics to give the exact figures of the population. ... It seems that in Camaia they're getting worried, and that Venezuela and Colombia have had enough of the Republica."

Plenty of Palestinian children left alive, Mr. Obama. Send more bombs and bullets to Sergeant R. and his comrades. US taxpayers are not complaining.

An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.

(Guardian)

"It has been exposed as war propaganda by too many sources to count, including UN reports, investigations by Human Rights Watch, & international journalists. In fact, UN reports document that it’s Israel that uses Palestinian children as human shields & accuses Israel of torturing & abusing Palestinian children in the Israeli gulag, including with solitary confinement & threats of sexual assault. These are not Hamas accusations. They come from UNICEF & the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in reports issued just last year."

(Mary Scully on the Israel's big lie)

Matters more serious and pressing have caused me to delay signing off on this year's Tour de France. So let's get it done now.
My team, Bretagne-Séché-Environnement, finished in 18th place out of 22 teams. Team leader, Brice Feillu finished in 16th place out of 164. The whole team finished the race on the Elysian Fields, pretty good considering that most had never taken part in the Tour before, had never, most of them, ridden for longer than a week before.
Let's see if they are invited to any more "grands tours".

The overall winner was Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, but who cares about that? Not me.

.

I've been too busy lately to post here. The genocidal onslaught on Gaza has preoccupied me and I've been posting elsewhere. I'll try to get back soon (if anybody gives a monkey's).
Meantime, a poem by Michael Rosen. It's in response to the Israeli government's banning of the naming of murdered children on the radio.


Don't mention the children.
Don't name the dead children.
The people must not know the names
of the dead children.
The names of the children must be hidden.
The children must be nameless.
The children must leave this world...
having no names.
No one must know the names of
the dead children.
No one must say the names of the
dead children.
No one must even think that the children
have names.
People must understand that it would be dangerous
to know the names of the children.
The people must be protected from
knowing the names of the children.
The names of the children could spread
like wildfire.
The people would not be safe if they knew
the names of the children.
Don’t name the dead children.
Don’t remember the dead children.
Don’t think of the dead children.
Don’t say: ‘dead children’.

"This was the sole Gaza content on the BBC home page this morning."

Today is a rest day in the Tour, une journée de repos. Time for an update on the progress of Brice Feillu and the Bretagne-S-E team. We left Brice in 23rd place after stage 10. We take up the story at -

Stage 11, 24th and 11 minutes 32 seconds in arrears
Stage 12, no change
Stage 13, 21st, 11'32"
Stage 14, 19th, 21'00"
Stage 15, no change

Brice's brother and team mate, Romain, finished in the first ten yesterday, but he's well down the classification (the fate of the domestique), and the effort will make little difference. B-S-E still has a full complement of nine riders and stands at 18th out of 22, in the team classification. The other wild card team, Netapp-Endura, is doing a little better in 15th place.
It looks like Vincenzo Nibali of Astana is destined for first place on the podium in the Champs Élysées, barring accidents (Kein Ain-hora).

Brave warriors of Zion

Post by ‎Shasha.ps | شاشة نيوز‎.

"We should all be with the people of Gaza tonight now that the Israeli brutal operation began. I think we all can support the Hamas terms for a ceasefire and not fall to the western narrative that Israel accepted the ceasefire and the Hamas did not. This is 1947 all over again, Israel 'accepting' the partition resolution and the Palestinians rejecting it and 2000 again Israel makes a generous offer and the PLO rejects it.
"The Egyptian-Israeli ceasefire offer is to continue the siege, the starvation, strangulation and the ghettoization of Gaza. No decent person should accept such a dictate for being incarcerated when the only offence he or she committed is being a Palestinian in Gaza.
"We were trying this evening all over Israel to stage demonstrations and what we received was a bloodthirsty response from a society that thrives on militarism, fanatic nationalism and racism. The time will come when deeper work from within will bear fruits, but now we need, as never before, a strong BDS campaign and a insistent demand from our politicians and media to show a modicum of decency after more of a century in which they ignored the Palestinian suffering and provided Zionism and Israel immunity for their policies against the native people of Palestine."

Ilan Pappé

"I'm a warrior of Zion, you terrorists don't scare me. Oo-er! Don't come any nearer."

