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Sometimes – even when I’m not reading Sir Basil’s money-draining posts – I stumble across a book that I know I just have to have. Here’s the latest impulse buy: Churchill’s Wizards – The British Genius For Deception 1914-1945 by Nicholas Rankin. It tells the story of the army of Brits – many of them crazed amateurs – who, under the guiding spirit of Winston himself, concocted all kinds of military deception and camoflauge. Here’s a nice review from the Telegraph (the piece that prompted me to nip over to the devil’s website). And here’s a funny little vignette from that review:
Some years ago an old painter from the Slade told me of a deputation of artists sent to work on a false munitions factory, made of wood and canvas, near Dover. The morning the last brushstrokes were applied, everyone gathered to toast their achievement. As hip-flasks and glasses were raised, he said, a German light bomber came out of the eastern sun, flew over the dummy factory, rocked its wings amiably, and dropped in the centre of the structure a single, balsa-wood bomb.
Heh. I will let you know what I think after I’ve read the rest.
**Spot the quote.
What with all the news this week about supertankers and merchies being seized by Somali and other pirates, would it be necessary for countries flagging such carriers to issue letters of marque and reprisal so that said carriers could arm their ships, or perhaps provide their own escorts?
Personally, I like the idea.
First, it seems eminently practical. I would think there would be a ready supply of mercenaries eager to take up such employment. And how much firepower would be required to fight off a couple small boatloads of thugs?
Second, such an idea has a certain romance about it for us hardcore history buffs, emphasizing once again that times change but that people and their problems really don’t.
Perhaps I have been living under a rock too long. Perhaps it’s because I’m just a Cowboy Yank who cannot fathom the nuances of Old World moral standards, but I find myself quite appalled by this UK Times article: “Most Adults Think Children Are Feral And A Danger To Society.”
What’s appalling is not the premise that standards of acceptable behavior among kids have greatly slackened in modern Society, nor that more kids naturally are taking on the tincture of barbarism to greater or lesser degree as a result of such slackening. No, what is horrifying is that the whole tone of the article is to blame adults for daring to notice:
Public intolerance of young people has reached such levels that more than half of all adults think that British children are beginning to behave like animals, a poll has found.
The poll, commissioned by the children’s charity Barnardo’s, found that 49 per cent of adults regard children as increasingly dangerous both to each other and to their elders, while 43 per cent feel that “something has to be done” to protect society from children and young people.
More than a third of people agree that “it feels like the streets are infested with children”.
The YouGov poll of 2,000 adults suggests that the great strides made towards children’s rights and child welfare through the Government’s Every Child Matters agenda, in which the interests of the child are supposedly put at the heart of all policy, have had little impact on public consciousness.
The picture to emerge from the poll is of an adult population exasperated by what they perceive to be a breakdown in social order among the young. For children and young people, the upshot is a world in which they are made to feel unwelcome in public spaces and where adults have become fearful of them on the streets.
Emphasis added.
Bad adults! Wicked adults! How dare you? You’re not worried about getting roughed up by a gang of young thugs on the street some lonely night, you’re really just a bunch of intolerant ageists!
Off to the Reeducation Camps with you!!
I had that dream last night in which I was back in college, it was half way through the semester and I suddenly realized that I had never attended a single one of my classes. The bulk of the dream was a scramble just to find my schedule and to try and figure out a way to explain my absence to my professors.
I hate that dream.
No doubt it came upon me because I have my quarterly docket review today. Even though I have never had a single bad review in sixteen years of practicing law, they still give me the creeps.
Unmerited guilt: As I pointed out to Mom over the weekend, that’s why becoming Catholic was so easy for me.
UPDATE: In case you’re wondering, the review went fine. Indeed, I was thanked again for some very valuable work I did this year. Probably won’t be having the school dream tonight.
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