Paralipomena (2)

Ireland's shame: "The List"

2012-01-27T19:09:00.002+11:30

The hate-filled Eamon de Valera persecuted returned Irish soldiers for daring to help Britain fight Hitler

The young airman was desperate to be back with his family and friends at the end of the war. He had done his bit to see off Hitler and make the world a safer place. His one wish now was to be home with ‘my people’. But, instead of a hero’s welcome, what Irishman Martin Walsh feared was being arrested and locked up.

‘Sir,’ he wrote plaintively from England to the authorities in Dublin in 1946, ‘I wish to return as a free Irish citizen once more, without detention or punishment. I would like to have my freedom in Eire and not be caged up like a bird when I go home.’

He sought a written pass ‘to protect me from the military and the police’. His ‘crime’? Leaving Ireland and crossing the water to join the British forces in the struggle against Nazi Germany. It left him in a cruel limbo that, 65 years later, is still scandalously unresolved.

Walsh and thousands of adventurous youngsters were technically deserters. They had enlisted in the Irish Defence Force but with no enemy to fight because of their country’s decision to stay neutral in World War II, they had chosen to slip away to Britain, join up and fight.

After donning British uniforms, some risked their lives on battlefields from Dunkirk to El Alamein and D-Day to Arnhem. Others faced death daily on bomber missions over Germany or suffered the unspeakable hell of Japanese prison camps.

Some — such as Corporal Edward Browne, who was awarded the Military Medal for storming a German machine gun position in Normandy, Bren gun blazing from his hip — paid for their bravery with their lives and would never see Ireland again. Those who survived had every reason to be proud of their contribution to the liberation of Europe from the Nazi menace. But in their homeland they were now outcasts.

At first, Walsh, who had been in the RAF, was given the reassurance he wanted. He was told in a letter he would not be arrested as he got off the ferry. But what the letter failed to mention was that his name was on a secret blacklist, which had been personally authorised by the prime minister, Eamon de Valera.

He would be banned from a job in any civil service department, town hall or state-run service such as the post office, the health service, bus, rail and shipping companies. There would be no pension or benefits. In Ireland, he was effectively a non-person.

History does not record what happened to Martin Walsh, but there is no reason to think his fate differed from any of the 5,000 other men on the now infamous List.

Pat Reid, who had fought the Japanese in India and Burma, failed to find a steady job for 15 years after his return. His family grew up in abject poverty, depending on handouts and soup kitchens to survive.

Denied access to better-paid jobs, men such as Reid were forced into the back-breaking life of itinerant farm labourers, finding what little work they could for virtually slave wages.

The shocking plight of Ireland’s post-war dispossessed — victims of a vengeful anti-British administration — has recently come to light and a campaign is underway for those few still alive to be pardoned. Indeed, signs indicate that the Irish government is indeed soon to redress what many now see as a stain on the nation’s history.

The Irish government of the day had ‘utterly lost its moral compass,’ said Alan Shatter, Ireland’s Justice Minister, in a landmark speech this week that criticised the ‘shameful’ treatment meted out to Irish soldiers. ‘We should no longer be in denial that, in the context of the Holocaust, Irish neutrality was a principle of moral bankruptcy.’

It happened because of the de Valera government’s decision in 1939 to stay out of the war. Ireland, its army so under-resourced they barely had a serviceable rifle between them, had little to contribute militarily. The judgment made in Dublin was that to side with the British would jeopardise the country’s fragile sense of independence so soon after its constitutional split from the UK in 1920.

But that left its thousands of newly enlisted soldiers — who had joined up when it seemed their country might have to fight an invader, whether the Germans, or the British taking over Ireland in order to forestall the Germans — kicking their heels. Instead of fighting for their country’s honour, they were dispatched to cut peat, knee-deep in bogs.

Con Murphy was among those ‘browned off’ by finding himself on work which, as a farm boy, he had joined the army to avoid. ‘It wasn’t soldiering at all,’ he said.

He secretly applied to the RAF, then took a train from Dublin to the North. There were 20 men in his carriage, all ‘deserting’ to join the British forces. They went for a variety of reasons. Some were unashamedly looking for adventure. There was a war and they wanted to be in the action.

Others thought strategically. Dublin University student Derek Overend’s view was: ‘It was best to stop the Jerries getting England first before they could get to us in Ireland.’

Others — probably the majority — felt they could not stand aside from the crusade against fascism. It was wrong to hide behind neutrality when the rest of the world was having to decide where it stood. ‘I wanted to get a crack at the Germans for what they were doing in Europe,’ was a commonly expressed reason.

Even firm republicans such as Thomas Walsh, who as a child had been a runner for the IRA, knew the threat to democracy from Hitler was greater than any danger posed by his old enemy. He swallowed hard, put aside his historic antipathy and joined the British Army.

After the war, they would all face accusations that it was the pay rather than principle that drew them — and this was clearly an attraction in a country beset by unemployment and poverty.

But while that charge might stick against the tens of thousands who travelled to Britain to work in munitions factories and on the land — and who were not stigmatised in any way afterwards — it was unfair on fighting men, who risked death for far less than was on offer for civilian work.

The 12s 6d (about 62p) a day that Richard Fellows got as air crew in an RAF bomber might have seemed a king’s ransom in Cork, but it was poor recompense for a 50 per cent chance of being killed.

Despite Dublin’s neutrality, Irish officialdom seemed in two minds about those who decided to go to Britain to fight. Soldier Phil Farrington slipped away to England and enlisted in the Royal Sussex Regiment but then made the mistake of using his first leave to go home to Dublin. He was arrested for desertion and spent months being starved and viciously beaten in a military jail.

But, in other cases, the authorities colluded with absconders. Michael Baggott was issued with a travel permit to go to Liverpool even though he stated on the form that the purpose of his journey was ‘to join the British Army’. He was advised to alter this to ‘business purposes’ and change the photograph from one of him in Irish army uniform to one in civvies. Then he was allowed to leave.

Ireland’s neutrality was never totally enforced and always veered towards the Allies, despite the undisguised pro-German leanings of some hard-line republicans and the generally anti-British sentiment of the bulk of the new nation’s population. There was more co-operation on the quiet than was officially acknowledged. British flyers who crash-landed in Eire, for example, were repatriated whereas German ones were interned.

Once the conflict was over and the danger passed, however, attitudes hardened again, as was shown by de Valera’s contemptible nose-thumbing gesture of publicly offering his condolences to the German government on Hitler’s death in 1945.

Suddenly the men who had fought for Britain became Dublin’s fall guys. In August 1945, an executive order named 4,983 of them and pronounced them guilty of desertion after a farcical court martial. They were officially dismissed from the Irish army, convicted en masse in their absence without being given a chance to defend themselves.

But the greater injustice was to come. Their names comprised the dreaded List. From that point on, their lives were blighted.

Opposition politicians tried to get this order overturned, arguing that its effect would be to condemn every man on it to ‘destitution and starvation’, along with his family. It was ‘brutal, unchristian and inhuman, stimulated by malice, seething with hatred and oozing with venom’ — a description that decades later seems perfectly apt.

But the order stayed, and the blacklist began to do its dirty work — all the nastier because the alleged ‘sins’ of the fathers were visited on their offspring. If a man could not work, his children starved.

‘We were hungry,’ said Paddy Reid’s son. ‘The kind where you felt your belly was stuck to your back. The attitude was one of no mercy for us. It was pure vindictiveness.’

Then again, if, fearing retribution, a man who fought with the British decided not to return to Ireland, he was deemed to have abandoned his children. The law then allowed them to be forced into state care and sent to special schools run by Catholic orders — now infamous for physical cruelty and sexual abuse.

In those brutal homes, their names were marked with the initials ‘SS’ – standing for the Gaelic words ‘saighdiuir Sasanach’ (British soldier), but with chilling Nazi undertones that seem to have gone unnoticed by the Irish authorities. They were subjected to even harsher treatment than the rest.

Even more astonishingly, because the list of deserters did not differentiate between the living and the dead, the orphans of men who had died in action in the war were also singled out and treated in this abominable way.

The wrongs perpetrated in those post-war years still trouble the now elderly men who were blacklisted and vilified. After enduring a jail term in Cork when he first deserted, on his release Phil Farrington fled once more to England and joined up again. He was in the final assault on Germany in 1945 and helped liberate the Belsen concentration camp.

Returning home, he knew to keep a low profile and never wore his campaign medals. He remembers that, because of prejudice against those who had fought with the British, he was warned not to visit certain areas, ‘or they’ll have you’.

Now in his 90s, he still has nightmares that the police will come for him and he will be put back in prison. His dread of the knock on the door has no basis in reality but it is the genuinely felt fear of a frail old man. ‘I see it in his eyes even today,’ says his grandson, Patrick. The pardon campaigners are seeking would put at least this old soldier’s mind at rest.

There are, though, apologists who argued at the time and still claim that men like Farrington deserved their punishment. They were deserters who reneged on their uniform, flouted the law and put Ireland’s neutrality in jeopardy.

The flaw in that argument is that, unlike most deserters in military situations, these men were choosing to run towards the guns rather than away from them, placing themselves in the front line rather than ducking out of danger. Moreover, retribution was exacted after the war, when neutrality was no longer a live issue.

The action taken against them had no practical purpose except to persecute those who had dared to defy de Valera and his intransigent anti-British stance. It was essentially spiteful and small-minded, an act of petty revenge.

As author Robert Widders, who highlighted the fate of the returning soldiers in his recent book, Spitting On A Soldier’s Grave, puts it: ‘The deserters from the Irish army who joined the Allied struggle faced the horrors of the bloodiest war in history. They have earned our respect and gratitude. They deserved better than the List.’

SOURCE

How to close your ex-files: Can’t get that old flame out of your mind? The solution could be easier than you think...

2011-12-27T22:31:00.003+11:30

By Andrea Blundell, who sounds a very foolish woman

When we were together, I used to joke that Paul was my handbag man, because the only time I’ve ever experienced glances of envy from other women was either when he was on my arm or when I borrowed a friend’s Hermes Birkin bag.

Rugged good looks aside, what really made him my Mr Perfect was that he was the only man who saw I wasn’t as strong as I pretended to be. But the more I opened up to him the more he played it cool until, three months in, I walked away in a fit of frustration.

When I backpedalled and tried to get him back he wouldn’t have any of it. End of story. Right? Not even close. Seven years later, single and now 38 years old, I am no closer to my dream of starting a family.

I not only still mourn what I had with Paul, I compare every man to him and look him up on the internet more than I want to admit — even when that means coming across pictures of him and his new girlfriend, who is a teeth-clenching ten years younger than me.

I know it’s completely illogical to be hung up on a man I dated for such a short time, especially as he probably never thinks of me in return. Trust me, I’ve done my very best to stop acting like a lovesick teenager:

I’ve read books about getting over previous loves, I’ve deleted all his emails and I’ve written long lists of things that are wrong with him to give myself a reality check. If you could have a brain operation to erase someone, I’d be first in line.

But it helps to know I’m far from the only middle-aged woman with an ex obsession. At a party recently, a shocking five out of six women — married or not — confessed they, too, had an ex whose memory they still clung to. Why would so many intelligent women do this? And what’s the price we are paying for not letting go?

Nina Grunfeld, founder of psychology workshops Life Clubs, says holding on to a memory can be a way to feel important. ‘It gives us drama in our lives — and we feel special when we have drama.’

I admit she has a point. I tend to think of Paul when I’m feeling bored and past my prime, and it allows me to feel sorry for myself. But it could be costing me dear, Nina warns: ‘When your past takes up a lot of your time, you can then lose out on the future you really want,’ she says.

I have a sickening realisation that holding on to Paul is partly why I’m nowhere near starting the family I dream of. Men I’ve dated since have seemed so disappointing in comparison that now I can’t even be bothered to look, despite the giant biological clock ticking over my head. However, I know it’s not healthy and that I have to get my ex out of my life, so I go to see psychotherapist Tara Springett, author of a book called The Five-Minute Miracle that claims to ‘lift you out of the anguish of psychological hang-ups and addictions within weeks’.

Tara suggests I come to her for three sessions, confident she can help me get over my obsession. Given that, at £45 a session, it’s a fair bit cheaper than other therapies I’ve considered, I give it a go. When I visit, the pale decor and water feature tinkling in the background of her East Sussex home do little to calm the sudden fit of nerves that cause me to babble about Paul at high speed.

Thankfully, Tara is a remarkably down-to-Earth sort who has an amazing knack for making you feel that talking about your problems is the most practical thing in the world. She soon has me relaxed, telling me to close my eyes and imagine I’m surrounded by a big bubble. It feels strange, but I tell myself it’s no different to using my imagination to think of the next home I’ll buy or what I’ll have for dinner, so why not use it to try to make myself feel better? I have to fill this bubble ‘with a loving feeling,’ she says.

For the life of me, I can’t muster any positive emotions at all. She suggests I just imagine someone I really care about looking at me and use the good feeling that creates. I blank on that, too. In the end I resort to picturing a friend’s dog I recently took care of — it’s a sad reflection of my affection-starved life.

Next, Tara asks me to visualise Paul in another ‘loving bubble’. And after all these years thinking I adore the guy, all I feel is utter fury. The best I can manage is a seriously unimpressive, tiny sphere containing what looks a plastic doll. The bubbles, which she has told me help establish boundaries, now make sense — I can’t reach out and crush his head, as I’m shocked to discover I want to. We discuss my anger and I can’t help the truth spilling out— Paul often stood me up, didn’t give me enough affection, and hid from me that he was on heavy antidepressants.

Having said it, I then protest he was still amazing and we could have overcome such things. ‘You would be the first woman to cure a man by love,’ she says, gently. I am given tasks to do at home for five minutes each day — I’m supposed to imagine myself in my happy bubble and ask myself if I really want to exchange those good feelings for a life with Paul and his problems. As she tells me this, a part of my mind is still stubbornly screaming: ‘Yes, I do. I’ll pack my bags and go to him right now!’

Another part of me cynically thinks this will only work because my rebellious side will be so annoyed at being told I must think about him regularly, I will no longer want to. At first, that’s true. Having to routinely think of him just drives home how much the habit has already robbed me of. But I keep up the exercise, remembering Tara’s advice that I’ll get out of it what I put into it. Gradually, as the days pass, things begin to change. A flood of memories comes to the surface — it’s as if the session with Tara has opened a Pandora’s box of truth.

And this includes recalling all the bad things I did to Paul — a side of our story I’ve never really acknowledged. I constantly criticised him, called him a rubbish lover to his face and eventually kissed one of his friends in a crazed attempt to get more attention from him. After this, I sit on my living room floor, bawling with shame. I feel an urge to tell Paul how sorry I am, but he hasn’t returned an email from me in years so it seems pointless.

Though Tara is pleased with my progress at our next session, I feel very anxious still, so she teaches me a breathing technique to lower stress. It’s so effective that I walk out feeling like I’ve taken a sedative. I don’t know if it’s the calming effect of the breathing exercises, but over the following week I start to find my ‘bubble time’ quite relaxing. We move on to the final step of the process — I’m to wish Paul happiness, then visualise his bubble slowly floating towards the horizon until it vanishes.

After a week of making Paul ‘disappear’ I weaken and look up a photo of him on the internet. I still think he is mind-bogglingly handsome, but the gut-wrenching, forlorn feeling I used to get has turned into an almost, dare I say it, warm feeling. I haven’t achieved Zen-like detachment — I’d still be thrilled if he read this article and begged to have me back. The difference is, I wouldn’t say yes, because I’ve realised I deserve something far more committed and honest than what we had.

You see, the very act of being kind to myself for a few minutes a day has not only stopped me thinking about my ex, it’s shown me how little I’d valued myself before. The price we women pay for not letting go of an ex is even higher than I thought, because by throwing our hearts in to a daydream we have little love left for ourselves.

I can’t help but wonder if intelligent women are hung up on previous loves as a way to keep ourselves under-confident in a world that doesn’t like women to be too sure of themselves. For the first time since I left Paul, I truly believe there might be someone better for me out there after all. And I plan to meet him in 2012.

Source

Irish Soldier: 'I Saved Hitler's Life In 1919'

2011-10-26T12:00:00.006+11:30

There is an abbreviated version of this story in The Daily Mail. Note that it is not implausible for a Irishman to join the German army in WWI. Relations between Ireland and Britain were at that time -- shall we say: "strained".

The principal interest for me in the story is that Keogh found Hitler "likeable" when he met him during WWI. That is the exact opposite of the received story about Hitler at that time. I have always had severe doubts about the received story. How Hitler could morph from a loner to a charismatic leader of his nation was a great mystery and the loner story seemed to me to be most probably just disinformation dating from Hitler's rise to prominence. Hitler had plenty of enemies in the Germany of the '20s and 30s who would be motivated to discredit him -- and Soviet disinformation at some stage cannot be ruled out either, in my view. Soviet disinformers never had much trouble fooling historians

By Terrence Aym

In one of those odd quirks of history, World War II and the 70 million lives lost could have been averted if, on a fateful day during 1919, a young Irishman had let Adolf Hitler die … Instead he unwittingly saved the life of Germany's future Führer.
This amazing revelation came to light only recently—it lay buried for decades in the obscure memoirs of a remarkable, but little known, Irishman named Michael Keogh.

When the family took possession of Keogh's memoirs—authenticated by historians—they decided to release the important details to the world.

Michael Keogh was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life filled with odd twists and turns. Perhaps strangest of all: despite his impact on the modern world he's barely a footnote in history.

It's all the more astounding when considering that in the space of a few brief minutes Keogh forever changed the destiny of millions and the face of the future.

All the stunning events were meticulously written down in his diary—memoirs that are so astounding they read more like fiction than fact. Yet experts confirm every word is true.

Decades followed before a family member was approached by archivists that had retained it. After reading some of the entries, they realized the importance the memoirs would have to the world at large: for Keogh not only met Hitler once, but twice, and the second time saved the future dictator from certain death.

Media knew nothing of Michael Keogh. Born into modest circumstances in Tolow County Carlow, Ireland, Keogh lived an unremarkable life until his 22nd year. It was then, during 1913, that young Keogh joined up with the British army's Royal Irish Regiment.

Records show he was later brought up on charges for sedition. Although branded as a troublemaker by some of his superior officers, Keogh was nevertheless shipped off to France to fight the Germans in Europe's Great War.

When he arrived he was assigned to a regiment near the front and before the end of August 1914—barely a month after arriving there—he was captured by the German army and held as a prisoner of war. The turn of events that followed is what eventually set him on the path towards shaping the destiny of the entire human race.

Restless and unhappy at being held in a prison camp, Keogh talked the German commandant into allowing him to join the German army.

By 1916 they agreed and Keogh was given a uniform, an assignment and orders to join the Sixteenth Bavarian Infantry Regiment. Things went well for Keogh. His German comrades liked and respected him, and he received praise for valor shown on the battlefield.

Time passed and the war dragged on until September 1918 when he found himself posted on the front and had a chance meeting in Ligny, France with a young Lance-Corporal named Adolf Hitler. Later, Keogh recalled the young Hitler as being intense and serious, but likeable.

Nothing important happened during that meeting except Keogh knew Hitler existed, who he was, and what he looked like. But their second meeting in 1919—and the circumstances under which it took place—were to change the future face of Europe for generations.

After the war, Germany was torn by political upheavals. The Bolshevik-inspired Marxist revolution took root in Germany and sought to undermine its democratic Weimar Republic.

Keogh, fiercely anti-communist and keenly aware of the subversive threat to the weakened Germany, volunteered for, and was accepted into, the politically active "Freikorps" (Free Corps) as an officer. The para-military organization set as its sworn duty the goal to crush the Marxist movement and drive them out of the Fatherland.

Fate's huge hand moved inexorably and Keogh and Hitler met again under the most dire of circumstances.

"I had fought my way into Munich as a captain in the Freikorps Epp," Keogh recalls in his diary. "A few weeks later, I was the officer of the day in the Turken Strasse barracks when I got an urgent call at about eight in the evening." That call to action set events into motion that literally changed the entire course of history.

"A riot had broken out over two political agents in the gymnasium," his memoir continues. "These 'political officers' were allowed to approach the men for votes and support.

"I ordered out a sergeant and six men and, with fixed bayonets, led them off. There were about 200 men in the gymnasium, among them some tough Tyrolean troops."

As he explains, two politicians that were giving speeches were roughly grabbed and thrown to the floor. A crowd surrounded the two viciously beating them.

And then, several furious Tyrolean troopers politically opposed to the politicians, moved in to finish the helpless men off. Bloodlust swirled in the air and the angry mob sought to kill both men. Keogh decided to act as "Bayonets were beginning to flash."

The two politicians—one clean-shaven, the other with a small moustache—were overcome and being stomped and beaten to death. The mob's bayonets were closing in and the men wielding them had every intention of gutting the two helpless politicians.

"I ordered the guard to fire one round over the heads of the rioters. It stopped the commotion," recalled Keogh.

His soldiers carried out the two badly beaten and bloody politicians. According to Keogh, both needed immediate medical attention. That their deaths were imminent was obvious.

It was only the intercession of Michael Keogh and the quick orders he gave his men that stopped the killing of the politicians. He wrote: "The crowd around muttered and growled, boiling for blood."

But Hitler had been saved. Of course, Keogh had instantly recognized the man with the moustache—former Lance-Corporal Adolf Hitler whom he'd met a year earlier in Ligny, France.

On the way towards medical treatment, Hitler chatted with his savior. The young, up-and-coming politician thanked Keogh for saving his life, and then he shared some of the details of his new party with the Irishman—the Party would become the salvation of the Fatherland, Hitler said—the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NAZI).

Adolf Hitler survived his injuries. And the two men never directly crossed paths again.

Keogh wrote he next saw Hitler during 1930. The up-and-coming political figure gave a rousing speech to a huge, enthusiastic crowd at an outdoor theater in Nuremberg.

SOURCE

British mustard gas attack didn't blind Hitler: It was an episode of hysterical illness

2011-10-22T17:36:00.002+11:30

The statements below may well all be true but one must allow for the urge to denigrate Hitler on the part of his enemies. That he could rapidly morph from being a derided outsider to a charismatic leader of his nation is implausible on the face of it and most probably is just a remnant of wartime propaganda

That he suffered an episode of hysterical blindness on the frontlines of WWI is however plausible. Psychiatric episodes under the fiendish conditions there were common on both sides and were usually covered up as "shellshock" or the like. To be one of those who cracked may have been embarrassing to Hitler himself but he would not normally be condemned for it these days. Allied troops coming home from Afghanistan to this day often have psychiatric disturbances but it is not regarded as being to their discredit or very limiting to their lives after discharge

Note also that the psychiatric diagnosis relied on below comes to us as hearsay and would not as such be credited in judicial proceedings

My remarks above are not intended as any defence of Hitler. They are merely the proper skepticism essential to a search for truth

He claimed to have been blinded by a British mustard gas attack as a heroic First World War soldier. Now research has exposed Hitler’s account of his own gallantry as a sham and revealed that his temporary loss of sight was actually caused by a mental disorder known as ‘hysterical blindness’.

Hitler described in Mein Kampf how the British had attacked in October 1918 south of Ypres using a ‘yellow gas…unknown to us’. By morning, his eyes ‘were like glowing coals, and all was darkness around me,’ he wrote.

But historian Dr Thomas Weber, of the University of Aberdeen, has uncovered a series of unpublished letters between two American neurologists from 1943, which debunk Hitler’s claim.

The correspondence showed that Otfried Foerster, a renowned German neurosurgeon, had inspected Hitler’s medical file. He found that Hitler had been treated for hysterical amblyopia, a psychiatric disorder that can make sufferers lose their sight.

Dr Weber said: ‘There were rumours suggesting that his war blindness may have been psychosomatic, but this is the first time we have had any firm evidence.’ He said discovering the letters was ‘crucial’ because Hitler’s medical file, at the Pasewalk military hospital in Germany, was destroyed.

‘Hitler went to extreme lengths to cover up his First World War medical history,’ Dr Weber said. ‘The two people who had access to his medical files were liquidated as soon as he took power and the other people who knew of it committed suicide in strange circumstances.’

The letters could help to explain Hitler’s radical personality change after the war, Dr Weber said. He added: ‘Hitler left the First World War an awkward loner who had never commanded a single other soldier, but very quickly became a charismatic leader who took over his country.

‘His mental state could explain this dramatic change and his obsessive and extreme behaviour.’ [How?]

He said the evidence also gave a crucial insight into Hitler’s mental state during his leadership. ‘The fact that he would not have been able to deal with the stress and strain of war is significant,’ Dr Weber said.

Details of Hitler’s blindness appear in a new edition of the historian’s book Hitler’s First War.

The study also shows how Hitler’s claims to have been a gallant First World War corporal who frequently risked his life were mostly lies.

Far from being a fearless frontline fighter, he spent so much time in regimental headquarters miles behind the lines that fellow soldiers in the trenches branded him a ‘rear area pig’. In reality he was little more than a ‘teaboy’ who worked as a messenger running errands, the study revealed.

Hitler, who served in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment, was twice awarded the Iron Cross, but Dr Weber said this was largely due to the fact he knew officers who made recommendations.

He attended only one meeting of veterans from his regiment, in 1922, when he was ‘cold shouldered’, the historian said.

SOURCE

Know anyone who talks about food and money too much? They could be a psychopath

2011-10-20T18:08:00.001+11:30

If someone you know uses the past tense and likes to talk about what he eats, then beware - he or she could be a psychopath.

Researchers have identified the speech patterns which are the tell-tale signs somebody could be the next Hannibal Lecter.

Those who use verbal stumbles like ‘um’ and ‘ah’ should be treated with caution whilst anybody showing a lack of emotion could be trouble too.

Other tics which should be of concern are focusing attention on basic needs like food and money or speaking about crimes in the past tense.

The researchers found that psychopaths use twice as many words for basic needs such as eating and drinking - a reflection of the psychopathic world view that everything is 'theirs' to take.

The researchers claim that whilst we are able to choose which words we use in day-to-day speech, we unconsciously choose functional words like ‘the’ or the tense of the verbs or the vocabulary sets we use.

With careful analysis these cues can show us who is a psychopath and who isn’t.

The study involved interviews with 52 convicted murderers, of whom 14 were classified as psychopaths.

Their responses were analysed in detail by a computer programme which looked for patterns in what they said.

Jeffrey Hancock, the lead researcher and an associate professor in communications at Cornell University in New York, said that overuse of the past tense demonstrated psychological detachment.

The research found that psychopaths tended to dwell on subjects such as food and money in conversation. Overall, psychopaths tend to use twice as many words relating to such basic needs as food and money

The use of dysfluencies like ‘uh’ and um’ was also a way of ‘putting the mask of sanity on’.

He added: ‘Psychopaths talked a lot about what they ate that day (of the murder). They talked about money more often.’

Overall psychopaths use twice as many words relating to basic needs like eating and drinking as ordinary people.

This fitted in with their world view that everything around them was theirs to take, the authors said in their report.

Psychopaths also used more subordinating conjunctions like ‘because’ which is explained by their interest in cause and effect.

The report says: ‘This pattern suggested that psychopaths were more likely to view the crime as the logical outcome of a plan (something that 'had' to be done to achieve a goal)’.

Just one per cent of the population are to some extent a psychopath but that has not stopped Hollywood from making them into villains hundreds of times.

Arguably the most famous was Hannibal Lecter who famously talked about how he liked to eat his victims’ brains in ‘Silence of the Lambs’.

Source

Genes map Aborigines' arrival in Australia

2011-09-23T12:57:00.002+11:30

A LOCK of hair taken from an unknown young man near Kalgoorlie in the 1920s has provided solid genetic evidence that Aboriginal Australians are descended from the first modern humans to walk out of Africa nearly 75,000 years ago.

Detailed analysis of the Aborigine's genetic blueprint - his genome - by an international team on several continents supports the theory that humans migrated from Africa into eastern Asia in multiple waves, contrary to the theory of a single out-of-Africa migration wave.

The order, or sequence, of the genes in the young man's genome suggests his ancestors were "the first human explorers", leaving Africa before a second group migrated from Africa into eastern Asia, 25,000-38,000 years ago.

The first Aboriginal genome reinforces archeological evidence that people arrived on the Australian continent at least 50,000 years ago and that they share one of the oldest continuous cultures in the world.

Published today in the journal Science, the research was conducted by a Danish, Australian and British team led by evolutionary biologist Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for Ancient Genetics at the University of Copenhagen.

"Aboriginal Australians descended from the first human explorers," he said.

"While the ancestors of Europeans and Asians were sitting somewhere in Africa or the Middle East, yet to explore their world further, the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians spread rapidly; the first modern humans traversing unknown territory in Asia and finally crossing the sea into Australia.

"It was a truly amazing journey that must have demanded exceptional survival skills and bravery."

The Goldfields Land and Sea Council, which covers the area where the man lived, has endorsed the research, marking a break with past tensions over scientific research. In Kalgoorlie, council chairwoman Dianne Logan said the findings were

"exciting". The project further proved the ancient Aboriginal connection to the land, and Aborigines felt "exonerated in showing the broader community that they are by far the oldest continuous civilisation in the world".

Adelaide-based DNA expert Alan Cooper, head of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, who was not part of the research team, agreed the genome strongly supported the idea Aborigines were an early and separate wave of human expansion out of Africa, before the subsequent wave that established Europeans and Asians.

Along with Mike Bunce, head of the Ancient DNA Research Laboratory at Perth's Murdoch University, who co-ordinated the Australian contribution to the program, Professor Willerslev and geneticists in Britain and Denmark concluded that, after the first wave of migration, a second wave of people left Africa 25,000-38,000 years ago.

The team estimated the timing of the first and second migrations using the known rate at which DNA changes, or mutates, over time. Because they had had quality data on 60 per cent of the Aboriginal genome, they had plenty of data to calibrate the "molecular clock".

Then as both waves of immigrants moved into the Middle East and onwards, they swapped genes with archaic people such as the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, and with one another.

A second report this week in the American Journal of Human Genetics by another team - headed by geneticist Mark Stoneking at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig - details the extent of intermingling by the various groups, and bolsters the Science team's finding of multiple waves of early human movement out of Africa.

Professor Cooper said Professor Stoneking's work showed there was not a single wave of migration out of Africa through to Australia. "There's a whole patchwork of interactions in Asia before the Aboriginal people get to Australia," he said.

The Aboriginal hair sample was collected at a long-gone train station at Golden Ridge, near Kalgoorlie, in 1923, by Cambridge anthropologist and ethnologist Alfred Haddon, who like many anthropologists of the time, believed Aboriginal people were a dying race.

Craig Muller, research manager at the Goldfields Land and Sea Council, said Haddon was in Australia in 1923 to attend a conference in Sydney and Melbourne, but travelled to Western Australia on the Trans-Australia. The train would have stopped for about 40 minutes at Golden Ridge, now just "scrub and gravel". Aboriginal people traded artefacts with passengers along the line, although he "likes to imagine the young man was rather surprised when he was asked to give up some of his hair".

With little provenance other than Haddon's name and the label "Golden Ridge", the sample remained at Cambridge, at the Duckworth Laboratory, devoted to the study of human evolution and variation, until about a year ago when Professor Willerslev learned of its existence.

Initial tests confirmed DNA could be extracted from it. Dr Bunce noted: "That's when Eske got on a plane and came straight over. He's acutely aware that this is a politically charged area."

In particular, the 2005 US Genographic Project aroused much anger among indigenous communities in Australia and the US. The project was denounced as a clone of the Human Genome Diversity Project, which was condemned by the US-based Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism as an "unconscionable attempt" by genetic scientists "to pirate our DNA for their own purposes".

Dubbed the Vampire Project, the Human Genome Diversity Project was condemned in 1993 by the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. "The Vampire scientists are planning to take and to own what belongs to indigenous people," it said.

Dr Bunce said "times have moved on" and scientists and indigenous communities had learned how to work together.

Mr Muller said the project had raised several ethical issues for the Goldfields Land and Sea Council, but he was satisfied the sample was obtained ethically, rather than in a way "we would now find distasteful".

In June, Professor Willerslev spoke to the Land and Sea Council to explain his research and gain Aboriginal endorsement.

The council last night said it was excited by the study, which "establishes Aboriginal Australians as the population with the longest association with the land on which they still live today".

"Aboriginal people, in the Goldfields, as elsewhere, always feel secure in their connection to this country, and the research does not alter this fact."

One of the council's directors, Wongatha elder Cyril Barnes, said the genome project was "just a whitefella story" and he would continue to believe in the Wati Kutjara desert creation story, just as other people in Kalgoorlie were Bible-belt creationists.

Source

Was the human race given an ever-lasting boost by breeding with Neanderthal man?

2011-08-22T17:25:00.002+11:30

We like to think our superior brainpower means we survived while they perished. But we may not have been alive today, if it were not for the Neanderthals. Studies show that we owe much of the power of our immune system to genes we picked up from our caveman cousins.

Interbreeding with Neanderthals gave our ancestors a ready-made cocktail of DNA invaluable in fighting diseases common in northern climates, research by immunologist Peter Parham suggests. This, in turn, vastly sped up our evolution, and gave us the strength and resilience needed to populate the world.

Research released last year revealed that our ancestors couldn’t resist the charms of the Neanderthals tens of thousands of years ago. As a result, there is a little bit of Neanderthal in all of us. In some parts of the world, up to 4 per cent of people’s DNA comes from the short, stocky cavemen.

New research reveals how this DNA has benefited us. Professor Parham, of the respected Stanford University in California, focused on a family of 200-plus genes called human leukocyte antigens that are key to the workings of the immune system.

He showed that some of our HLA genes are identical to those that were found in Neanderthals. This includes one Neanderthal immune system gene called HLA-C*0702, which is also quite common in modern European and Asian populations but absent in modern Africans.

Experts believe that modern man and Neanderthals shared a common ancestor in Africa. Around 400,000 years ago, early Neanderthals left Africa and headed for Europe and Asia. However, our ancestors stayed behind and evolved into modern humans.

Professor Parham’s results could be explained by interbreeding between the two ‘tribes’ passing immunity to disease developed by the Neanderthals after they’d left Africa our way. The professor told a meeting of the Royal Society in London that this interbreeding instilled modern man with a ‘hybrid vigour’ that allowed it to go on and populate the world.

Matt Pope, a University College London expert in Neanderthal evolution told the Sunday Times that modern man benefited from the arrangement. ‘Rather than having to evolve from scratch as they moved out of Africa and into Europe and Asia, this interaction would have provided a fast-track to adapting to new environments.’

Source

"Confirmed": all non-Africans are part Neanderthal

2011-08-09T22:48:00.000+11:30

Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found only in nonAfricans, a new study concludes.

"This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," said researcher Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal, whose work with colleagues is published in the July issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Neanderthal people, whose ancestors left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago, evolved in what is now mainly France, Spain, Germany and Russia, and are thought to have lived until about 30,000 years ago. Meanwhile, early modern humans left Africa about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago. The question has been whether the physically stronger Neanderthals, who had the gene for language and may have played the flute, were a separate species or could have interbred with modern humans.

The results show that the two lived in close association, probably early on in the Middle East, Labuda said. "In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts."

Labuda and his team almost a decade ago identified a piece of DNA, called a haplotype, in the human X chromosome that seemed different and whose origins they questioned. When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, they compared 6,000 chromosomes from all parts of the world to the Neanderthal haplotype. The Neanderthal sequence was present in peoples across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa, and including Australia.

"There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals. This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details," said Nick Patterson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, a human ancestry researcher who was not involved in the new study.