On the Tour de France, which I've neglected to mention to date -
The Yorkshire stages, one and two, were a resounding success. "Le Tour de Yorkshire", UK journalists named it, but the French organisers stuck to "Le Tour en Yorkshire". Everyone was surprised that the people of Yorkshire could organise anything, particularly the London based media.

I usually choose a competitor who I think will win. I think my success rate is about 20%. This time I didn't bother. Most of the pundits were placing their faith in Froome or Contador, but neither has survived, both crashing out. Now they're tipping Vincenzo Nibali, the current Yellow Jersey.
I decided to pick an underdog team and follow its progress. My choice was Bretagne-Séché-Environnement. They are what is known as a "wild card", a less successful outfit given a chance for a little publicity. The leader is Brice Feillu who won a tour stage back in 2009. Most of the rest have never ridden in "The Big Lap". The sponsors are the Breton regional government and a recycling firm. Four of the team members are Bretons.

This is Brice Feillu's form so far -
Stage 1: 53rd (of 192) clocking the same time as the stage winner
Stage 2: 52nd (progress!) 1 minute 19 seconds in arrears
Stage 3: 41st same time gap
Stage 4: 41st 1'19"
Stage 5: 42nd 9'10"
Stage 6: 39th 9'10"
Stage 7: 38th 9'10"
Stage 8: 27th 10'23"
Stage 9: 22nd 6'43"
Stage 10: 23rd 9'56" (tough stage)

Rest day tomorrow.

What a lucky little girl! After all, so many of her contemporaries are being blown to pieces. She has only been shot in the face.

Was it yesterday or the day before? I heard Norman Smith, the BBC's "chief political correspondent" refer to the union UNITE as "Labour's paymaster". I wonder if he will ever refer to the multi-passported Lord Ashcroft as the Conservative's paymaster?
That's Lord Ashcroft who WASN'T involved in drug smuggling or money laundering.

And a fragment of a song
(A. and M. Bergman)
Some bits of lyrics stick with you even if you don't know the whole song.

The large print giveth
And the small print taketh away
(Tom Waits)

The radio's playing Charlie Rich
He sure can sing, that sonofabitch
(same fellow)

I can't cut loose
Till I've had my juice
(Jon Hendricks)

Some would rob you with a six-gun
And some with a fountain pen
(Woody Guthrie)

If ever I get my liberty
Rough company I will shun
Likewise the walking of the streets
And the drinking of strong rum
(Traditional)

That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I would one day rue
(Patrick Kavanagh)

The sun and the moon from me you've taken
And God Himself if I'm not mistaken
(Traditional, translated Lady Gregory?)

And we left that bastard's bones to bleach
On the trail of the buffalo
(Traditional)

There's not a woman in our town
Will look at the blackleg miner
(Traditional)

My son was no informer boys
He died a Fenian blade
(Traditional)

I was hoping you'd join me
'Cos I ain't got no money
(Ani DiFranco)

So you don't like your job
Nobody likes their job
(same lady)

Women got my number
But they don't call 'cos they don't care
(Waylon Jennings)

Once I found out which Church of England parish I lived in I could look up the figures. Poverty in England, parish by parish. It seems we are not doing well in the Parish of All Saints. Some results -
We stand at no. 12,635 out of 12,775 parishes no.1 being the least deprived. So there are 140 that are worse off than us.
Percentage of children living in poverty - 42
Percentage of pensioners living in poverty - 37
Percentage of working age residents living in poverty - 27
Percentage of people living in social housing - 36
Percentage of families with one parent - 35
Percentage of residents aged over 65 years - 11

This last would probably be higher if life expectancy were not below the mean:
Male - 69 years
Female - 75 years
plus a large immigrant presence, on the whole younger than the host population:
Percentage of non-white and non-British residents - 32

All is revealed here.

Posted by Clancy Sigal on his facebook, yesterday 21st June.


GUNS AND LOVE


Today is the 50th anniversary of “Freedom Summer” and the murder by Mississippi Kluxers of three young civil rights volunteers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and “Mickey” Schwerner. The triple killing was world news mainly because Goodman and Schwerner were white Jewish New Yorkers. If it had been only the African American Chaney, nobody outside the “beloved community” of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee would have cared. The deep south’s culture of violence against blacks was a given.

What’s not so given, even today, is the black community’s long tradition of armed resistance. I’m riffing off Charles Cobb’s new book “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible”. Cobb, a Brown university professor, is a former SNCC field worker, a bland way of saying he was under constant fire. I’m also dipping into my own experience in the Freedom Summer south…but also north.

