The Polish Question

I think it was one of the Polish Contingent's (tm) birthday today.

The house changed imperceptibly from crowded to overcrowded. And many stood on the landing conversing loudly in Polish in squeaky high pitched excitement. It was very difficult to watch M*A*S*H on Paramount.

At some point, they decanted out into the back garden to continue their squeakey excitement, and despite being two floors below and round the side of the house, they still managed a noise louder than my TV.

So, in the spirit of petty vengeance, I cranked up the hifi and treated them in turn to VERY LOUD doses of Tom Petty, Nordman and, to finish them off, Uriah Heep.

It's gone quiet now; a stillness has descended on the house.

I am win.

The Polish Question

I think it was one of the Polish Contingent's (tm) birthday today.

The house changed imperceptibly from crowded to overcrowded. And many stood on the landing conversing loudly in Polish in squeaky high pitched excitement. It was very difficult to watch M*A*S*H on Paramount.

At some point, they decanted out into the back garden to continue their squeakey excitement, and despite being two floors below and round the side of the house, they still managed a noise louder than my TV.

So, in the spirit of petty vengeance, I cranked up the hifi and treated them in turn to VERY LOUD doses of Tom Petty, Nordman and, to finish them off, Uriah Heep.

It's gone quiet now; a stillness has descended on the house.

I am win.

(no subject)

The names of spammers are getting more exotic and esoteric.

Fbarnard Ebarnardiana has just invited me to add another 3" to my willy.

If I took advantage of all these offers - and assuming they worked - I'd be able to earn a decent living performing lasso tricks on stage...

(no subject)

The names of spammers are getting more exotic and esoteric.

Fbarnard Ebarnardiana has just invited me to add another 3" to my willy.

If I took advantage of all these offers - and assuming they worked - I'd be able to earn a decent living performing lasso tricks on stage...

(no subject)

Having faffed about for a half hour or so and made myself a coffee - black; I keep forgetting to buy milk, I thought it time to sit down and rattle something off.

I spent the hour between 9 and 10 watching the First World War in Colour on Channel 5. The first in a new series chronicling the history of the war using original footage that has been 'painstakingly' colourised using the 'latest techniques'.

To my mind the process doesn't always work as well as the hyperbole would suggest. Nonetheless, colourisation has brought an rare immediacy to these ancient celluloid images which, incidentally must have been run through a computer to regulate their speed as they seemed less jerky than I remember. Or maybe I was beguiled by the colour.

There is something about the First World War that is inherently more pathetic than other wars, and I use the word pathetic in its strictest sense.

For all that we are bombarded by news pictures of war in Iraq and, indeed the world over; for all that in TV history shows, library and bookshop shelves and Hollywood output, the Second World War might as well be more recently immediate than close on sixty years, that conflict for all its horror seems somehow to impact less on the senses. Perhaps it is over exposure.

But the First World War, the Great War, the War to End All Wars is different. It is the war no-one likes to talk about. And yet there is not a village in the UK where the names of the local dead are not recorded. Names of sons, brothers, fathers and friends. It was the conflict that killed my grand parents' (and probably your great-grandparents') generation.

It is the war of the Lost Generation, the war of lost innocence. It is the war in which mass industrialisation met massed ranks of flesh and bone for the first time. And industry won.

It was the war in which Europe's confidence and self-assurance was shattered, and in which the Social Order which, developed since time immemorial, but increasingly and imperceptibly ossified, was dealt the first of a series of mortal body blows.

But now, 90-odd years on, watching recent interviews with the veterans, the last hurrah of a number of dignified, proud but infinitely sad Old Boys, who served in the war brings a lump to the throat in a way few things can. Not one of them was younger than 105, several have died since they were filmed. And you couldn't fill a village hall with those who survive.

My granddad would have been 108 this year.

(no subject)

Having faffed about for a half hour or so and made myself a coffee - black; I keep forgetting to buy milk, I thought it time to sit down and rattle something off.

I spent the hour between 9 and 10 watching the First World War in Colour on Channel 5. The first in a new series chronicling the history of the war using original footage that has been 'painstakingly' colourised using the 'latest techniques'.

To my mind the process doesn't always work as well as the hyperbole would suggest. Nonetheless, colourisation has brought an rare immediacy to these ancient celluloid images which, incidentally must have been run through a computer to regulate their speed as they seemed less jerky than I remember. Or maybe I was beguiled by the colour.

There is something about the First World War that is inherently more pathetic than other wars, and I use the word pathetic in its strictest sense.

For all that we are bombarded by news pictures of war in Iraq and, indeed the world over; for all that in TV history shows, library and bookshop shelves and Hollywood output, the Second World War might as well be more recently immediate than close on sixty years, that conflict for all its horror seems somehow to impact less on the senses. Perhaps it is over exposure.

But the First World War, the Great War, the War to End All Wars is different. It is the war no-one likes to talk about. And yet there is not a village in the UK where the names of the local dead are not recorded. Names of sons, brothers, fathers and friends. It was the conflict that killed my grand parents' (and probably your great-grandparents') generation.

It is the war of the Lost Generation, the war of lost innocence. It is the war in which mass industrialisation met massed ranks of flesh and bone for the first time. And industry won.

It was the war in which Europe's confidence and self-assurance was shattered, and in which the Social Order which, developed since time immemorial, but increasingly and imperceptibly ossified, was dealt the first of a series of mortal body blows.

But now, 90-odd years on, watching recent interviews with the veterans, the last hurrah of a number of dignified, proud but infinitely sad Old Boys, who served in the war brings a lump to the throat in a way few things can. Not one of them was younger than 105, several have died since they were filmed. And you couldn't fill a village hall with those who survive.

My granddad would have been 108 this year.