"Labuda and his colleagues were the first to identify a genetic variation in nonAfricans that was likely to have come from an archaic population. This was done entirely without the Neanderthal genome sequence, but in light of the Neanderthal sequence, it is now clear that they were absolutely right," said David Reich, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, one of the principal researchers in the Neanderthal genome project.

So did these exchanges contribute to our success across the world? "Variability is very important for longterm survival of a species," said Labuda. "Every addition to the genome can be enriching."

SOURCE

Legend of Rock 'n' Roll George explored

2011-08-09T11:46:00.000+11:30

For 60 years, George Kiprios, aka Rock 'n' Roll George, drove his beloved Holden 48-215 around the streets of Brisbane.

Regular as clockwork he cruised the city, radio blaring and wearing his trademark purple stovepipe trousers. As he and the car aged, George became a local legend, a classic character who was a constant in a city undergoing rapid change.

Rock ’n’ Roll George visited the same places at the same times, wearing the same clothes and always cruising in his uniquely customised car.

To fill in the gaps in the mystery about just who this old rock and roller really was, stories emerged around George. Fact and fiction became part of the mystique.

A new display at the Queensland Museum explores the different versions of George that have featured in the city’s collective imagination of those who knew George, as well as those new to his story.

Rock ‘n’ Roll George’s car will form the centrepiece of the display. To provide visitors with a unique opportunity to see behind the scenes and discover the intricate scientific processes involved in looking after the now-fragile vehicle, museum staff will undertake detailed conservation in the gallery.

SOURCE

Precious memories of childhood. Told by Michael Heseltine's daughter, Annabel Heseltine

2011-07-16T15:38:00.005+11:30

There is a special place for me too: Etty Bay -- JR

Behind the house where I lived as a child there was an ancient caravan, rusting and overhung with dark green ivy. Inside were old, dank benches covered in yellow-and-brown cushions, and windows coated in dead flies.

To the gang of small children that I was a part of, tucked away in the deepest part of south Devon, that caravan was a haven.

It was our camp, a place where the adults never came, nor wanted to. It was where we lived out our Famous Five dreams — even though there were only four of us. There was Roger, the farmer’s son, who led us; Anne, his sister, and, when, she was home, the nice but rather grown-up Anna, who was a neighbour. Then there was little me, the hanger-on who was allowed, and sometimes even encouraged, to join in, and to whom they were always kind.

I have no idea how old they were, but I know I was no more than nine — because that is how old I was when we left Devon and moved to a property outside Henley on Thames in south Oxfordshire.

Our house in Devon was called Pamflete, and there was never another home that meant as much to me, though I have lived in many properties since.

Childhood memories are etched so deeply in our psyche. No matter how much pain, loneliness or unhappiness we encounter as adults, those memories can never be tainted.

As the summer holidays begin, many families will be returning to their ‘special places’ with that curious mix of delight and wistful longing for summers past. It doesn’t have to be a childhood home. It could be a rented cottage or favourite hotel, a patch of woodland or a hidden cove.

Wherever it is, it is special not just because of where or what it is, but also because it is steeped in family memories. It has become a repository for childhood joy, just as Pamflete was for me.

I had a happy childhood but found growing up difficult, especially when I was in my late teens and early 20s with a very famous father, Michael, who was a senior Conservative politician.

Childhood memories are etched so deeply in our psyche. No matter how much pain, loneliness or unhappiness we encounter as adults, those memories can never be tainted.

Whatever the reason — perhaps because of the age I was when I lived there, or the fact that I was almost an only child (my sister Alexandra was still a baby and my brother, Rupert, was born a year later in 1967) — those memories of a house where we lived for six years, and then only part-time, eclipsed the rest of my childhood, and continue to influence me even today.

Pamflete, hidden away, beautiful and wild, is a safe place to which I return in my mind, time after time, and remember those easy, halcyon days.

Even now, as my husband, Peter, and I search for our own house in the country, Pamflete is the template for my ideals; a pretty house near the sea, which in today’s world is almost impossible to find.

Pamflete wasn’t even our property. It belonged to an old Devon family, the Mildmay-Whites, who owned both sides of the estuary of the River Erme.

My father rented it for £520 a year when he was Member of Parliament for Tavistock, from 1966 when I was three, to 1973, and we went there for half-terms and holidays.

I would lie in bed in the mornings listening to the rooks cawing up in the Scots pines and the sheep down in the valley below, and felt it was mine.

It was here I saw my first badger, after being taken out at night by the gardener to crawl through the blue rhododendrons. It was here I learned to swim in the river, and to fish for crabs using bacon swiped from the kitchen as bait. It was here I was given my kitten, Mimi, and here that I got dressed ready to be a bridesmaid to my friend Anna’s elder sister, Caroline, in the local church.

Since my father was often away working or campaigning, my mother, Anne, always employed someone to come and help her during the summer. Of all of them, John was the most colourful character. Hippy John, with long brown hair, who rowed with the tide up the river to collect our food from the village store. He would have a beer in the pub, then come back down when the tide changed.

Sometimes, in the afternoon, he would clear away the food from the kitchen table, produce some playing cards, and teach me how to play poker.

My parents let me wander and, left to my own devices, I found solace in the company of others. We didn’t go out much and I was probably quite lonely, but people were kind to me. Anne, the farmer’s daughter, let me play with her even though she was so much older than me. If it all sounds impossibly old-fashioned, that’s because it often was.

Sometimes my mother invited my school friends to stay. One of them was Barbara Cartland’s grand-daughter, Charlotte, who arrived pasty-faced from London with her own nanny and a medicine-bag full of vitamins, provided by her grandmother who was a health fanatic.

My mother found Charlotte’s nanny crying in the bathroom the following morning with pills scattered all over the floor. She had dropped the bag so all the pills were muddled up, and she didn’t know which ones should be taken when.

My mother solved the problem by throwing the lot down the loo. ‘Charlotte won’t need them here,’ she said. ‘All she needs is our Devon air and the sea.’ A week later, Charlotte went home blooming with health; I remember being impressed by my mother’s audacity.

When there were no friends to stay, I would spend my days in the caravan or down by the stream, building dams and fighting off midges.

Best of all was the estuary beach. When the tide was out, there was a beautiful table-cloth of white sand which stretched across the huge bay down to the sea where horses could gallop and children sail dinghies.

This beach enchanted me with its dangerous and ever-changing tides, which could shrink the river to a ribbon of shallow water or swell the estuary beyond to a wide, rushing flow.

Above it, there was Pamflete beach, which wasn’t always so pretty, but it was my beach. Except for the occasional dog walker, it seemed as if no one except our family came here. At high tide it was covered in seaweed and driftwood, and garnished with shells.

It was the cowries — tiny sea snails’ shells — which became my enduring memory of that time, which came to tell their own story, and became a symbol of longed-for new life in my family.

I never forgot Pamflete. Later, after I had learned to drive, I returned to have another look. I sidled down the rocky path onto the beach and scoured the seaweed for my little friends. After that, it became a sort of ritual.

Every few years, I drove through Devonshire hedges gaudy with blackberries, purple foxgloves and orange hawkweed, just to catch a glimpse of the house. Some people say it is a mistake to return to the treasured places of our past, because the danger is they will have changed beyond recognition and the magic will be lost forever.

But Pamflete was always there, exactly as I had left it, and so were the cowries. Sometimes I took boyfriends. Sometimes I went alone. Then I took my husband.

We walked down the estuary. I told him about my childhood, and how much I loved this part of Devon. I told him about the cowries. It was at the end of our first year of marriage, and we were in mourning for the three babies I had lost in ectopic pregnancies.

I scanned the sand for cowries, and found only three. I couldn’t help thinking of the three babies. In my mind, they were symbolised by the cowries in my hand. If I found any more, they were our future.

I had lost so many babies, so quickly, that I wanted to find lots and lots of cowries, just in case. But, try as I might, I could only find four more. My husband waited patiently, knowing there was more to this than casual beachcombing. Finally we had to go, but I took those seven cowries with me and put them away, wrapped in hope.

My faith was vindicated. I went on to have four children, and as they grew up, I longed to take them back to Devon and my home by the sea.

One day, I contacted the MildmayWhites and asked them to let me know if Pamflete would ever be rented out again. What I had in mind made no sense whatsoever, since my husband was a professor working in a London hospital and I was looking after four young children.

But the Mildmay-Whites said they would be renting the house out as a holiday home the following year, and we could be their guinea pigs. I booked it for three weeks in August, and prayed for good weather.

I knew it would be strange, walking back into a house where I had lived 30 years earlier. There was the drawing-room where we had played Monopoly and I had finished my Tutankhamun project for school; the old kitchen with a coal Aga that had to be swept and fired every day and where, aged six, I had played poker with Hippy John.

I explored what was the playroom and my bedroom, joined to my parents’ room by a hidden passage, which they used as their dressing-room, inside which we had once accidentally locked Rudi the dachshund when we went for a picnic on Dartmoor, only to find on our return that he had chewed through my father’s Gucci shoes.

The hidden corridor had gone, transformed into two bathrooms. Smart wooden stables had replaced the rusting caravan, and Roger, Anne and Anna had moved away long ago. The Scots pines had been cut down, as had the rhododendrons.

Pamflete was still beautiful and magical and perhaps, to the stranger, an improvement on the old, with its new bathrooms, smart kitchen and modern Aga. But my Pamflete had gone, and getting to know the new one took time.

Somehow I had to reconcile a perfect childhood memory with the present reality — a holiday home where we were paying guests.

I was putting off the moment when I went back to my beloved beach. Would that be different, too? When my husband’s family arrived from Dublin, I used the excuse of preparing lunch to send them off to the sea without me. But on their return, over lunch, they asked me if I was sure the beach was beautiful because they hadn’t been particularly impressed.

I exploded. I left the table, left the house, and walked off furiously to the beach.
Pamflete was still beautiful and magical and perhaps, to the stranger, an improvement on the old, with its new bathrooms, smart kitchen and modern Aga. But my Pamflete had gone, and getting to know the new one took time.

They were right. It did look awful that day. It was covered in smelly seaweed and plastic bottles. I had forgotten the damage caused by a spring tide which jettisons its rubbish, only to collect it a couple of days later.

But that wasn’t the problem, I realised. The problem was that I was chasing a dream. A childhood idyll where everything seemed perfect, only I wasn’t a child any more. I was a wife, and the mother of four children.

I remember my mother, who couldn’t drive at the time, telling me how lonely she had been when we lived at Pamflete — even though we, her children, had been so happy. Now I was a mother, and it was my chance to make summer memories for my children.

I couldn’t give them what my parents gave me: nobody rents out houses like this for £500 a year any more. But we had Pamflete for three weeks, and I was going to make the most of it.

So we did. The sun shone as we boated, swam and sailed. I showed my children where to find crabs, and how to float down the river on the current. I invited old friends for dinner, and my husband fished.

As the children played hide-and-seek and tennis, and swam, my old memories were replaced with new ones. In a different way from in my childhood, I was really happy.

I loved having friends to stay; a family in their camper van, my brother and sister with my nephews and nieces, even my parents, who came for a couple of nights and ate hot dogs on the one rainy weekend of the summer.

The family-of-five who had picnicked on Pamflete beach in the Seventies had become 17-strong. We did everything we had first done at Pamflete and more, discovering that it was no longer a lonely place.

Instead it is lovingly protected by the same families, many of them friends of the Mildmay-Whites, who return year after year to rent the coastguards’ cottages, and the little houses by the river.

We met them on the beach. Sitting under the low cliffs where I had fished as a child, I learned how they had filled in the years when we weren’t there, and now it was just as much their place as mine. Three magical weeks later, we packed up and left. I felt sad, but also released from my old memories. Staying at Pamflete was wonderful, but I knew then that what I wanted was a home of my own in the West Country.

A few months later we sold our house and started looking for somewhere close to the sea and the rolling hills bridged by Scots pine. It won’t be Pamflete. The house of my childhood is not for sale, but at least I know now that we can go back there whenever we like.

Perhaps one day I will even take my grandchildren there, and bore them with tales of when Granny was a little girl and spent a magical childhood in a special house called Pamflete.

Source

Archaeologists Excavate Biblical Giant Goliath's Hometown

2011-07-12T19:01:00.000+11:30

They haven't found the slingshot -- not yet anyway. But as archaeologists continue excavation at Gath -- the Biblical home of Goliath, the giant warrior improbably felled by the young shepherd David and his sling -- they are piecing together the history of the Philistines, a people remembered chiefly as the bad guys of the Hebrew Bible.

Close to three millennia ago, the city of Gath was on the frontier between the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal plain, and the Israelites, who controlled the inland hills. The city's most famous resident, according to the Book of Samuel, was Goliath, famously felled by a well slung stone.

Archaeologists dig at the remains of an ancient metropolis in southern Israel

July 6, 2011: At the remains of an ancient metropolis in southern Israel, archaeologists are piecing together the history of a people remembered chiefly as the bad guys of the Hebrew Bible.

The Philistines "are the ultimate other, almost, in the biblical story," said Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation.

The latest summer excavation season began this past week, with 100 diggers from Canada, South Korea, the United States and elsewhere, adding to the wealth of relics found at the site since Maier's project began in 1996.

In a square hole, several Philistine jugs nearly 3,000 years old were emerging from the soil. One painted shard just unearthed had a rust-red frame and a black spiral: a decoration common in ancient Greek art and a hint to the Philistines' origins in the Aegean.

The Philistines arrived by sea from the area of modern-day Greece around 1200 B.C. They went on to rule major ports at Ashkelon and Ashdod, now cities in Israel, and at Gaza, now part of the Palestinian territory known as the Gaza Strip.

At Gath, they settled on a site that had been inhabited since prehistoric times. Digs like this one have shown that though they adopted aspects of local culture, they did not forget their roots. Even five centuries after their arrival, for example, they were still worshipping gods with Greek names.

Archaeologists have found that the Philistine diet leaned heavily on grass pea lentils, an Aegean staple. Ancient bones discarded at the site show that they also ate pigs and dogs, unlike the neighboring Israelites, who deemed those animals unclean -- restrictions that still exist in Jewish dietary law.

Diggers at Gath have also uncovered traces of a destruction of the city in the 9th century B.C., including a ditch and embankment built around the city by a besieging army -- still visible as a dark line running across the surrounding hills.

The razing of Gath at that time appears to have been the work of the Aramean king Hazael in 830 B.C., an incident mentioned in the Book of Kings.

Gath's importance is that the "wonderful assemblage of material culture" uncovered there sheds light on how the Philistines lived in the 10th and 9th centuries B.C., said Seymour Gitin, director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and an expert on the Philistines.

That would include the era of the kingdom ruled from Jerusalem by David and Solomon, if such a kingdom existed as described in the Bible. Other Philistine sites have provided archaeologists with information about earlier and later times but not much from that key period.

"Gath fills a very important gap in our understanding of Philistine history," Gitin said.

In 604 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded and put the Philistines' cities to the sword. There is no remnant of them after that.

Crusaders arriving from Europe in 1099 built a fortress on the remains of Gath, and later the site became home to an Arab village, Tel el-Safi, which emptied during the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948. Today Gath is in a national park.

An Israeli town founded in 1955 several miles to the south, Kiryat Gat, was named after Gath based on a misidentification of a different ruin as the Philistine city.

The memory of the Philistines -- or a somewhat one-sided version -- was preserved in the Hebrew Bible.

The hero Samson, who married a Philistine woman, skirmished with them repeatedly before being betrayed and taken, blinded and bound, to their temple at Gaza. There, the story goes, he broke free and shattered two support pillars, bringing the temple down and killing everyone inside, including himself.

One intriguing find at Gath is the remains of a large structure, possibly a temple, with two pillars. Maeir has suggested that this might have been a known design element in Philistine temple architecture when it was written into the Samson story.

Diggers at Gath have also found shards preserving names similar to Goliath -- an Indo-European name, not a Semitic one of the kind that would have been used by the local Canaanites or Israelites. These finds show the Philistines indeed used such names and suggest that this detail, too, might be drawn from an accurate picture of their society.

The findings at the site support the idea that the Goliath story faithfully reflects something of the geopolitical reality of the period, Maeir said -- the often violent interaction of the powerful Philistines of Gath with the kings of Jerusalem in the frontier zone between them.

"It doesn't mean that we're one day going to find a skull with a hole in its head from the stone that David slung at him, but it nevertheless tells that this reflects a cultural milieu that was actually there at the time," Maeir said.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/11/in-israel-archaeologists-unearth-bibles-bad-guys/

Why the monarchy matters

2011-06-26T16:11:00.001+11:30

By SIR ANTHONY JAY, Broadcaster and co-author of "Yes Minister"

These are great days for royalists and loyalists. A Royal Wedding, the Duke of Edinburgh’s 90th birthday and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee all falling within less than a year.

But behind all the celebration and jubilation there is always an awkward question: why are the citizens of democracy giving such recognition, respect – even reverence – to an unelected head of state and her family, who will furnish her succession not through the decision of the people but an accident of birth! And perhaps even more perplexing, why are so few people worried about this?

It certainly worried me at one stage of my life. Not at the start; I was only six years old at the time of the abdication crisis, and by the time I was nine World War II had broken out. The King and Queen symbolised all that we were fighting for as a nation and an empire and my parents, who were actors and archetypal Labour luvvies, never for a moment questioned the logic of a free democracy being presided over by a hereditary monarchy.

It didn’t worry me at university either; when George VI died, in my last year, no one suggested that it was an opportunity to move over to an elected head of state. We even accepted the decision of the BBC (our only broadcaster at that time) to transmit nothing except solemn music, and when it played a Beethoven symphony to announce that it was omitting the Scherzo.

And it certainly didn’t worry me during my National Service in the early Fifties. My commissioning leave coincided with the Coronation and I stood at the junction of Trafalgar Square and Cockspur Street cheering my head off as the Queen’s carriage drove past.

The Army, of course, was tremendously loyal to the monarchy – it left us free to express our contempt for the government without impugning our patriotism. We stood up and toasted the Queen formerly every mess night, and then sat down again and went on rubbishing the prime minister.

But the Sixties – ah, that was very different. Ever since Suez and Look Back in Anger in the late Fifties there had been a growing mistrust of the ruling elite, a feeling that they were out of date and out of touch. They exuded a feeling that as honourable and experienced gentlemen they had a right to govern. It was this feeling, after 12 years of Conservative government, that gave such explosive force to the Profumo scandal.

When it emerged that John Profumo, a government minister and ex-Army officer, had been having a secret affair with a call girl and lied to the House of Commons about it, the whole edifice of authority and respectability came tumbling down. The monarchy had no connection with the Profumo scandal, but as part of the edifice, it was inevitably damaged by it.

By now I was in the BBC, and it is hard to convey the glee we all felt at the scandal. We had done our bit in chipping away at the foundations: the Tonight programme (which I was in at the start of, and edited in 1962-63) had a policy of questioning authority, and its spin-off, That Was The Week That Was, had pushed at the frontiers of BBC impartiality with its satire and mockery of politicians. Now it seemed that everything was justified; not just the criticism of the Establishment, but the whole media value system of liberal egalitarianism.

I don’t know whether the spirit of the BBC was actually republican, but it certainly wasn’t enamoured of the monarchy and thought that the old adulation of the Royal Family was absurd. Looking back, I’m surprised at how quickly and painlessly I was corrupted to this scepticism about the institution I had accepted so unquestioningly for 30 years.

But it didn’t last. Indeed, I’m not sure how widespread it was anyway. It was certainly widespread throughout the media, but the media are not the nation. I suppose its high point came in April 1964 with the election of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government.

At last we had got rid of all the old has-beens and fuddy-duddies and could bask in the white heat of technology. I don’t know if any government could have lived up to the expectations that precipitated its election, but certainly this one couldn’t. Crisis followed crisis, the pound was devalued and gradually the high hopes of 1964 faded away.

The Sixties was the monarchy’s lowest point since the abdication crisis of 1936, but by the end of the decade its stock had suddenly shot up again.

In June 1969 the BBC broadcast a documentary film, Royal Family, giving a behind-the-scenes picture of the family at work and play, and a few days later there was an outside broadcast of the investiture of the 20-year-old Prince Charles as Prince of Wales.

Suddenly Britain was emphatically loyalist and royalist again. It was not as if a hostile, or at least lukewarm, nation had been dramatically converted by these two programmes. The respect and affection had actually never gone away, but had been suppressed through the Sixties and now was released and reaffirmed.

It is not that there are royalists and anti-royalists (though obviously there are some of each); it’s rather that the majority of royalists have a vein of suspicion running through their loyalty and are always capable of resentment. The attitude seems to be ‘who do they think they are, and what would we do without them?’
I believe that a hereditary monarchy is the best institution yet created for symbolising, embodying and representing the state

I believe that a hereditary monarchy is the best institution yet created for symbolising, embodying and representing the state

Even so, the pro-monarchy element is extremely strong, much stronger than the media liberals realise. The Guardian and The Independent thought the death of the Queen Mother was a very small story, and were genuinely astonished to see that over a million people lined the route at her funeral.

But the potential for resentment is always there and it surfaced when the sovereign appeared not to reflect the national mood or express the national emotion at the time of the Lockerbie bomb, and again – even more strongly – after the death of Princess Diana.

This emotional involvement with the Royal Family is obviously not a peculiar British quirk or a modern phenomenon. It is just a manifestation of something universal to people everywhere: the need to belong, and to a group larger than just the family. You only have to look at the crowds at Old Trafford or White Hart Lane, or an Army regiment, or indeed a striking trades union, to see there is some very deep and powerful force at work, an emotional bond that unites a large number of people, most of whom have never met each other.

It was only in the Sixties that scientists, or to be more precise evolutionary biologists, started to reveal the reason for it and the history behind it. Quite simply, they showed that it was rooted in the survival of the species.

Our basic social unit is about 50; it is still the unit of our cousins the gorillas and chimpanzees, and is deep inside all of us, the size we are easiest and happiest with. But unlike our cousins we found a way to combine those groups of 50 into tribes of 500 or so: the battalion, the parliaments, the schools, the one-man business, the village – it crops up everywhere. It is the largest group in which pretty much everyone knows everyone else.

That’s fine for a hunting tribe, but it gets harder as numbers grow, and especially when this larger community starts to develop permanent institutions – an army, a legal system and the whole apparatus of civilisation. The problem is that the old system of tribal chieftain grows into a dictatorship. But overthrowing the dictator brings the whole edifice crashing down.

So what we need is a system of government that makes it possible to get rid of a failing leadership while leaving the institutional framework intact. We want, in other words, to separate the state and the government. We need a government that can be democratically removed and replaced, and a state that carries on regardless. When they are united in a single person you have a dictatorship (and there are still quite a few of those around). Separating them is the start of a democratic state and a free society.

I believe that a hereditary monarchy is the best institution yet created for symbolising, embodying and representing the state. The government is our means of institutionalising conflict. It is about ideas, about immediate problems. The state is our means of institutionalising national unity: it is about shared values, common interest, permanence and continuity. It is what we all belong to and form a part of, whatever our political differences.

Of course you can elect a head of state, but it can be a problem if he is a political figure: Watergate paralysed the U.S. in a way it would not have done if Nixon was only the head of the government.

It is the fact that the monarchy has no day-to-day power that gives it its strength. That, and the fact that a family is something we can all understand.

As Walter Bagehot wrote in 1867: ‘The best reason why monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in that world understand any other.’

In Bagehot’s time, of course, there were still huge political meetings; people felt very much a part of the government process.

Today the political meeting is dead, political parties have tiny memberships, and politicians are almost universally despised. In this situation, events like the Royal Wedding and the Diamond Jubilee are more important than ever before in sustaining and displaying our sense of national identity and national unity.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2007349/Gorillas-Man-Utd-prove-Royal-Family-matters-Yes-Minister-creator-Sir-Anthony-Jay.html

A "swell" party

2011-06-26T12:43:00.001+11:30

By Quentin Letts

Social diarist Betty Kenward having long retired, allow me to bring you an account of two parties this week at 10 Downing Street, which Mrs Kenward might have described as 'the enchanting London residence of Mr and Mrs David Cameron'.

On Monday drinks were served from 5.30pm (they start early, those Camerons) to Tory MPs. Among the charming guests was Mrs Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for the Environment, Rural Affairs and Political Balls-Ups. Oh dear.

The gracious host, Mr Cameron, began by glad-handing some of those assembled. He then made a short, frisky speech. How easily Mr Cameron sometimes slides the dagger between a colleague's ribs.

His remarks contained two jokes, both at Mother Spelman’s expense. The first had a punch-line about the recent foul-up on forests. The second concerned the Government’s difficulty over bin collections.

Both mishaps fell within Mrs Spelman’s purlieu. Mrs Spelman was standing near the door. She left the room immediately after Mr Cameron’s speech, her face like a bruised peach. The party continued for at least another half hour. Great was the gaiety!

On Tuesday night Mr Cameron again played the expansive host, this time to all members, past and present, of the 2001 intake of Tory MPs (all, that is, bar Col Patrick Mercer of Newark, who might sooner break bread with Lucifer than dine with David). The starter was eggs and bacon.

Mr Boris Johnson, arriving late, was consigned to a distant end of the table. Mr Johnson, seldom at complete ease with MPs (he fears they can see through him), grunted: ‘When’s the recovery coming?’ Mr George Osborne, in a flash: ‘Next June.’

Merriment all round, for next June, you see, will come just too late for Boris’s re-election campaign for the London Mayoralty.

Boris: ‘How about some tax cuts?’ Mr Osborne: ‘We’ll save those for when WE need re-electing.’

Shortly before 10pm the party, almost as one, uprooted to the Commons for a vote. The journey was undertaken on foot, the PM bowling down Whitehall in a phalanx of his ruby-faced swells. I understand his police bodyguards were not best pleased.

Source

That last paragraph is quite a vision -- JR

One view of Otto von Bismarck

2011-06-25T03:19:00.000+11:30

I am putting this up mainly because I disagree with most of it: I hope to write a rebuttal in due course: Bismarck the victor magnanimous in victory; the founder of Europe's long peace etc. I have in fact already put online a quite different view of Bismarck. See here

A VERY small point: He mostly wore the Pickelhaube to cover his bald head. And he WAS entitled to. Although he was not in the regular army, he WAS an officer in the reserves

And "Kaiser Bill" was a fool. He should never have given Britain an excuse to declare war on Germany. The Brits were being run ragged trying to keep ahead of Tirpitz's "Luxusflotte" -- and the disproportionate losses in the battle of Jutland showed that they had every reason to be concerned. Mastery of the seas was essential to Britain and Germany implicitly threatened that

REVIEW of BISMARCK: A LIFE BY JONATHAN STEINBERG (Oxford University Press £25. Review by Peter Lewis

First look at the photograph. The head, like a cannon ball waiting to be fired from the stiff, high-collared neck, and a bristling moustache that droops under its own weight.

An over-fed double chin. Hooded, predatory eyes. No hint of humour or humanity. A nasty piece of work to be up against. To make it look more threatening, the head sometimes sported a brass spiked helmet - a ‘pickelhaube’ - to which it was not entitled.

Everyone knows his name. Bismarck. Founder of a united Germany that was to menace the rest of Europe for the next 75 years, long after he had gone. Was he ultimately responsible for that? This biography strongly suggests he was - which is a good reason for being interested in it.

The most memorable thing he said was: ‘Politics is the art of the possible.’ But the changes he wrought in Europe by ‘blood and iron’ looked near-impossible. Especially when you consider what he lacked.

He was no orator. He was not a military man. He had the background of a Junker - a landed Prussian squire of no great estate. He neither founded nor led a political party. He was a one-man band.

His personal character was far from charismatic. He had a raging temper. He inflicted it on anyone who opposed or contradicted him or thwarted him of what he wanted. This went for the kings, princes, grand dukes with whom his world was crowded as much as his secretaries or servants. He scared the wits out of everyone.

He was an unrestrained glutton. After a steak-filled breakfast he could get through eight-course dinners with wild boar and saddle of venison as the centrepieces. ‘Here we eat til the walls burst,’ wrote one of his guests.

No wonder he was always feeling ill: stomach cramps, nervous disorders, headaches and insomnia for several nights at a time. And how he complained about how dreadful he felt! Yet he lived to his 80s without a single stroke or heart attack.

The work he got through as a statesman was prodigious. He would be up until 7am, sleep til midday then gradually feel better and work harder as the night wore on.

Sooner or later everyone hated him, except his wife. The courtiers with their double-barrelled titles beginning with von, the Prussian Queen, the Crown Prince and Princess (Queen Victoria’s daughter Vicky), the politicians whom he trampled on. There was one great important exception: the King himself, Wilhelm the first King of Prussia and later, thanks to Bismarck, the first Emperor of Germany.

The King was a mild, weak, decent man who once complained: ‘It’s hard to be Kaiser under Bismarck!’ When they disagreed Bismarck would throw a tantrum and resign.

The King, sometimes in tears, would plead with him to stay on. So Bismarck stayed - as he had intended all along. So long as he had the King in his pocket Bismarck could ignore any competition. And by an enormous stroke of luck. Wilhelm, whom this book insists on calling William, lived on, and on, and on, to 70, 80, then to 91.

His son Frederick, waiting to succeed the old and ill King, only lasted three months on the throne when he got it (he died of cancer), so his son, Wilhelm II, became the third Emperor Germany had had in the year 1888.

He was Queen Victoria’s grandson, through Vicky - the batty one with the withered arm, ‘the Kaiser’ of First World War notoriety. But he was mad enough to kick Bismarck out in 1890.

What was it that Bismarck, monster that he was, achieved?

In summary he turned Prussia, the underdog to the Austrian empire, into a major European power by provoking and winning three wars. First came a little war against Denmark by which the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein became German.

Next, he provoked a quarrel with Austria which was defeated, leaving Prussia as the dominant power in Germany. The third war, which he taunted France into declaring, resulted in the ignominious capture of the Emperor Napoleon III and his dispatch into exile (at Chislehurst) while Germany acquired the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

Bismarck staged his greatest coup as the German armies besieged Paris in 1870. The suburbs, including Versailles, were in their hands. There in the famous Hall of Mirrors the ageing King Wilhelm was proclaimed Emperor of Germany.

When Bismarck had arrived in politics, Germany was not a country but a collection of 39 different states. Some of them were sizeable kingdoms, like Bavaria and Saxony, but each of them - however tiny or ridiculous - was ruled by a Grand Duke, Elector, Margrave or whatever, with family names like Queen Victoria’s own; Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. They met on occasions to discuss their affairs in a sort of club called The Bund, but there was no state of Germany as a whole.

Bismarck created it by declaring universal suffrage which ended the power of these Ruritanian non-entities. They were allowed to keep their state and go on dressing up to their hearts’ content like the Maharajas in India under British rule.

‘I have beaten them all! All!’ Bismarck declared, thumping his desk. As first Chancellor of Germany he set about the huge task of unifying the state. He was saddled with an elected Reichstag but he manipulated or ignored it whenever he wanted. Germany was designed as an autocracy by Bismarck for Bismarck. He was ‘the complete despot’ according to Disraeli.

As power does, it infected him with paranoia. He saw enemies everywhere. Year by year he grew angrier and ruder and more tyrannical to those around him including his own son Herbert, who had fallen in love with a princess of whose family Bismarck disapproved. He broke up their intended marriage and broke his son’s heart in doing so.

Close observers whose letters are quoted here saw something ‘demonic’ in him, including the young Prince Wilhelm who took over as Wilhelm II at last. Unlike Wilhelm I, he was not prepared to leave the governing to Bismarck. They rowed. Bismarck tried to tame him with his resignation tactic.

This time, to his great surprise, it was accepted. After 26 years he was out.

He was furious. He wrote his unreliable memoirs - he always told lies when it suited. Then he died.

Unlike most works of academic history this one is very brightly written, though it sometimes gets bogged down in German political trickery and manoeuvring between the Vons.

At such times I found myself muttering, ‘Ve haf vays of making you yawn’. But without doubt it will be the definitive biography for years to come, and has just been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.

My distaste of Bismarck grew into dislike, disgust and finally dyspepsia. Whether the author, Professor Steinberg of Cambridge and Pennsylvania Universities, shares my reactions I am not sure.

He has a biographer’s grudging admiration for his subject. He believes Bismarck’s deplorable character was a necessary reverse side of his political genius. He may be right. To be a genius at politics you may need to be a horrible human being.

At moments one sees a resemblance to Hitler - not least in their violent anti-Semitism. But Bismarck was by far the cleverer dictator.

For one thing, he had the sense not to interfere in military strategy. At this his generals excelled, including Hindenburg who in due course reluctantly installed Hitler as the Iron Chancellor in Bismarck’s chair.

Until recently, Otto von Bismarck was admired in Germany as their ‘genius statesman’.

Not any longer, one hopes, for his lasting legacy was to make the German people all too ready to submit to authority and to leave their fate in the hands of a ‘great man’. Without Bismarck’s example, Hitler might not have received such a ready reception.

SOURCE

Geneticists reveal 50 per cent of Britons are GERMAN

2011-06-21T17:12:00.002+11:30

Scientists say that around half of Britons have German blood coursing through their veins.

Anybody who paid attention in their history lessons knows that tribes from northern Europe invaded Britain after the Romans left in around 410AD. But research by leading geneticists reveals the extent to which the Germans became part of the nation's racial mix.

Together with archaeologists who have spent years on sites in the UK, they conclude that 50 per cent of us have some German blood.

Biologists at University College in London studied a segment of the Y chromosome that appears in almost all Danish and northern German men – and found it surprisingly common in Great Britain.

Analysis of tooth enamel and bones found in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries supported these results.

German archeologist Heinrich Haerke believes 'up to 200,000 emigrants' crossed the North Sea, pillaging and raping and eventually settling. The native Celts, softened by years of peace under the Romans, were no match for the raiding parties from across the North Sea.

Pottery and jewellery similar to that found in grave sites along the Elbe River in northern Germany has been unearthed in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries here. There is also evidence the settlers remained in contact with relatives on the Continent for up to three generations.

The findings have caused a certain amount of gloating in Germany. 'There is no use in denying it,' wrote news magazine Der Spiegel. 'It is clear that the nation which most dislikes the Germans were once Krauts themselves. A number of studies reinforce the intimacy of the German-English relationship.'

Anglo-Saxon is a catch-all phrase to refer to the invaders of the fifth and sixth centuries AD. Angles came from the southern part of the Danish peninsula and gave their name to England and the Saxons came from the north German plain.

There were other tribes – such as the Jutes, from Jutland, who settled in Kent.

The Anglo-Saxons drove the Britons into Cornwall, Wales and the North, but a few centuries later faced waves of invaders themselves – Vikings from Scandinavia and then the Normans in 1066.

SOURCE

A visit to a Bethnal Green basement won me over to Prince Philip

2011-06-11T10:22:00.000+11:30

By Tom Utley, writing on the occasion of the 90th birthday of His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh

The first time I saw the Duke of Edinburgh at close quarters was more than ten years ago, when he was visiting a drug rehabilitation centre run by a charity in the East End of London.

It was a low-key occasion — no more than a handful of social workers and a couple of recovering addicts, squashed into two tiny rooms in the basement of a dilapidated shop.

Nothing much newsworthy was likely to come of it, but I had been sent along with my notebook simply on the off-chance (and I may as well come clean) that the royal visitor, who is 90 today, would make one of his celebrated gaffes.

I arrived a good half-hour before the Duke and spent the time talking to the charity workers and addicts. It quickly became clear most of them were decidedly unenthusiastic about the impending visit, and the Royal Family in general.