Ever since slaves were imported to Jamestown in 1619, armed self defense was an authentic part of the African American experience. I don’t just mean well-known rebellions like Nat Turner’s, but ordinary day to day. Almost every household I ever visited in the south had a hidden shotgun or pistol under the bed. This contradicted MLK’s dominant peace-and-love message, his honestly-held outreach to whites, many of whom (like me) flocked to his Gandhian banner. Less publicly known is that wherever “Martin” traveled he was bodyguarded by men with guns. Indeed, his own Atlanta home was a discreet arsenal of weapons.

Even less public was the role of armed black women who for decades had to endure sexual and physical assaults by white southern cops and other thugs who, given immunity from prosecution, felt they could rape at will. Attending church services in Tuscaloosa, Selma or Montgomery, I was no longer surprised sitting next to a respectable black woman who opened her purse to fan herself revealing a modest little .22. Cobb cites the well-known story of Mama Dolly Raines in southwest Georgia (where I stayed with SNCC) sitting by her window with her shotgun to protect the Rev. Charles Sherrod, a passionate believer in nonviolence, who was staying with her.

In Albany, Georgia, where I was longest, love and commitment were the hallmarks of community organizing. The locals we were embedded in took us in like their own children. We were family. They would do anything to protect us from the constant threat of beatings and death. Or as Mama Dolly, a midwife, told Sherrod, “Baby, I brought a lot of these white folks into this world, and I’ll take ‘em out of this world if I have to.”

It’s sometimes hard for civilized nawthenuhs to remember how American-cherrypie violence was in the south. In Chattanooga, where I first went to school, streetcar conductors wore holstered pistols; city bus drivers all over the segregated south “packed”. You shot a “nigger” who gave you lip without second thoughts or fear of arrest. If you’re the local sheriff in rural Georgia and fancied a black man’s woman you erased him from the picture by beating him up and jailing him for assault.

Passive resistance began to change when WW2 veterans, trained in weapons, came home. Suddenly bad whites were confronted by armed ex-soldiers in the Deacons for Defense or ex-Marine Robert Williams’ Black Armed Guard (with an NRA charter yet!) in Monroe, North Carolina, to defend against racist attacks. Historically, there had always been the odd, defiant black man with a shotgun standing on his porch confronting KKK cross burners. Now, here and there, wherever Rev. King went, or was afraid to go, was collective resistance. In Birmingham when one of King’s bodyguards was asked how he protected his man, he replied, “With a nonviolent .38 police special.”

Up nawth the black mind set wasn’t all that different but with an entirely different circumstance. When I held a seminar on Black Nationalism at Monteith College for half a dozen young street blacks each one of them proudly showed me his shiv or cheap pistol. My sweet tempered Detroit host, Jim Boggs, the African American auto worker and Marxist activist, walked me to the corner bus stop on my last day but not before reaching behind his prized bust of Lenin on the mantelpiece and withdrawing his own .38 to escort me a city block. In my old Chicago neighborhood my host, a postal worker, waved me up to his apartment by pointing a shotgun out of the window to signal to the gang kids downstairs, including his own son, he meant business.

The 10th District cops I rode with, both African American, were armed: each hid a .45 under his clipboard, wore a hip holstered .38 and an ankle .25 caliber as backup to the backup plus two Mosberg 500 riot shotguns in the rack. “And you know what,” said my police driver, “we’re still outgunned.” His theory was that much of Chicago’s black-on-black violence was a form of culture shock. “These southern boys come up north with their mamas looking for work. Down in Alabama and Mississippi they had to toe the line or get lynched. Yassuh noesuh shonuff suh. All that peckerwood crap. Take that train up to Chicago and the chains drop off. They ain’t no more oppressed. Run wild. Cuss, shoot dope, murder each other or white folks. They wouldn’t dare do that in Yazoo County.”

So in honoring Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman, martyrs to a beloved community of non violent resistance, I can’t help thinking how it might have turned out differently if on that lonely Mississippi road in 1964, they’d been tailed not by murderous morons but by the Deacons for Defense.

Has anyone the stomach for this?

Some time ago, I saw the above picture in a newspaper. I cut it out and eventually stowed it away, I thought in some atlas or other large tome.
Later, when I looked for it I couldn't find it anywhere, so I tried looking online for a copy. It was by R.B.Kitaj, an artist I like, and was called "The Antiquary", or so I thought. Nothing turned up, though I waded through a large section of Kitaj's work. It was a lost masterpiece.

