Another Liberal Myth Bites The Dust

The action moved fast, with precision. A sedan drove up and stopped under the tree. A man climbed on to the top quickly. Another. They stood black against the sky. From beneath, a group of men, shoving and pushing, got Hyacinth's limp thin body up to them. Hyacinth half lay, half squatted on the roof. From the ground a length of rope sailed up, hung in the air, curved and fell. A man tried again and the rope caught and hung down from a limb. The noosed end was thrown to one of the men standing on the car-roof.

The noosed end was thrown to one of the men standing on the car-roof. He held it and shook Hyacinth. There were no words now, only vague instructions, half-spoken. The crowd stood still; you could hear the mosquitoes whining. The other man held something in his hand it; looked like a great jug. He held it over Hyacinth, who shivered suddenly, and came to life. His voice rose out of him like something apart, and it hurt one's ears to listen to it; it was higher than a voice can be, not human.

"Boss," he said, "Boss I didn't do nuthin, don't burn me, Boss, Boss . . ." The crowd had trembled now, stirred by his voice, and there were orders to hurry, to kill the bastard, what the hell were they waiting for. The two men held him up and put the noose around his neck, and now he was making a terrible sound, like a dog whimpering. The minute they let go, he slacked into a kneeling position and his whole body seemed to shrink and dwindle and there was this noise he made. The two men jumped down from the roof; the rope was taut now. The car started and the silly sound of the starter failing to work, then the hesitant acceleration of the motor were so important that nothing else was heard; there were no other sounds anywhere; just these, and a moment's waiting.

The car moved forward, fast. Hyacinth skidded and fought an instant - less than an instant - to keep his footing or some hold, some safety. He snapped from the back of the car, hung suspended, twirling a little on the rope, with his head fallen sideways. I did not know whether he was dead. There was a choked sound beside me and it was Joe, crying, sitting there crying, with fury, with helplessness, and I kept looking at Hyacinth and thinking: 'It can't have happened.' There had been a noise, a sudden gutteral sound as of people breathing out a deep breath, when the rope carried Hyacinth twisting into the air.

Now a man came forward with a torch made of newspaper, burning. He reached up and the flames licked at Hyacinth's feet.

Even knowing what I know now, it's difficult stuff to read. Martha Gellhorn's description of a lynching in the southern United States, "Justice At Night", first published in the (London) Spectator in August 1936, was in Reader's Digest by March 1937 - and that meant it was in millions of American homes.

It's considered (admittedly by the cheap'n'cheerful "Mammoth Book of ..." series) to be one of the Top 100 pieces of journalism.

You can buy a (bloody awful - cheating students should pinch Camilla Wright's excellent Normblog piece) student essay on it - which means that it's still being taught in schools and colleges, like the poor innocents Sacco and Vanzetti, as fact.

Camilla Wright's fine Normblog essay, while a tad over-influenced by more modern cinematic echoes (the whole Deliverance/Texas Chainsaw narrative didn't exist in 1936) sums up the impact perfectly.

Originally published in The Spectator in 1936, 'Justice At Night' is perhaps the most perfect piece of eyewitness journalism. History, politics, human interest and gut-wrenching emotion are all mixed in together. It's unashamedly biased - there's no disengaged, disinterested reporter here. It's straight from the heart. But these short paragraphs tell so much more than a personal anecdote. In this micro-story, the macro-narrative of 20th Century American history is imparted: north v south, urban v country, black v white, the civil war and the civil rights movement.

It's not only true, it illustrates a wider truth ! And it's brilliantly written.

Every time I read this I feel the same shock as reading it the first time. Like I've been a first-hand witness to a truly inhuman event. I don't think there is better praise a writer could get.

It's still a perfect piece of writing. But eyewitness journalism ?

Gellhorn was writing a novel herself ... the book caught the attention of Harry Hopkins in the Roosevelt administration, who was assembling a team of young reporters to fan out across the Depression-ravaged country and document the lives of ordinary people ... two episodes stand out from Gellhorn's modest contribution to this worthy effort: she made up a story about a lynching in the South and published it as fact, and she encouraged laborers in North Carolina to break factory windows to protest their working conditions.