Like me, they were expecting the cartoon character depicted in the red-top tabloids: arrogant, cantankerous and impatient with political correctness to the borderline of racism. Where drug addiction was concerned, they imagined that he would belong firmly to the cold showers and ‘pull yerself together, man’ school of rehabilitation.

The Duke duly arrived, with no ceremony and a single aide in tow ...... and by the time he left, no more than three-quarters of an hour later, everyone in that run-down, damp-smelling basement was singing a very different tune.

I wish I could record exactly what the staff and addicts told me, before and after the visit, so readers could compare and contrast. But since the Duke failed to oblige me with a gaffe, not a line of my report appeared in the next day’s paper (I was working elsewhere at the time) — and my notebook is beyond retrieval among scores of others in plastic sacks in the loft.

But while we were waiting for Prince Philip’s arrival, the words that came up most often were ‘irrelevant’, ‘privileged’ and ‘complete waste of time’. After he’d gone, they were ‘impressive’, ‘amazing’ and ‘incredibly well-informed’.

True, he hadn’t succeeded in turning these Left-leaning community workers into flag-waving royalists. But he had convinced them he was genuinely interested in their work, he knew a great deal about treating addiction and about government policy on the matter — and he was determined to give them all the practical help he could. If it was an act, it was an extremely good one.

Above all, he left them believing their work was important and hugely appreciated. And I would suggest that whatever their professed opinions about royalty, they felt a great deal more chuffed than they would have done after a similar blessing from, say, the Secretary of State for Social

As it happens, a few years later I myself was to feel the glow of the royal benediction. So I can testify at first hand about how good it feels.

It was when the red-tops [sensationalist newspapers] were laying into the Duke for his latest supposed gaffe, in which he was said to have reduced a boy to tears by telling him he was ‘too fat’ to become an astronaut.

But that wasn’t exactly what he had said. As the Mail’s report made clear, he was touring Salford University, where they were building a spacecraft, when he asked an obese 13-year-old, with a hideous Mohican haircut, if he would like to go into space. When the boy replied he would, the Duke laughed and said: ‘You’ll have to lose a bit of weight first.’

This struck me as perfectly friendly advice for a grown-up to give a child, and nothing at all to blub about. Certainly, it didn’t justify the boy’s revolting parents in telling the papers the Duke was an ‘ignorant fool’ and ‘a silly old Greek sod’, who should ‘keep his mouth shut’.

In a saner age, I felt, they would have had their heads chopped off for such abominable rudeness to their sovereign’s consort — who, incidentally, had fought gallantly in the Royal Navy to ensure the freedom of their lump of a kid to stuff himself with chips.

So my pen leapt from its scabbard to defend the Duke and to point out that as the founder of his eponymous award scheme, he was better qualified than most to dish out advice on physical fitness to the young.

In passing, I also defended his daughter Princess Anne, who was under red-top attack for her own ‘embarrassing gaffe’. Her crime was to have asked someone in the East End where he came from, and when he replied ‘Bengal’, she said: ‘There are quite a lot of you from there, aren’t there?’

In what sense was that a ‘gaffe’? Looked at from any angle, it struck me as a totally neutral statement of fact — the sort of remark anyone might make, when stuck for anything more interesting to say. There are, indeed, quite a lot of Bengalis in East London.

Anyway, after I’d dashed off my defence of father and daughter, I was astonished to receive a letter from the Palace. All right, it didn’t come from the man himself, but from his female press officer (and I can already hear the gales of cynical laughter from those who think what a sucker I must be to be touched by a letter from a flunkey).

But touched I was. It said the Duke had asked her to write to me because he’d been hurt by the criticism he’d received for his remark to the boy and was grateful I’d realised it was well-meant.

Had he really read my article — and was he really hurt by all the abuse — or was this just his spin doctor, acting off her own bat? Your guess is as good as mine.

But having seen Prince Philip at work in that drug rehabilitation centre, I choose to believe he’s more sensitive than people give him credit for and it was jolly courteous of him to convey his thanks to me.

Before you run away with the idea I’m entirely besotted, however, I must acknowledge that, like most of us, he has an unattractive side. Indeed, it was well-illustrated in David Cameron’s uncharacteristically inept tribute to the birthday boy in the Commons on Tuesday, when he quoted Prince Philip’s reply to someone who had once asked him how his flight had been: ‘Have you ever been on a plane? Well, you know how it goes up in the air and comes down again — it was like that.’

Why, when the Duke has made so many witty and pithy remarks over the years, did the Prime Minister choose to quote this example of sheer, unfunny boorishness? God knows, we’ve all asked people how their flights were. It’s a civil way of opening a conversation. The question really doesn’t merit a humiliating put-down from a royal duke.

Perhaps Prince Philip just doesn’t realise that most of us, when we’re asked how our flight was, could jaw on for hours about the delays, queues at security and food running out. If only air travel were simply a matter of going up in the air and coming down again, as it is for him, we’d all be a lot happier about it.

It may be that Mr Cameron thought the story illustrated the Duke’s dislike of small talk and his unwillingness to suffer fools gladly. I’m more inclined to believe it appealed to the Etonian bully in the Prime Minister.

Either way, this is not a day to dwell on Prince Philip’s faults. For he has virtues in abundance — boundless energy, good humour, stoicism, a keen interest in other people and an unfailing sense of duty — which, I reckon, far outweigh his failings.

I’m not going to apologise for my trade’s failure to give much space to his good works. For if we filled our papers with reports of his countless gaffe-free visits to drug rehabilitation centres and the like, people would soon stop buying them.

Enough to say that in that Bethnal Green basement a decade ago, I became a keen fan. And I know millions of others — perhaps many more than he may think — will join me today in wishing him the very happy 90th he’s so richly earned.

SOURCE

Lazy British managers condemned by Indian steel tycoon

2011-05-22T17:17:00.001+11:30

Australians are rarely balls of fire but even they tend to see the Brits as work-shy

A key adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron has launched an attack on the work-ethic of British managers, accusing them of failing to "go the extra mile" and being too keen to clock off at 5pm.

Indian tycoon Ratan Tata made the comments as one of his companies, Tata Steel, proposed to close or mothball part of its Scunthorpe plant, putting at risk 1,200 jobs. The plans would also see 300 jobs lost at its Teesside site.

Mr Tata, who is a member of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Group, and co-chairman of the UK-India CEO Forum, described his surprise at the attitudes of bosses at steel maker Corus and car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which he bought in 2006 and 2008 respectively.

He told The Times: "It's a work-ethic issue. In my experience, in both Corus and JLR, nobody is willing to go the extra mile, nobody. "I feel if you have come from Bombay to have a meeting and the meeting goes till 6pm, I would expect that you won't, at 5 o'clock, say, 'Sorry, I have my train to catch. I have to go home.' "Friday, from 3.30pm, you can't find anybody in their office."

Mr Tata said that things are different in his native India. "If you are in a crisis, if it means working to midnight, you would do it. "The worker in JLR seems to be willing to do that; the management is not," he said.

The 73-year-old added that previously at JLR "the entire engineering group would be empty on Friday evening", but said things had improved. "The new management team has put an end to that. They call meetings at 5 o'clock," he said.

On Friday Tata Group blamed a decline in the construction industry for the cuts in the north east, but it also announced that it will invest £400 million in its Long Products business over the next five years.

Unions said the jobs losses amounted to eight per cent of Tata's UK workforce, pledging to try to mitigate the impact of the decision, while Labour said it was a "hugely worrying" sign for industry.

Tata, which completed the sale of its Teesside Cast Products site in Redcar to Thai steel firm SSI earlier this year, launched a 90-day consultation with unions before the redundancies will start.

The firm said it was "reasonably confident" of achieving most of the job losses through voluntary redundancies, although it could not rule out compulsory lay offs.

SOURCE

A joyous story

2011-05-16T03:26:00.003+11:30

Mother's instinct saves her son after blundering doctors wrongly say baby has died in the womb

A woman who was told her baby had died in the womb in a devastating medical blunder has celebrated her son's first birthday. Michael was declared dead during a scan carried out when his mother Melissa Redmond was just eight weeks pregnant.
The mother from Donabate near Dublin was issued with labour-inducing medication but her mother's instinct drove her to seek a second opinion.

To her amazement it was discovered she had not miscarried at all - but was in fact carrying a strong and healthy baby.

Her case sparked a huge review of maternity services in Ireland where it was found the same thing had happened to 23 women over the last five years.

Melissa, 36, said: 'When Michael was born he was perfectly healthy and it was just a joy to hold him in my arms. 'My husband Michael and I were holding him and couldn't believe he was actually here. 'Now, every time I look at him I think to myself, my God - I nearly lost you, I almost didn't know you.'

When Melissa fell pregnant in the summer of 2009, she had already had two healthy children, Cian, now nine, and Tara, four, but had suffered four miscarriages.
So when she was going through her seventh pregnancy, it was recommended she have early scans at six and eight weeks to check on the progress of her unborn baby.
However, when she went for the eight-week scan at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda she was distraught to be told she had miscarried again.

She and her IT specialist husband Michael, 44, took the painful decision to have a D&C procedure - also known as a dilation and curettage - to have their 'dead' child removed. The operation was scheduled for two days later on July 24 and Melissa was also given the abortive drug, Cytotec, to take on the morning of the operation.

However, Melissa's mothering instinct kicked in and she decided to visit her local GP to seek a second opinion. She said: 'I still felt pregnant, even though they had told me at the hospital that I could be feeling the effects of the pregnancy up to a week after losing the baby. 'But I also remembered how I felt during the previous miscarriages and during my previous healthy pregnancies. Call it mother's instinct, but I just felt something wasn't right.'

To both Melissa and Michael's disbelief, the GP's surgery filled instantly with the sound of their unborn son's heart, beating strongly.

Relief soon turned to anger as Melissa realised that had she taken the Cytotec - a powerful abortive drug - that she would have killed her own baby without even knowing. Both she and her husband now want to highlight the shocking hospital blunders and faulty equipment that led to the misdiagnosis.

Michael said: 'There are so many other mothers this could have happened to.
'Their children could have died - viable children.'

Melissa said: 'If this was my first pregnancy, I wouldn't have known any different. I would have just gone with what they said. The only reason I questioned it is because it wasn't my first pregnancy and because I've had miscarriages as well that I knew the feeling. 'I knew to trust my own instincts and my own body, but how many girls have gone in there and it could have been their first one and they wouldn't have been any wiser?'

An internal hospital report uncovered a litany of technical faults and staff failures which almost ended in tragedy. A review by the Health Service Executive (HSE) found inadequate staff training and over-reliance on ultrasound led to 24 women being wrongly told they had suffered a miscarriage.

Recommendations being implemented include developing national guidelines for the management of early pregnancy complications and ensuring emergency gynaecological care has a dedicated early pregnancy assessment unit.

Melissa hopes her experience will encourage other women in similar situations to always seek a second opinion and trust their own instincts.

In the meantime, she is concentrating on enjoying her son's important milestones, from his first Christmas to his first birthday a few weeks ago. Melissa said: 'He is a lovely happy little boy. He is just a joy to have around. He feeds well, sleeps well, everything you could wish for. He is a dream.

'But it's not just the big milestones that make me think of what happened, it's the little ones as well. Every time I look at him and he makes me laugh or I see him smile, what happened never leaves me.

'Maybe it will as time goes on but there are so many milestones at the moment: his first words, his first steps. We could have missed them all.
'I probably will feel differently over time but at the moment I feel it every day.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1385842/Ultrasound-scan-Mothers-instinct-saves-son-blundering-doctors-wrongly-say-baby-died-womb.html

Japanese language traced to Korean Peninsula

2011-05-08T19:31:00.000+11:30

Japan's many dialects originate in a migration of farmers from the Korean Peninsula some 2,200 years ago, a groundbreaking study borrowing the tools of evolutionary genetics reported Wednesday.

The findings suggest that Japan's many language variants -- and by extension much of its culture -- did not emerge, as widely believed by many Japanese, primarily from indigenous hunter-gatherers already present on the archipelago for millennia.

More broadly, the study bolsters the theory that agricultural expansion has been the main driver of linguistic diversity throughout world history, the researchers said.

Japanese is the only major language whose origins remain hotly contested.

Some scholars argue the main settlement of the archipelago occurred 12,000 to 30,000 years ago, and that modern Japanese -- both the language and the people -- descend directly from this stone-age culture, which had some agriculture but was based mainly on hunting and gathering.

According the this theory, the migration of other peoples from mainland Asia around 200 B.C. brought metal tools, rice and new farming techniques but had scant impact on linguistic development.

Other researchers counter that this influx from the Korean Peninsula had a far deeper influence, largely replacing or displacing both the indigenous inhabitants and their spoken tongues.

Recent archaeological and DNA evidence support this theory, but researchers at The University of Tokyo wondered if additional clues might be found by tracing dozens of distinct dialects back through time to their earliest common ancestor.

Where that search wound up, they reasoned, could provide powerful evidence as to which school of thought was right.

To carry out the study, Sean Lee and Toshikazu Hasegama used a technique developed by evolutionary biologists to examine DNA fragments from fossils in order to create family trees, often reaching back millions of years.

First applied to languages a decade ago by Russel Gray at the University of Auckland, phylogenetics has "revolutionised" the study of language, even if it remains controversial, Lee said in an interview.

"Accumulating empirical evidence suggests that languages have, astonishingly, gene-like properties, and they also evolve by a process of descent," he said.

Lee and Hasegama created a list of 210 key vocabulary words -- body parts, basic verbs, numbers and pronouns -- and duplicated that list across 59 different dialects.

The researchers chose words unlikely to be borrowed across dialects and "resistant to change," much in the same way biologists seek out so-called "highly-conserved" genes that remain unaltered for thousands of generations.

Computer modelling showed that all of these "Japonic" languages descended from a common ancestor some 2,182 years ago -- coinciding with the major wave of migration from the Korean Peninsula.

The exact timing of the farmers' arrival may go back a little further, Lee said by email, but the core conclusion seems inescapable: "the first farmers of Japan had a profound impact on the origins of both people and languages."

The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, also highlights a remarkable, and possibly unique, delay in the transition to agricultural culture.

At the same time that China was undergoing one of the most remarkable explosions of culture and philosophy in human history during its Spring and Autumn Period, Japan was just emerging -- perhaps by choice -- from the stone age.

"What puzzles me is that the hunter-gather population who live in Japan seemed to have chosen a 'harmonious' lifestyle over an 'exploitative' agricultural lifestyle," he said.

"They had knowledge of cultivation but never developed it into full-scale farming."

It is still unknown whether the rice-farmings migrants that landed in Japan two thousand years ago also brought with them a writing system, Lee added.

Source

Nostalgia is the key to happiness

2011-05-06T00:51:00.000+11:30

Remembering the good times and forgetting about the bad are the keys to happiness, claims a new study. Researchers found that people with personality traits that allow them to be nostalgic about the past have higher life satisfaction than those who exaggerate or mull over their failures.

They found that extroverted people had the best ability to do this whereas those with neurotic tendencies were the worst.

The study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, suggests that outlook rather than experience and fortune has a strong influence on overall happiness.

It also suggests that by changing certain traits, rather than a whole personality, individuals could greatly improve their happiness levels.

The researchers at San Francisco State University looked at the personality traits and the relative happiness levels of 750 student volunteers.

The used a standardised personality test to see how it relates to their outlook and life satisfaction.

The "Big Five" test assesses how extroverted, neurotic, open, conscientious and agreeable a person is by rating them on a scale for each personality trait.

Each volunteer was asked to describe how accurately each trait describes them on a one to nine scale with one being extremely inaccurate and nine being extremely accurate.

They were assessed about their "time perspective" – a concept coined by Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo to describe whether an individual is past, present or future orientated.

This was done by asking them to evaluate their past, present and future describing whether they felt they saw them in a positive or negative light.

Finally they were tested for overall life satisfaction.

"We found that highly extroverted people are happier with their lives because they tend to hold a positive, nostalgic view of the past and are less likely to have negative thoughts and regrets, said the study author Professor Ryan Howell, a psychologist at San Francisco State University.

"People high on the neurotic scale essentially have the exact opposite view of the past and are less happy as a result.

"This is good news because although it may be difficult to change your personality, you may be able to alter your view of time and boost your happiness," Prof Howell said.

The authors suggest that "savouring" happy memories or "reframing" painful past experiences in a positive light could be effective ways for individuals to increase their life satisfaction.

Numerous studies over the last 30 years have suggested that personality is a powerful predictor of a person's life satisfaction.

These latest findings help explain the reason behind this relationship. "Personality traits influence how people look at the past, present and future and it is these different perspectives on time which drive a person's happiness," Prof Howell said.

To assess time perspective, participants were asked such questions as whether they enjoy reminiscing about the "good old days" or whether they believe their future is determined by themselves or by fate.

People's view of the past had the greatest effect on life satisfaction.

Extraverts, who are energetic and talkative, were much more likely to remember the past positively and be happier as a result.

People high on the neurotic scale, which can mean being moody, emotionally unstable and fretful, were more likely to have an anguished remembrance of the past and to be less happy.

SOURCE

The publishing sensation that made England conquer the world

2011-04-24T16:46:00.002+11:30

The King James Bible is 400 years old this year: On Easter Sunday, one historian blasts a trumpet in its honour

By David Starkey

This month sees the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. It is the greatest book in the English language. It made English, and remade England.

It has been printed in millions of copies and hundreds of editions. It gives us our most memorable phrases and arresting images – from ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ to a ‘sting in the tail’.

Called into being by a king, it has carried ideas of truth and freedom and justice and human dignity to the furthest corners of the globe. Its cadences can be heard in the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and President Obama. It is the spice in the new English of the Indian Subcontinent. And yet, extraordinarily, this supreme achievement was the work of a committee – or so we have always been told.

Closer examination reveals a very different story, which overturns our notions of the chronology of this great book and reintroduces an unjustly neglected name to our pantheon of great writers, William Tyndale.

James VI of Scotland succeeded the childless Queen Elizabeth I as James I of England in 1603. There were high hopes for him, and none higher than James’s for himself. He had been king of Scots since he was in his cradle. He was learned; a polished, published author and a patient, canny politician. Above all – and in sharp contrast to the ageing Elizabeth, who had frozen into a sort of querulous immobility – he had vision and ambition.

James I had set himself three main tasks. He wanted to end the long, debilitating war between England and Spain. He was determined to bring about a political union between his two separate kingdoms of Scotland and England. And he even dreamt of reuniting the Christian church, which had been riven by the Reformation into warring factions, as Catholics fought Protestants and Protestants fought each other. All three conﬂicts, James resolved, would be settled by his deft mediation as the universal Rex Paciﬁcus – ‘the peacemaker king’.

It was indeed an ambitious programme. Less than a decade later, it mostly lay in ruins. England and Spain were at peace, but the English parliament had thrown out a union with Scotland; while the Gunpowder Plot, in which a handful of renegade Catholics had schemed to blow up king, Lords and Commons, had set back Catholic emancipation by generations.

One thing, however, survived from the wreck: the scheme for a new, agreed translation of the Bible. The scheme had ﬁrst been ﬂoated at the Hampton Court Conference, held in Henry VIII’s Thames-side palace in 1604 to try to resolve the bitter disputes within the Church of England between the Puritans, who wanted a stripped-down Protestantism, and the bishops, who were determined to retain a more ceremonious national Church. James, who presided as an anything but impartial chairman, leapt at the idea.

Fifty-four scholars were nominated as translators, of whom 47 actually served. They were divided into six separate ‘companies’ or committees, two meeting at Oxford, two at Cambridge and two at Westminster, and the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha were parcelled out among them. Each committee then went through its alloted portion, line by line and word by word.

They began with the original texts in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic; they compared and contrasted later translations in Latin and many other languages; they scoured reference books and commentaries; they consulted with other scholars on speciﬁc issues. And, being academics, they debated and quarrelled endlessly and ferociously.

Contrary to popular belief, however, what the translators did not do was to start the work of translation from scratch. Their instructions, whose substance was dictated by James himself, were quite explicit on the point. Instead, they were to base themselves on the main English Bible translations of the 16th century: ‘Tindall’s (sic), Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s, Geneva’.

And the greatest of these, and the foundation of all the others – including the King James version itself – was Tyndale’s. It was one translator against 50, but there is no doubt where the balance of creativity lies.

William Tyndale, martyr, Bible-translator and a controversialist so formidable that he left even Sir Thomas More ﬂoored in argument, was a near-contemporary of Henry VIII: Tyndale was born in about 1494; Henry some three years earlier.

And Tyndale, like the young prince, beneﬁted from the ﬁrst wave of Renaissance scholarship in England. Tyndale probably laid the foundations of his excellent knowledge of the Classics at Katharine Lady Berkeley’s Grammar School at Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, a few miles from his place of birth. And he polished it at Magdalen College, Oxford, where Wolsey had cut his teeth as star student and ambitious young don.

Tyndale’s academic career progressed smoothly, too. He graduated BA 1512; in 1515 he was ordained a priest and, a few months later, he began his further studies for the MA. But the next year, Tyndale’s life – and the whole history of the 16th century – changed.

The great Dutch scholar Erasmus had spent much of the past decade in England, where he had been one of Henry VIII’s youthful mentors. The Bible had been one of his preoccupations and, in 1516, he published the fruits of his labours in the form of the ﬁrst printed text of the Greek New Testament, with a radically revised Latin translation alongside.

Erasmus called his work the Novum Instrumentum (The New Tool) and it divided his world like a freshly honed razor. On one side were men such as Sir Thomas More and, for a long time, Henry VIII himself. They were determined that the Bible should remain a clerical monopoly in Latin, safe from the prying eyes of ordinary folk. On the other side was the German reformer Martin Luther, who was equally determined to put the Bible into the language of the people and let it do its work in the world.

Tyndale was with Luther, and his life’s work now became to translate the Bible into English. He began his task in England. But the clerical establishment proved bitterly hostile and threatened him with the terrible charge of heresy, for which the punishment was burning alive.

In one such encounter his persecutor told him ‘we were better without God’s law than the Pope’s’. Tyndale replied in words that have echoed down the centuries. ‘If God spare my life,’ he said, ‘I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.’

Realising now that ‘to translate the New Testament… there was no place in all England’, Tyndale ﬂed abroad, ﬁrst to Cologne, then to Worms and, ﬁnally, to the great trading city of Antwerp.

In 1526 he published his ﬁrst version of the New Testament. Then, somewhere and somehow, he learned Hebrew and began the even greater task of translating the Old Testament. He worked with his usual speed and, in 1530, he published the ﬁrst ﬁve books of the Old Testament, known as the Pentateuch. A translation of the Prophet Jonah followed, and he began work on the historical books, Kings and Chronicles. Finally, in 1534, he published a thorough revision of his New Testament in which he improved his own high standards.

It is an astonishing achievement. Still only in his thirties, Tyndale was working underground, with little assistance and few resources. He had to deal with much of the drudgery of printing and distribution himself. And yet this was the result:

‘Though I spake with the tongues of men and angels, and yet had no love, I were even as sounding brass: and as a tinkling cymbal. And though I could prophesy, and understood all secrets, and all knowledge: yea, if I had all faith so that I could move mountains out of their places, and yet had no love, I were nothing.’ (I Corinthians 13. 1-2)

All the great phrases, which have become the very fabric of the language, are there, too: ‘the spirit is willing’; ‘ﬁght the good ﬁght’; ‘the powers that be’. Yet More denounced Tyndale’s great work as ‘a ﬁlthy foam of blasphemies’.

This was because Tyndale, basing himself on Erasmus, had dared to translate key words in their Greek meanings as ‘elder’, ‘congregation’, ‘love’ and ‘repent’, instead of the ofﬁcially approved ‘priest’, ‘church’, ‘charity’ and ‘do penance’.

A hundred years of strife was in the difference, and Tyndale was one of the ﬁrst victims. He was betrayed to the Flemish authorities, condemned and, having been strangled ﬁrst (out of respect to his scholarship), his body was burned at the stake.

It is hard to exaggerate the difference between the lonely, hunted Tyndale and the comfortable cohorts of the Jacobean translators, with their fellowships and deaneries. Nine-tenths of Tyndale’s New Testament are reproduced word for word in the King James version.

This is no more radical a revision than the work of any modern publisher’s editor in preparing an author’s manuscript for the press. But there is an alchemy nonetheless. Tyndale had written for the ploughboy. The Jacobean translators were preparing an ofﬁcial text for an established Church which, Protestant though it was, had taken over much of the pomp and circumstance of its old Catholic predecessor.

So back came the traditional translations of the disputed words, such as ‘church’ and ‘charity’. Out went Tyndale’s vivid colloquialisms. ‘In the twinkling of an eye’ became ‘in a moment of time’. ‘Tush, ye shall not die’, Tyndale’s Serpent tells Eve in the Garden of Eden.

‘Ye shall not surely die’, the Tempter says more decorously in the King James Bible. And everywhere the translators aimed for smoothness and dignity: ‘If the words are arranged this way, the statement will be more majestic,’ one argued.

The result should have been an uneasy compromise. Instead it was a miracle. Tyndale supplied the muscle; the Jacobeans the majesty. And English ever since has been able to move effortlessly from one to the other. At the same time, the language began another and even greater journey.

In 1607, halfway through the work of the Jacobean translators, the ﬁrst lasting English settlement was established in North America, ﬁttingly enough at Jamestown.

With the Empire as the medium and the King James Bible as the message, English had begun its path to global dominance.

Source

Sat-nav: Prehistoric Britons 'used crude sat nav'

2011-04-20T21:36:00.000+11:30

Prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a crude version of sat nav based on stone circle markers, historians have claimed. They were able to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments. These covered much of southern England and Wales and included now famous landmarks such as Stonehenge and The Mount.

New research suggests that they were built on a connecting grid of isosceles triangles that 'point' to the next site. Many are 100 miles or more away, but GPS co-ordinates show all are accurate to within 100 metres. This provided a simple way for ancient Britons to navigate successfully from A to B without the need for maps.

According to historian and writer Tom Brooks, the findings show that Britain's Stone Age ancestors were "sophisticated engineers" and far from a barbaric race.

Mr Brooks, from Honiton, Devon, studied all known prehistoric sites as part of his research. He said: "To create these triangles with such accuracy would have required a complex understanding of geometry. "The sides of some of the triangles are over 100 miles across on each side and yet the distances are accurate to within 100 metres. You cannot do that by chance.

"So advanced, sophisticated and accurate is the geometrical surveying now discovered, that we must review fundamentally the perception of our Stone Age forebears as primitive, or conclude that they received some form of external guidance.

Mr Brooks analysed 1,500 sites stretching from Norfolk to north Wales. These included standing stones, hilltop forts, stone circles and hill camps. Each was built within eyeshot of the next. Using GPS co-ordinates, he plotted a course between the monuments and noted their positions to each other.

He found that they all lie on a vast geometric grid made up of isosceles 'triangles'. Each triangle has two sides of the same length and 'point' to the next settlement. Thus, anyone standing on the site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire could have navigated their way to Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall without a map.

Mr Brooks believes many of the Stone Age sites were created 5,000 years ago by an expanding population recovering from the trauma of the Ice Age.

Lower ground and valleys would have been reduced to bog and marshes, and people would have naturally sought higher ground to settle. He said: "After the Ice Age, the territory would have been pretty daunting for everyone. There was an expanding population and people were beginning to explore. "They would have sought sanctuary on high ground and these positions would also have given clear vantage points across the land with clear visibility untarnished by pollution.

"The triangle navigation system may have been used for trading routes among the expanding population and also been used by workers to create social paths back to their families while they were working on these new sites."

Mr Brooks now hopes his findings will inspire further research into the navigation methods of ancient Britons. He said: "Created more than 2,000 years before the Greeks were supposed to have discovered such geometry, it remains one of the world's biggest civil engineering projects. "It was a breathtaking and complex undertaking by a people of profound industry and vision. We must revise our thinking of what's gone before."

SOURCE

Another wonderful steam restoration

2011-04-18T18:36:00.002+11:30

To a non-railway buff like me, this glistening heap of steel resembles a life-size version of Thomas the Tank Engine. It’s even painted a similar shade of blue. But in the world of steam engines, this is nothing short of a miracle. ‘It’s like seeing the Titanic raised from the Atlantic and restored to life as an ocean liner,’ says local steam buff Tom Arnold, surveying this wondrous resurrection.

Because Edward II is not just one of the last of the great steam locomotives. It is also testimony to the ingenuity, perseverance and passion of that indefatigable force of nature: The Englishman with a hobby.

Rail enthusiasts — from trainspotters to members of the Brunel family — have been flocking to the Didcot Railway Centre in Oxfordshire this month to pay homage to this fabulous feat of restoration.

It has taken 125 amateur enthusiasts £700,000 and 60,000 hours of voluntary work over 21 years to rescue a heap of scrap and turn it back into a fully operational industrial work of art. Some of the team have not just sacrificed holidays and precious weekends. The whole exercise may even have pushed a few marriages to the brink, too. Now that it is done, several wives have reclaimed their husbands. Others, it must be said, cannot wait for another restoration to lure their husbands out of the house again.

But no one disputes the magnitude of the achievement. You can’t help wondering why on earth we don’t put this lot in charge of Britain’s entire rail network.

Everything is magnificently oiled and polished when I arrive. Edward II is not ‘in steam’ when I turn up (it will be this weekend) but it means I can clamber around the cab, and it’s all spotless.

This wonderful old railway shed is full of beautifully-maintained old engines, some of them dating back to the mid-19th century. One giant is kitted out in its World War One khaki livery. But the star of the show — which is open to the public most days — is Edward II.

Resident mechanic David Horsley shows me the controls — a red lever for going forward or backwards, another red lever for fast or slow and a series of handles and valves for braking. Behind me is a huge pile of coal and a very large shovel with which the fireman was expected to keep the boiler fully ablaze. Back-breaking stuff.

I had always imagined steam obsessives to be pedantic gents of a certain age, but David is a mere 26 and has been a railway enthusiast since childhood. Along with everyone else, he cannot quite believe that Edward II will soon be pulling coachloads of steam lovers all over the country. ‘The preservation world called this ''Mission Impossible'' and they weren’t joking,’ says David, who was just five years old when this project began.

To the boiler-suited cognoscenti, this marvel is simply ‘6023’. To the rest of us, it is a very large steam locomotive, one of the last to thunder along what used to be known as the Great Western Railway — GWR or ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’ as the oily rag brigade sometimes call Brunel’s engineering triumph.

Edward II was built in 1930 at GWR’s Swindon works. Back then, the company’s biggest and best express locomotives were named after kings. It spent many years speeding from London along the big routes to Cardiff, Bristol and Plymouth at speeds pretty similar to today’s trains.

But in 1948 GWR was swallowed up into the nationalised behemoth of British Rail. Edward II lost its old green GWR livery and was painted in new British Rail blue (the colour it sports today). By 1962, the new management was looking to a steam-free future. Edward II was sold to a scrap dealer in Barry, South Wales, with specific instructions that it was not to be sold on to anyone else. Sentimentality was alien to the dismal Sixties bureaucratic mindset.

The British Rail management wanted people to forget the dirty, sweaty old days of steam and embrace the joys of diesel and electric trains. ‘It was all about looking to the future,’ says Richard Croucher, the chairman of the GWR Society, formed 50 years ago to preserve the memory of the old network. ‘They wanted to wipe out the past.’

Up and down the country, old King class locomotives were sent off to be melted down. But Edward II and its sibling, Edward I, were spared the regicide, simply because the Welsh scrap dealer had them at the back of his yard and never quite got round to chopping them up.

Years later, Edward I was retrieved and lovingly restored by a bunch of enthusiasts. One other King — George V — had also been salvaged and is now a static exhibit at York’s National Railway Museum. But Edward II had always seemed beyond hope. Following a shunting mishap in Barry, its wheels had been chopped off in the Sixties. Many of its parts had been cannibalised to help restore Edward I. And so it just sat in Barry, broken and inert, waiting for the blowtorch.

But there is no defeating the dedicated steam boffin. First, a handful of enthusiasts from Bristol bought the royal carcass in 1985. When they ran out of funds, the Great Western Society decided to get involved. They turned to Dennis Howells, an engineer who has devoted his life to railways. He even owns his own locomotive (don’t ever call these things a ‘train’). ‘I’ve seen some wrecks in my time,’ says Dennis. ‘But that was easily the worst.’

He was up for the challenge, though. The society paid £9,000 for the corpse of Edward II and Dennis assembled a team.

Here was a project for which the term ‘labour of love’ might have been invented. So, did some of the team end up having to choose between Edward II and their wives?

‘It didn’t quite come to that,’ says Dennis, 71. ‘But it can happen. You just have to be sensible about what you ask people to do.’

The biggest challenge was finding some new wheels. None existed, so Dennis and a consortium of engineering brains spent a long time commissioning a fresh set at a cost of some £30,000. The team would meet every other Sunday, all year round, in the Didcot workshop. Some died before seeing their cherished project reach fruition.

Today, I find half-a-dozen engines in the same giant shed in various states of restoration. A couple of professional engineers are working on specific projects as contractors. Come the weekend, they will be joined by hordes of volunteers. An unexpectedly young face peers out of the boiler of a Saint class locomotive. Alex Beasley, 23, started messing around with steam trains as a child. Now he is a professional boilersmith.

The whole 25-acre site is a museum, sandwiched between two modern mainlines. Today’s inter-city traffic thunders past as David Horsley shows me the only surviving example of Brunel’s famous broad-gauge railway and some alarmingly basic open-air third-class carriages from the earliest days of steam.

I sit down in a plush saloon which served as a travelling drawing room for Churchill and the Royal Family during World War II. The huge old wireless set still works.

Another youngster is hard at work nearby. Local carpenter Mark Werrell, 24, started coming to Didcot as a child with his father, a founder member of the GWR Society. Now, he is a mad keen volunteer himself. He’s got the afternoon off from work. He could be at home watching telly or out in the sunshine. Instead, he has decided to come down here and do some more renovation work on an old luggage van.

It’s not a men-only world, as manager Roger Orchard points out. ‘I would say around five per cent of our volunteers are female and we see lots of women visitors on open days,’ he says. But he acknowledges that a huge project like Edward II can take its toll on some families.

‘I heard that one woman had told her husband: “I hate Didcot and I hate that Edward II train and I can’t wait till it’s finished so you can do the garden.” I think he’s looking for a new project now.’

Source

New theory on date of Last Supper

2011-04-17T14:00:00.001+11:30

ONE of the most famous meals in history is commemorated a day late, a new book by a Cambridge University physicist claims.

Professor Sir Colin Humphreys, who was knighted last year for his contribution to science, argues that the last supper Jesus Christ shared with his disciples occurred on Wednesday, April 1, AD33, rather than on a Thursday as traditionally celebrated in most Christian churches.

The theory would explain the apparent inconsistencies between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke - which say the Last Supper was a Passover meal - and that of John, which says Jesus was tried and executed before the Jewish festival. It would explain another puzzle: why the Bible has not allowed enough time for all events recorded between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.
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Sir Colin's book, The Mystery of the Last Supper, out this week, uses astronomy to re-create calendars, plus detail drawn from texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls to propose a timeline for Jesus's final days.

''The claim I make is that we're misinterpreting some parts of the Gospels because we don't understand sufficiently life in the first century AD,'' he said.

Sir Colin argues that Jesus celebrated Passover early using the pre-exilic calendar, which the Jews used before their exile in Babylon. It would have been understood by early Christians as operating alongside the official Jewish calendar, he said.