Then recently I was searching for something else and turned up my picture among a pile of stationery. On the back was the name, "The Orientalist". No wonder I couldn't find it online. Armed with the correct title I tried again. Success

Just wondering -
Has anyone ever seen a bareheaded Rory McIlroy? Does he sleep in that twat-hat? Is it stapled on to his head (or "this advertising space for hire" as it should be known)?
When he dies will it have to be surgically removed? Or is there a clause in his contract that requires him to go to his grave looking gormless?

THE THATCHER LEGACY

"The findings, based on an analysis of the World Health Organisation’s World Mortality Database, and published in The Lancet medical journal, add to recent evidence that the UK’s child mortality rate is the second-worst in western Europe.
"Both studies identified higher levels of child poverty and economic inequality in the UK as key factors behind its declining performance.
"The new study, carried out by experts at University College London, also highlighted that problems in the UK’s healthcare system may be a factor – a reference to longstanding concerns that the NHS performs poorly in terms of caring for patients with long-term health conditions."

(Charlie Cooper, The Independent, 12.6.14)

http://thinkingoutquiet.wordpress.com

Tom Brown on the Luddites.

"If you're going to take me you'll need reinforcements."

Our six-year-old grandson stayed over last night while his parents were involved in hospital visiting. I was subjected to a short course in superhero identification. This also involved the naming of their enemies, known to my grandson as "the bad guys". It seems that the USA has an endless supply of superheroes and supervillains (if the latter can be so called).
I tried to memorise as many names as possible, but they came thick and fast. One thing I picked up on; anyone bearing the title "Doctor" is a villain. I remember Dr. Octopus and Dr. Doom.
So let's see how many I can remember -
Spiderman, Iron Man, The Hulk, Robot Hulk, Captain America, Wolverine, Green Lantern (the good guys).
The aforementioned doctors, Sandman, Abomination, Bane, Mister Mysterio, the Question (the bad guys).
Electro, Magneto, Strongman (I can't remember which group these should be assigned to).
Battledroids; these may not belong here, but grandson informed me that they are useless, because they run away or fall down.
Additional useful information: Mister Mysterio (Misterio?) has a round head with no eyes, nose or mouth; the Question has an oval head with just a nose.

It seems that there are toy versions of all these creatures, and electronic games involving them. So dig deep, parents of boys.

Note: my grandson uses the word "guys". English language courtesy of Hollywood.

Addendum: Ghost Rider. Sounds like a baddie, but I'm not sure. Either wears a skeleton suit or is a skeleton, memory failure again. Head is on fire, Arthur Brown style.

Yesterday I read of the death of a US author named Henry Bernstein who was first published at the age of 93. I was going to comment that I might get published yet, but I've no intention of writing anything, so why pretend.
It's a little like my missus talking of what she would do with a big lottery win in spite of not participating in "the tax on stupidity" (Adam Smith?).
Thinking about the whole business of authorship and publication brought to mind an occasion when I was called on to be a literary midwife (so to speak).

A mate of mine of a criminal bent, in and out of prison for various acts of dishonesty, turned up at my gaff one day with a sheaf of grubby notepaper and a biro. "Me and you's gonna write a play" he declared.
"What are you on about?" was my first question.
Well, I've just seen in the paper about this jam duff who got murdered by his boyfriend. He'd written a play, and it said it was making so much money he wouldn't have to do a stroke for the rest of his life."
He was referring to the recent murder of the playwright Joe Orton, murdered by his lover who then committed suicide. "Jam duff" was my mate's term for a homosexual, rhyming slang that only works for Northerners.
"What are you going to write about?" I asked.
"Oh, I've got plenty of ideas. I just need you to do the spelling and put in the full stops and stuff like that."
He outlined one story, a revenge yarn, a sort of "Count of Monte Cristo" in a modern setting. He jawed on for what seemed like hours without writing a single word. Then, thinking of something else he had to do, he gathered up his writing materials and left.
I didn't see him again for a few months. When I ran into him I asked him how the play was going. The desire for literary fame and fortune had not lasted. Nothing had made it to paper. Another moneymaking scheme had been conceived, far less honest than play writing. Was I interested in joining him in its operation. I was not.