Eleanor Roosevelt, a college friend of Gellhorn's mother, admired the lynching article, and Martha explained, giddily and lamely, that she was "getting a little mixed-up around now and apparently I am a very realistic writer (or liar), because everyone assumed I'd been an eye-witness to a lynching whereas I just made it up." Her fake story dogged her for the rest of her life. And her incitement to riot got her fired by Hopkins.

Did the fakeness "dog her" ? Eleanor Roosevelt may have known about it, but it was still presented as fact when I read it as a teenager. No-one told Camilla Wright, either.

Caroline Moorehead, Gellhorn's biographer and editrix of her letters, to whom this revelation is due, doesn't seem like a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to me. Indeed her Wikipedia entry is stamped 'paid-up liberal'. And she's the daughter of the great Alan Moorehead, so I believe everything she writes.

Only one thing bothers me, as I post in haste. Could Christopher Benfey, author of the book review from which I've taken the 'I just made it up' quote and professor of English at "a liberal arts womens college" in Massachusetts, be a secret member of the VRWC ? Is the quote real ? Time for Laban to find the library website and read both books for himself.






(I shouldn't have to write this, but the fact that this writing turns out to be fiction doesn't mean that nobody ever got lynched in America. Hell, it's still happening now.)

Phutna

"How long it'll be up there is anyone's guess"

Hmmm. a few million hits later, the answer is "less than 24 hours".

"Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers. This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else."

As Mark Steyn puts it :

To reprise Douglas Murray's point below, a film such as Fitna might not even be necessary were the western news organizations not so absurdly deferential toward Muslim sensibilities that they go out of their way to avoid showing us anything that might cause us to link violence with Islam. Even that footage of those depraved West Bankers jumping up and down in the street and passing out candy to celebrate 9/11 appears to have been walled up in the most impenetrable vault of the archives these last six years. Both CNN and the BBC could only bring themselves to show the Danish cartoons by pixelating Mohammed's face - the first time this technique has ever been applied to a drawing, as if the Prophet had entered the witness protection program. At one level, they make Wilders' point for him, but, at another, they make it less likely anyone else will step forward to try to make the point next time.

The Way We Were - Scally Edition

Panorama investigates the Anfield Kop in 1964. Check out the number of ties (many), and the number of women (few). A different world.

Ski Thomson In Zell Am See

Get beaten half to death by a gang of Bosnian immigrants.

Grooming (on a Sunday afternoon)

I put together a few posts a year or so back on the 'grooming' of under-age girls, often leading to prostitution, by young Asian (mostly Muslim) men in Northern cities.

It was the subject of last night's Panorama. It'll be up for a week - does anyone know how to capture BBC video ?

One Muslim from Lancashire is speaking out. Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, said "I think the police are overcautious on dealing with this issue openly because they fear being branded racist and I think that is wrong".

We're seeing the effects of thirty years of well-meant, middle-class anti-racism here. Put that together with a culture where the school nurse is handing out contraception to children while the parent (often) or parents remain in blissful ignorance and you get our old friend unforeseen consequence.

Mind, it's not little Phillippa from Boltburn Girls Grammar, with her magistrate mum, who's being enticed by a pimped-up Corsa, a trip to McDonalds and a tasteful selection of Elizabeth Duke jewellery. It'll be poor Chavaunne from Retchworth Community College who gets the come-on in the shopping mall. But for most white liberals race trumps class in the hierarchy of victimhood, hence the pulling of the Channel Four film on the same subject four years back. If the predators were wealthy, privately educated white boys who just got a kick out of conning and abusing barely-pubescent chavettes, you wouldn't be able to pick up a paper or turn on the radio without tripping over it.

In feminista Julie Bindel's hierarchy, fortunately, gender trumps race.

The pimps are adept at trading on teenage rebellion and use similar methods, according to Crop, of convincing the girls all white people are racist. This is part of the controlling process, to instil guilt in the girls. “Like most teenagers, I was going through a phase of arguing with my mum,” says Gemma. “Amir told me they didn’t understand me and were racist and ignorant. I believed him.” Gemma was given an Asian name by Amir, and told she had to read the Koran, a story support workers tell me is not uncommon. “They erode the girls’ identities,” says Kosaraju, “to make them more compliant and needy.”