Pope Benedict XVI spoke of a similar theory in 2007, when he said Jesus probably celebrated the meal with his disciples according to the Qumran calendar, at least a day before mainstream observances.

But Sir Colin said astronomy showed the Pope's theory, although arriving at the same conclusion, was incorrect: the Qumran calendar puts Passover at least a week after the likely date of the Crucifixion.

The prominent British academic, who reconstructs ancient historical events using modern science as ''a hobby'', has co-authored an article in the science journal Nature, which determined April 3, AD33 to be the likely date of the Crucifixion.

''Biblical scholars don't tend to be very mathematical. ''So if I can bring an understanding of ancient calendars to them, they're usually very pleased.''

Dorothy Lee, a New Testament scholar and dean of the theological school at Trinity College, the University of Melbourne, welcomed a stronger grounding of the history of the Gospels, but said their differences were often for theological reasons. ''Therefore [it's] really important not to try and tone them down or artificially harmonise,'' the Reverend Dr Lee said.

The theory could be controversial as it questioned traditional beliefs but Sir Colin said the key revelation was of tolerance. ''I think Jesus is really reaching out to all sorts of people when he chooses not to use this official Jewish calendar,'' he said.

Source

Delingpole on Cameron

2011-04-15T00:39:00.001+11:30

If I could go back in time to my Oxford days, I'd warn myself against idolising Cameron

How odd to think that there was a time when I looked up to David Cameron. From the moment we were introduced at the beginning of my second year at Oxford, I remember being mesmerised by his confidence, his charisma, his looks, that amused plummy accent and – yes – perhaps, also, that slight vibe so many Etonians projected in those days that if you hadn't been to 'School' you really weren't quite the thing. It all made you want to get to know him better. Which I did. And I very much liked what I found.

If you'd told me then that David Cameron would one day be prime minister, I'm sure I would have been tickled pink. I didn't know what his politics were but I had my vague suspicions: a belief in traditional English values spiced with a love of liberty and a healthy disrespect for arbitrary authority; almost certainly a distrust of big government and a hatred of political correctness and joyless, snarling, bitter socialism. Just the kind of brave captain you'd want at the helm if ever there was another national crisis.

But now look at him. Here is a guy who had the chance of a lifetime: he could have gone down in history as the man who saved Britain from its greatest crisis since the second world war. He could have rescued our economy, restored our national sense of self-worth, given us back our stolen liberty, rolled back the state, regained our sovereignty, slashed taxes and red tape, stemmed the tide of immigration, clamped down on Islamist aggression and undone all the damage that has been inflicted on us by Blair and Brown.

And what's he offering instead? Some nice photographs taken ten years ago showing just how fit his wife is. The exciting news that Sam is pregnant. A big poster of a young black woman saying she wouldn't have voted Conservative before but now she will because Britain's Broken. Another one showing how baby-soft and pink Dave's cheeks are. Have I missed anything? Not a lot. Cameron's future claim to fame will surely be as a prime minister so floppy and useless he makes Ted Heath look like Winston Churchill.

Which isn't to say that our Dave can't play the hard bastard when he wants to. It's just that, unfortunately, the areas where he has chosen to exercise his Stalinist talents are those least likely to be of benefit to our ruined nation. His fag-roasting ruthlessness has been deployed on things like enforcing party discipline and jettisoning any policy, however quintessentially conservative, which doesn't play well in the key marginals. What it won't be wasted on, apparently, is irrelevant stuff like ideological principle or putting Britain's interests first.

Consider his shabby behaviour over the Common Fisheries Policy. You don't need to be especially conservative or Eurosceptical to recognise this as one of the EU's most shameful on-going scandals. Its effect on the ecosystem has been devastating, with 880,000 tonnes of dead fish being chucked back into the North Sea every year; and not just in EU territory but also off the coast of west Africa which, after due payments to relevant dictators, is now legally plundered by vast Euro factory fleets. The CFP, it emerged last year in a report published by the TaxPayers' Alliance and Global Vision, has cost Britain 97,000 jobs (in fishing and dependent industries) and adds an annual £200 to a family's food bill.

This is why a few years ago a Conservative MP called Owen Paterson – one of the good ones – prepared a Green Paper calling for the repatriation of our territorial waters. Under three successive Tory leaders – Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard – this became official Tory policy. Britain would reclaim the fishing territories which Cameron's spiritual forebear Ted Heath had been gulled into surrendering on our entry into Europe, and would administer them sensibly and sustainably, much as Iceland does. But the moment Cameron became party leader Paterson was swiftly reshuffled and his carefully researched policy was shelved. When I crossly pointed this out to a Cameroon Conservative the other day, his defence was that Dave was of a mind that his party had to pick carefully where to fight its battles. If he was going to confront the EU, he wanted it to be over economics and working directives rather than over fish.

Well fine. Maybe, as some of my more sophisticated friends tell me, there's really no place for high-minded principles in politics.

You've got to do what works, not what's right.

But if that's really so true, how do you explain Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan?

And isn't there a point where this notion that 'politics is the art of the possible' crosses the line from sensible pragmatism into the kind of moral cowardice which entirely defeats the object of being in politics at all?

Dave Cameron is about to get his hands on the biggest, starriest prize yet won by my immensely ambitious Oxford generation – and I don't think any of us envy or admire him one bit. If there's one thing we ghastly Oxonians fear more than anything, it's failure.

And if there's one thing we detest more than a loser, it's a loser who drags us down with him.

Why, Dave? Why? Well, this is only a theory, but personally I blame 'Eton'. Not Eton the superb and surprisingly meritocratic establishment which gave Cameron the best education in the world and whose values every school should emulate, but 'Eton' as it exists in the peevish, bitter imaginations of libtard Guardian-istas: as symbol of all the traditional British values which must be destroyed utterly if we are to live in a land of equality and social justice. And Dave – showing a lack of moral fibre I would never have expected of him – has allowed his policy-making to be dictated by this warped, Fabian version of reality.

If Dave had been to some scrubby comp, we wouldn't be having to put up with this drivel about punishing bankers with new supertaxes or keeping the 50 per cent upper band tax base. Instead he'd have found a user-friendly way of explaining the Laffer Curve to the electorate – he did read PPE, didn't he? – and said: 'Right: less spending money and a bigger national debt; or more spending money and a small national debt?

Your choice!' The politics of conviction, not self-loathing, fear and desperation.

But it never had to be this way. Look at how Boris Johnson deals with it whenever some Jonathan-Freedland-type-chipmeister tries to use his Eton and Bullingdon background against him: he laughs, shrugs his shoulders and cracks on. What need is there for shame? It is, after all, one of the most basic principles of conservatism that no one should be stigmatised by his background.

Dividing the world into endless subcategories of victim groups and oppressor groups is what the other side does, not ours.

Look, I wouldn't go so far as to say that I should have assassinated Dave while I had the chance, while we were still mates. It's not like he's Hitler. But I do think that if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I'd definitely have a quiet word with the 20-year old me as he looked up in awe at young Dave.

'Don't, Jim, my lad. Seriously. He's not worth it, ' I would tell myself. 'And start planning your political career now. You don't know this yet, but I promise it's true: you'd make a much better Conservative prime minister than that ruddy useless Tory wet.'

SOURCE

English are now head and shoulders above Scots as growing wealth in the south adds inches to average height

2011-04-09T19:06:00.003+11:30

Inadequate nutrition does limit height but it is difficult to imagine that Scots get inadequate nutrition these days. Over-nutrition, more likely. Scots have always moved South to better themselves and taller people probably felt more confident in doing that

If a Scotsman moans that other people belittle him, he might well have a point. For research has shown that the tallest Britons now live south of the border. Scots are, by and large, the shortest people in the UK, with the typical man averaging 5ft 8in. This compares to 5ft 9in for Londoners.

What might add to the Scots’ frustration is that it hasn’t always been this way. In fact, 200 years ago it was a completely different story, with the Scots towering over their English cousins.

Researchers say the reversal cannot be explained by the penchant north of the border for delicacies such as deep-fried Mars Bars.

Instead, they believe it is down to economics, with the pace of the improvement in living standards, nutrition and medicine in England – and particularly in the South – outstripping the change in Scotland.

Professor Bernard Harris, of Southampton University, said: ‘If you drew a map of people living in the early 19th century, then what you would find is the further north you went, the taller on average the population. Now, it would be the other way round. ‘The point is not that the Scots have shrunk, it is that living standards in the South of England have improved more dramatically over the past 200 years than those in Scotland.’

His research shows that two centuries ago the average Scot was an inch taller than those living in southern England, while Norwegians were among the shortest nationals in Europe. Today, the Norwegians are the second tallest nation in Europe, surpassed only by the Dutch, who average around 6ft.

But nationality is not the only thing that affects height, with wealth also adding inches. In his new book, The Changing Body, the professor revealed that there were dramatic differences between the heights of rich and poor classes in 18th and 19th century Europe. In the 1780s, the average height of a 14-year-old working-class child was 4ft 3in, while an upper-class child was 5ft 1in.

Professor Harris said: ‘Today, however, as health services, nutrition, sanitation and education have become universal, upper-class children have continued to grow taller, but at a slower rate than working-class children. ‘The difference between the upper and working-class adults has narrowed to less than 2.5in.’

Professor Harris trawled records from prisons, schools and the military to reveal the link between height and living standards.

Documents included in his research range from the details of soldiers who fought in the American civil war, to the vital statistics of convicts transported to Australia and measurements taken in British schools.

SOURCE

What Humber-dingers: The amazing collection of vintage cars... owned by potato merchant from Hull

2011-04-03T17:57:00.003+11:30

While more than 80 per cent of all the Rolls-Royces ever built can still be traced today, fewer than one in 100 Humbers has survived

Allan Marshall's collection of 55 Humbers; in the centre is the 1951 Pullman

They were once loved by the British Army, prime ministers, and kings and queens alike. Humbers were known as the poor man’s Rolls-Royce. But while more than 80 per cent of all the Rolls-Royces ever built can still be traced today, fewer than one in 100 Humbers has survived. Even more surprising, the largest collection in Britain isn’t kept in a national museum but belongs to a potato merchant from Hull.

The bonnet of a 1951 seven-seater Humber Pullman, with 30,000 miles on the clock; the badge is a snipe, a game bird famous for being fast and agile

Allan Marshall, 55, keeps 27 Humbers in a 10,000 sq ft building next to his lorry depot. "My father, Reg, bought his first one 51 years ago for £90. It was a 1954 Pullman built for Baroness Rothschild. She used it in London and kept the car garaged at Claridges hotel. Once I took the back seats out to deliver spuds to fish and chip shops. I’ve even used it to tow a 16-ton lorry from York to Hull."

The future King George VI took delivery of his first Humber in 1935. He was so impressed by the limousines that after the war he ordered 47 to be sent to British embassies around the world. Every prime minister of the day arrived at Downing Street in a Humber; Winston Churchill boasted a fleet of five Humber Pullmans. The car’s robust build quality and reliability attracted the attention of the Army too. Specially modified Super Snipe models were turned into field cars during World War II. The most famous, staff car No M239485, was used by Field Marshal Montgomery from the D-Day landings until the end of the war. His 4.5-litre model covered 60,000 miles around Europe in less than a year. The car is still affectionately known by the nickname he gave it, Old Faithful."

Humbers fell out of favour in the late Fifties. With thirsty, six-cylinder engines they guzzled fuel at just five miles per gallon. The Suez Crisis and rising oil prices meant owners couldn’t haggle a part-exchange – not even for the new, fuel-efficient car of the era, the Mini. The last of the large Humbers were finally sold in 1968.

An interior

Marshall and his team of enthusiasts restore all the cars in the collection themselves, often working up to two years on each vehicle, at a cost of £10,000. "Some of the cars might be worth £40,000 or more now but money isn’t the point. I’ve never sold a Humber and if people want to come and see my collection it’s free. The only money I make from them is by hiring them as wedding cars."

Despite Humbers being seen in TV series like Heartbeat, Open All Hours and the latest Upstairs, Downstairs, Marshall refuses to rent his vehicles to film companies or lend them to other museums for fear of damage.

The English-made Jaegar speedometer. The dashboard of an unrestored Humber.

"I've never had to go looking for a restoration project either. People just phone up or bring them to me. Humbers are like a faithful labrador. My wife Barbara says it’s like an RSPCA for old cars round here."

The highlights of Marshall’s collection include: a Pullman Landaulette, built for King George VI (the King died before it could be delivered); a 1952 Super-Snipe MK3, which was owned by the Queen Mother and kept at Castle Mey in Scotland; and a 1967 Imperial saloon that appeared in The Big Sleep.

Rusting Humber Hawks await restoration

His favourite Humber, however, is the biggest wreck of all. It was found in a Somerset scrapyard, remains covered in dust and has yet to be restored. The 80bhp Snipe dates back to the Thirties and was used by Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson as an unofficial Royal car. They used it to get around London unseen. It just has a small window in the back, so you can’t tell who is travelling inside.

A car radio from a later model (left) and a Pullman engine (right)

The 1932 Humber Snipe used by Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson awaits restoration

A 1955 Humber Super-Snipe - this rare example featured a three-speed automatic gearbox

Source

An amazing conversation

2011-04-01T22:50:00.000+11:30

Twin baby boys have their own language

Mother blows her nose

2011-03-18T22:53:00.000+11:30

And baby doesn't know whether to be scared or amused

Video of the baby who laughed hysterically as dad tore up rejection letter

2011-03-17T20:26:00.000+11:30

Parents can spend thousands of dollars trying to make their children smile, but all Marcus McArthur needed to entertain his son was a worthless piece of paper. Ten-month-old Micah laughed hysterically in his pink all-in-one suit as his dad ripped up a job rejection letter piece by piece in front of him.

Mr McArthur, 33, who is finishing his doctorate at Saint Louis University and applying for professor jobs, was looking at ways to entertain Micah at home in St Louis, Missouri. Micah enjoyed watching his father rip up the letter in front of him so much that Mr McArthur moved onto credit card statements, which resulted in more laughter.

Mr McArthur told KSDK: 'Around the 22-second mark he does an extremely hearty laugh where you almost wonder if he's stopped breathing. ‘But he starts laughing again and you think: "Yeah, he's OK". At that moment I thought: "Yeah, this is a really great clip".’

The video was posted five weeks ago but went viral after being tweeted by actress Alyssa Milano on Friday. It has now been viewed more than 750,000 times. After the video was tweeted by Milano, who has more than 1,350,000 followers and said: ‘If this video doesn't make you smile, check your pulse’, the couple were contacted by Good Morning America.

Mr and Mrs McArthur have received offers from people wanting to buy rights to the video up to $300, but say it is just for fun and not for sale. 'Lightening up people's day - that's all we really care about,’ Mr McArthur said.

SOURCE

The drover's wife: An old-fashioned life with a lesson at the end

2011-02-06T14:25:00.000+11:30

Tim Barlass reveals what became of the teenage bride at the heart of an acclaimed 1959 portrait

Ii is one of the great images of rural Australia from another era. The Drover's Wife is on show at the NSW State library in an exhibition of work by Jeff Carter, regarded as one of the most important photographers of the past 60 years.

A review last month in The Sydney Morning Herald said the main subject of the picture was the wife, who looked directly towards Carter's camera. It said: "What is that in her eyes? Resignation? Fortitude? Commitment? Enduring love? What became of their baby? How did she cope with a youth spent constantly on the road?"

The photographer, who always got to know his subjects, had lost contact, saying only that they were living in the Northern Territory. He died in October, before the exhibition had opened.

The Sun-Herald has tracked down the family to remote Borroloola, near the territory's coast. We can reveal what happened in the intervening 52 years and can go some way to answering the question of what the emotion was in her eyes.

The drover's wife is Mavis Kerr, then a 16½-year-old seated next to husband Ron in ragged shirt and holding baby Johnny, who was three weeks old when Carter immortalised the scene.

Johnny was born on May 3, 1959 - four days after the couple were married in the vicar's home in Broken Hill. There is no wedding picture. There are not many other family pictures, either. Many were lost when their home was destroyed by cyclone Kathy in 1984.

They met at a sheep station when Mavis, then 15, accompanied her father, who was having a break from droving to take on the mail round.

Mavis said: "I was too embarrassed and too far gone to wear a white wedding frock and go into church. We knew the vicar and his wife and were married at his house."

Soon after Ron set out with his truck, droving a mob of 3700 merinos from Tibooburra to Coonamble - a distance of almost 1000 kilometres.

Jeff Carter, from the Illawarra, happened to be travelling with him and taking pictures along the way.

"I went out to visit him three weeks after Johnny was born and he had put on a bit of weight. I went in our Holden panel van," Mavis said. "Jeff had been taking pictures of Ron and me for The Walkabout Magazine and after we got married he caught up with us again and took more pictures and travelled with us for a while."

Of Johnny, she added: "He was a good child but he was a lot of mischief. He used to get in amongst the sheep - you would turn around and the sheep would have scattered and there would be Johnny in the middle of them."

Johnny was the first of five children, three boys and two girls. The droving finished in 1963, when Mavis had the last baby. Ron became a head stockman and the children were educated through correspondence courses and at boarding school in Alice Springs.

Johnny is now 51, married and working at one of the country's leading cattle stations - Delta Downs at Karumba, near the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland.

A man of few words and married with two grown-up children of his own, he has worked in the mines and on cattle stations. He said: "I get home every couple of years. I knew about the photo and have one blown up in my lounge; Jeff Carter sent it to me four years ago."

Ron has suffered two strokes and recently came out of hospital and is with his eldest daughter in Darwin - too far away for Mavis to visit from the family home at Borroloola.

Mavis said she had seen a copy of the picture in a book. Carter had promised to send more pictures but she said they had not arrived.

The furthest she has travelled is to Orange and Dubbo. She has never been to Sydney and would not make it to the exhibition, called Beach, Bush and Battlers. She is not aware that a coffee-table book to coincide with the exhibition features The Drover's Wife on the cover.

Carter penned a short message at the front of the book that is as apposite to the Kerr family as to his many other subjects: "My eternal gratitude to the good folk who allowed me into their lives, time and again, over the years. Without their trust and co-operation, few of these images would have been possible."

So what was in the eyes of teenage Mavis as she sat on that footplate? Well, certainly enduring love because the couple are still happily married.

Mavis provides the answer: "I was always happy. When I had babies I didn't know what sort of life it was going to be for them but I got used to it. You just follow your husband around and put up with it. "But I was happy."

SOURCE

Best friends forever: It's all in our genes, say scientists

2011-01-18T17:12:00.001+11:30

You share the same sense of humour and like the same music but you may be even closer than you realise. Friendship is in our genes, scientists believe, with members of a group of pals sharing the some of same DNA. In other cases, friends have very different versions of the same gene, suggesting opposites do attract.

The intriguing finding comes from the analysis of the results of two large health studies in which samples of DNA were collected and people were asked to name their friends.

Tracking the frequency of six genes linked to personality traits revealed two clear examples of ‘birds of a feather flock together’ and ‘opposites attract’.

The first involved a gene called DRD2 which affects how much pleasure we get from alcohol and cigarettes and other addictive substances. The study revealed that people with a version of the gene that allows them to get buzz from booze tend to befriend others with the same version. Those with a different version of the gene, and so not as reliant on drink to have a good time, also appear to be drawn together.

‘It is not hard to imagine that non-drinkers may actively avoid alcoholics, or that alcoholics may be drawn to environments that non-drinkers avoid,’ said the US researchers writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The opposite relationship was found for a gene called CYP2A6. Those with a version of the gene linked to having an ‘open’ personality, gravitated to people with a different version of the gene, the Harvard University study found.

The results stood even after the researchers took into account people’s tendency to form friendships with those with live nearby.

Professor Nicholas Christakis said that reasons for us being drawn to those who are genetically similar to ourselves include us being thrown together with people with similar interests in sports clubs or at university. But we may also actively seek out those who are like us – even if we are unaware of the underlying genetics.

For instance, thin people may stick together, unaware that each member of the group lacks genes that make it easy for others to pile on the pounds.

‘Similarly, people might choose to terminate friendships with people whose weight status differs from their own,’ said the professor.

In terms of opposite attracting, we may hunt out people whose personalities complement our own. Or extraverts may meet their quieter pals through work.

‘Certain environments may require specialisation,’ said Professor Christakis. ‘For example, some workplaces may select people with different skills to work together, and if these traits are related to genotypes (genetic make-up), then people may tend to be more frequently exposed to dissimilar people with whom they may have a higher probability of becoming friends.’

Source

The Bounty Hunter’s Pursuit of Justice

2011-01-17T23:31:00.001+11:30

Alexander T. Tabarrok

When felony defendants jump bail, bounty hunters spring into action. It’s a uniquely American system, and it works.

Andrew Luster had it all: a multimillion-dollar trust fund, good looks, and a bachelor pad just off the beach in Mussel Shoals, California. Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor, spent his days surfing and his nights cruising the clubs. His life would have been sad but unremarkable if he had not had a fetish for sex with unconscious women. When one woman alleged rape, Luster claimed mutual consent, but the videotapes the police discovered when they searched his home told a different story. Eventually, more than 10 women came forward, and he was convicted of 20 counts of rape and sentenced to 124 years in prison. There was only one problem. Luster could not be found.

Shortly before he was expected to take the stand, Luster withdrew funds from his brokerage accounts, found a caretaker for his dog, and skipped town on a $1 million bail bond. The FBI put Luster on its most-wanted list, but months passed with no results. In the end, the authorities did not find him. But Luster was brought to justice—by a dog (or at least a man who goes by that name). Duane Chapman, star of the A&E reality TV show Dog: The Bounty Hunter, tracked Luster for months. He picked up clues to Luster’s whereabouts from old phone bills and from Luster’s mother, who inadvertently revealed that her son spoke fluent Spanish. He also gleaned useful information from a mysterious Mr. X who taunted him by e-mail and who may have been Luster himself. Finally, a tip from someone who had seen Dog on television brought Chapman to a small town in Mexico known for its great surfing. Days later, he and his team spotted Luster at a taco stand, apprehended him, and turned him over to the local police.

Most people don’t realize how many fugitives from the law there are. About one-quarter of all felony defendants fail to show up on the day of their trial. Some of these absences are due to forgetfulness, hospitalization, or even imprisonment on another charge. But like Luster, many felony defendants skip court with willful intent. The police are charged with recapturing these fugitives, but some of them are chased by an even more tireless pursuer, the bounty hunter.

Bounty hunters and bail bondsmen play an important but unsung role in a legal system whose court dockets are too crowded to provide swift justice. When a suspect is arrested, a judge must make a decision: set the suspect free on his own recognizance until the court is ready to proceed, hold the suspect in jail, or release the accused on the condition that he post a bail bond. A bond is a promise backed by incentive. If the suspect shows up on the trial date, he gets his money back; but if he fails to show, the money is forfeited. We don’t want to deprive the innocent of their liberty, but we also don’t want to give the guilty too much of a head start on their escape. Bail bonds don’t solve this problem completely, but they do give judges an additional tool to help them navigate the dilemma.

Bail might be a rich man’s privilege were it not for the bail bondsman. (Many bondsmen are women, but “bondsperson” doesn’t have quite the same ring, so I’ll use the standard terminology.) In return for a non-refundable fee, usually around 10 percent of the bond, a bondsman will put up his own money with the court. A typical bond might run $6,000. If the defendant shows up, the bondsman earns $600. But if the defendant flees, the bondsman potentially can forfeit $6,000. Potentially, because when a fugitive fails to appear, the court gives the bondsman a notice that essentially says, “Bring your charge to justice soon or your money is mine.” A bondsman typically has 90 to 180 days to bring a fugitive back to justice, so when a defendant jumps bail, the bondsman lets the dogs loose.

Actually, that last image suggesting a massive manhunt is misleading. Bail bond firms are often small, family-run businesses—the wife writes the bonds and the husband, the “bounty hunter,” searches for clients who fail to show up in court. Although a bondsman never knows when a desperate client might turn violent, his job is usually routine, as I found out when Dennis Sew volunteered to show me the ropes. Dennis has been in the business for more than 20 years and in 2009 was named agent of the year by the Professional Bail Agents of the United States. Nevertheless, I was apprehensive as I drove to Baltimore early one morning to try my hand at bounty hunting.

When Dennis and I meet, he hands me a photo showing our first fugitive of the day. I’ll be honest. I was expecting to see a young African-American male. What can I say? It’s Baltimore and I’ve seen every episode of The Wire. But I’m surprised. Taken a few years ago in better times, the picture shows an attractive young woman, perhaps at her prom. She has long blond hair and bright eyes. She is smiling.

We drive to the house where a tip has placed her. It’s a middle-class home in a nice suburb. Children’s toys are strewn about the garden. I’m accompanied by Dennis and two of his coworkers—a former police officer and a former sheriff’s deputy. One of them takes the back while Dennis knocks. A woman still in her nightclothes answers. She does not seem surprised to have four men knocking at her door this early in the morning. She volunteers that we can search the house, and eventually we get the whole story from her.

“Chrissy,” our fugitive, is the woman’s niece. Chrissy was at the house two days before and may return. The once attractive young woman has had her life ruined by drugs. Or she has ruined her life with drugs—sometimes it’s hard to tell. She is now a heroin addict whose boyfriend regularly beats her. The aunt is momentarily shocked when we show her the photo. No, she doesn’t look like that anymore—her hair is brown, her face is covered with scabs and usually bruised, and she weighs maybe 85 pounds. “Be gentle with her,” the aunt says, even though, she predicts, “she will probably fight.”

The aunt gives us another location to scout: a parking lot where Chrissy and her mother are supposedly living out of a car. We are about to leave when the aunt thanks us for being quiet, because there’s a child in the house who was scared the last time the police came by. The child is Chrissy’s son. We drive to the location and look for the car. Dennis and his deputies see what looks like the vehicle and knock on one of the dirty windows, peering intently into the interior. The car is empty. Dennis and his deputies will return later.

What it takes to be a successful bounty hunter is mostly persistence and politeness. On most days your leads don’t pay off, so you need to visit and revisit the fugitive’s home, work, and favorite hangouts. Waiting is a big part of the game. Why politeness? Well, where do the leads come from? From people like Chrissy’s aunt—relatives and friends who might not talk to the police but who will respond to a kind word. Bounty hunters are polite even to the fugitives who, after all, are also their customers, and sadly, bounty hunters rely a lot on repeat business. One customer of a firm owned by the same family that runs the one Dennis works for told him proudly, “My family and I have been coming to Frank’s Bail Bonds for three generations.”

Most fugitives don’t fight, and Dennis is eager to avoid confrontation. Cowboys don’t last long in this business. Most bounty hunters have a working relationship with police officers and will sometimes call on them to make the arrest once a fugitive has been located.

A bounty hunter also benefits from being prepared. A typical application for a bond, for example, requires information about the defendant’s residence, employer, former employer, spouse, children (along with their names and schools), spouse’s employer, mother, father, automobile (including description, tags, and financing), union membership, previous arrests, and so forth. In addition, bond dealers need access to all kinds of public and private databases. Noted bounty hunter Bob Burton says that a list of friends who work at the telephone, gas, or electric utility, the post office, welfare agencies, and in law enforcement is a major asset. Today, familiarity with the Internet and computer databases is a must.

Good bond dealers master the tricks of their trade. The first three digits of a Social Security number, for example, indicate the state where the number was issued. This information can suggest that an applicant might be lying if he claims to have been born elsewhere, and it may provide a clue about where a skipped defendant has family or friends.

If at all possible, bail bondsmen get a friend or family member to cosign the bond. The reason is simple. A defendant whose bond is cosigned is less likely to flee. As Dennis told me, “In my line of work, I deal with some mean people, people who aren’t afraid of me or the police. But even the mean ones are afraid of their mom, so if I can get Mom to list her house as collateral, I know the defendant is much more likely to show up when he is supposed to.” A defendant whose bond is cosigned is also more likely to be caught if he does flee, because the bondsman will remind the cosigner that if the fugitive can’t be found, it’s not just the bondsman who will be left holding the bag.

Bounty hunters have robust rights to arrest fugitives. They can, for example, lawfully break into a suspect’s home without a warrant, pursue and recover fugitives across state lines without necessity of extradition proceedings, and search and seize without the constraint of the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonableness” requirement. Just like everyone else, however, bounty hunters must obey the criminal statutes. A bounty hunter who uses unreasonable force or mistakenly enters the home of someone who is not a bail jumper is subject to criminal prosecution.

The prerogatives of bounty hunters flow from the historical evolution of bail. Bail began in medieval England as a progressive measure to help defendants get out of jail while they waited, sometimes for many months, for a roving judge to show up to conduct a trial. If the local sheriff knew the accused, he might release him on the defendant’s promise to return for the hearing. More often, however, the sheriff would release the accused to the custody of a surety, usually a brother or friend, who guaranteed that the defendant would present himself when the time came. So, in the common law, custody of the accused was never relinquished but instead was transferred to the surety—the brother became the keeper—which explains the origin of the strong rights bail bondsmen have to pursue and capture escaped defendants. Initially, the surety’s guarantee to the sheriff was simple: If the accused failed to show, the surety would take his place and be judged as if he were the offender.

The English system provided lots of incentives for sureties to make certain that the accused showed up for trial, but not a lot of incentive to be a surety. The risk to sureties was lessened when courts began to accept pledges of cash rather than of one’s person, but the system was not perfected until personal surety was slowly replaced by a commercial surety system in the United States. That system put incentives on both sides of the equation. Bondsmen had an incentive both to bail defendants out of jail and to chase them down should they flee. By the end of the 19th century, commercial sureties were the norm in the United States. (The Philippines is the only other country with a similar system.)

Bail was widely admired as a progressive institution when the alternative was jail, but in the 1950s and ’60s many judges and law professors began to think that the alternative to bail should be release on a defendant’s own recognizance. Bail looked increasingly like a conservative institution that kept people, especially poor people, in jail. Many opinion makers came to support the creation of pretrial services agencies that would investigate defendants and recommend to judges whether they could be safely released on their own recognizance. In essence, the agencies would replace the judgment of bail bondsmen with the judgment of a professional bureaucracy.

In the early 1960s, the Vera Institute of Justice’s Manhattan Bail Project in New York City began gathering information about local defendants’ community ties and residential and employment stability and summarizing it in a numerical scoring system that it used to identify those who could be recommended for release on their own recognizance. The experiment was successful. The failure-to-appear rate among felony defendants the project recommended for release was no higher than the rate among those released on bail. Largely on the basis of these results, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1966, which created a presumption in favor of releasing defendants on their own recognizance.

Although the new law applied only to the federal courts, the states have widely emulated the reforms. Every state now has some kind of pretrial services program, and four (Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon, and Wisconsin) have outlawed commercial bail altogether. In its place, Illinois introduced the government bail or “deposit bond” system. The defendant is required to deposit with the court a small percentage of the face value of the bond. If the defendant fails to appear, he may lose the deposit and be held liable for the full value of the bond. But while a defendant in a commercial bail system who shows up in court must still pay the bondsman a fee, those who do so in jurisdictions with systems like Illinois’s get all their money back (less a small service fee in some cases). And the only people empowered to chase down a defendant who has fled are the police.

The results of the Manhattan Bail Project seemed to support the position of progressives who argued that commercial bail was unnecessary. But all that the findings really demonstrated was that a few carefully selected felony defendants could be safely released on their own recognizance. In reality, the project allowed relatively few defendants to be let go and so could easily cherry pick those who were most likely to appear at trial. As pretrial release programs expanded in the late 1960s and early ’70s, failure-to-appear rates increased.

Today, when a defendant fails to appear, an arrest warrant is issued. But if the defendant was released on his own recognizance or on government bail, very little else happens. In many states and cities, the police are overwhelmed with outstanding arrest warrants. In California, about two million warrants have gone unserved. Many are for minor offenses, but hundreds of thousands are for felonies, including thousands of homicides.

In Philadelphia, where commercial bail has been regulated out of existence, The Philadelphia Inquirer recently found that “fugitives jump bail . . . with virtual impunity.” At the end of 2009, the City of Brotherly Love had more than 47,000 unserved arrest warrants. About the only time the city’s bail jumpers are recaptured is when they are arrested for some other crime. One would expect that a criminal on the lam would be careful not to get caught speeding, but foresight is rarely a prominent characteristic of bail jumpers. Routine stops ensnare more than a few of them. When the jails are crowded, however, even serial bail jumpers are often released.

The backlog of unserved warrants has become so bad that Philadelphia and many other cities with similar systems, including Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, and Phoenix, have held “safe surrender” days when fugitives are promised leniency if they turn themselves in at a local church or other neutral location. (Some safe surrender programs even advertise on-site child care.) That’s good for the fugitives, but for victims of crime, both past and future, justice delayed is justice denied.

Unserved warrants tend not to pile up in jurisdictions with commercial bondsmen. In those places, the bail bond agent is on the hook for the bond and thus has a strong incentive to bring those who jump bail to justice. My interest in commercial bail and bounty hunting began when economist Eric Helland and I used data on 36,231 felony defendants released between 1988 and 1996 to investigate the differences between the public and private systems of bail and fugitive recovery. Our study, published in TheJournal of Law and Economics in 2004, is the largest and most comprehensive ever written on the bail system.

Our research backs up what I found on the street: Bail bondsmen and bounty hunters get their charges to show up for trial, and they recapture them quickly when they do flee. Nationally, the failure-to-appear rate for defendants released on commercial bail is 28 percent lower than the rate for defendants released on their own recognizance, and 18 percent lower than the rate for those released on government bond.

Even more important, when a defendant does skip town, the bounty hunters are the ones who pursue justice with the greatest determination and energy. Defendants sought by bounty hunters are a whopping 50 percent less likely to be on the loose after one year than other bail jumpers.

In addition to being effective, bail bondsmen and bounty hunters work at no cost to the taxpayers. The public reaps a double benefit, because when a bounty hunter fails to find his man, the bond is forfeit to the government. Because billions of dollars of bail are written every year and not every fugitive is caught, bond forfeits are a small but welcome source of revenue. At the federal level, forfeits help fund the Crime Victim Fund, which does what its name suggests, and in states such as Virginia and North Carolina they yield millions of dollars for public schools. Indeed, budget shortfalls around the nation are leading to a reconsideration of commercial bail. Oregon, which banned commercial bail in 1974, is considering a controversial bill to reinstate it, and even Illinois, nearly 50 years after establishing its alternative system, may once again allow bail bondsmen.

Bail bondsmen monitor defendants, guide them through the court process, and help them show up for trial. When defendants skip town, it’s the bounty hunters who track them down. But despite the benefits of commercial bail, bondsmen and bounty hunters don’t get a lot of thanks. The American Bar Association has said that the commercial bail business is “tawdry,” and Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun once called it “odorous.” After Dog Chapman arrested the serial rapist Andrew Luster and delivered him to the Mexican police, Dog was the one who ended up in jail. Bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico, and Chapman was charged with kidnapping despite the fact that (according to him) he had a local police officer with him at the time of the arrest. It surely didn’t help Chapman’s case that he was not trying to recover a bond that he had posted, since Luster had put up his own money. Luster was quickly extradited by the FBI, which offered Chapman no gratitude or assistance with the Mexican authorities. As if to rub salt in the wound, the judge in the Luster case refused even to reimburse Chapman for his expenses out of the $1 million Luster had forfeited.

Dog Chapman’s television show has brought him and the bail bond industry plenty of fame and notoriety, but Chapman is a controversial figure among bondsmen. The famed bounty hunter’s checkered history includes prison time, drug abuse, and charges of racism, and many bondsmen think that “Dog” doesn’t do much for their image. Bondsmen don’t want to be the dogs of criminal justice; they want to be recognized as professionals working alongside police, lawyers, and judges. They are tired of being called “odorous.” Bounty hunters want some respect. The record shows that they’ve earned it.