Another time I met him in a pub with his wife. He'd just come out of prison. "Show him that poem I wrote to you while I was in there" he said to the missus. She pulled out a letter and handed it to me. The poem began as expected.
I love you X I really do.
You know I always will be true.
That kind of thing for about six lines, then it turned very literary, obviously written by a real poet.
"Get out of it", I said, "you didn't write that." His wife couldn't hear, of course.
"I copied it out of a book in the prison library" he admitted. "Good though, innit."

The three young Germans in the photograph were executed by the Nazis in 1943 for their resistance activities, mainly distributing anti-Nazi literature. The reason I post it is that I was exercised by something I'd seen on BBC Channel 4 on Saturday.
For three successive Saturday evenings the BBC has shown a German mini-series, "Generation War: Our Mothers, Our Fathers". It was pretty harrowing stuff, but the so is war, so is enemy occupation.
The story was about five young friends, c.20 years old. Two of them are soldiers about to depart for the Eastern Front. The third male is Jewish, and is planning to leave for France. One of the two females, in love with one of the soldiers, has become a military nurse, the other is a singer, and the lover of the Jewish lad, Viktor. Initially all but Viktor are loyal Germans, accepting Nazi rule without any fanaticism. They accept too the necessity of war while regretting the separation it brings.
Gradually, as the story progresses, disillusion sets in along with the realisation that defeat is inevitable. The struggle to survive becomes the main motivation.

Immediately after the final episode a discussion of the series took place, in true BBC fashion. There was a line to be followed. The main theme of the party line was that it was impossible for Germans of that age to feel as they did, to have second thoughts about the regime and the war. All would have been educated under the Nazis and been enlisted in the Hitler Youth.
The story of the White Rose resistance group gives the lie to the BBC line. That is why I feature it here.
A second gripe from the assembled revisionists; the portrayal of Polish partisans as anti-Semitic. Not so, they claimed. Well there were Jewish partisan groups, and there were Communist partisans who would have suppressed any open anti-Semitism in their ranks. But there were anti-Communist, anti-Semitic partisan groups who regarded Jews and Communists as being out of the same belly. Anti-semitism was prevalent in Poland, as elsewhere in Eastern Europe.To deny this is dishonest, but deny they did.
One member of the panel was Eva Hoffmann, a historian whose work I've enjoyed. She did suggest that anti-Semitism existed in Poland, but didn't make much of it. Perhaps she felt that a little soft pedalling was in order.
Now I have to admit that, being sickened by the falsity of the discussion, I gave up on it after the anti-Semitism, or NO anti-Semitism, discussion.
I had expected a further gripe.
In the final episode Viktor returns to Berlin and begins the search for Greta, his lover. In the course of his enquiries he visits an office run by the occupying Americans. There he comes face to face with the SS officer who had sent him to the death camp (he escaped en route). This man was now working for the Americans. Viktor informed the US officer in charge of the SS man's identity, and was ignored.
The employment of Nazis as administrators by the occupying forces is well known. One reason was that most of those opposed to the former regime were mainly Communists and not trusted by the allies.
I'm sure that this allusion to the reinstatement of the recent enemy would not have been allowed to stand by the historical revisionists. Some things, well known to historians, are not for widespread dissemination. The makers of the film would, I'm sure, have been criticised for that scene, historically accurate as it was.