Few of the girls know, or are willing to acknowledge, they are being pimped. Because they claim to love the men, and think of them as their boyfriends, police often see that as an admission from the girls of consent. “As far as I was concerned, Amir was my boyfriend,” says Gemma. “When he told me I had to sleep with his friends, I had no idea he was being paid for it. I was on a lot of drugs and he said I had to pay for them.”

"convincing the girls all whites are racist" - well, they've had a lot of help over the last thirty years in that laudable aim.

The stories didn't get told (and are pretty low-key now) because people are more worried about increasing the level of white racism than they are about girls being abused. And they have a point - a wrong one, but a point nonetheless.

Nightjack is a newish police blog, one of a few good-uns that have a raised profile since the Copper gave up on the UK and emigrated.

Take a look at this - the story of a guy who tried to cut a few corners to speed up the grooming process.

Four days after the event, “Melissa” (14yrs) is admitted to A&E with an overdose. It is one of those real I want to end it all overdoses. The sort involving tubes and beeps and lights and readouts. We only find out about it when she recovers. She speaks to Mum, and alleges that her boyfriend got her very drunk, took her to a seaside hotel and raped her whilst she was passed out.

So on day six, the Police are called. Day seven Melissa is sensitively and appropriately interviewed to find out what happened to her. She is not sure of her boyfriends’ name, it might be Bilal (we will learn that this is not the truth) . She is not sure what sort of car he has, just that is “well wicked” and customised. She thinks he is 21 (we will learn in the end that he is well over 30). She does know that she went with her friend “Cara” and her boyfriend Qasim. Melissa thinks hearts and romance. Bilal thinks just another goray.

If you've read the post to the end, you may feel that if a BNP activist wanted to invent a fantasy of the predatory "Other" he couldn't do better than that. Trouble is, the odds are heavily on it being the (suitably anonymised - the guy has a job) truth.

How come ? you may ask. Doesn't Islam prohibit such things ? How does this fit with Laban's generally favourable disposition towards those who are tough on crime, have strong families, value respectability ("honour" in the Muslim context) and fear God ?

There seem to be some conflicting (but probably ultimately reconcilable) currents here. As the Bradford Race Relations Review said :

The third issue relates to the apparent collapse of parental control over their young men. There are significant groups of young men who are heavily involved in drug dealing and abuse, gang activities and crime. They are often abusive and threatening to white people in their areas and appear in significant and intimidating groups in the town centre area. No-one within their own communities seem prepared to challenge them or call them to order. However, these same young men, for the most part, profess their belief in Islam, do not drink alcohol and the vast majority will accept the arranged marriage. Their parents claim to have no control over them yet these young men do not kick against certain fundamentals.

I believe that the parents do have some control, that they have a tacit agreement with their young men which basically requires them to accept the strictures on drinking and the arranged marriage in return for no interference in other aspects of their young men’s lives. This simply reflects their priorities:- the commitment to Islam, the prohibition on drink and the arranged marriage are more important than other aspects. There is a parental fear, no doubt well-founded, that if they exert pressure in other areas then they will lose their sons’ commitments in those three vital areas. It works for them but is a recipe for chaos in the rest of the community.

Or as Dalrymple puts it, speaking of young Muslim prisoners in Winson Green :

"The young Muslim men want wives at home to cook and clean for them, concubines elsewhere, and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll."

While I'm plonking my trainers where angels fear to tread, another not-in-front-of-the-children subject - Tottenham Lad's long and copiously referenced post on gang rape in the UK and elsewhere, which, would you believe, has an ethnic dimension.

Why isn't it all over the media, as it would be if rich white boys were the culprits - or even the (innocent) suspects ?

Because the media have been brought up well. They've listened to Billie Holliday sing "Strange Fruit". In the history curriculum at school my children have been taught about the lynch mobs of Alabama and Mississippi, killing without trial black men, often accused of sexual crime or misdemeanour. Martha Gellhorn's gut-wrenching account of a lynching is still with me thirty years after I've read it - poor Hyacinth pleading "don't let them burn me" - and I'm not the only one. (Alas, like Sacco and Vanzetti, Gellhorn's piece seems to have been a tremendously influential liberal myth - according to Gellhorn's biographer she made the whole thing up. Still, I'm pleased Hyacinth didn't get lynched because of his non-existence).