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Neanderthals' faces weren't adaptations to cold

2011-01-16T17:35:00.001+11:30

Neanderthals, bless 'em, were never going to win any beauty contests. Now scans of their skulls show their robust faces, with wide noses and prominent cheekbones, weren't even adaptations to the cold.

The Neanderthal face shape was thought to be a result of the growth of large sinuses, which warm inhaled air. However, modern humans who live in the Arctic and other mammals that live in the cold don't have large sinuses.

"Their sinuses are smaller than average, probably because air warming happens only in the nasal cavity which has grown bigger to leave less space for the sinuses," says Todd Rae from Roehampton University in London.

To find out how big – or small – Neanderthal sinuses really were, Rae and colleagues analysed data from X-rays and 3D CT scans of Neanderthal skulls.
Large face, large sinuses

When the team compared these scans with those of the skulls of Homo sapiens from temperate regions, they found Neanderthals' sinuses were bigger, but only because they had bigger faces; the two species' sinuses had the same relative size relationship.

This suggests that Neanderthal faces were not shaped to deal with extreme cold, says Rae's team. In the image above, the skull on the right is a Neanderthal, that on the left is Homo sapiens.

Rae says we can now dismiss the cold adaptation idea. "This allows us to think about Neanderthals and their lives in new ways."

John Stewart from Bournemouth University in Poole, UK, says the work dispels "what was essentially a 'Just-So' story". He believes the results fit with his own idea that the short Neanderthal legs were not a cold adaptation but rather reflect a forest life where short limbs helped to navigate through the undergrowth.

Journal reference: Journal of Human Evolution, DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.10.003

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How the Iron Lady saved Britain: Mrs Thatcher drove through economic revolution single-handed

2010-12-30T17:49:00.002+11:30

Margaret Thatcher stood almost alone in driving through the tough policies now credited with saving the economy, secret papers reveal. The Tory Premier had to take on her predecessor Harold Macmillan, Bank of England governor Gordon Richardson and even her own Chancellor Geoffrey Howe to push through the policies which pulled Britain back from the brink of economic chaos.

Documents released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule show the pressure Mrs Thatcher faced from the Establishment behind the scenes – and the extent to which she was isolated.

In 1980, the year after becoming Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher embarked on a controversial programme to revive the moribund economy through deep public spending cuts and strict control of the money supply, intended to stamp out inflation.

But by the middle of the year – with inflation peaking at 22 per cent, unemployment heading towards 2.8million and industry complaining it was being brought to its knees by the financial squeeze – there was little sign it was working.

In an extraordinary 11-page letter to Mrs Thatcher, Macmillan, known as Supermac, warned that global conditions coupled with her tough monetarist stance left Britain at risk of ‘constant recession’. He warned that while her programme of cuts might give a ‘sense of exhilaration’ to her supporters, the country was heading for industrial collapse and ‘dangerous’ levels of unemployment.

Macmillan, then 86, sent the letter following a meeting with the Prime Minister at Chequers in August 1980. He criticised her for abandoning ‘consensus politics’ to pursue radical reforms and ‘divisive politics’, which he said went against the ‘essence of Tory democracy’.

It was Macmillan who coined the phrase ‘you’ve never had it so good’ in 1957 during the long post-war economic boom. His brand of consensus politics is now credited with contributing to the economic malaise that brought Britain to its knees in the late 1970s.

Years later, in her memoirs, Mrs Thatcher poured scorn on consensus politics, writing: ‘What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner “I stand for consensus”?.’

But in 1980 Macmillan remained an influential figure with the potential to destabilise the beleaguered new Tory government. Writing condescendingly about her focus on ‘money supply’, he said it ‘may be useful as a guide to what is happening just as a speedometer is in a car; but like the speedometer it cannot make the machine go faster or slower’.

In 1981, 365 economists wrote to The Times urging Mrs Thatcher to change course and limit the damage caused by the recession. But she was unmoved, and her tough stance succeeded in reducing inflation from 27 per cent to four per cent in four years, putting Britain on the road to recovery.

Mrs Thatcher’s economic views were heavily influenced by the right-wing Cabinet minister Sir Keith Joseph, with whom she set up the free market think tank the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974. Both drew on the work of the influential American economist Milton Friedman whose monetary theories challenged the post-war consensus on economic thinking.

In 1981 Mrs Thatcher recruited Sir Alan Walters as her chief economic adviser to help her push through monetarist policies.

In 1985 Macmillan finally went public with his criticism of Mrs Thatcher’s approach. Angered at her policy of privatisation, he likened her actions to ‘selling the family silver’.

The documents also reveal an account of Mrs Thatcher’s ‘stormy’ showdown with Bank governor Gordon Richardson in 1980 in which she said he was undermining her whole economic strategy. She accused the Governor and the Chancellor of failing to get a grip on the money supply. According to the official note of the meeting, she laid into them, saying the whole of the international banking community realised Britain’s money supply was ‘out of control’.

The following month, a reinvigorated Mrs Thatcher delivered her celebrated ‘The lady’s not for turning’ speech to the Tory conference in Blackpool.

The way an exasperated Mrs Thatcher repeatedly refused to bow to Europe is spelled out in the 1980 documents. She had been in office for only a few months but was already earning her Iron Lady nickname.

In what was then the nine-member European Economic Community, Britain was paying in £1billion more than it received through the agricultural, social and industrial programmes, and Mrs Thatcher had vowed to secure a rebate.

A secret briefing in December 1979 told her the UK was under pressure from France and Germany to make concessions following the discovery of North Sea oil. On it she scrawled in felt-tip pen: ‘I am not prepared to bargain away our few resources. ‘To suggest that we might be able to keep some of our own money in return for giving up some of our oil is ridiculous.’

In 1980 a memo from the Chancellor of the Exchequer urged her to compromise to resolve the ‘deadlock’ over the rebate. At the top of his memo, she scrawled in blue felt-tip: ‘No. The procedure is ridiculous. ‘Its whole purpose is to demean Britain… we must fight this one – if necessary openly.’

A three-year rebate was agreed in 1981. It awarded Britain two-thirds of the £1billion Mrs Thatcher had demanded, and became a permanent arrangement in 1984. The
Prime Minister showed the same doggedness on the Common Fisheries Policy.

A letter headed ‘confidential’ from Agriculture Minister Peter Walker warned her that a policy of ‘attrition’ would be unlikely to work and that failing to resolve it would lead to ‘deepening uncertainty’ within the fishing industry.

On it, she scrawled: ‘It is our water, and but for the unique common resources policy, our fish. Where he recommended they make an ‘early settlement’ by negotiating, she wrote in large letters: ‘NO’.

The Common Fisheries Policy was designed to set quotas for catches to manage stocks for the EU.

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King James's Bible: perhaps the greatest work of translation ever

2010-12-27T17:10:00.000+11:30

Comment by Daniel Hannan -- who is is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free

I can’t be the only English-speaker who suspects, deep down, that the Almighty expressed Himself in the language of the Authorised Version. Even now, I do a double-take when I listen to a biblical passage in another tongue. I struggled to repress a chuckle the other day when I heard Matthew 5:5 rendered as “Bienheureux sont les débonnaires; car ils hériteront la terre.”

Yesterday, the Queen reminded us that her ninth-great-grandfather, James VI & I, had commissioned the translation in the hope of impressing a measure of unity on the various theological currents then swirling about Britain. And, in a sense, he succeeded. The Church of England is unusual among Christian denominations in that it combines an extraordinary heterogeneity of doctrine with political and – until very recently – liturgical conformity.

More than this, though, the Authorised Version, along with the Prayer Book, has shaped our everyday idiom. As Bruce Anderson writes in the current Spectator, few Anglophone atheists can remain indifferent to the cadences of those two works: “‘Dearly beloved’ is one of the loveliest phrases in the language, as is ‘with my body I thee worship’ and many others from the Anglican liturgy.”

Bruce’s article reminded me of the good-natured struggle I had to persuade the vicar to use the unexpurgated 1662 Prayer Book at my own wedding. [I did the same at my last wedding -- JR] Looking back, I think the poor fellow was shy about declaring that marriage is not intended “to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding”. Of course, his embarrassment was itself testimony to the power of the writing.

The Authorised Version and the Book of Common Prayer have defined our language more than any texts except (obviously) Shakespeare’s corpus. A Muslim friend once told me that his religion left little space for miracles. The only supernatural event that he personally accepted, he said, was the dictation of the Koran; and even this miracle required no great leap of faith, since, as an Arabic speaker, he could infer the divine nature of the message from the quality of the language in which it was expressed.

The English and their kindred peoples are, in my experience, rather less spiritual than Arabs, and it would not occur to them to make an equivalent claim. None the less, the Authorised Version stands as perhaps the greatest translation of all time. The day will eventually come when our power dwindles, and all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre. But as long as English is spoken, and our canon preserved, ours will never be just another country.

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Andrew Higgins: Boat Builder of WWII

2010-12-25T04:37:00.001+11:30

Who was Andrew Higgins? Almost forgotten now, he was, according to Dwight Eisenhower, “the man who won [World War II] for us.”

As General William T. Sherman observed, “War is hell.” That hell includes oppressive taxes, loss of freedom, and crushing debt, as well as deaths in combat. But once in war, as the United States was after Pearl Harbor, losing is an even greater hell. Thus we had a need for war entrepreneurs, and some—like Higgins—were given enough freedom to innovate and help U.S. troops finish the war sooner than expected.

Andrew Higgins became indispensable because he was one of the very few men who could create and manufacture reliable landing craft to transport troops from ship to shore. Using landing craft in warfare was a key World War II innovation. Troop ships would bring thousands of soldiers within a mile or so of the coast. Then the soldiers would climb down the sides of the ships on cargo nets into Higgins boats (as his assortment of landing craft came to be called), each holding 36 men. The landing craft would then bring the soldiers into shore—a ramp would open at the end of the boat, and the men would disembark. Then the boats would return to the troop ship to load more men.

Higgins’s boats were so reliable, so flexible, and so fast that Americans could reach many different parts of a coastline, not just the major ports. Thus the Higgins boats gave Eisenhower many options for landing spots into North Africa, then into Italy, and finally into France. The Germans couldn’t cover the entire European coast, and the Allied forces used thousands of landing craft to hit Normandy beach at D-Day.

What’s especially remarkable about the Higgins story is that he almost didn’t get a chance to show the world what he could do. The biggest obstacle Higgins faced was overcoming the bureaucrats in the U.S. Navy. In particular the Bureau of Ships, which had authority to buy landing craft for the Navy, regularly refused to consider Higgins’s offers to supply various landing craft and PT boats. Why?

First, the Bureau of Ships wanted to use its own internally designed landing craft. What’s more, the naval leaders couldn’t imagine Higgins, a small boat builder from Nebraska, having the answers to the Navy’s needs. Therefore, they usually rejected his offers and nitpicked his designs, then purchased their own inferior vessels.

With the success of the war, and his company, at stake, Higgins fought back. “I don’t wait for opportunity to knock,” he said. “I send out a welcoming committee to drag the old harlot in.” He openly condemned the Bureau of Ships for “prejudice” against his boats. American lives were being lost, he contended, because Higgins boats were on the sidelines. Jerry Strahan describes Higgins’s battle with the Navy bureaucracy in Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War II.

Higgins called the tank lighter—the mechanized landing craft that carried tanks—built by the Bureau of Ships “godawful.” He added, “I want to say that there are no officers, whether present in this room or otherwise in the Navy who know a goddamn thing about small boat design, construction, or operation—but by God, I do.”

Of the Bureau of Ships, Higgins said, “If the ‘red tape’ and the outmoded and outlandish Civil War methods of doing business were eliminated, the work could be done in the Bureau of Ships very efficiently with about one-sixth the present personnel.” The bureaucrats at the Bureau of Ships loathed Higgins and rejected his superior boats, even when their own vessels malfunctioned and killed American soldiers in transport.

Fortunately for Higgins, the U.S. war effort was just decentralized enough to give him a chance to go outside the naval bureaucracy to prove himself. First, the Marines desperately needed amphibious boats, and after doing tests they discovered that the Navy’s landing craft often didn’t work but Higgins boats did. The Marines bought Higgins boats when possible and helped get a hearing for Higgins in higher tribunals. Second, Congress authorized the Truman Committee to investigate waste and corruption in the war effort. Higgins at last won a hearing from Senator Harry Truman and dramatic results followed: Truman demanded a “head-to-head operational test” of a Higgins boat and a Navy boat.

That was all Higgins ever asked for. In the dramatic contest that followed at Norfolk, Virginia, on May 25, 1942, both Higgins and the Navy had to have their landing craft carry a 30-ton tank through choppy waters. During the race, the highly touted boat built by the Bureau of Ships failed—and almost sank—while the Higgins boat dazzled the spectators. With the scrutiny of the Truman Committee, the Bureau of Ships had to convert to Higgins’s design and immediately he began receiving important contracts.

Shocked that the Navy had repeatedly rejected the best boat available, Truman launched a full investigation into naval purchasing and concluded, “[T]he Bureau of Ships has, for reasons known only to itself, stubbornly persisted for over five years in clinging to an unseaworthy tank lighter design of its own. . . . Higgins Industries did actually design and build a superior lighter,” but was ignored because of a “flagrant disregard for the facts, if not the safety and success of American troops.”

With a green light from the Truman Committee and the Bureau of Ships, Higgins expanded his New Orleans plant and frantically churned out landing craft. He attracted good workers from across the country for his assembly lines by paying high wages, offering free medical care, and providing great training and some community services. He hired black and white workers and, although he had to segregate them, he paid them similar wages. Getting good workers and training them was only part of his challenge. He also had to find loopholes in the new federal laws that limited wages and controlled prices and purchases. Higgins often had to buy steel on the black market, and once, when no bronze shafting was available for making tank lighters, he stole the needed material from an oil company in nearby Texas. (He later paid for it.)

During March 1943, as Eisenhower began to prepare to invade Sicily and Italy, he had nightmares of shortages of landing craft. “When I die,” Eisenhower said, my “coffin should be in the shape of a landing craft, as they are practically killing [me] with worry.” The next year, when Ike planned the D-Day invasion, he said, “[L]et us thank God for Higgins Industries, management, and labor which has given us the landing boats with which to conduct our campaign.” A frustrated Adolf Hitler, who could not stop thousands of Higgins boats from landing soldiers at Normandy beach, called Higgins the “new Noah.” The old Noah helped save the animals; the new Noah helped save his country.

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Stonehenge 'was built by rolling stones using giant wicker baskets'

2010-12-06T12:18:00.002+11:30

It is one of the abiding mysteries of Britain’s Neolithic past. For all the awe-inspiring wonder of the standing stones at Stonehenge no one has ever worked out how our ancient ancestors were able to heave boulders weighing many tonnes over such huge distances.

But now an engineer and former BBC presenter believes he has come up with a theory which explains how the giant stones were moved. Garry Lavin believes that the engineers who built Stonehenge used wicker basket-work to ‘roll’ the huge boulders all the way from Wales to their present location.

‘I always thought that dragging these huge stones was physically impossible because of the friction on the surface. The key thing is the technology was always there around them,’ he said.

It is the movement of the 60 famous Bluestones which causes historians such problems. Each stone weighs up to 4 tons and they originally came from the Preseli Mountains in Wales – some 200 miles away.

Mr Lavin has come up with a cylinder ‘basket’ to roll the massive and irregularly-shaped stones. The basket is created by weaving willow and alder saplings to form a lightweight structure that can be easily moved by 4 or 5 men. To complete the rig and to ensure the best rolling and flotation conditions, the gaps between the basketwork cylinder and the irregular stone are packed with thin branches. This spreads the load as the basket flexes in transit, much like a modern tyre, and creates buoyancy when transported down rivers and across the sea.

One of Mr Lavin’s key discoveries during his earlier experiments was that the wicker cages that contained the stones were able to float. This would have enabled Neolithic man were able to get the huge stones across rivers on their journey, as well as making it easier to transport them over long distances without having to carry them the entire way.

One of Mr Lavin's sketches showing how groups of men could have enlisted the help of oxen to roll the huge boulders. The men would have been able to place the stones in a river, such as the River Wye, and then guide them on their way.

Mr Lavin said: ‘Woven structures were everywhere at the time, there are even wells which they have discovered were full with woven basketwork. It’s just taking that technology and using it in a new way. ‘It is not without some foundation. It was staring us in the face the whole time.’

In the summer Mr Lavin tested out his theory near Stonehenge and succeeded in moving a large one-ton stone in a wicker cage that he had made himself. Mr Lavin now wants to set out on his final mission to rewrite history by creating a supersize cradle capable of moving a huge five-ton stone. To do so he has enrolled the help of an engineer, an ancient wood archaeologist and a professional willow weaver to help him with the final test and construction. He hopes to run the test around the time of the summer solstice next year.

‘The physics is there it’s just so obvious. It’s one of the things that when you think about it you say “oh yes, of course”, ‘ he said.

He believes the original stones could have been moved by two teams of ten men each with one team resting while the others pushed the ‘axles’ containing each bluestone all the way from Wales their final destination.

George Oates, who works for the engineering company Expedition UK that recently designed the Olympic Velodrome as well as the Millennium Bridge, has looked at the new theory from a physics perspective. He looked at the height and weight of Neolithic men as well as the stone’s weight, the strength of the wicker basket and the inclines that would have to be negotiated.

Mr Oates said: ‘We feel that it is possible that Garry’s theory of a woven basket around the stone, moving these four-ton stones all the way from the Welsh mountains to Stonehenge is at least viable.’

Last week a competing theory from the University of Exeter was published which suggested that the stones may have used wooden ball bearings balls placed in grooved wooden tracks would have allowed the easy movement of stones weighing many tons.

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Kate Middleton is a typical St Andrews girl

2010-11-24T16:56:00.002+11:30

Kate Middleton is in many ways a typical product of the University of St Andrew's

The announcement that after his gap year Prince William was to study art history at St Andrews caused a surge in applications from girls to the ancient university, all presumably desperate to meet the Prince. But, long before William’s time, St Andrews was the university of choice for well-off, privately educated young women of conservative tinge.

Kate Middleton belongs to this group. In fact you could almost say she’s a classic St Andrews girl. They are fresh-faced and wholesome and they typically wear Barbours, pashminas, tailored tweed jackets, padded bodywarmers, pearls and Tiffany hearts. They’re prosperous, obviously – they drink spirits in the bars, not beer – and they’ve probably picked up the habit of flicking back their expensively highlighted hair when it falls into their eyes. Not that they’re a bunch of squares. Underneath the demure exterior there may lie a streak of raciness: witness that university fashion show when Kate sauntered down the aisle in a see-through dress.

Above all, these girls are English through and through, because although St Andrews is in Scotland, you could happily spend four years at the place and hardly hear a Scottish accent. (You will certainly hear some American accents, though.) Only about one in ten of the students, roughly, is Scottish. (It depends who you ask, but that figure may be as high as one in three or one in four. Either way it is a minority.) What’s more, the university has one of the lowest percentages of students from lower income backgrounds of anywhere in the whole of Great Britain.

It’s not hard to see why Sloaney types love St Andrews. It is a very pretty, ancient town. And its setting, in Fife, near a coastline dotted with picturesque fishing villages, offers the beauty of the rugged outdoors, which has always so appealed to the English upper middle and upper classes – and to the Royal Family. William and Kate may, as Royal expert Ingrid Seward suggests, decide to spend part of their honeymoon at Balmoral as six royal couples have before them. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they also find time for lounging around on a yacht in the Caribbean. St Andrews girls like a spot of luxury.

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High-Speed Train from Germany Rolls into London

2010-10-20T22:36:00.001+11:30

A high-speed ICE train from Deutsche Bahn rolled into St. Pancras station in London on Tuesday.

For the first time, an ICE high-speed train operated by German rail rolled into London on Tuesday. Deutsche Bahn hopes the test run is a sign of things to come, but France is unhappy.

The goal is still a ways in the distance. By the end of 2013, Germany's rail company Deutsche Bahn wants to include the Cologne-London route in its regular offerings. From that point onwards, high-speed ICE trains will rocket through the French countryside at 300 kilometers an hour before travelling -- slightly slower -- under the English Channel to London.

Preparations for that date, however, are well underway -- and on Tuesday, the first ICE pulled into St. Pancras Station in London following a test run. The train was received by the head of Deutsche Bahn Rüdiger Grube and German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer. The successful test run comes after a series of safety checks over the weekend which "went well," according to Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe on Tuesday.

Beyond merely extending the reach of Germany's flashy ICE trains, Deutsche Bahn's effort to open up the route has implications for both Eurostar, the rail operator that has thus far had a monopoly on trains through the Channel Tunnel, and for the state-owned train manufacturer Alstom.

In anticipation of the ICE trains passing ongoing safety inspections, Eurostar announced earlier this month that it plans to switch from trains built by Alstom to those built by German firm Siemens. The new trains will be very similar to the newest ICE models, known as ICE-3, which Deutsche Bahn plans to use for the Channel Tunnel routes. In addition to having 20 percent more seats than the older Eurostar models, the Siemens trains also have a top speed of 320 kilometers per hour instead of 300.

In Time for the Olympics?

Last week, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau threatened to block the Eurostar contract with Siemens -- 55 percent of Eurostar is owned by the French government. It is likely an empty threat, however. Any French veto would contravene European Union law and most observers say that an official French complaint about the contract tender would have little chance with the European Commission.

During the weekend, a Deutsche Bahn ICE-3 underwent numerous evaluations inside the tunnel, including an evacuation test. Last week, the train passed other safety checks. The Channel Tunnel Safety Authority, an Anglo-French body, has the final say as to whether the ICE will be permitted in the tunnel. The CEO of Eurotunnel, Jacques Gounon, for his part, seems confident that the German trains will get the go ahead -- and says they may even start running before the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

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Gripe Gives Bad Service Some Bad Publicity

2010-10-18T01:40:00.000+11:30

Have you ever been stumped by bad service at a hotel, a restaurant, a car rental agency, or your local dry cleaner? A new website called Gripe, at the trick url gri.pe, lets you instantly badmouth businesses for free to everyone who follows you on Facebook and Twitter, in hopes the company will make amends to you.

Gripe’s method is simple. To post a gripe about a business, you either use Gripe’s Web interface, or one of its apps for iPhone and Android phones. (A BlackBerry app is in the works.) You log into it with your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Gripe lets you create an entry on its Web site that identifies the business by name and location, details your complaint, and lets you upload photos to back up your claim. It then posts the URL for the gripe in a status update to your Facebook and Twitter followers, using your own accounts there. Gripe encourages them to retweet the gripe and repost it on their own Facebook pages. It’s a safe bet that if you post a gripe, a lot of people you know will see it.

The idea is to embarrass businesses into appeasing an unhappy customer by showing them that hundreds or thousands of people have read the customer’s gripe. Unlike a blog post or message board entry, a gripe is a high-profile complaint because it goes out on Facebook and Twitter, rather than waiting to be found. To turn up the heat, Gripe employees actually call and e-mail businesses to let them know they’ve been griped about. Gripe plans to make money by charging these companies for an account with which to track and manage customer feedback.

But Gripe offers businesses a carrot as well as a stick. When a disgruntled customer fills out a gripe, they’re asked to state what the business could do to make them happy. If the business makes good on the customer’s demand, Gripe asks that the customer change the status of their complaint from a red gripe to a green “cheer” for the company, which will be seen by anyone who follows the old link. A high number of cheers send the message to Gripe visitors that the cheered-about company takes care of its customers.

You might think opportunistic customers would use Gripe to make steep demands on hotel chains and restaurants. But as it turns out, the most common customer request on the site is more modest — most users just want an apology.

SOURCE

A gastronomic guide to traditional Britain

2010-10-09T15:42:00.002+11:30

From pork pies to jellied eels, Simon Majumdar documents the endangered flavours of his homeland

At the end of last year I finished a journey that took me to nearly every corner of Britain. My aim was to meet as many as possible of the people who grow, prepare and sell the food we eat, to construct the perfect ''Best of British'' menu.

Along the way I met farmers, chefs, butchers, brewers, cheesemakers, distillers, restaurateurs, hunters and anglers who all took time to share their lives and food with me. It was a journey that was filled with privileged experiences: I imbibed whisky costing £10,000 ($16,250) a bottle and sipped exquisite tea from delicate china cups at Brown's Hotel in London's Mayfair.

It was also a journey blighted with occasional sadness as I witnessed the seemingly terminal decline of some of Britain's most traditional foods. Whether you love them or loathe them, London's pie-and-mash shops and jellied-eel stalls will probably be little more than a memory in less than a generation's time.

There were some experiences that gave cause for concern (hang your head in shame, those who think that chicken tikka lasagne is a good idea). Despite this, I returned from my adventure convinced that British food is on the up.

The Midlands

Staffordshire oatcakes

A regional British treasure, the oatcake, or ''oat flannel'' as it is sometimes known as, fuelled generations of workers in the Potteries. Quite different from its crisp Scottish cousin, the Staffordshire oatcake is more like a dense pancake made from batter containing three types of flour and oats. As the ceramics factories have disappeared, so, too, have the bakeries that provided their workers with this sustaining breakfast. However, there remain a dozen or so producers and between them they still make 350,000 oatcakes a year, nearly all eaten within the boundaries of Stoke-on-Trent. At the Oatcake Kitchen, former ceramics worker Chris Bates expertly griddles up to 1000 oatcakes a day. Try one the local way, stuffed with cheese. Eat in, or take away as the workers would have done as they rushed to the factory. Delicious.

See www.staffordshireoatcakes.com.

Melton Mowbray pork pies

If I were stranded on a deserted island, I would dream of Melton Mowbray pork pies. The hand-raised, hot-water pastry; the fresh, seasoned pork; and the jelly from trotters make the most perfect combination. Last year the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association (see mmppa.co.uk) finally attained European PGI (protected geographical indication) status after more than a decade of trying. The name and recipe are now protected. If you want to see the fine art of hand-raising a pork pie for yourself, head to Dickinson & Morris in the town of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. It is one of the oldest pie shops and gives demonstrations.

See www.porkpie.co.uk.

Fish and chips

Like so much of the best of British food, fish and chips is a product of immigration. Portuguese-Jewish refugees brought their skills in the fish-frying department and collided with their Belgian and French counterparts who knew about frying potatoes. The dish was one of the few not to be rationed during World War II, so detrimental would it have been to the nation's morale. I tried examples in dozens of places but my favourite was in the unlikely surroundings of a Birmingham shopping centre. Great British Eatery was created in 2007 by two Brummies, Conrad Brunton and Andrew Insley. They fry their fish and chips in beef dripping and the smell as you walk through the door of their takeaway goes a long way to explaining why the place is a huge hit. See www.greatbritisheatery.co.uk.

Northern England

Lancashire hotpot

Few sights are more appealing than that of a hotpot being taken from the oven, its meaty lamb juices bubbling through the golden potato crust. Yet so few people have actually tried a real one. It is a slow-cooked reminder of hard-working times and deserves to be treasured, particularly when made as well as it is by a terrific young chef, Warrick Dodds, of Hastings in Lytham St Annes. Order it with a side dish of pickled red cabbage and a pint of local ale and follow it with an Eccles cake. See www.hastingslytham.com.

London

Jellied eels

People either love them or loathe them. Unfortunately for the few remaining jellied-eel stalls in London, the latter seems more common. This is a shame because eels, cooked with water, salt and parsley, then set in the gelatine they release, are delicious. Tubby Isaacs's family has been selling eels on Goulston Street, near Petticoat Lane in London's East End, since 1919. This is the perfect place to learn the art of eating jellied eel. You might not like them as much as I do but you'll be sampling a piece of history. See www.tubbyisaacs.co.uk.

Potted shrimps

Brown shrimps with clarified butter and a hit of mace have been a staple of British cuisine since the late-Victorian era. Nowhere is this made with more care than at London's oldest restaurant, Rules, in Covent Garden. The shrimp is sauteed, set in butter and lobster oil and served with lemon and a slice of brown toast. See www.rules.co.uk.

Scotland

Arbroath smokies

Arbroath smokies are cleaned and brined haddock that have been hot-smoked over oak chips until their skin is golden and the flesh beautifully white. Iain R. Spink and his mobile smoking set-up are a regular sight at the farmers' markets of Fife and he is well worth seeking out for one of the finest tastes of my whole trip. The markets are on Saturdays, rotating between Kirkcaldy, St Andrews, Dunfermline and Cupar. It is worth getting here early to see Spink and his enthusiastic crew at work and to buy a hot smokie straight from the fire, with its juices still bubbling under the skin. See www.fifefarmersmarket.co.uk; www.arbroathsmokies.net.

Haggis

The haggis by veteran Edinburgh butcher George Bower in Stockbridge are made with the whole ''pluck'' - lamb's heart, lung and liver - simmered in game stock and then minced twice with fresh onions, pinhead oatmeal and spices. The offally end result might not be to everyone's taste but there is no doubting that it is the real deal. See www.georgebowerbutchers.co.uk.

Chicken tikka masala

The owner of the Shish Mahal curry house in Glasgow, Ali Ahmed Aslam, has a strong claim to be the inventor of chicken tikka masala. He created the dish in the mid-1970s using a tin of tomato soup to make a spicy gravy when a customer complained that his meal was dry. The rest is history. So much so that last year a Glasgow member of parliament tabled a motion to apply for protected status and to have the dish renamed the Glasgow Tikka Masala. That might be a rather silly notion but a sizzling bowl of tender spiced chicken, cooked in the tandoor then coated with a fiery, tomato-based sauce, is a British treasure. Ali Aslam and his two sons can still be found at the Shish Mahal, carrying plates of their most famous dish to hungry Glaswegians. See www.shishmahal.co.uk.

Northern Ireland

The Ulster fry

The great British breakfast can be a thing of beauty but is all too often a plate of stodge floating in grease. Not so at Georgian House in Comber, south of Belfast. Unassuming chef Peter McKonkey has three decades of experience in Ireland's best kitchens and has one of the best ''frys'' in the country. The whopping plateful includes organic eggs, dense meaty sausages, thick smoked bacon, local black pudding, tomatoes, mushrooms and - just to make sure you wobble out the door - the best soda bread and potato farls I have tasted. Georgian House, phone +44 28 9187 1818.

Yellowman sweets

A treat for sweet-toothed Belfast boys and girls for generations, yellowman was originally created by Peggy Devlin and sold at the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle. As the name suggests, it is a lurid yellow candy made from caramelised sugar frothed with bicarbonate of soda and allowed to set before being broken into jagged shards. The best-known source for yellowman is now Aunt Sandra's candy shop in Belfast. David, the nephew of the original owner, still makes most of the sweets the shop sells and gives regular demonstrations. See www.auntsandras.com.

Wales

Faggots and peas

They might not have the most appealing name (it comes from the Welsh for ''little bundle'') or be made from the most tempting ingredients but these cricket ball-sized parcels of minced pork lung, liver and belly wrapped in bacon or caul (the lining of the stomach) are delicious. N.S. James family butchers has made award-winning versions since the shop opened in 1959. Local restaurants such as the Beaufort Arms (beaufortraglan.co.uk) have them on their specials menu but I think there is no better way of eating them than straight from the butcher's oven as a takeaway, doused with vinegar and a hit of white pepper. See www.nsjames.co.uk.

Welsh cakes

The chance to join Pat Maddocks as she prepared a batch of 1000 Welsh cakes in the small kitchen of her Gower home allowed me to relive a slice of my childhood. The smell and taste of her flat, fruit-laden griddled cakes (like small scones to look at but more delicious), taken hot from the stove and spread with butter, transported me back to the days when my own grandmother prepared them. Pat and her husband, Anthony, have recently opened a tearoom where you can sample Wales's finest baked goods, including cakes made with a shot of Penderyn Welsh whisky. See www.cakesfromwales.com.

SOURCE

CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON on Bowler hats

2010-10-07T15:53:00.001+11:30

With a marvellous tale at the end that reveals the quality of the man

Yesterday in my St James’s Street club (a gentleman never says which), a suspiciously new-looking bowler hat was hanging from one of the solid, Victorian brass coat-hooks polished daily by our devoted family of servants.

To test the hat, I gave the crown a good thump. It caved in, leaving an embarrassing dent, which I hastily bashed out from the inside while no one was looking.

I wondered whether this was one of the bowlers that Austin Reed, outfitters to all and sundry, have just announced they are introducing as part of their range of Cool Britannia fashion accessories for the man about town. I hoped not. For this was not a proper bowler.

It was in the Seventies that I started wearing a bowler, when I was a newspaper reporter in Leeds. They were a common sight among businessmen in the wool trade.

And as the last man in London to wear one regularly, I know the crown should be hardened so that the wearer will come to no harm if he falls off his thoroughbred hunter in the field.

I wear my bowler more often when bicycling than when hunting. It has saved my life more than once.

The wife of the Greater London Council’s leader once opened her car door in front of me as I was cycling along Whitehall to Downing Street, where I worked in the policy unit, to write a speech for Margaret Thatcher.

The front wheel of the bike was stove in, but when my head struck the kerb-stones, the hat hit them first and neither it nor I was dented. The Prime Minister got her speech.

One day I was mugged by a thief in Covent Garden, but his cosh, aimed at my head and wielded with enough strength to knock out the wearer of a lesser hat, bounced harmlessly off my hardened bowler. The tea-leaf ran off looking puzzled and I walked away dazed but unhurt.

It is intriguing, but not surprising, that what some had sneeringly but wrongly regarded as a symbol of upper-class twittery is back, and that I am once again at the cutting edge of fashion. Jude Law, Tito Jackson, Madness — all are following where Monckton has long led.

And, it is the bowler’s new-found popularity that has encouraged Austin Reed to stock it for the first time in 12 years.

These days, the ladies are wearing the bowler, too. Britney Spears, Peaches Geldof, Mischa Barton, Miley Cyrus — I am in glittering company.

Perhaps Lady Gaga will soon be seen in a bowler surmounting a dress made entirely of butchers’ tax returns sewn together with red tape. You heard it here first.

Why does the bowler work? It’s all in the design. In the 1840s, Edward Coke, the brother of the second Earl of Leicester, had a problem. His gamekeeper’s head had to be protected from low-hanging branches when he rode around the estate catching poachers.

Coke gave Lock’s, the hatters of St James’s Street in London, a clear design brief. The hat must be rounded, so that it would stay on even in a gale. It must fit the wearer’s head exactly, so that it would not be dislodged in a fall. It must be black, so that it would not make the wearer too visible on horseback. It must be stylish. And it must be affordable.

Lock’s passed on the brief to the hatmakers William and Thomas Bowler. And the rest is history. From the Earl of Leicester’s estate in Norfolk, the bowler spread throughout Britain, and then the world.

It was worn by everyone from Prime Ministers via Cambridge College servants to Billingsgate fish-porters. Within decades of its invention, the bowler was the most popular men’s hat in America in the 19th century, worn by sheriffs, station masters and outlaws like Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy.

Overseas, the bowler has always been popular. I recently saw bowlers being worn with pride in southern India. The native women of the Andes also wear the bowler.

A distant relative of mine was described by her biographer as being ‘famous from the Indies to the Andes for her undies’. The bowler now enjoys the same fame.

When everyone wore bowlers, they cost just 25p each. Today, though, Lock’s charge £295. But, whatever the cost, they’re worth every penny — and not just because my bowler saved my life.