The following is about the White Rose group.
Today in Mighty Girl history, one of Germany’s most famous anti-Nazi heroes, Sophie Scholl, was born in 1921. As a university student in Munich, Scholl, along with her brother, Hans, and several friends, formed a non-violent, anti-Nazi resistance group called the White Rose. The group ran a leaflet and graffiti campaign calling on their fellow Germans to resist Hilter's regime.
Scholl became involved in resistance organizing after learning of the mass killings of Jews and reading an anti-Nazi sermon by Clemens August Graf von Galen, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Münster. She was deeply moved by the "theology of conscience" and declared, "Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did."
In 1943, Scholl and the other members of the White Rose were arrested by the Gestapo for distributing leaflets at the University of Munich and taken to Stadelheim Prison. After a short trial on February 22, 1943, Scholl, her brother Hans and their friend Christop Probst, all pictured here, were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death.
At her execution only a few hours later, Scholl made this final statement: "How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"
Following the deaths of the White Rose's leaders, their final leaflet was smuggled to England. In mid-1943, Allied Forces dropped millions of copies of the "Manifesto of the Students of Munich" over Germany. Scholl is now honored as one of the great German heroes who actively opposed the Nazi regime.
For two books for adult readers about Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, check out "Sophie Scholl and the White Rose" (http://amzn.to/1pEAtXb) and "The White Rose: Munich, 1942-1943" (http://amzn.to/1jnUEZu).
For an excellent film about Scholl's incredible story, we highly recommend "Sophie Scholl – The Final Days" which received an Oscar nomination for the Best Foreign Language Film in 2005. The film, recommended for viewers 13 and up, is an excellent way to introduce teens to the bravery and perseverance of those who resisted the Nazi regime -- learn more at http://www.amightygirl.com/sophie-scholl-the-final-days
For books for both children and teens about girls and women who lived during the Holocaust period, including stories of other heroic resisters and rescuers, check out our post for Holocaust Remembrance Week at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog/?p=2726
For our recommendations of the best books and films about another real-life Mighty Girl who lived during this period, visit our tribute to Anne Frank: "Hope in a Hidden Room: A Mighty Girl Salutes Anne Frank" at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=2815
To browse our entire "WWII/Holocaust", visit http://www.amightygirl.com/books/history-biography/history-world?cat=186
For more true stories of heroic girls and women, visit A Mighty Girl's "Heroes" section in biographies at http://www.amightygirl.com/books/history-biography/biography?cat=367
(https://www.facebook.com/amightygirl)

The Moving Target.

Jeremy Paxman leaving the BBC - Director General Tony Hall called him "a rare and dazzling talent". Imagine how pathetic the rest of the BBC crew are. "Rare" probably means he's not a paid up member of the Conservative Party (though one can never be sure).

Consider the fact that as of 2011 (the point at which they stopped counting) the actual figure of those lost due to the actions of the Tories stood at 10,600 people dead, so that figure is going to be a great deal higher now. Therefore, this list is not an exhaustive one as it shows only those names that have been reported upon via the press and media.

It will be added to as new victims come to light.

Thanks to Paul Smith for most of these names...

Terry McGarvey, 48. Dangerously ill from polycytheamia, Terry asked for an ambulance to be called during his Work Capability Assessment. He knew that he wasn't well enough to attend his WCA but feared that his benefits would be stopped if he did not. He died the following day.

Elaine Lowe, 53. Suffering from COPD and fearful of losing her benefits. Committed suicide.

Mark Wood, 44. Found fit for work by Atos, against his Doctors advice and assertions that he had complex mental health problems. Starved to death after benefits stopped, weighing only 5st 8lb when he died.

Paul Reekie, 48, the Leith based Poet and Author. Suffered from severe depression. Committed suicide after DWP stopped his benefits due to an 'Atos fit for work' decision.

Leanne Chambers, 30. Suffered depression for many years which took a turn for the worst when she was called in for a WCA. Leanne committed suicide soon after.

Karen Sherlock. Multiple health issues. Found fit for work by Atos and denied benefits. Fought a long battle to get placed into the support group of ESA. Died the following month of a heart attack.

Carl Payne, 42. Fears of losing his lifeline benefits due to welfare reform led this Father of two to take his own life.

Tim Salter, 53. Blind and suffering from Agoraphobia. Tim hanged himself after Atos found him fit for work and stopped his benefits.

Edward Jacques, 47 years old and suffering from HIV and Hepatitis C. Edward had a history of severe depression and self-harm. He took a fatal overdose after Atos found him fit for work and stopped his benefits.

Linda Wootton, 49 years old died just nine days after the government found her fit for work.

Steven Cawthra, 55. His benefits stopped by the DWP and with rising debts, he chose suicide as the only way out.

Elenore Tatton, 39 years old. Died just weeks after the government found her fit for work.

John Walker, 57, saddled with debt because of the bedroom tax. He took his own life.

Brian McArdle, 57 years old. Suffered a fatal heart attack the day after his disability benefits were stopped.

Stephen Hill, 53. Died of a heart attack one month after being found fit for work even though he was waiting for major heart surgery.

Jacqueline Harris, 53. A former Nurse who could hardly walk was found fit for work by Atos and her benefits withdrawn. She took her own life.

David Barr, 28. Suffering from severe mental difficulties. Threw himself from a bridge after being found fit for work by Atos and failing his appeal.