A lot of trouble goes into making a good bowler. The first step is to visit Lock’s to have one’s bonce measured up. One sits in a creaking, Victorian chair and an instrument of torture — the conformateur — is lowered on to the head.

Needles at temple height point inward in an alarming, tightly-packed circle. The hatter then murmurs the most terrifying words in the English language: ‘This won’t hurt a bit.’ Then the needles are pressed inward from all directions, taking a precise profile of the head at the point where the hat-band will be.

Actually, it doesn’t hurt. Next, off-stage, there is much banging and hammering and hissing, and a slightly steaming bowler hat is brought in and tried on for size.

After any necessary adjustments, the hatter — in my case, Janet Taylor, who has been with Lock’s for 19 years, says: ‘All done now, sir: but we must wait for the shellac to harden.’ (Shellac, a resin secreted by Asian insects, is the key ingredient — it dries as hard as nails and a good bowler should withstand your weight if you stand on it.)

One of the many advantages of the bowler is that it conveys an instant air of superiority — but only if you have the right face for it. Jude Law, for instance, will never look convincing in a bowler. It really doesn’t work for him.

I often wear my bowler on overseas trips. Once, on a journey to what was then East Germany with a parliamentary group, I was wearing my bowler and was flanked by two other members of the group as we strode along Potsdam High Street.

A Soviet general coming the other way with his two minders immediately mistook me for a high-ranking Kommissar and gave me a spectacular, medal-clanking salute.

Just across the road from Lock’s the Hatters is St James’s Palace. Walk past it wearing a bowler and carrying a furled umbrella and the sentries on duty will crisply stand to attention and salute, just in case you are an officer.

The bowler shares one priceless advantage with every other titfer. Doffing one’s hat is the only way to make a polite gesture at a distance. Rude gestures are easy, hat or no hat. But nothing indicates a polite and friendly greeting more clearly or more stylishly than raising one’s hat. The ladies love it.

I once forestalled a riot in Whitehall by doffing my hat at just the right moment. During the miners’ strike of 1982-3, Arthur Scargill decreed that the miners should descend on Parliament Square in force to lobby members of the House of Commons. At the time I was working at my desk in No 10.

Oliver Letwin, now a Tory MP and Cabinet Office minister but who was then in the Downing Street policy unit and would go on to invent the poll tax, came dashing into my room with a look of terror on his face.

‘The miners are rioting in Parliament Square,’ he cried. ‘They’re pressing against the barriers at the end of Downing Street and the police are looking nervous. What do we do if they invade the building? It’s so unEnglish!’

‘Nonsense,’ I said (for I have always had a soft spot for the miners, the heroes of labour). ‘This is what they do every Friday night when the pubs tip out in Leeds or Barnsley. I’ll go and talk to them.’ And I reached for my hat. ‘B-b-but you’re not going to wear that silly Charlie Chaplin/Laurel-and-Hardy hat, are you? You’ll be lynched!’

‘Fear not,’ I said. ‘These people have bad leaders, but they are good men.’ And I went out through the big black door into Downing Street.

At the sight of a chinless, pinstripe-suited fop emerging from the Prime Minister’s house, the miners jeered. I had expected that. As I walked towards them, I raised my hat to them and smiled. The jeering instantly turned to cheering — loud, long and happy.

Remembering my St John Ambulance training about how to calm crowds, I stopped 10ft from the miners, looked one of them in the eye and said (very quietly, so that they all had to listen): ‘You have something to say to the Prime Minister. I’ll pass on whatever you say to me. You’ve come a long way, so would you like a drink in the pub across the road?’

They would. Like schoolchildren with their teacher, they filed amiably across Whitehall to the pub, where I bought them pints of ale and made a careful note of what they said. The riot was over — and all thanks to Edward Coke and his gamekeeper.

SOURCE

Britain in contact with Europe in the Bronze Age

2010-10-01T16:15:00.001+11:30

New research indicates that Stonehenge may have been an ancient tourist destination, attracting visitors from across Europe.

Studies of the skeleton of an adolescent boy from some 3,500 years ago found near the site suggest that he traveled all the way from the Mediterranean -- potentially Italy, Spain or southern France -- to the southwest of England.

Another body found near the famous stone complex has been identified as coming from the German Alpine foothills some 800 years earlier.

"The find adds considerable weight to the idea that people traveled long distances to visit Stonehenge, which must therefore have had a big reputation as a cult center," Timothy Darvill, professor of archeology at Bournemouth University, told The Associated Press. "Long-distance travel was certainly more common at this time than we generally think."

Researchers from the British Geological Survey analyzed isotopes in the travelers' teeth to pinpoint where they were raised.

Drinking water in different climates contains different ratios of heavy oxygen and light oxygen. Stones in different parts of Europe also contain different ratios of isotopes of the element strontium.

These two substances build up in children's teeth and remain there throughout adulthood, providing clues as to where the person grew up.

One thing they share is that both seem to have borne some kind of illness. The boy was buried at the age of 14 or 15, suggesting he may have died prematurely, The Independent reported. The German seems to have suffered from a painful leg condition. It may be that Stonehenge was a center of healing, drawing people from across Europe in search of cures, The Independent said.

Stonehenge has long mystified scientists. The site was first worked upon about 5,000 years ago. A thousand years later, massive stones were added to the site, according to Stonehenge.co.uk.

The stones, which weigh as much as 4 tons each, were taken more than 200 miles from Wales to the remote location in southwest England.

Nobody is quite sure what the site was used for. It could have been a religious site built by sun worshipers, since the axis that runs through the center of the stone circle aligns with the midsummer sunrise.

Today, the site is a favorite with both tourists and pagans, who celebrate religious festivals there.

Whatever drew these ancient travelers to the location, they certainly weren't budget travelers. The boy was found with a 90-piece amber necklace, while the German had copper daggers and gold hair clasps.

"People who can get these rare and exotic materials are people of some importance," Andrew Fitzpatrick of Wessex Archeology told BBC News.

SOURCE

Perpetual twilight of red dwarf planet Gliese 581g may host 'band of life'

2010-09-30T14:20:00.001+11:30

US astronomers have discovered an Earth-sized planet that they think might be habitable, orbiting a nearby star, and believe there could be many more planets like it in space.

The planet, found by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is orbiting in the middle of the "habitable zone" of the red dwarf star Gliese 581, which means it could have water on its surface.

The scientists determined that the planet, named Gliese 581g, has a mass three to four times that of Earth and an orbital period of just under 37 days.

Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet and has enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere, according to Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and one of the leaders of the team that discovered the planet.

"Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 per cent," Mr Vogt said. "I have almost no doubt about it."

If Gliese 581g has a rocky composition similar to Earth's, its diameter would be about 1.2 to 1.4 times that of the Earth, the researchers said. The surface gravity would be about the same or slightly higher than Earth's, so that a person could easily walk upright on the planet, Mr Vogt said.

Gliese 581g was discovered by scientists working on the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey, during 11 years of observing the red dwarf star Gliese 581, which is only 20 light years from Earth.

For astronomers, 11 years of observation is considered a short time and 20 light years, which is roughly 190 trillion kilometres, rather close. The sun is around eight and a half light minutes from Earth.

"The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common," Mr Vogt said.

The planet is tidally locked to its star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, and the other is in perpetual darkness because it faces away from the star. This would make the line between darkness and light the most habitable part of the new planet, which is known as the "terminator".

The researchers estimate that the average surface temperature of the planet would be between -31 to -12 degrees Celsius. But actual temperatures would range from "blazing hot on the side facing the star, to freezing cold on the dark side", they said.

That means the probability of life existing in a band of perpetual twilight or "Goldilocks zone" (not too hot, not too cold) around the planet is high.

The findings, which will be published in the Astrophysical Journal and posted online at arXiv.org, "offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet", Mr Vogt said.

In their report, the scientists in fact announce the discovery of two new planets around Gliese 581, bringing the total number of known planets around this star to six. Two previously detected planets around Gliese lie at the edges of the habitable zone, one on the hot side and one on the cold side of the star, and are probably not habitable. The newly discovered planet g, however, lies right in the middle of the habitable zone.

SOURCE

A politician with a sense of humour

2010-09-27T18:36:00.002+11:30

Switzerland's finance minister won applause in parliament after struggling to contain his giggles while answering a parliamentary question about imports of cured meats.

The video showing Hans-Rudolf Merz convulsing with laughter at the unintelligible bureaucratic language in his script has become an internet hit.

Merz was widely criticized in recent years for signing away much of Switzerland's banking secrecy and failing to secure the release of two Swiss citizens held by Libya.

However he seems to have regained some of his popularity as the nation sympathised with his efforts to negotiate the text laid before him by civil servants.

His speech has been viewed by more than 300,000 people on YouTube and other websites since Monday and prompted one maker of air-dried meats to advertise their wares with the slogan: "Never lose your sense of humor."

Source

More Hitler watercolours come to light

2010-09-27T17:30:00.002+11:30

I have deleted some ill-informed commentary below. No consideration seems to have been given to the possibility of forgeries. I am no arty-farty but some of the pictures below seem quite good to me -- JR

A recently discovered collection of Adolf Hitler paintings worth £150,000 will go under the hammer later this month. The selection of watercolours was all painted around 1908 when Hitler was simply known as a jobbing artist trying to earn a living. Scenes depict views across vast areas of farmland with a distant church spire on the road, village scenes and rows of factories.

Adolf Hitler was a struggling young artist when he painted this scene

Richard Westwood-Brookes of Mullocks Auctions revealed the Nazi leader used to offer to paint night landscapes for tourists to try and earn some money. He said: 'His daily activity was to go out and paint - he was penniless

Scenes depict views across vast areas of farmland with a distant church spire on the road, village scenes and rows of factories

The paintings, signed by Hitler, were found within a large estate in the north of Austria

Leisure: Adolf Hitler (right) eats a meal with his personal physician, Professor Theodor Morell (left), and the wife of Gauleiter Albert Forster, in rare photos also due to go under the hammer

Mr Westwood-Brookes revealed the paintings had come into his hands after they were found within a large estate in the north of Austria by the high-flying lawyer who bought the whole estate. He said: 'When he moved in they were all sat there in a cupboard.

'Many large well-known auction houses are Jewish owned so they refuse to touch anything to do with Hitler due to policy. 'Across many countries in Europe such as France and Austria you can't sell them by law as they believe it's glorifying Nazis. 'Ebay in those countries won't accept anything to do with him, so they have to be sold outside the countries.' The auction will take place at Ludlow Racecourse, Shrops, on September 30

SOURCE

Has Ed Miliband forgotten the lessons we learnt together at primary school?

2010-09-26T06:56:00.000+11:30

Labour's new leader looks like being under the thumb of the unions – harking back to the bad old days of the 1970s, says Boris Johnson

It is an unsettling fact that I went to the same school as the party leader. Indeed, there are some people who have taken to complaining about this coincidence. They say it is unacceptable in the 21st century that so much political power should be concentrated in the old boys of one educational establishment. It is a sign, they say, that the country has failed to move on.

Both of us went to the same institution of ancient rituals and gorgeous brickwork, ideally situated by one of the nation's most famous waterways and blessed with lush green spaces nearby. It is a forcing-house of talent, where the offspring of privilege acquire that patina of good manners, the ever so slightly infuriating habit of putting people at their ease, together with that sense of entitlement that propels them to the top and marks them out ever after as Old Primroseans.

Yes, amigos, it cannot be denied. I attended the same Camden primary school as the new Labour leader Ed Miliband (and his brother David) – and what a fantastic place I remember it to be. There may be some more recent alumni who will accuse me of sentimentality. They may point out that things have got even better for the pupils of Princess Road Primary School, Camden.

I am going to see for myself fairly soon, but a glance at the website certainly reveals a happy and successful school. You will read of outstanding commendations from Ofsted, 99 per cent attendance rates, abundant music lessons, exciting expeditions and a lunch menu of rich complexity by comparison with the stuff we were given in the 1970s.

You will be pleased to know that fish and chips have been replaced by breaded hoki and chipped potatoes with tartar sauce or ketchup, all of it approved by the Maritime Stewardship Council.

Today's Primrose Hill primary school seems to be of a piece with today's London – a place vastly more prosperous and more at ease with itself than in that grim decade. Which may seem paradoxical to some us who wore flares and grew up to the sound of Slade, because in so many ways you could argue that we had things better 37 years ago.

We didn't worry so much about kids carrying knives, because a knife was generally thought to be a sneaky and cowardly way to fight. In so far as we fought, we used our fists.

Indeed, one of my most mind-searing memories is of standing in the playground and challenging all-comers to a fight and then watching in horror as an enormously tall girl – she must have been at least two years older than me, I swear – detached herself from her friends and strolled in my direction. After that things are a bit of a blur, except for a dim impression of the speed and solidity of her knuckles and a ring of laughing faces against the sky. Made me what I am, I expect.

We didn't worry about obesity. We hadn't even heard of the word. I can't think of a single one of us who was remotely portly – even me. We guzzled Tizer and Spangles and Sherbet Fountains and didn't seem to lose our whippet-like proportions.

Why was that, then? Was it because we were mandatorily filled up, each and every one of us, by an identical school dinner of a kind that would make Jamie Oliver pass out?

Do you remember the liver that was positively green, and so knobbly and scarred that the only possible conclusion was that the cow in question had just lost a lifelong struggle with the bottle? You had to eat it, or else you went hungry – because no one had a packed lunch.

Or was it because the grown-ups let us walk to school or muck about on bikes, even into the gloaming, without believing that every bush concealed a paedophile?

On which subject, I seem to remember that we had no particular shortage of male teachers, and our own class was led by a genial young man, laconic but inspiring, who used to put his feet up on the desk and open his copy – I kid you not – of The Daily Telegraph.

We were generally less obsessed with elf and safety, and though our knees were scabbed and our milk teeth were rotted by the Spangles, we developed exhilarating games that taught us about risk. There were Evel Knievel experiments with ramps and bicycles, and in the school grounds there were two buildings so close together that you could wedge yourself between them and then lever yourself up, using only your feet and your back, until you were 20 feet off the ground.

First some daredevils did it; then we all followed the craze – though not many imitated the kid whose trick was to drink the water of the Grand Union Canal.

Yes, it was idyllic in the pre-paranoid 1970s, and you may by this stage be wondering what I mean when I say that things are so much better today. Well, there was one thing that we did worry about – and that was the economy.

This was the era of the three-day week, and the lights going out, and capricious and arbitrary union power being used to bring the country to its knees. It was a decade that culminated in our pathetic national capitulation to the IMF.

I note that Ed Miliband has emerged blatantly from the bowels of the trade unions, and that it was thanks to union chiefs that he edged a millimetre ahead of the elder Miliband. I note that he and other senior Labour figures are now pledging to support strike action – no matter how unreasonable, no matter how much damage it may do to the interests of the general public or the British economy – in the hope of scoring political points against the Coalition Government.

I note, in other words, that under Ed Miliband the trade unions seem set to dominate the Labour Party in exactly the way that Blair and Brown managed successfully to avoid.

There are many lessons from an inner London primary school in the 1970s – and it would be tragic if Ed were to take the wrong one.

SOURCE

John Cleese admits secret love for Germany

2010-09-22T22:52:00.000+11:30

In Monty Pyton and Fawlty Towers John Cleese was always ready to lampoon Teutonic culture. However the comedian has now revealed that he always had a secret love of all things German. Such is his affinity for the country's people, he has even claimed that he would even like to live in a German-speaking nation.

"I always felt attracted by Austrian and German culture in a certain way," he said in a newspaper interview. "I've always liked Vienna. I never saw so much theatre and music and so many museums anywhere else. I like the city's velocity and the food. It doesnt have the tackiness of other big cities.

"I considered renting a small flat in Switzerland. I love being in Lyon, Strasbourg, Munich and Milan in four hours from there," he said in an interview with Austrian newspaper Die Press.

Cleese, whose performance as Basil Fawlty goose-stepping in front of shocked German tourists is one of the most watched television clips in the world, lamented the declining ability of the English to mock other cultures.

"England changed much more than I did," he said. "We used to have some sort of middle class culture with an adequate amount of respect for education." "It was a bit racist not in a mean way though, but still racist.

"Some things have changed for the better. But it's not a middle class culture anymore, but a yob culture, a rowdy culture," he said.

Having lost more than millions of pounds in his last divorce, Cleese is cashing in on his fame and has signed up to become the face of bookmakers William Hill in Austria.

However he confessed he's not a big gambler himself. "I dont bet a lot. I don't have to do so on cricket or football because I don't need that extra kick. I'm engrossed in the match that much. But betting on a low level is fun and enjoyable," he said.

SOURCE

A story with an unusual ending

2010-09-21T19:00:00.001+11:30

When Charlotte Morgan's husband was killed in a light aircraft crash, she was left to bring up their two toddlers alone. By the time Zoe was 11 and Will was nine, they were pleading with her to find them a new father - but date after date that the widow found through lonely hearts websites ended in disappointment.

So the 41-year-old model turned businesswoman joined another dating site, handed over her laptop and told her children: 'This is a daddy shop. Pick one.' They searched through pictures of potential suitors to see whether they had 'nice smiles' and 'kindness in their eyes', and eventually chose Guy Bolam, a 44-year-old divorced father of one from North London.

Mummy sent him an email and they went on their first date, hitting it off immediately. Within nine months, financial adviser Mr Bolam was asking the permission of Zoe, Will and his own daughter Rose, then 14, to propose to his girlfriend. Now all are living happily together in her £1.3million medieval timbered farmhouse near Ongar, Essex.

She told the Daily Mail: 'I'd been on about five dates without the assistance of the children theyear before, but there was just no spark so I gave up. 'Then Will said to me one day, "We need a new daddy. What are you going to do about it?" He was 15 months old when his father died, so he had never known what it was to have a dad. 'Guy was the kids' first and only choice and it turned out I was his first ever online date.'

Miss Morgan, a former cover girl who modelled for fashion houses Burberry and Jaeger, saw her life fall apart when her ex-RAF pilot husband Fred Bassett, 34, was killed in a mid-air collision during a pleasure flight over Essex in April 2000.

Mrs Morgan was left alone with her children at their secluded 13th-century home, which is believed to have been one of Oliver Cromwell's armouries, with mummified cats in the walls and its own 8ft moat.

The determined widow pulled herself back from her 'numb' grief and worked for Sotheby's auction house before co-founding a successful London photographic agency, Morgan-Lockyer, in 2002. She threw herself into extreme sports and rode powerful motorbikes, earning the nickname 'muddy' for trying to be both 'mummy' and 'daddy'. But a father figure was missing from her children's lives.

As for Mr Bolam, he and his first wife Nicola divorced when their daughter was small. Rose, now 16, said she was wary when she discovered he had joined a dating website. 'I thought, "Oh dear, my dad's stooped too low",' she said. 'I was concerned that he'd find some weirdo instead of a nice normal person. 'But I knew that I wanted him to meet someone. I couldn't picture him as 70 or 80 alone in his rocking chair. He wasn't happy being alone.'

The pair's first date at a gastropub went well, but a few days later Mr Bolam phoned up to break the news that he was in hospital, having broken his arm and pelvis in a crash.

Miss Morgan, who has retained her maiden name, said: 'After I hung up I turned to my friend and said, "He's perfect, he's a complete idiot". I like men who are obviously reckless.'

SOURCE

The potty prince

2010-09-21T12:02:00.000+11:30

I am sure that the Prince means well and being slightly eccentric is not held against one in England. I will always praise him for the way he has protected Britain from the worst excesses of modern architecture -- JR

Prince Charles has hit out at critics who refer to him as a "potty" royal but has admitted he talks to trees and plants as if they were his children.

In a remarkably candid interview for a BBC documentary, Charles dismisses suggestions he is "loony" but confesses to lying on the floor at Highgrove House, his country home in Gloucestershire, to eavesdrop on visitors.

During the hour-long documentary, he is seen walking around the extensive grounds of the estate with the BBC gardening broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh.

According to the News of the World, he tells Titchmarsh: "I got a lot of flack for a lot of things. I mean, bewildered, frankly, as though you were doing something positively evil. 'I mean potty this, and potty that, loony this and loony that."

But he admits: "I have eavesdropped on what the visitors have said." He reportedly tells Titchmarsh: "When they're going round outside the windows sometimes you've got to lie on the floor".

He describes speaking to plants as something that keeps him "relatively sane". "I happily talk to the plants and the trees, and listen to them. I think it's absolutely crucial," he is reported to say.

Underlining the importance of his garden, he adds: "Everything I've done here, it's almost like your children. Every tree has a meaning for me".

Charles, who is widely known for his devotion to organic farming and environmental issues, says: "Terrible thing really, mustn't get too attached. I shall have to try and detach myself soon, psychologically."

SOURCE

Yes! Yes! YES Minister! The classic sitcom, which once gave Margaret Thatcher a VERY racy dream about Sir Humphrey, is back as a West End show

2010-09-17T02:12:00.000+11:30

By PETRONELLA WYATT

The television programme was Margaret Thatcher's favourite. It was the only thing that, during her long premiership, made her laugh real belly laughs. She used to get Denis to tape it if she was working late or there was a vote at the House of Commons. She even instructed her Cabinet ministers to watch it.

Douglas Hurd and others politicos, praising its verisimilitude, called it less of a TV series than a training manual. It won BAFTAS and set the whole nation giggling. Yes, reader, I refer to Yes, Minister.

It has been more than 20 years since Sir Humphrey Appleby, with his voice scary with sarcasm, last uttered the words 'Yes, Minister' and then 'Yes, Prime Minister', decades before we heard the phrases 'spin doctor' and 'touchy-feely politics'.

Mrs T even confessed to my father, Woodrow Wyatt, the late politician and Tote Chairman, with whom she had become friendly and who she spoke to on the phone every morning, that she had once had a 'romantic dream' about Sir Humphrey.

And now Whitehall's most adversarial couple, the Rt Honourable Jim Hacker MP and Sir Humphrey, his Permanent Secretary, immortalised by Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne, are back - this time on the stage, thanks to their original creators Jonathan Lynn and Sir Antony Jay. 'We thought we'd said it all,' says Lynn, 'but last summer we decided we were wrong.'

You might have supposed that 20 years was a very long time in politics and that Hacker was spending more time with his grandchildren, having written three volumes of memoirs, while Sir Humphrey was enjoying his pension and bemoaning a decline in standards in public life. Moreover, since 1988 we've had Alastair Campbell, the rise of the spin doctor and the foul-mouthed The Thick Of It.

Lynn, 67, who lives in LA directing comedies such as Nuns On The Run and My Cousin Vinny, protests that Yes, Prime Minister is more about the workings of government, and that the cogs haven't really changed at all. 'We invented the idea of politicians using spin, through press spokesmen, and the high-profile spin doctor has fallen out of favour.'

He also points out that the premise of both shows, which ran between 1980 and 1988, is the eternal inversion, beloved by writers from Beaumarchais to Wodehouse, that the servant is more intelligent than his master.

Jay, 69, who lives in Somerset, says 'a stage version had been suggested before, but Paul and Nigel couldn't commit for long enough'. Then Eddington died in 1995, followed by Hawthorne in 2001.

Jay, whose own politics are to the Right (he received his knighthood for writing the Queen's Christmas speeches and once worked in public relations), will not be drawn as to whether it was MPs' expenses that made him decide that a stage version would be 'such fun'. But he insists, like Lynn, that government has only changed on the surface. Indeed, the Sir Humphreys of Whitehall have increased their influence. 'Despite what other people might like you to think, civil servants hold the power. They actually dominate more now because fewer politicians today have experience of real work and the real world. The civil servants have to teach them.'

The comedy of Yes, Prime Minister is in Hacker's frantic attempts to enact change in the face of Sir Humphrey's opposition. But will the public accept new actors in the roles that Eddington and Hawthorne made so much their own?

In the new version, Hacker is played by David Haig (Four Weddings And A Funeral) and Sir Humphrey by Henry Goodman ( London's Burning). Haig, with his black moustache, bears a mildly comic resemblance to Hercule Poirot, while Henry Goodman is a suave silver fox; more like an older George Clooney than Hawthorne's bulbous-nosed mandarin.

'Hacker and Sir Humphrey are paradigms, so any actors can play the part,' insists Jay, who points to the success of the play's recent out-of-town run in Chichester. 'It broke all box office records. David and Henry are so good that after two minutes the audience were really into them. Younger people might not have watched the original series and we have updated the props and gadgets.'

There are BlackBerries and Twitter accounts and a female special adviser who calls the Prime Minister 'Jim'. The words 'bloody' and 'b***job' also make a surprise appearance.

I ask Lynn, whose early career after Cambridge University was stage acting and who is more to the Left than Jay, if they ever had arguments about politics. He guffaws: 'Not when it came to the show. It isn't about party politics. Hacker could be Labour, Conservative or even Lib Dem.'

Henry Goodman tells me: 'There is a quintessential truth about the characters, as there is with Sherlock Holmes. I didn't try to copy Nigel and I didn't feel I had to. 'The premise is all about the characters' position in political life - these Baroque figures who think they should be running the country. It sits on a very interesting border between taking the mick out of power and respecting the skills required in government.'

The show is remarkably topical. With uncanny prescience, Lynn and Jay, who finished the play last June, envisaged a situation where Hacker would be leading a minority government and a coalition and also having to deal with a financial crisis. 'I don't think we are soothsayers,' Lynn laughs. Jay adds that they wanted 'a precarious situation, but we did sort of have the feeling that no one would get an overall majority. So perhaps we are fortune tellers'.

The play is also uncannily topical in other ways, given the Coalition's plan to reduce the size of the Civil Service as part of its radical spending cuts. Jay is pessimistic about the outcome.
'I don't think they will be able to get real cuts to the civil service. The civil servants always win. They are so keen to maintain their power, job security, large pensions and automatic honours.'

There is an episode in Yes, Minister called The Economy Drive, which emphasised this point hilariously.

Hacker: 'How many people do we have in this department?'

Sir Humphrey: 'Ummm ... well, we're very small.'

Hacker: 'Two, maybe 3,000?'

Sir Humphrey: 'About 23,000 to be precise.'

Hacker: 'Twenty-three thousand!!! We need to do a time-and-motion study to see who we can get rid of.'

Sir Humphrey: 'We had one of those last year.'

Hacker: 'And what were the results?'

Sir Humphrey: 'It transpired that we needed another 500 people.'

Lynn says: 'Blair and Campbell made attempts to restyle government and so did Brown, but the civil servants are still running the country. 'Civil servants had to sort out the coalition between Cameron and Clegg. They had surged back when Brown was Prime Minister, as Brown was not a strong leader and power abhors a vacuum.'

Jay believes the present PM seems like a 'very decent, intelligent young man, but he has to avoid reliance on civil servants, by seeking advice from outside experts, academics and even journalists'. Jay explains: 'Blair tried to make government presidential, which took power away from the civil servants as it dealt a blow to ministerial autonomy. But under Brown the civil servants started regaining their power and they will go on trying to do so under the Coalition.'

Henry Goodman feels Sir Humphrey will always have the upper hand.
'His actions are motivated by his desire to maintain his prestige and power. Hacker sees his task as reforming departments, making economies and reducing the size of the civil service. But it never turns out his way.'

He insists there are lessons for the Coalition in Yes, Prime Minister. 'It's a dance of power. Civil servants use this florid language to baffle and intimidate new ministers. They are never on the same side.'

Jay concurs before making the point that politicians are only temporary, unlike civil servants. 'Occasionally you get a Nigel Lawson figure who is really on top of things, but most ministers are run by their departments. 'Of the new boys, Michael Gove (the Education Secretary) might succeed in mastering the Sir Humphreys. You have to have intelligence and strength. But, on average, a minister lasts 11 months and civil servants for 20 or 30 years.'

Both Jay and Lynn have been studying government and politics since the Wilson years. 'We read all the memoirs and diaries we could, like Richard Crossman's diaries, which were very good on the workings of Whitehall. We also got information from Wilson's close friend Marcia Falkender. Many of our comic situations are based on real events.'

Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister have been called as influential as George Orwell's 1984. They were indubitably more accurate. The television scripts are frequently used by schools and universities to enlighten students studying politics.

Jay says, sadly, that the play's the limit. 'This really will be the last outing for Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey.' 'Unless the play is made into a film,' counters Lynn, hopefully.

SOURCE

The REAL Sybil dies aged 95: Woman's Torquay hotel helped inspire Fawlty Towers

2010-09-17T01:53:00.001+11:30

The hotelier who was the inspiration behind Basil Fawlty’s wife Sybil in the classic BBC comedy Fawlty Towers has died aged 95.
Beatrice Sinclair and her husband Donald were immortalised in fiction by John Cleese after he stayed at their Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon, in 1971.

Mr Cleese was staying in the resort while filming Monty Python's Flying Circus and became impressed by Mr Sinclair’s ‘wonderful’ rudeness. He is said to have terrorised his guests and at one point threw Eric Idle's suitcase behind a wall in the garden in case it contained a bomb.

Mr Sinclair barked and threw maps at them and Mr Cleese found his behaviour so funny he was inspired to write Fawlty Towers and create Basil in his image.

It is unclear how much of the character Sybil was based on Mrs Sinclair but during the Python's stay she apparently tried to charge Graham Chapman and Michael Palin a two week fee for a night's stay.

She was also the ‘driving force’ and founder of the hotel and her husband would always address her with 'Yes Dear', just as Basil addressed Sybil, played by Prunella Scales, in the popular TV series.

Mrs Donald - who always denied her husband was anything like Basil - died on Monday at the Georgian House care home in Torquay aged 95.

The hotel's current owner Brian Shone said: ‘She was the person who drove the business and she was the strong one. Whenever she told Donald what to do he would say “yes dear”. ‘I am sad. It's the end of an era but the era goes on, really. The Fawlty Towers theme is still carrying on and is as strong as ever. ‘We still get Japanese, Australians and Germans here on a daily basis. They just want to take photographs. We have six coaches a day stop outside.’

Mrs Sinclair remained silent for 30 years over the television series before finally speaking out to insist the Fawlty Towers image was not true. She said the image portrayed was unfair to the memory of her retired naval officer husband, who was torpedoed by the Nazis three times. Donald Sinclair died in 1981.

Mr Shone bought the hotel for £1.5million in 2005 and says Mrs Sinclair visited a few times to see a refurbishment. He said: ‘She did come to the hotel a couple of times. She was a very, very nice lady. She really did not want to go in the Fawlty Towers direction at all. ‘It was a case of “you get on with it”. Sadly, she did not want to be part of it.’

Mrs Sinclair bought the house, then called Overnstey, for £7,000 in the 1960s while her sailor husband was at sea. She turned it into a hotel before renaming it Gleneagles and eventually persuaded her husband to leave the Royal Navy and join her.

In 1971 while Monty Python were filming in the area the cast and crew stayed in the hotel - a stay that would inspire Fawlty Towers.
During their stop one guest asked when the next bus would arrive to take them into town - and Mr Sinclair threw a timetable at him.
He then placed Eric Idle's suitcase behind a wall in the garden in case it contained a bomb - while it actually contained a ticking alarm clock.

Mr Sinclair also criticised the American-born Terry Gilliam's table manners for being too American because he had the fork in the ‘wrong’ hand. It is believed that incident inspired Basil's treatment of an American visitor in the episode 'Waldorf Salad'.

He also ‘flew into a fit of rage’ when he saw some builders having a tea break - thought to have inspired the episode where Basil thrashes his car with a branch.

Graham Chapman and Michael Palin decided to leave after just one night - but Mrs Sinclair gave them a bill for two weeks.

Mr Cleese’s co-star Palin supported his assessment of the couple, saying that Mr Sinclair saw the Pythons as a ‘colossal inconvenience’.

After leaving the hotel, Mrs Sinclair continued to live a short distance from the Gleneagles and later moved into a care home.

SOURCE

A miracle of the Stone Age

2010-09-13T13:07:00.003+11:30

The Stone Age passages of Newgrange

I follow our guide through a long, dimly lit passage way which opens up into a cross-shaped chamber. Only 50km north of Dublin, I've stepped back 5000 years into the past. "Archaeologists believe the dead were left in these chambers to begin their journey to another world," says our guide in a lilting Irish accent. It's dark and eerie. And I can feel the goose bumps on my arms, created by a combination of the chilly underground air and the mystical ambience of the chamber.

The Stone Age passage tomb of Newgrange sits among lush green farmland along the Boyne River in County Meath, on Ireland's east coast. Built around 3200BC, it is the most famous of the Boyne Valley Mounds.

With Knowth and Dowth, which are also in the valley, Newgrange is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Carbon dating shows Newgrange as one of the oldest man-made constructions on earth, older than Egypt's ancient pyramids by about 700 years and Stonehenge by 1000.

Our guide points out an intricate corbelled ceiling, with overlapping stones forming a conical dome topped by a single capstone. The ceiling has remained intact for more than 5000 years and, amazingly, it still keeps the inner chambers dry.

Outside in the sun, we walk around the mounds for a closer look at the facade of quartz and granite. The large oblong stone in front of the entrance is etched with spiral and diamond shapes. Circles, snake-like wavy lines, concentric double circles, diamonds, triangles, zig-zags - about 30 different symbols - can be seen at these tombs.

The symbols are a mystery that remains unsolved. No one really knows what they might represent, although different sets of symbols were used in different parts of the tombs.

The idea I like best is that the symbols might be signs used to connect a portal to another dimension, along the lines of the TV series Stargate SG1. But whatever the significance of the symbols, the splendour and magnificence of Newgrange and Knowth indicate the mounds were ancient temples of astrological, spiritual, religious and ceremonial importance, perhaps not dissimilar to present-day cathedrals.

Above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange, a window-like roof-box allows sunlight to penetrate the chamber during the shortest days of the year, around December 21 - the winter solstice. A narrow beam of light is guided by the roof-box's opening on to the floor of the chamber. As the sun rises higher, the beam crawls slowly along the passage until the entire chamber is bathed in light. This event lasts for 17 minutes, from 8.58am to 9.15am. The intent of its builders was undoubtedly to mark the beginning of the new year, a kind of early astrological clock.

The winter solstice event attracts a huge crowd. Anyone can come and stand outside the tomb. But a spot inside the chamber is highly sought after. In 2008 there were 34,107 applicants for 50 places that are decided by a lottery.

The lesser known Knowth is larger than Newgrange and contains about one quarter of Europe's megalithic art. Knowth consists of one large mound and 18 other satellite tombs. Archaeologists discovered unique artefacts such as a decorative flint mace head and two Iron Age men buried here together with a gaming set.

A series of inscriptions on stones that line the underground passages and chambers are a mixture of early medieval ogham scratchings and alphabetic script made around the 8th century, when Knowth was a royal site occupied by early Irish kings of the Brega kingdom.

You can't help but wonder if the Irish kings discovered the secrets of the symbols.

SOURCE

Philip Glass: I'm drawn to Kafka's darkness

2010-09-12T02:01:00.000+11:30

Philip Glass talks to Ivan Hewett about his decision to compose an opera based on one of the author’s terrifying tales

This week an opera based on one of Kafka’s darkest stories comes to London, with music by Philip Glass. It’s an unlikely conjunction of talents. On the one hand, the perpetually haunted Jewish outsider, hiding his terrifying visions under a carapace of bureaucratic ordinariness. On the other, a gregarious, affable American entrepreneur, so successful his friends jokingly call him a “captain of industry”.

Moreover, the imaginative space we call “Kafka-esque’ seems a world away from Philip Glass’s. In Kafka’s world, human beings are pinned helplessly by terrifying arbitrary forces they cannot understand, or even see. In Glass’s world, there are no dark corners. The characters in his operas – Gandhi, Einstein, Akhnaten – are creatures of daylight, serenely convinced that there is an objective truth and that they can help reveal it.

Yet, when I meet Glass on one of his gruelling European tours, it becomes clear that authors who deal in the dark side of life attract him. “I’ve been reading Kafka seriously since I was 15,” he says. “For a young person, the sense of strangeness and the bizarre is very attractive. There’s a sort of authenticity about it. He’s a doorway into the world of the imagination.

“Another writer who has the same quality – and, like me, comes from Baltimore – is Edgar Allan Poe, and several years before In the Penal Colony, I did Fall of the House of Usher.”

Both operas arose out of a practical need to create something intimate. “I wanted to write more music-theatre, and for some reason the big opera companies weren’t calling me. So I thought, I’ll do pocket operas – pieces for just a few singers and players, with sets you could put in a couple of suitcases; something you could do in a room like this,” he says gesturing around the Edinburgh pub we happen to be in.

The story he chose to set is grim even by Kafka’s standards. A Visitor comes to the penal colony of the title to witness an execution, much against his will. The Officer describes to the Visitor the wonderful Machine that performs the execution by carving the words of the law the criminal has transgressed on to his body. But times are changing, the Machine is decaying, and what used to be an elevating spectacle for the whole colony is falling into disrepute. The Officer badly needs the reassurance of the Visitor before he executes the latest prisoner, and when the Visitor withholds it – out of distaste rather than real outrage – he feels obliged to sacrifice himself.

“What fascinates me in this story is the moral inversion that takes place,” says Glass. “The Officer, having started as all-powerful becomes the victim, and he takes on the role with a kind of joy. He’s done everything he can to convince the Visitor of the virtue of the Machine, and, when he fails, he realises it’s over, and the only thing he can do is be the final victim.”

And the Visitor? “Well, he makes the right judgment, but we can’t admire him, because he does this by refusing to be engaged at all. He suffers no inconvenience, whereas we end up warming to the Officer more because he sacrifices everything for his principles.”

But perhaps there are no true innocents here? “No, this is what makes the story so dark. Kafka, I think, is suggesting that the mere fact of our human incarnation is enough to make us guilty.”

I suggest that given the subject matter, people might be expecting an expressionist treatment with shrieking clarinets and real blood. “No, realism doesn’t interest me. I could imagine the machine represented as a giant shadow, because that encourages the imagination, and what one imagines is always worse than anything that could be shown.

“As for the music, I’ve restricted myself to a string quartet because that is the medium that in the West has always been associated with introspection and intimacy. I’ve added just one double bass to lend an extra gravity and darkness.”

And the point of setting the story to music at all? “That’s simple. I want to articulate the structure of the drama, and amplify the point of view of the author, as far as I can discern it.

“One of the attractive things about the story for me as a composer is its formality. The Visitor gets away, but by avoiding judgment actually fails. The Officer, in a strange way, redeems himself. It’s a perfectly calibrated outcome, like a trap for a hummingbird.”

SOURCE

Another "orchestrated litany of lies" in New Zealand?

2010-09-03T14:14:00.003+11:30

The N.Z. judiciary is notoriously incestuous and corrupt. Even the Kiwis know that, which is why they brought in an Australian judge (Mason) to head an inquiry into the Mt. Erebus disaster. Mason was scathing so they will probably not do that again. They have also now protected themselves by cutting off appeals to London

The solemn edifice of justice depends on the public having some sort of respect for and confidence in judges. That sounds like one of William Blackstone's platitudinous pronouncements but it's something the judiciary trots out frequently to remind everyone that they are ''in touch'' yet remote.

When judges misjudge there is hell to pay. In a single bound the thin silk can easily be torn from the alabaster bosom of that blind statue holding aloft the wobbly (non-digital) scales. It's delicate and it's a lot to do with appearances - just how much can be observed from recent events in New Zealand.

This is a case study for the common-law world on the unresolved tensions between protecting the integrity of the system and personal loyalties and duties. It's known as the Saxmere scandal.

In 2007 Justice Bill Wilson, a senior judge, sat on an appeal involving a tax dispute between a group of wool growers, the Saxmere interests, and the now-defunct NZ Wool Board. Already there are sheep involved.

Wilson and the other appeal judges overturned a decision made lower down the judicial chain by the High Court in favour of the Saxmere Company, and held instead for the wool board. Its counsel was Alan Galbraith, QC, a chum of Wilson.

The judge informally told the counsel for Saxmere that he and Galbraith jointly owned a company called Rich Hill. But he did not openly and fully declare the details of his financial involvement, as he should have.

It later emerged that by various calculations Wilson was indebted to his other shareholder by between $240,000 and $600,000. Those figure are now in dispute in a lawsuit.

Wilson's lapse of openness, whether as a result of ''bad faith'' or not, has set off a chain of nasty firecrackers.

Last year Saxmere appealed against the High Court decision to the Supreme Court and was turned down. The judges, all of whom were colleagues of Wilson on the same court, found there was nothing in the financial relationship that would make the judge beholden to Galbraith.

Four months after dismissing the woolgrowers' appeal the Supreme Court revisited the case and decided it had not been in possession of all the facts when it made its decision.

They ''recalled'' their earlier judgment. The new details were that Wilson had an indebtedness to the company of $240,000. This represented partly an imbalance in the two shareholder accounts and partly a failure to repay interest and principle on $168,000 of bank debt.

Later there were reports that Galbraith had guaranteed the judge's personal bank borrowing of $360,000 for his share of the purchase of more land. That allegedly bumped up Wilson's indebtedness to his other shareholder to more than $600,000.

The Judicial Conduct Commissioner, David Gascoigne, recommended to the attorney-general that he appoint a conduct panel to look at Wilson's behaviour, whether it was unbecoming and whether the judge should resign.

The attorney-general had to delegate this matter as he and Wilson used to work at the same law firm.

The relationships get warmer. Last year, a well-known silk, Jim Farmer, was engaged by Alan Galbraith to advise him how to navigate the storm. Farmer privately went to his old friend Edmund Thomas, a retired appeal court judge, for comfort and advice.

Farmer and Thomas started a series of emails, which printed out run to 50 pages. The emails were the subject of a failed suppression attempt by Thomas and Wilson in the High Court.

''The first objective must be to ensure that Alan comes out of this squeaky clean,'' Thomas tells Farmer. His second objective is the protection of the integrity of the judiciary.

Thomas says: ''Bill [Wilson] is clearly desperate. He has lied about the fact that some monies, if not the half million, were not due at the time of the Saxmere hearing.''

Thomas starts getting edgy. He wants the whole story taken to the Chief Justice, Sian Elias. ''In my view the court is compromised every time Bill sits. The court is dysfunctional - contaminated might not be too strong a word.''

Farmer replies: ''I am not the keeper of the court's conscience. My primary obligation is to Alan . . . There is a limit to how far I will go to uphold the integrity of the judicial system . . .'' Farmer thinks that if Wilson ''goes down'' he will drag the chief justice with him.

Soon there were accusations that Thomas was leaking and that he would give Farmer up as his source. Thomas thought Farmer and other barristers involved in the affair could never again appear in front of Wilson.

Now Wilson has brought proceedings to prevent the Judicial Conduct Commissioner referring the matter to a panel. He's clinging on - but at what cost? The old idea that the court is more important than the client, the barristers and even an individual judge has taken a big hit.

Source

Mother's instinct saves baby

2010-08-27T17:27:00.002+11:30

It was a final chance to say goodbye for grieving mother Kate Ogg after doctors gave up hope of saving her premature baby. She tearfully told her lifeless son - born at 27 weeks weighing 2lb - how much she loved him and cuddled him tightly, not wanting to let him go.

Although little Jamie's twin sister Emily had been delivered successfully, doctors had given Mrs Ogg the news all mothers dread - that after 20 minutes of battling to get her son to breathe, they had declared him dead.

Having given up on a miracle, Mrs Ogg unwrapped the baby from his blanket and held him against her skin. And then an extraordinary thing happened. After two hours of being hugged, touched and spoken to by his mother, the little boy began showing signs of life. At first, it was just a gasp for air that was dismissed by doctors as a reflex action. But then the startled mother fed him a little breast milk on her finger and he started breathing normally.

'I thought, "Oh my God, what's going on",' said Mrs Ogg. 'A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger. 'He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side. The doctor kept shaking his head saying, "I don't believe it, I don't believe it".'

The Australian mother spoke publicly for the first time yesterday to highlight the importance of skin-on-skin care for sick babies, which is being used at an increasing number of British hospitals.

In most cases, babies are rushed off to intensive care if there is a serious problem during the birth. But the 'kangaroo care' technique, named after the way kangaroos hold their young in a pouch next to their bodies, allows the mother to act as a human incubator to keep babies warm, stimulated and fed.

Pre-term and low birth-weight babies treated with the skin-to-skin method have also been shown to have lower infection rates, less severe illness, improved sleep patterns and are at reduced risk of hypothermia.

Mrs Ogg and her husband David told how doctors gave up on saving their son after a three-hour labour in a Sydney hospital in March. 'The doctor asked me had we chosen a name for our son,' said Mrs Ogg. 'I said, "Jamie", and he turned around with my son already wrapped up and said, "We've lost Jamie, he didn't make it, sorry".

'It was the worse feeling I've ever felt. I unwrapped Jamie from his blanket. He was very limp. 'I took my gown off and arranged him on my chest with his head over my arm and just held him. He wasn't moving at all and we just started talking to him. 'We told him what his name was and that he had a sister. We told him the things we wanted to do with him throughout his life. 'Jamie occasionally gasped for air, which doctors said was a reflex action. But then I felt him move as if he were startled, then he started gasping more and more regularly. 'I gave Jamie some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing.'

Mrs Ogg held her son, now five months old and fully recovered, as she spoke on the Australian TV show Today Tonight.

Her husband added: 'Luckily I've got a very strong, very smart wife. 'She instinctively did what she did. If she hadn't done that, Jamie probably wouldn't be here.'

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British bank is deluged with over 2,000 complaints a day: But the bailed-out bank rejects 90%

2010-08-26T01:03:00.001+11:30

This is just what I would expect from my own experience of Britain's hopelessly bureaucratised banks. They do tend to inspire thoughts of bloodshed --JR

Britain's biggest bank is receiving more than 2,000 complaints from angry customers every day, it admitted last night. Lloyds TSB - which is 43 per cent owned by the taxpayer after a multi-billion pound bailout to save it during the credit crunch - said it had received 300,000 complaints in the first six months of the year.

But just one in ten ended in an apology or compensation for the let-down customers - and an astonishing 90 per cent were dismissed.

Banks have been ordered to publish the full extent of their customers' dissastisfaction by the Financial Services Authority.

Earlier this year, nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland admitted it was receiving more than 1,600 complaints every day. But in contrast to Lloyds TSB, it upheld eight out of every ten - raising questions over how there can be such a disparity.

The figures from the Lloyds group, which also includes Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Cheltenham & Gloucester, were described as 'disappointing' by consumer group Which?.

The bank also revealed that it had 'closed' an astonishing 600,000 outstanding complaints this year, ending a huge backlog.

Many of those were from customers complaining about overdraft charges whose cases had been put on hold until the Supreme Court ruled on whether banks had to pay compensation for overcharging their customers. The banks won their case against the Office for Fair Trading - and Lloyds TSB appeared to have taken that as a cue to simply dismiss hundreds of thousands of pending complaints.

That was despite many complaints separately being upheld by the banking ombudsman.

The figures published yesterday showed:

* The former HBOS banks - which also include smaller brands Birmingham Midshires and Intelligent Finance - received 68,280 complaints from customers unhappy at how their accounts or credit cards were handled in the first six months of the year, and upheld just 7 per cent.

* The same division received 36,121 from disgruntled insurance customers - and upheld almost 68 per cent, suggesting massive problems in its insurance products.

* Of the 103,686 Lloyds TSB bank and credit card customers who complained about their experience, just 12 per cent were not dismissed.

* But 54 per cent of the 41,874 who complained about insurance products had their complaints upheld.

The giant Lloyds group was formed when then prime minister Gordon Brown brokered a deal at a Whitehall drinks party with Lloyds TSB chairman Sir Victor Blank to take over HBOS, which was on the verge of collapse.

Lloyds TSB has around 12million current account customers and Halifax, which was recently named the worst bank for customer satisfaction by consumer group Which?, has about 10million current account holders.

Dominic Lindley, of consumer champion Which?, said: 'It's disappointing to see a taxpayerbacked bank doing such a poor job at keeping its customers happy.'

Britain's biggest building society Nationwide also published its complaints yesterday, revealing that it received 90,200 between October 2009 to April 2010. It also turned down eight out of ten banking customers who complained.

A spokesman for Lloyds said: 'Like every organisation we know there are areas where we can improve and we're working with our customers to do just that.'

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Was the ME109 the better fighter aircraft in WWII?

2010-08-23T23:09:00.003+11:30

I’m rather enjoying the current wave of Battle of Britain nostalgia, though possibly not as much as the editor of this section. News reached me from Ventnor, via a red Bakelite telephone, that this week’s issue would include a twin test of a Messerschmitt and a Spitfire. Crikey, I thought, in a voice from Pathe News. Then I discovered that they were only cars.

But this did get me thinking. Should it all kick off again, which fighter would you want to be in? Difficult to say. I’ve only tried a Spitfire, and then only from the back of a two-seater and with a dashing ATA gal up front to keep an eye on the boost gauge. But let’s try anyway.

Most people would dismiss the Hurricane quite quickly, but I’m not so sure we should. It was more like the last hurrah of the previous era of fighter design rather than part of the new dawn of stressed-skin, truly high-performance aircraft. It was built more like a TVR, around what we would call a space frame.

The wings of the earliest Hurricanes were actually fabric-covered, like those of the Hawker biplanes that preceded it. It was slower than either the Spit or the 109 but lightly wing-loaded and very manoeuvrable. It seems to have been benign and had a good gun platform, which was sort of the point.

I also sense that its designer, Sydney Camm, knew what he was doing, because he clearly wasn’t a chump. His legacy stretches from the interwar biplanes up to the Hawkers Hunter and Harrier. I think he knew that Britain needed a fighter that was easy to build using existing skills and tools, easy to maintain and repair in the field, and easy for hurriedly trained pilots to master. When things settled down, he gave us the incredible Tempest, after all.

But the early Spitfire was faster, and faster than the Messerschmitt once it had been given a decent constant-speed prop. And it could still out-turn the 109 at 12,000 feet, which we know because the Royal Aircraft Establishment conducted a genuine fighter group test in 1940 using a captured 109. The Spitfire narrowly outclimbed the Messerschmitt and it seems that the controls were lighter and the cockpit more comfortable.

So the Spitfire would look to have it. But I’m not so sure. The British seem to have clung to some outmoded ideas about aerial combat because the last air war they’d fought had finished in 1918. But the Luftwaffe sneaked in a full dress rehearsal in Spain, and knew that manoeuvrability and dogfighting would give way to a quick in-and-out approach coupled with maximum firepower.

So the 109 Emil had cannon as well as machine guns, while The Few had to make do with just the Brownings. Since a fighter’s job is to shoot stuff down, this puts the Jerry kite ahead in my book. I’d have the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke 109.

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Awesome courage of the D-Day piper who the Nazis thought was mad

2010-08-20T18:00:00.002+11:30

Under the fire of Nazi guns and wading through a sea turning crimson with the blood of fallen colleagues, Bill Millin struggled towards the Normandy sands.

Waist deep in water, he led the commandos of the 1st Special Service Brigade on to the beach as they fought to their deaths on the most famous day of World War II.

Amid the clatter of battle and dreadful cries of the injured, Millin only just caught the five words that turned him into a hero. 'Give us "Highland Laddie" man!' shouted Lord Lovat, the charismatic Chief of Clan Fraser and Brigadier of the 2,500 commandos, who was determined to put some backbone into his invading forces.
Piper Bill Millin played again on the Normandy beaches to celebrate the the 35th anniversary of the D-Day Landings

Piper Bill Millin played again on the Normandy beaches to celebrate the the 35th anniversary of the D-Day Landings

Obediently, 21-year-old Millin, Lovatt's personal piper, put the mouthpiece of his bagpipes to his lips, ignored the carnage and thundering crash of gunfire - and played as he had never played before.

It was 8.40 on June 6 1944, the morning of D-day. In the largest amphibious assault ever mounted, 150,000 troops from Britain, America and Canada were landing along a 60-mile stretch of the Normandy coastline.

D-day was the turning point in the Allies' battle against Hitler. And the name of Bill Millin, who died this week aged 88, is intrinsically linked with the events of that early summer's day. He is a reminder of the bravery and sacrifice of ordinary soldiers as they fought to protect this nation from the Nazis. He will live for ever in the annals of history.

The French awarded him their Croix d'Honneur and plan to erect a statue to him close to the beach where he marched ashore - the most eastern of the beaches picked by the Allies for the invasion.

The long stretch of sand where his haunting music stirred his fellow soldiers into battle near the French town of Ouistreham was codenamed Sword, while the other four beaches to the west were Omaha, Gold, Utah and Juno.

By the time Millin landed, it had already been a tumultuous journey across the Channel. 'I had my pipes with me as we set off from England the night before,' he explained later. 'I had been playing to the troops waiting to board the landing craft as we went along the Hamble river, and then I put them back in the box.

'Lord Lovat said: "You better get them out again because you can play us out of the Solent and into the Channel. You will be in the leading craft with me." '

He stood at the front of the landing craft piping The Road To The Isles. When the commandos were just off the Isle of Wight, they met thousands of other boats and ships carrying troops. 'They heard the pipes, and they were throwing their hats in the air and cheering,' he remembered.

He only stopped playing because the waves had become choppy and he was losing his balance. 'After we left the Solent and were out in the Channel, the hatches on the landing craft were put down and we were very cramped.

There were some people playing cards, but most were violently sick, including myself. The next morning I pushed open the hatch and looked out at a grey dawn. The wind was blowing and freezing

'Then after another half an hour people were starting to get gear together, their rucksacks on and were making towards the front of the craft. We could see the mist of the French shoreline and the neat bungalows along the seafront.'
The only weapon Bill carried on D-day was a small dagger tucked into his sock

The only weapon Bill carried on D-day was a small dagger tucked into his sock

Bill continued: 'Everyone was checking their kit, and putting their kit on. I didn't think of being shot, how many Germans there were or anything other than the smell of seasickness on me. We all got up on deck and we stood in the freezing wind watching the shoreline. Then the order came to get ashore and I was very pleased.'

Lord Lovat, 32, jumped into the water first. Because Lovat was over 6ft tall, Bill waited to see what depth it was before going in. He said: 'My kilt floated to the surface and the shock of the freezing cold water knocked all feelings of sickness from me.'

Within seconds the commandos were being struck down by German mortar shells and machine-gun fire. One commando was killed as Lovat got into the sea, his body floating up by Bill as he made for the shore.

Yet Lovat asked Bill to play again. He nearly refused. 'Well, when I looked round - the noise and people lying about on the ground, the shouting and the smoke, the crump of mortars,' he said later, 'I said to myself: "Well, you must be joking, surely." But Lovat insisted, and Bill said: 'Well, what tune would you like, Sir?'

'How about Highland Laddie and The Road To The Isles?' said Lovat, telling him to walk up and down the beach as he played.

Bill could see soldiers lying face down in the water as he played. 'Troops to my left were trying to dig in just off the beach,' he recalled. 'Yet when they heard the pipes, some of them stopped what they were doing and waved their arms, cheering.'

Lovat's commandos were heavily machine-gunned and mortared, but had a vital objective and pressed on. They had orders to link up with the British 6th Airborne division and keep secure a strategically vital bridge over the Caen Canal three miles down a road full of German snipers beyond Sword beach.

The airborne division had captured the bridge in the early hours that day in an assault later immortalised in the classic film The Longest Day, in which the part of Millin was played by Pipe Major Leslie de Laspee, the official piper to the Queen Mother. The 180-strong company airborne division, led by Major John Howard, swooped at dawn in gliders.

The crossing was later renamed Pegasus Bridge, after the flying horse shoulder emblem worn by British airborne forces.

The attack took the Germans completely by surprise and stopped them from swarming over the bridge and towards Sword beach. It also allowed the invading soldiers to push across the bridge and make their way through France.

Throughout that morning, the airborne division had to repel repeated counter-attacks at Pegasus, which was surrounded by Panzer divisions. And by early afternoon, the jaded British troops were urgently needing help from Lovat and his commandos.

Suddenly, at 1 pm, there was the sound of bagpipes. With Bill Millin playing Lovat's favourite tune Blue Bonnets Over The Border, the commandos marched into view. despite heavy German fire, as the red berets of the airborne division and the green berets of the commandos mingled there was a lightening of spirits.

Major Howard approached Lovat. Holding out his hand, he said: 'We are very pleased to see you, old boy.' Lovat responded: 'Yes, and sorry we are two and a-half minutes late.'

The commandos went over the bridge to confront the Germans - with Bill Millin playing his pipes as brave as a lion leading the way.

'not once did I think I was going to die,' said Bill afterwards. 'I was too busy playing. We had been attacked by snipers once we left Sword Beach, particularly from cornfields on the right of the road. 'At one point I glanced round, stopped playing and everyone was face down on the road. even Lovat was on one knee. Then the next thing this sniper comes scrambling down from a tree and Lovat and our group dash forward.

'We could see this sniper's head bobbing about in the cornfield. Lovat shot at him and he fell. Lovat sent two men into the cornfield to see what had happened, and they brought back the dead body.'

Remarkably, the only weapon Bill carried that long day was a Scottish dirk in his sock. He survived unscathed The Germans put a hole in his bagpipes with shrapnel. So he just pulled a spare set out of his rucksack.

The great mystery is why the Germans didn't gun him down. He couldn't have been more conspicuous in full Highland dress and with blaring bagpipes. Pipers were banned in conflict zones after World War I because so many died. Lovat's orders for Bill to play on d-day breached all Army rules.

It would take Bill more than 40 years to find out why he survived. He said: 'I met a German commander at a D-day reunion and asked why they hadn't shot me. 'The commander just tapped his head and said "We thought you were a 'Dummkopf', or off your head. Why waste bullets on a Dummkopf?"'

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Adolf Hitler according to his WWI regiment

2010-08-18T18:00:00.000+11:30

In Nazi propaganda, he was a gallant First World War corporal who frequently risked his life. Now the myth of Adolf Hitler's heroism in the trenches has been debunked by research revealing he was little more than a 'teaboy' messenger dubbed a 'rear-area pig' by frontline soldiers.

No individual has been more scrutinized than Hitler, but detective work by Dr Thomas Weber, lecturer in modern history at Aberdeen University, unearthed new evidence.

Previously unpublished letters from veterans of Hitler's regiment have challenged the Nazi portrayal which suggested his virulent nationalism was prompted by his experience on the Western Front.

They overturn his image of his unit, the List Regiment, as a band of brothers, intolerant and anti-Jewish with Hitler 'a hero at its heart'.

They confront long-held views on Hitler’s brave war record, revealing that front soldiers shunned him as a “rear area pig” several kilometres from danger.

The letters and a diary also disclose that List men regarded him as an impractical object of ridicule, joking about his starving in a canned food factory, unable to open a can with a bayonet.

He was viewed by his comrades in regimental HQ as a loner. He was neither popular nor unpopular.

They referred to him as the 'painter' or the 'artist' and noticed that he did not indulge in their favourite pastimes – letter-writing or drinking – but was often seen with a political book in his hand or painting. He was also particularly submissive to his superiors.

'The commonly held view that Hitler had the dangerous job of running between trenches to deliver messages simply does not stand up,' said historian Dr Thomas Weber yesterday.

He added: 'I found his role was to deliver messages between regimental HQ and, for instance, battalions or the HQs of other units. So he would have been between three and five kilometres behind the front. Far from being considered a hero, Hitler was regarded as a "rear area pig" by the soldiers.'

Dr Weber said that previous biographies have had to rely on evidence from Hitler and Nazi propagandists: 'Since Hitler was an ordinary soldier in the First World War, there was not an easily available file on him. Biographers didn’t dig deep enough.'

'The myth of Hitler as a brave soldier and the camaraderie of the trenches was used by the Nazi party from the beginning in order to extend its appeal beyond the far right.

'They went to great lengths to protect this idea and through my research I discovered that a memoir written by one of his comrades was significantly altered between its first publication in 1933 and the outbreak of the Second World War.'

He added: 'The story was that World War One created Hitler and radicalised him and led to the birth of the Nazi movement.

'But his life in the war really was his Achilles heel and the story could collapse like a house of cards. 'I've been trying to show that this is a totally made-up story. Hitler was untypical of the regiment and he was not really radicalised in the war.'

Within the Bavarian War Archives, he discovered papers undisturbed for almost nine decades. Elsewhere, he found unpublished letters and Nazi Party membership files, and traced Jewish List veterans.

It was known that Hitler served as a runner but, armed with new evidence, Dr Weber realises that historians have not distinguished between regimental runners, a relatively safe job, and battalion or company runners, who had to brave machine-gun fire between trenches – Hitler was a runner at regimental HQ several kilometers from the front, and living in comfort in a room.

He said: 'I never thought I would write about Hitler as so many books have been written. But I discovered we know next to nothing about Hitler and the First World War and virtually everything that we do know is based on Mein Kampf or Nazi propaganda. More than 70 per cent of my book is based on previously unused sources.'

In unpublished letters, Alois Schnelldorfer, who also served at List HQ, told his parents that his task was 'to sit in an armchair and make calls like a postmistress'. He also confirmed the front-line view of more generous provisions than the men in the trenches: 'I can drink a litre of beer under a shady walnut tree.'

Speaking of Hitler’s famous 1st Class Iron Cross - the 2nd Class was a relatively common award - Dr Weber says this was largely due to the fact he knew officers who made recommendations.

The documents also make clear that virulent anti-Semitism did not exist, as an unpublished diary by a Jewish List soldier shows.

Also, although it was known that Hitler’s Iron Cross was recommended by Hugo Gutmann, a List Jewish adjutant, when Gutmann was incarcerated by the Gestapo in 1937, it was List veterans who enabled him to survive, Weber discovered. Gutmann referred to a prison-guard who took risks to help him: 'As a good Catholic he despised the Nazis'. Another List ex-comrade helped him to escape to America.

Dr Weber also unearthed evidence to show that the veterans of the List Regiment did not – as maintained by all Hitler biographies – unanimously support Hitler after the war.

An unpublished 1934 postcard by a Hitler admirer laments his being cold-shouldered by veterans in 1922. Dr Weber discovered that few front-line List soldiers became Nazis, whereas several regimental HQ staff were prominent in the party.

Dr Weber concludes that Hitler, who worked for a left-government after the war, became violently nationalist and anti-Semitic from the post-war and post-revolutionary economic and political crisis. [That is also what Hitler said of himself in "Mein Kampf" -- JR]

Dr Weber discovered that records had survived largely intact and were housed in the Bavarian War Archive, but that those pertaining to Hitler's battle group were filed not under the List Regiment, but under the higher division to which the regiment belonged. As a result, they had lain untouched for decades.

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The English Civil War and the First Libertarian Movement

2010-08-13T21:42:00.002+11:30

In the 1640s, when outright civil war came to England, with a royal army headquartered in Oxford fighting a Parliamentary Army headquartered a mere 50 or 60 miles away in London, it suddenly became possible to think all sorts of things that had previously been considered unthinkable. The king was "the divinely mandated representative of God on earth," after all, and yet here he was being defied and warred against.

True, he was being warred against by Parliament, which liked to think of itself as representing "the people," but this way of looking at things would not withstand close scrutiny. The majority of the people couldn't even vote in Parliamentary elections. Neither was it exactly true to say, as Harry Elmer Barnes did in his 1947 Survey of Western Civilization, that Parliament represented the interests of the commercial or mercantile middle class — the bourgeoisie. It would be closer to the truth to say, with H.G. Wells, writing in 1920, that Parliament represented the interests of the "private property owner," both the owners of the great hereditary estates who sat in the House of Lords and the businessmen and professionals who sat in the House of Commons. But however you defined your terms, whoever was behind it, the private property owner or the bourgeoisie, this open defiance of the king, employing force of arms, flew in the face of everything everyone had always been taught.

It made you wonder what else that everyone had always been taught might turn out, on closer examination, to rest on a less secure foundation than one had always been led to believe was there. Might we, for example, actually be better off with no king at all? With just Parliament? Why did we have government in the first place? What was it for? Murray Rothbard described the situation succinctly in his Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought: "The turmoil of the English Civil War," he wrote, "stimulated radical thinking about politics."

And the most radical thinkers of all in the 1640s were the Levellers. Rothbard calls them "the world's first self-consciously libertarian mass movement." They

worked out a remarkably consistent libertarian doctrine, upholding the rights of 'self-ownership,' private property, religious freedom for the individual, and minimal government interference in society. The rights of each individual to his person and property, furthermore, were 'natural,' that is, they were derived from the nature of man and the universe, and therefore were not dependent on, nor could they be abrogated by, government. And while the economy was scarcely a primary focus of the Levellers, their adherence to a free-market economy was a simple derivation from their stress on liberty and the rights of private property.

The economy was not "a primary focus of the Levellers" because they had what today we would call civil-liberties issues of a particularly compelling sort clamoring for their attention and not willingly taking a back seat to what seemed far less urgent matters of commerce and trade.

Consider the career of the man who was far and away the best known of the Levellers, John Lilburne, who was born in London sometime in the second decade of the 17th century — no record of the exact date of his birth seems to have survived the nearly four hundred years of history that have elapsed since. Though his parents were minor officials in the royal court of King James I, Lilburne himself was never overly respectful toward "the divinely mandated representative of God on earth." He was barely out of his teens before he began spending a lot of his time with people of what the king and his courtiers would have regarded as a distinctly unsavory type.

There was William Prynne, for example. In his book The Triumph of Liberty, Jim Powell describes Prynne as "a Presbyterian lawyer who had published many attacks on the Church of England, for which he was fined." But the fines were the least of his troubles. As Powell tells the tale, Prynne also "was disbarred as a lawyer, condemned to life imprisonment in the Tower of London, his ears were hacked off, and his cheeks were branded with the initials 'SL' (for seditious libeler)."

There was also a physician, Dr. John Bastwick, who had "had his ears cut off for criticizing Church of England officials" and who had introduced young John Lilburne to Prynne. It can come as little surprise when Powell tells us that "the government considered Lilburne a potential troublemaker for associating with these people." He didn't remain a potential troublemaker for long, however. He soon realized his potential.

Over the course of the roughly 20 years of Lilburne's public career, from the late 1630s to the late 1650s, he wrote and published a hundred or so political pamphlets. Over and over and over, Powell tells us, Lilburne

set out his beliefs: that laws should be written in English so everybody could read them and … a trial would be proper only when formal charges are filed, when they refer to known laws, and when the defendant can confront the accuser and have an adequate opportunity to present a defense. He denounced the government-granted monopoly on preaching, attacked government-granted business monopolies, and spoke out for free trade and a free press. He observed that the longer politicians remained in Parliament, the more corrupt they became, so he called for annual parliamentary elections and universal male suffrage.

For saying these things, for writing and publishing them, John Lilburne was repeatedly imprisoned. He spent most of his adult life in jail, and at one point at around the midpoint of his career, in 1645, Powell reports that he had "one of [his] eyes … poked out with a pike" for daring to write and publish a pamphlet describing "the injustices he had suffered" at the hands of King Charles I's government.

But when Parliament took over the national government at the end of the decade, after capturing and beheading the king, John Lilburne didn't find his personal situation much improved. In the 1650s, under Parliament and under the subsequent military dictatorship of former Parliamentary Army officer Oliver Cromwell, Lilburne was imprisoned for expressing his opinions at least as often as he ever had been under King Charles.

Lilburne himself was a former officer of the Parliamentary Army, but he had been disillusioned early. As early as 1646, when the king still lived and civil war still raged all about them, Lilburne had appeared before the House of Lords and denounced its membership in no uncertain terms. "All you intended when you set us a-fighting," he told the assembled members of the upper house of Parliament, "was merely to unhorse and dismount our old riders and tyrants, so that you might get up, and ride us in their stead." It's astounding that Lilburne had any time left over at all from his busy schedule of writing, publishing, and serving time to work as a brewer (which he did) and to serve as a captain in the Parliamentary Army (which he also did), for his life was very short. He died in 1657, a year before Cromwell and at a time when the latter was still very much in power. Lilburne is thought to have been around 43 years old at the time of his death. His health had been ruined by years of imprisonment under harsh conditions. He had given his life — what there was of it — in order to get out his libertarian message. And he had got it out, and it had been received and would be carried forward by others.

At least one of those others was, shall we say, a somewhat unlikely candidate for the honor of carrying on John Lilburne's message. He was an English aristocrat whose birth name was Anthony Ashley Cooper. Cooper was about seven years younger than Lilburne. He was born late in July of 1621, so he was a young man only 21 years of age at the time the strife of interests between the government and the private-property owners erupted into civil war between king and Parliament in the early 1640s.

At first, young Cooper backed the king in the conflict, but after a couple of years he switched his allegiance to Parliament. During the 1650s, he served as an official in Oliver Cromwell's government. After Cromwell's death, he became a member of the 12-man delegation sent by Parliament to invite Charles Stuart to reestablish the Stuart line on the English throne. After Charles II became king in 1660, Cooper served his government in a number of official capacities, including Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Chancellor. It was one weekend at Oxford, during his years as Chancellor of the Exchequer, that Cooper met a young physician and scholar, eleven years his junior, named John Locke.

Now, before I get sidetracked on Locke, consider Anthony Ashley Cooper's career so far. Not a particularly promising one, would you say? A young man is briefly a royalist, then (once he sees who is more likely to win the civil war?) a partisan of Parliament. In his 30s he serves the Commonwealth government he helped to create. Then, in his 40s, he becomes a royalist again, helping to bring back a king who immediately rewards him with high position. Is this not merely the tale of a young man who knows which side his bread is buttered on and who contrives always to be on the winning side in any conflict over who will govern?

Yet Murray Rothbard portrays Cooper very differently in his Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Rothbard rehearses the well known basic facts of John Locke's biography — he was born in 1632, the son of a country lawyer who, like John Lilburne, served as a captain in the Parliamentary Army during the English Civil War. After the war, the elder Locke's former commanding officer helped him obtain a scholarship for his son John to attend the prestigious Westminster School, from which he moved on to Oxford. At Oxford, he studied Classics and, after obtaining his master's degree, joined the faculty, teaching Greek and rhetoric. He then took up the study of medicine and became a physician, largely, as Rothbard notes, "in order to stay at Oxford without having to take holy orders."

But much as he liked Oxford, both the town and the campus, Locke willingly left it after fifteen years, at the age of 35, to take up residence in the London home of Anthony Ashley Cooper, where he assumed new duties as personal physician to Cooper's family, tutor to his children, and secretary, adviser, and ghostwriter to Cooper himself. The two men had met the previous year, when Cooper went to Oxford to seek medical advice for a persistent and troublesome liver infection. Locke recommended an operation, which Cooper underwent successfully. He believed that Locke had saved his life, and he spent the rest of that life attempting to repay Locke in any way he could.