David Groves, 56. Died of a heart attack the night before taking his work capability assessment. His widow said it was the stress that killed him.

Nicholas Peter Barker, 51. Shot himself after being told his benefits were being stopped. He was unable to work after a brain haemorrhage left him paralysed down one side.

Mark and Helen Mullins, 48 and 59 years old. Forced to live on £57.50 a week and make 12 mile trips each week to get free vegetables to make soup. They both committed suicide.

Richard Sanderson, 44. Unable to find a job and with his housing benefit cut forcing him to move, but with nowhere to go. He committed suicide.

Martin Rust, 36 years old. A schizophrenic man who killed himself two months after the government found him fit to work.

Craig Monk, 43. A vulnerable gentleman and a partial amputee slipped so far into poverty that he hanged himself.

Colin Traynor, 29, who suffered from epilepsy, stripped of his benefits. He appealed. Five weeks after his death his family found he had won his appeal.

Elaine Christian, 57 years old. Worried about her work capability assessment, she was found at Holderness drain, drowned and with ten self inflicted wrist wounds.

Christelle and Kayjah Pardoe, 32 years and 5 month old. Pregnant, her benefits stopped, Christelle, clutching her baby son jumped from a third floor balcony.

Mark Scott, 46. His DLA and housing benefit had been stopped. Sinking into deep depression, he died six weeks later.

Cecilia Burns, 51. Found fit for work while undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She died just a few weeks after she won her appeal.

Chris Cann, 57 years old. Found dead in his home just months after being told he had to undergo a medical assessment to prove he could not work.

Peter Hodgson, 49. Called to JCP to see if he was suitable for volunteer work. He had suffered a stroke, a brain haemorrhage and had a fused leg. His appointment letter arrived a few days after he took his own life.

Paul Willcoxsin, 33 years old. Suffered with mental health problems and worried about government cuts. Committed suicide by hanging himself.

Stephanie Bottrill, 53. After paying £80 a month for bedroom tax, Stephanie could not afford heating in the winter, and lived on tinned custard. She chose to walk in front of a lorry.

Larry Newman suffered from a degenerative lung condition. His weight had dropped from 10 to 7 stone. Atos awarded him zero points, he died just three months after submitting his appeal.

Paul Turner, 52 years old. After suffering a heart attack, he was ordered to find a job in February. In April he died from ischaemic heart disease.

Christopher Charles Harkness, 39. After finding out that the funding for his care home was being withdrawn, this man who suffered with mental health issues, took his own life.

Sandra Louise Moon, 57. Suffering from a degenerative back condition and depression worried about losing her incapacity benefit. Sandra committed suicide by taking an overdose.

Lee Robinson, 39 years old. Took his own life after his housing benefit and council tax were taken away.

David Coupe, 57. Cancer sufferer found fit for work by Atos in 2012. Lost his sight, then his hearing, then his mobility, and then his life.

Michael McNicholas, 34. Severely depressed and a recovering alcoholic. Michael committed suicide after being called in for a WCA by Atos.

Victor Cuff, 59. Suffering from severe depression. Hanged himself after the DWP stopped his benefits.

Charles Barden, 74. Committed suicide by hanging due to fears that the Bedroom Tax would leave him unable to cope.

Ian Caress, 43. Suffered multiple health issues and deteriorating eyesight. Found fit for work by Atos, died ten months later having lost so much weight that his family said he resembled a concentration camp victim.

Ian hodge, 30. Suffered from the life threatening illness, Hughes Syndrome. Found fit for work by Atos and benefits stopped, he took his own life.

A new saint, John Paul, patron saint of CIA assets. Pinochet must wait a little longer for canonisation.

6-year-old child detained on his way to school

I've lived in Hull for about 65 of my 75 years and I've never seen chip spice, never heard anyone mention chip spice. In fact I wouldn't know of the existence of something called chip spice if I hadn't seen it mentioned on the internet. I still don't know what it is.

It's the BBC again, now more pro-Israel than the US government and the US media -

Kerry’s frustrated remarks about Israel were not reported at all in that article, or elsewhere by the BBC online. Careful not to alert its audience to the US Secretary of State’s allegations against Israel, or to carry a narrative that even so much as hinted at them, the BBC said only: “He blamed both sides for taking ‘unhelpful’ steps.” The rest was ignored.

Amena Saleem

Surrender, Avi, you've been headscarfed.