Now, when the two men met, in 1666, Locke was not without political opinions, and the political opinions he held were of a sort one would think would appeal to a high official in the king's government, as Cooper was at the time. At Oxford, Locke had insinuated himself into a group of scholars devoted to the ideas and political preferences of Francis Bacon, a royalist who had served as attorney general and Lord Chancellor under James I. Rothbard writes that "Locke and his colleagues enthusiastically welcomed the restoration of Charles II," and Locke's colleagues successfully prevailed upon the newly restored king to personally "[order] Oxford University to keep Locke as medical student without having to take holy orders." Nor was this all, for, according to Rothbard, "in 1661, Locke, this later champion of religious toleration, wrote two tracts denouncing religious tolerance, and favoring the absolute state enforcing religious orthodoxy."

As Rothbard sees it,

something happened to John Locke … when he became personal secretary, advisor, writer, theoretician, and close friend of … Anthony Ashley Cooper … who in 1672 was named the first Earl [of] Shaftesbury. It was due to Shaftesbury that Locke, from then on, was to plunge into political and economic philosophy, and into public service as well as revolutionary intrigue. Locke adopted from Shaftesbury the entire classical liberal Whig outlook, and it was Shaftesbury who converted Locke into a firm and lifelong champion of religious toleration and into a libertarian exponent of self-ownership, property rights, and a free market economy. It was Shaftesbury who made Locke into a libertarian and who stimulated the development of Locke's libertarian system.

Rothbard quotes the editor of one edition of Locke's Two Treatises of Government as saying, "justly" in Rothbard's opinion, that "without Shaftesbury, Locke would not have been Locke at all." But, Rothbard continues,

this truth has been hidden all too often by historians who have had an absurdly monastic horror of how political theory and philosophy often develop: in the heat of political and ideological battle. Instead, many felt they had to hide this relationship in order to construct an idealized image of Locke the pure and detached philosopher, separate from the grubby and mundane political concerns of the real world.

Another way of putting this would be to say that political theory and philosophy often emerge out of what is, at bottom, merely a strife of interests — two or more groups seeking to use the power of the state to advance what they see as their interests. The men who run such groups typically care little or nothing for ideas, political theory and philosophy emphatically included. They see ideas as sometimes useful to sway or manipulate public opinion, however, and they see men of ideas as sometimes useful to do the writing that makes the swaying and manipulating possible.

In the epitaph he wrote for his longtime patron, friend, and mentor, John Locke called Anthony Ashley Cooper, the First Earl of Shaftesbury, "a vigorous and indefatigable champion of civil and ecclesiastical liberty." But what if, instead, Shaftesbury was merely a smarter-than-average 17th-century English politician trying to look out for what he saw as the interests of the wealthy, private-property-owning class into which he had been born? What if his political career reflected nothing more than his successive judgments about what was expedient toward that end?

What if sometimes he had supported the king, sometimes Parliament, because he had tried always to be on good terms with whichever was the winning side, working with those on the winning side to achieve his own objectives as best he could under the ever-changing circumstances? If the king became impossible to deal with, you could see if you could ally yourself with Parliament. If Parliament became impossible, you could form a new political party to promote your interests within Parliament. You could call it the Whigs.

What if, because Shaftesbury was smarter than average, he had given some thought to how the interests of the private-property-owning class could best be packaged to win popular support and had some ideas of his own as to what sorts of arguments would likely be most effective? What if he had decided to try persuading his talented young assistant and understudy, John Locke, of the truth of these arguments before asking him to work the ideas out further, develop them, turn them into a sustained and fully coherent philosophical discourse?

As worked out and developed by John Locke in the early 1680s in his Two Treatises of Government, Shaftesbury's arguments turned out to be pretty much the same as the ones John Lilburne had offered the literate English public back in the turbulent 1640s, back when Shaftesbury — Anthony Ashley Cooper — was an impressionable young man in his early 20s. Rothbard writes that

Locke's entire structure of thought in his Two Treatises of Government … was an elaboration and creative development of Leveller doctrine: the beginnings in self-ownership or self-propriety, the deduced right to property and free exchange, the justification of government as a device to protect such rights, and the right of overturning a government that violates, or becomes destructive of, those ends.

There would seem to be little room for doubt that John Lilburne was a man of principle, not a mere spokesman for an organized interest. As Leonard Levy memorably put it in his book on the Origins of the Fifth Amendment, "While others supported civil liberties to gain their own freedom and denied it to their enemies, Lilburne grew more and more consistent in his devotion to the fundamentals of liberty." Supporting civil liberty to gain your own freedom, while denying it to your enemies — this is the sign of the man who is merely a spokesman for an organized interest, not an advocate of a principle. Lilburne was an advocate of a principle.

The case is not so clear and unequivocal with Shaftesbury — or even with Locke, who espoused the interests of the king when the king was taking care of him and the interests of the private-property owners when they were paying his rent. Rothbard candidly acknowledges that Locke's Two Treatises of Government was "written in 1681–82 as a schema for justifying the forthcoming Whig revolution against the Stuarts."

But does it matter? Not really. What counts in history, including intellectual history, is results, not intentions. Various European mariners, Christopher Columbus among them, set out late in the 15th century to find an alternate sea route to China and India. They found something else entirely. What matters today is not what they set out to do or what motivated them to do what they did but what they did. Whatever their motives may have been, whatever at any given moment they thought of themselves as doing, Anthony Ashley Cooper and John Locke advanced the libertarian idea, just as John Lilburne did. All three of them are part of the libertarian tradition.

Source

Secret files reveal truth behind Lindy Chamberlain's murder conviction

2010-08-09T13:26:00.002+11:30

As usual, it was women who were hardest on another woman

SECRET jury notes hidden in Northern Territory police files have revealed why Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of murdering her baby daughter Azaria 30 years ago.

The handwritten notes show that like the rest of the nation, the female jurors were tougher on Lindy than the men.

The three women - a teacher and two housewives - all voted for a conviction while at least four of the nine men had to persuaded that she was guilty. "Doesn't believe dingo,'' one of the housewives is recorded as declaring. Another said that while she was going to convict Lindy, she still found it "hard to accept Mrs C did it''.

They are the missing element in a puzzle that three decades later still perplexes Australia.

Almost three months ago, The Daily Telegraph sought access to the documents and files held by the Northern Territory police on the investigation into Azaria's death. Northern Territory Assistant Commissioner Mark McAdie took the view that the files belonged to the people of Australia, and they should see them. The new NT Police Commissioner John McRoberts, agreed to make them available.

After long negotiations, the only material removed were private police notebooks.

Two weeks ago, The Daily Telegraph was given exclusive access to the Azaria Files - 145 boxes of police documents and exhibits destined for the National Archives because of their historical importance.

Within the files are pages of jury notes apparantly written by the public servant who was the jury foreman, jotted down on blue notepaper as the jurors struggled with their decision in the Darwin courthouse after the seven-week trial that captivated the nation in 1982.

They detail exactly what the jury was thinking when it threw out Lindy's story that a dingo had taken her baby and convicted her of killing Azaria at what was then Ayres Rock on August 17, 1980.

Her husband Michael was convicted of being an accessory.

The jurors were as puzzled as the rest of the country by the couple's unemotional behaviour and why they never joined in the search for their daughter's body. The foreman dismissed the entire defence evidence as "purely smokescreen''.

It was to be six years before Lindy was released and then the couple was exonerated after Azaria's battered matinee jacket was found at the base of the Rock.

Veteran criminal barrister Chester Porter QC said it was unheard of for secret jury notes to be saved after a trial. Mr Porter, who was counsel assisting the Morling Commission of Inquiry that cleared the Chamberlains in 1987, added to the mystery of their origin by revealing the notes were not among the police documents when he examined them to prepare for the commission.

The only juror to have identified herself, Yvonne Cain, said she believed the notes must have been made towards the end of their six-and-a-half hours of argument.

Source

The ANZAC landings at Gallipoli were a success

2010-08-07T13:27:00.002+11:30

New evidence suggests the landings at Gallipoli were, in fact, a cleverly orchestrated and successful assault. It was the British follow-up that failed

It's one of the central threads of Anzac mythology. That at dawn on April 25, 1915, our gallant Diggers - "lions led by donkeys" - were sent on to the Gallipoli beaches and the lethal Turkish guns in an ill-planned assault ordered by incompetent British commanders.

But Hugh Dolan, a serving intelligence officer in the Australian military, claims in a new book to have discovered long-ignored evidence "which turns the Anzac legend on its head". Far from being a disaster, Dolan believes the Anzac landings should be remembered as a success - a daring and unorthodox amphibious assault which was without precedent in modern warfare.
One of the architects of the plan, Lieutenant General William Birdwood.

One of the architects of the plan, Lieutenant General William Birdwood.

In 36 Days: The Untold Story Behind the Gallipoli Landings, Dolan insists the three key Australian officers who planned the operation made ground-breaking use of military intelligence - including aerial reconnaissance photographs - to put together an almost flawless plan.

But their triumph has been overshadowed by the disasters which happened after the landings, Dolan argues, completely distorting what was achieved on the original Anzac Day.

"The most glaring error is the fact it is always described as a dawn landing," says Dolan. "It wasn't. A dawn attack is a daylight attack. This was a silent night attack. It took place in complete darkness.

"I suggest we take down the bronze plaque at Anzac Cove which describes it as a dawn landing, and recast another that is more accurate. And the Department of Veterans' Affairs should update its website, too."

Squadron Leader Dolan - who studied history at Oxford University - worked in military intelligence for several years in the British Army before returning home to Australia to join the Royal Australian Air Force. Now 47, he is an intelligence officer based in Melbourne.

Dolan's book dwells on the 36 days it which the plan was formed and executed - and makes use of Turkish records as well as well as Allied military intelligence. "As far as I can see, no one has focused on the planning before," Dolan says.

Charles Bean, the Herald war correspondent, showed in his diaries that he was aware of some of the military intelligence that went into the planning, but did not include it in his official history: the bible of Anzac mythology. That was partly because the military intelligence was kept secret until 1965.

The result is that the success or failure of the Anzac landing has been judged on whether it achieved the targets outlined in the original British battle plan prepared by Sir General Ian Hamilton, the commander of the 80,000 Allied force.

But Dolan says the three Australian architects of the Anzac Cove landings (Lieutenant General William Birdwood, Major General William Throsby Bridges and Colonel Brudenell White) received Hamilton's permission to change their objectives - and the time of their assault from dawn to pre-dawn.

"They did something extraordinary," says Dolan. "They sent their military intelligence officer, Major Charles Villiers-Stuart, on an aerial reconnaissance mission over Anzac Cove on April 14, 1915. He sat in the back seat [of the two-man biplane] with a pair of binoculars and a 1/40,000 scale map. He was able to determine the strength and position of the Turkish forces on the ridges [behind Anzac Cove]."

At the subsequent intelligence briefing, Villiers-Stuart told his superiors that Hamilton's assumptions about the northern beaches being relatively unprotected were wrong. Anzac Cove was defended by several batteries, barbed wire and entrenchments.

"That led to a reappraisal at Anzac headquarters. Here something special happens," says Dolan. "Instead of landing and advancing [across the Gallipoli peninsula] to Maidos on the Dardenelles, they gained Hamilton's permission to change their orders."

Their new objective was to land and draw the Turkish forces onto them, giving the British the breathing space to land the main attack in the south. "We also have the Anzac commanders doing something the British do not do. They fold the military intelligence they get each day into their [revised battle plan]. The British flew 18 photographic missions over their beaches. But Hamilton never used the intelligence.

"Their attitude was almost like playing cricket. They thought it was somehow unfair, whereas the Anzac commanders insisted on getting their own man in the air to learn about the enemy and use it to their advantage."

The original Hamilton plan had been for the Anzacs to attack at the same time as the British, about 7am. "But the Anzac commanders realised they would be caught in the open and slaughtered by the 32 artillery barrels pointing at them. Their solution was most unorthodox. It had not been practised in modern military history. They launched a silent, night-time assault to land the Anzac troops ashore in the hours of darkness.

"This was very carefully planned right down to the placement of carpet on the decks of the warships to muffle the sound of the men's hobnail boots. They also put velvet around the oarlocks of the rowing boats.

"There was no preliminary bombardment … It was silent, stealthy, professional and very modern. By 4.20am, the first wave was ashore. By 5am, Birdwood was crowing to Hamilton that 5500 men had landed. Dawn wasn't until 5.20am."

SOURCE

Stuart Hall's English lesson for the BBC: Plummy-voiced broadcaster attacks obsession with regional accents

2010-08-05T16:15:00.002+11:30

His warm, distinctive tones have enlivened football coverage for decades. Now the BBC's Stuart Hall has criticised the corporation's obsession with regional accents and backed Received Pronunciation, the 'Queen's English' way of speaking.

The former It's A Knockout host intervened after the BBC's head of television, Jana Bennett, said a new wave of voices from across Britain would go on air in an attempt to more broadly reflect different areas. She promised an increase in 'distinctive voices' which have 'authentic senses of place'.

But 80-year- old Mr Hall, from Lancashire, criticised the plans and defended Received Pronunciation, saying that in his experience it was what the audience wanted. He told this week's Radio Times that for English to remain an 'international language' it had to be spoken in a 'recognisable tongue'. He denied he was proposing the death of on-air regional accents but said they must be justified by context.

Mr Hall, who is still a regular football reporter on Radio 5 Live, said that in his experience properly spoken English had been what most of the audience desired because it represented a neutral voice. He added that it also did not 'detract' or 'distract' from the material.

He criticised Jana Bennett's comments, saying: 'She wants distinctive voices that have an authentic sense of place. As there must be 100,000 dialects in England alone, I am dashed if I know what Jana means.'

His comments come after Sir Roger Moore complained that actors and presenters now need a regional accent to be successful. The 82-year- old actor, whose clipped tones graced seven James Bond films, suggested that if he were starting out now his ability to speak smoothly in the Queen's English would actually hamper his career rather than help it.

Mr Hall looked back to the time when he was working in regional news in the 1960s and 1970s. He said: 'We had an enormous audience, including thousands of Asians living in Bolton and Blackburn. They listened because the spoken English was what they desired, neutral-voices that never detracted or distracted from the material. 'They wanted the English of the Raj where the letters T, B and H were pronounced trippingly off the tongue. 'It was a matter of great pride that we crossed the borders of class and race. We didn't need authentic regional stuff, neither did the viewers.'

Mr Hall added: 'If you imagine I am proposing the death of regional accents, let me put it in perspective. I value them in context. Give me Charlotte Green for my news, Alan Green for sport' - a reference to the Radio 4 announcer known for her classic RP voice and the Northern Irish sports commentator.

A BBC spokesman said: 'Our audiences have told us very clearly that they expect and appreciate being able to hear a wide variety of regional accents across the BBC. 'The whole of the UK pays for the licence fee so it is quite right that the whole of the nation should hear and see itself reflected back on screen and on air.'

SOURCE

Art world goes mad for Britain's 'Mini Monet'

2010-08-02T20:29:00.003+11:30

British boy aged seven makes £150,000 in 30 minutes by selling his paintings

His paintings fetch thousands and attract buyers from all over the world. But while his watercolours, pastels and oil paintings hint at a talent honed through decades of practice, Kieron Williamson is barely halfway through primary school.

The seven-year-old prodigy sold his latest collection of paintings for £150,000 at the weekend, with all 33 works sold in just 30 minutes.

Mini-Monet: Keiron Williamson's landscapes and coastal scenes are making him hot property in the art world

The astonishing sale attracted buyers from as far as Arizona, New York and South Africa, with others bidding by telephone from around the world in the hope of securing an original. One couple from Philadelphia camped for two days outside the gallery in Kieron's home town of Holt, Norfolk, to make sure they did not miss out when the third exhibition of his work opened on Friday morning.

Many of his paintings feature Norfolk landscapes or coastal scenes, but the latest exhibition also included views of City Temple in Holborn, Central London, and even a painting of Hong Kong.

Genius at work: Kieron, painting in his parents' kitchen in Holt, Norfolk, has sold all over the world

Impressionist of the Broads: Kieron's landscapes of his native Norfolk show a talent well beyond his young age

Water way with colour: Light, colour and reflections fill one of the paintings sold in a recent auction

Collection: Some of his pictures at the Holt gallery

The biggest sellers were a 20in by 30in oil painting called Sunrise at Morston, which went for £7,995, and a 19in by 25in pastel called Marsh at Sunset, which fetched £6,750.

Kieron said: 'I normally paint in the morning and I am up at 6am and then after school - but with the school holidays at the moment, I am painting all the time. 'I like landscapes as they've got the big Norfolk skies in them and not too many hills or mountains.'

He paints up to six paintings a week and 700 people have registered on a waiting list for an original.

Until two years ago, Kieron's artistic talents stretched only to colouring in dinosaurs drawn for him by parents Keith, 44, and Michelle, 37. But on a family holiday to Cornwall he was inspired by visits to harbours and ports and began producing 'mind-blowing' images of the boats in the water.

Gallery owner Adrian Hill said: 'Kieron has probably become one of the most collectable artists currently exhibiting worldwide. He's impressionist without being too abstract. 'He is years in advance of where he should be.'

Kieron's parents plan to buy him a house with his earnings and invest the rest for him until he is 25.

SOURCE

How to Lose an Empire

2010-07-27T21:15:00.002+11:30

By Eamonn Fingleton

Here's an economic history test:

1. Which Great Power pioneered the secular trend towards freer international trade?

2. Which Great Power first resorted to spiraling foreign indebtedness to pay for its wars?

3. Which Great Power first permitted large-scale foreign direct investment in its domestic industries and infrastructure?

If you guessed such latter-day globalizers as the United States or Britain, you flunked. The correct answer in each case is the Ottoman Empire.

During much of its existence of more than six centuries, the empire arguably ranked as the world's top power, but this did not stop its eventual collapse in 1922-23. For anyone concerned about America's future, the implications are thought provoking. Indeed in many ways America’s current trajectory seems like a speeded up version of the Ottoman movie.

Although the Ottomans were never as rabidly ideological in their trade views as the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, they diverged sharply from the systematic mercantilism that marked the rise of Europe in early modern times. Their import tariffs were relatively low and Ottoman policymakers took a "don't worry, be happy" view of the empire's rising trade deficits in the mid-19th century. In so doing, they eerily anticipated similar insouciance in Washington in the last three decades.

Of course, the analogy should not be pushed too far. Trade was not the only factor in the empire's ultimate fate. A particularly problematic political culture bears much blame. Although the Ottoman sultanate functioned much like the monarchies of early modern Europe, there was one important difference: the Ottomans did not believe in primogeniture. After a reigning sultan passed on, it was not just brother against brother but brother against half-brother, with various mothers and other female partisans pulling strings from behind the harem curtains.

The process by which Selim I succeeded in 1512 was especially memorable. He felt it necessary to kill not only all his brothers but all their sons. Nothing if not thorough, he went on to grease the skids for Suleiman, the ablest of his own sons, by killing the latter's four brothers. Selim was to become known to history as Selim the Excellent and his son as Suleiman the Magnificent. So much for Ottoman civilization at its apogee.

As the years went by, the more bloodcurdling aspects of the Ottoman political tradition were reined in, but even as late as the mid-19th century, the empire's administration remained unaccountably and, far too often capriciously, authoritarian. Meanwhile, the lack of a primogeniture tradition proved a stumbling block in a different way: by retarding industrial development. Whereas in Europe, a company founder typically bequeathed his business in its entirety to his eldest son, successful Ottoman businessmen often divided up their businesses among many heirs. Whatever else might be said about the European practice, it was more conducive to the emergence of massive, often globe-spanning, corporations.

Such nuances aside, several aspects of the Ottoman approach to economics seem highly relevant to recent American experience. Already by the early 1840s, the Sublime Porte, as the Ottoman government in Istanbul had become known, signed what amounted to one-way free trade agreements with several of the European powers. It renounced its right to levy anything more than nominal tariffs on imports, yet secured no similarly favorable treatment for its own exports in return. The parallel with Washington's post-World War II trade diplomacy in East Asia is hard to miss.

The agreements set in stone the Ottomans' longstanding import-friendly tradition. The timing was crucial: the Ottomans contrived to have their hands tied just as international trade was moving decisively to the fore as a determinant of a nation's economic performance. Previously, in an era of craft industries and generally prohibitive transportation costs, trade had played a minor role, particularly in the case of larger nations. By the 1840s, the Industrial Revolution and the concommitant development of more efficient transportation methods had transformed manufacturing economics: suddenly economies of scale assumed a mission-critical role. Thus those nations that contrived, by hook or by crook (not least by skillful or coercive trade diplomacy), to find the largest possible markets for their industrial products enjoyed a distinct advantage. Such nations notably included Britain, which notwithstanding its later Pauline conversion to free trade deployed intelligently conceived protectionist methods to jump-start new industries in the most dynamic phase of its rise in the first half of the 19th century.

Ottoman officials discovered too late that they had painted themselves into a corner. As cut-price imports flooded in from Europe's increasingly efficient new factories, the empire was prohibited from using high tariffs to build its infant industries. For the first time in its history the empire's trade plunged deeply into the red. The situation deteriorated so rapidly that by 1854 the Sublime Porte was forced to seek help abroad in the form of a loan raised in London.

It was the first foreign loan in the empire's history, but soon foreign borrowing became a way of life. Then, with its bargaining position severely weakened by chronically poor trade performance, the empire was pressured in 1881 into handing over almost complete control of its remaining tariffs to European officials. European investors were granted a major role in running Ottoman industries, most notably tobacco, and developing railroads and other modern infrastructure. Basically the Sublime Porte had lost control of its destiny.

Trade apart, the empire's outsize military expenses speeded the outcome. Indeed, seen from the vantage point of the 21st century, the empire's history seems to have consisted of little more than war. And it was the need to finance its participation in the Crimean War—which broke out in 1853 and is widely considered the first modern war—that proved the last straw in forcing a resort to the London financial markets.

The parallel with the United States is hard to miss: after all, since the 1930s, there has been only one decade—the 1980s—in which the United States has not been involved in at least one significant war. Except for World War II, moreover, these wars have seemed at best only tenuously connected to America's vital interests. Worse, they have tended gratuitously to undermine the nation's economic fundamentals.

By comparison, the Ottomans at least seemed to have had some reason to go to war. In entering the Crimean War, for instance, the empire was responding to a Russian attack on its territory.

What is clear is that military activities constituted an increasingly onerous burden for the Ottomans from the 1850s onwards. As documented by Murat Birdal, author of a new book on late-era Ottoman finances, military needs were behind major foreign issues of bonds in 1877, 1888, 1896, 1905, 1913, and 1914. Meanwhile, other bond issues were constantly required merely to repay debt incurred in funding earlier military activities.

Again the parallels with America’s recent history are striking: a key reason Washington has become increasingly indebted to Japan, China, and Germany in the last 30 years has, of course, been the financial burden of defending a vast quasi-empire at a time when the export industries have faltered.

Perhaps the most egregious parallel between Istanbul then and Washington today is in the treatment of exporters. Far from encouraging them, the Ottoman empire seemed to go out of its way to hobble them with special tariffs on exports. Of course, such tariffs had been a common feature of the tax systems of many nations in preindustrial times. (They had the virtue of being relatively easy to collect.) But they had been abandoned by more enlightened governments as the Industrial Revolution began. In the Ottoman empire, by contrast, they continued to be levied for nearly a century longer. Ottoman officials did not come to appreciate the full implications until the empire had fallen far behind the European powers in industrial prowess.

As for the United States, there may be no special taxes on exports these days, but, all but overlooked by most observers, the U.S. tax system nonetheless contains a hidden and quite marked anti-export bias. As economic commentator Pat Choate pointed out in his 2009 book, Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong, this stems from the fact that while most other advanced nations have abandoned sales taxes in favor of a value-added tax, sales taxes persist as a central pillar of U.S. taxation. The interaction between the two systems puts American manufacturers, and particularly those who export, at a significant disadvantage. This reflects the fact that, whereas in VAT systems, manufacturers are granted rebates on exports—this is legal under World Trade Organization rules—no similar break is available under a sales-tax system. The effect is that American exports contain a "baked-in" element of sales taxes that, particularly in the case of price-sensitive products, can be a decisive disadvantage in global competition.

So much for the parallels between the Ottoman empire and the United States. Now for a difference: the speed of financial implosion. This has been astoundingly faster in America's case. After all, it seems only yesterday that the United States bestrode the world as the greatest creditor nation in history. With hardly a second thought, the U.S. government not only found the money—entirely internally, of course—to fund the massive rearmament program that won World War II, but afterwards advanced huge sums to jump-start other major nations' postwar recoveries. Thereafter, until well into the 1960s, the American economy remained so strong that the cost of maintaining a vast global network of military bases seemed readily manageable.

By the 1970s, however, the bloom was off the rose: a trade crisis in 1971-72 forced the United States off the gold standard, and the U.S. Treasury began to rely ever more heavily on foreign money to fund its deficits. A decade later—in the last years of the Reagan administration—the United States had become the largest debtor nation in history. And that was still in the good old days when American policymakers continued to harbor hopes of eventually stopping the rot. Since then, on the strength of catastrophic policy mistakes by Bush I, Bill Clinton, and Bush II, the situation has spun completely out of control.

Not to put too fine a point on it, we are witnessing probably the fastest economic implosion of any major nation in history. By comparison, the pace of Ottoman decline was gentle indeed. As measured both by its geographical reach and its relative technological sophistication, the empire probably peaked as early as the latter half of the 16th century. For a long time thereafter, its decline remained almost imperceptible, not only to its own subjects but even to well informed diplomatic observers. At least where military technology was concerned, the empire remained a first-rank power into the early decades of the 19th century. As late as 1829, it launched the Mahmudiye, which for many years held the record as the world’s largest warship. The first indisputable indication that the empire was in trouble did not come until the 1854 decision to borrow abroad. This was more than 250 years after the empire had reached its apogee. The United States “accomplished” a similarly melancholy transition from global leadership to overt financial dependency in little more than one-tenth the time.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of America's situation is the extent to which U.S. export industries have become hollowed. One number sums up the problem: as of 2008, the last "normal" year before the global financial crisis distorted everything, the U.S. current account deficit came to 4.9 percent of GDP, up from 1.9 percent in 1989. Although full figures are not available, it seems clear that the Ottoman empire began incurring trade deficits on America's recent scale only in the final decade before the ultimate collapse.

Source

I think the economic analysis above is flawed in some ways. Protectionism is rarely beneficial. But it is an unusual attempt at precedent-finding -- JR

When it comes to sex, pleasure and celebrity, modern Britons are so similar to the Romans - shame we don't have their sense of duty

2010-07-27T19:47:00.002+11:30

We like to think we are the first generation to be truly modern. We pride ourselves on always ' moving forward'. Any fashion more than ten years old is dismissed or patronised as 'retro'. Yet are we really as original as we think? Is it possible that in many important ways we are moving not forwards but back, and back a long, long way?

Yes, the habits and attitudes of people in Britain today are very different from those of our grandparents, let alone those of the Victorians. But if we look a great deal further back, we may hear some strange and surprising echoes of the modern age.

For what is truly astonishing is how much our society resembles the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome, in recreation, sex, food, religion and other areas of our daily existence.

Without our being the least aware of it, the ways in which we conduct our rich and varied lives correspond, almost eerily so, to the ways in which the Greeks and Romans lived theirs.

Whether we are eating or drinking, relaxing or making love, our habits and our thoughts so often recall theirs. It is as if we have been on a long round trip. We have sailed from the harbour and seen the glimmering, misty, limitless sea and now, after 2,000 years, we are back at the jetty from where we embarked.

A modern Briton would probably feel alienated if transported back in time to the late Victorian age, with its all-pervasive Christian ethics, sexual restraints, ethnic homogeneity, disapproval of self-indulgence, and obsession with respectability.

'The Romans devoted more resources to bathhouses than to palaces or temples, just as spas have become more popular in our society than churches'

Yet the same time traveller would be far more at ease if taken back much further to the teeming, voluble world of ancient Rome, where pleasure-seeking was not tainted by sin, where the noisy streets were filled with a mass of migrant cultures, where paganism and astrology prevailed, where the human body was pampered rather than treated as a source of embarrassment.

The parallels between the classical world and our own post-Christian society, with the self - rather than God - at its centre, can be seen all around us. Even our fixation with shallow celebrities could be found in Rome.

We now have a new class of stars who have become famous simply for being famous, as exemplified by Jade Goody, a dental nurse with a saucy tongue and a rough wit, whose only real achievement was to come fourth in one series of Big Brother. Yet she exerted such a hold over the British public that her tragic early death from cancer last year prompted saturation media coverage and tributes from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister.

This mass mawkishness was very like the canonisation in the Roman Empire of Antinous, an obscure page from the province of Bithynia on the Black Sea, whose youthful good looks prompted the Emperor Hadrian to fall deeply in love with him - which led Antinous to become the Jade Goody of his day.

Utterly heart-broken when Antinous drowned in the River Nile in AD 130, Hadrian ordered that his beloved late companion be proclaimed a god. The Roman authorities carried out his wishes with alacrity. Within a couple of years, there was scarcely a city that had not built a temple to Antinous, put up statues to him or issued coins and medallions in his memory. As the cult spread, followers throughout the Empire attributed miracles to the departed imperial paramour.

Another ancient form of worship, the cult of the body, would strike a chord with many modern Britons. The two institutions that were central to classical culture were the public baths and the gym, just as the spa and the health club are so important to ours.

The Romans devoted more resources to bathhouses than to palaces or temples, just as spas have become more popular in our society than churches.

Today every country-house hotel, every beauty salon, every leisure centre now has a spa attached offering every kind of massage and therapy, from mud wraps to body scrubs, something the average Roman would have understood perfectly.

Where Christianity once taught that pampering was a form of sinful vanity, now the body has become a god whose every whim must be humoured.

The same is true of workouts, either in gyms or with personal trainers, a profession that barely existed 20 years ago. There are now estimated to be 5,700 public and private gyms in Britain, and we have to go back to the Greeks and Romans to find this level of frequency and intensity of physical training. Galen, the great Greek physician of the second century AD, prescribed specific exercises to strengthen the legs, arms and trunk, just like those taught by modern fitness trainers.

Yet there was a startling paradox about this obsession with the body, one that we would instantly recognise. Under the Empire, ordinary Romans were notorious couch potatoes, just as Britons today - despite all the aerobics classes - spend record amounts of time in front of the TV.

The ancient Romans flocked to the circus for all-day-long spectaculars. The only exercise they took was the early start to secure a decent seat. Crowds of 400,000 sat there from dawn to dusk, watching gladiators, chariot races and the butchery of large mammals, as utterly absorbed and inert as addicts of modern reality TV.

It is the same contradiction that can be seen in our hosting of the next Olympic Games in 2012, an event that is itself a throwback to ancient Greece. Never has so much money been spent by the Government on sport, yet never have there been greater concerns about obesity.

But perhaps the link between ancient and modern can be seen most clearly in the arena of sexual relationships. Recent decades have brought a revolution in British attitudes towards sex.

Where once we lived in a country that was renowned for its moderation, even prudishness, today we are far less inhibited. The new orthodoxy holds that passion should be enjoyed guilt-free rather than weighed down by the teachings of religious killjoys.

A modern-minded person now takes it for granted that between freely consenting adults, there must be no legal prohibitions of any sort. This mood of openness means that most newspapers and magazines have sexual advice columns, often remarkable for their range and candour. Even the august Times, which thundered during the Profumo scandal of 1963 that an affair between a call-girl and the War Minister certainly was 'a moral issue', now carries a frank section on sexual dilemmas, covering everything from female orgasms to sado-masochism.

Sex products, once hidden from public view, now represent just another branch of retail therapy. Problematic aspects of sexual relations have been removed from the hands of priests and novelists and relocated to the cool, non-judgemental atmosphere of the medical surgery or the counselling room.

The prime duty of individuals is to be true to their feelings, for 'living a lie' is now the most serious offence against the modern gospel of the self.

There need be no sense of shame if one changes partners, even abruptly, or revels in physical encounters just for their own sake.

This outlook has given rise to the modern phenomenon of the No-Strings-Attached (NSA) liaisons, which can now be easily pursued via the internet. One typical NSA website, called lovinglinks.com, claims to have no fewer than 23,000 subscribers, all of them allegedly married men and women looking purely for sexual enjoyment.

Until recently, all this would have been unthinkable in respectable British society. Yet the pragmatic, guilt-free approach is exactly in tune with the sexual mores of the ancient world. The Greeks generally regarded sex as similar to eating or drinking, pleasures to be healthily enjoyed. The same was largely true of Rome. As in our own time, there were few taboos between adults, though children were to be protected from exploitation. The poet Catullus, for instance, advocated sex with women or with boys, whichever his readers fancied at the time, because there was no such thing as right and wrong in this context.

In the same way Lucretius recommended regular one-night stands as a way of avoiding the tortures of suppressed lust. Indeed, he was an enthusiast of the No-Strings-Attached relationship and warned of the dangers of falling in love: 'To avoid the passion of love is not to deprive oneself of the joys of Venus but on the contrary to savour their delights without undergoing their exactions,' he wrote.

But how did we return full-circle to the past, adopting this relaxed, downbeat, low-expectation view of our sexual mores? I believe there are four principal forces which, linked together since the Sixties, acted as a battering ram against the demanding code of sexual morality that had prevailed since the rise of Christianity in the first Millennium.

The first was what might be termed the 'kindness revolution'. Over the centuries, the Christian doctrines on sex had hardened into a set of rules and punishments which operated with cruelty against those who strayed beyond the rigid moral boundaries, such as single mothers, homosexuals or female adulterers.

But as more humanitarian values spread through society after World War II, it came to seem increasingly intolerable and intrusive that the state and churches should presume to regulate sexual behaviour.

Second, there was the growing influence of science. Studies of the sexual behaviour of the birds and the bees show that sexual behaviour which had been labelled deviant, unnatural or immoral was commonplace in nature.

The American entomologist Alfred Kinsey switched in the Thirties from the study of Gall wasps to the study of human sexual behaviour, and his researches demonstrated that supposedly unnatural behaviour was pretty common among humans, too. The fact that Kinsey himself was a neurotic, bisexual sado-masochist who skewed his findings to fit his own desires did not lessen his role in the sexual rebellion.

Third, sex education in schools, working hand-in-hand with technological advances in contraception such as the Pill, aimed to make sex a natural, routine part of life.

It was claimed that, with deeper understanding of the mechanics of sex, young people would become more responsible. It has hardly worked out like that. Teenage pregnancy, lone parenthood, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases are all at record levels, but that has only intensified the calls for more sex education and more contraception.

Fourth, greater freedom of speech, including less censorship in everything from literature to films, helped to break down the habitual British embarrassment about sex.

We are now surrounded by explicit sexual imagery and language in a way that would have been unbelievable in the Britain of the Fifties.

As Christianity with its stern moral injunctions and its insistence on self-denial continues to fade from modern minds, so we seem to draw closer to the habits and attitudes of the ancient world with its easy acceptance of the pleasures of the senses.

But there was a crucial difference between the ancient world and modern Britain. At the peak of their grandeur, the civic culture of Athens and Rome was deeply patriotic.

The first duty of every Roman was to do his bit for the city. Roman citizens were licensed to enjoy all those delicious freedoms and material pleasures only within an overarching framework of self-restraint and patriotic service, both civil and military.

They were well aware that the survival and greatness of the city depended on nobody but themselves. When the empire began to crumble under later emperors, they blamed other people, of course - the barbarians nibbling at the frontiers, the immigrants who had failed to learn Roman ways (although both barbarians and immigrants were only too eager to become proper Romans) - but they blamed themselves, too.

They invented a new word 'romanitas' to describe all the virtues they thought they were losing.

In contemplating the agonisingly slow decline and fall of the great city, we too may want to ask the question: have we in our day regained the old liberties but lost the old vision?

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