Comments will be heavily moderated. I just want to know how to download the BBC video.

Fitna

Evil Dutch rightie Geert Wilders' controversial short film on Islam and terror has been released on Liveleak. No idea what it's like, but according to Wikipedia initial Dutch (Muslim) reaction is "not as bad as we feared". Presumably no Korans were mistreated during the making of this film.

How long it'll be up there is anyone's guess. Vixy doesn't seem to work with Liveleak, but there's a download link to an avi version at Wikipedia, or you can right-click and 'save as' on an flv version (decoders do exist) here.

A Few Primroses From The Curate's Coppice

In one postcode area of Bradford, nearly 60% of vehicles are uninsured.

The Motor Insurers' Bureau, which compiled the figures, estimates there are 30,500 uninsured vehicles across the Bradford district.The BD3 area, comprising Barkerend, Bradford Moor and Thornbury, tops West York-shire's league of shame, with 4,403 uninsured vehicles, which equates to 57.3 per cent of all vehicles in that postcode area.The BD8 area, which covers Girlington, Manningham and Lower Grange, is the second worst in West Yorkshire, with 42.7 per cent of vehicles uninsured.The BD5 area, which takes in Little Horton and West Bowling, and BD7, including Great Horton and Lidget Green, are the third and fourth worst.

Not all vehicles in that fair city are uninsured though, or Bradford wouldn't also be near the top of the table for the 'cash-for-crash' insurance scam.

Almost 2,000 immigrants are being granted the right to live and work in Britain every day, official figures have disclosed. More than 710,000 foreigners received National Insurance numbers last year, an increase of eight per cent from 2005-06, according to figures published yesterday.

Some useful and illuminating figures at the National Literacy Trust on literacy and education levels by ethnic group.




The increasing influence of Islam on British culture is disclosed in research today that shows the number of Muslims worshipping at mosques in England and Wales will outstrip the numbers of Roman Catholics going to church in little more than a decade.

Projections to be published next month estimate that, if trends continue, the number of Catholic worshippers at Sunday Mass will fall to 679,000 by 2020. By that time, statisticians predict, the number of Muslims praying in mosques on Fridays will have increased to 683,000.




Children with English as their first language are now in the minority in more than 1,300 schools, according to official figures. The Daily Telegraph (19/12/07)has obtained data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families illustrating the impact of high levels of immigration on the education system.

The figures show that in a total of 1,338 primary and secondary schools - more than one in 20 of all schools in England - children with English as their first language are in the minority. In 600 of these schools, fewer than a third of pupils speak English as their first language.

Top 30 councils, percentage of schools where English speaking children are in the minority :

Newham - 87.65432
Tower Hamlets - 76.19048
Westminster - 72.34043
Brent - 68.05556
Ealing - 61.84211
Hackney - 61.29032
Haringey - 60.27397
Kensington and Chelsea - 60
Harrow - 54.6875
Camden - 52
Waltham Forest - 43.83562
Redbridge - 43.28358
Lambeth - 42.85714
Hounslow - 41.89189
Hammersmith and Fulham - 39.53488
Slough - 36.84211
Enfield - 31.3253
Leicester - 31
Blackburn with Darwen - 30.30303
Barnet - 30.18868
Bradford - 30.10753
Islington - 29.62963
Southwark - 29.62963
Birmingham - 26.66667
Luton - 25.75758
Wandsworth - 22.72727
Oldham - 21.10092
Manchester - 18.70968
Greenwich - 18.18182
Rochdale - 17.64706

Interesting to compare this with the top 10 local authorities for births.



A possible Scottish back-door immigration route :

Sir Trevor Phillips said the Government's new points-based immigration system should be weighted to encourage skilled foreigners to move north of the Border rather than settle in London or the south-east. Critics warned last night that less strict rules north of the Border would lead to Scotland becoming the "back door" for migrants to enter the rest of the United Kingdom.

The number of migrant workers entering Britain annually to find skilled employment will reach a record 212,000 this year, business experts have predicted. An in-depth study found the influx of people seeking well-paid jobs in 2008 will be more than double that of 1997, the year Labour came to power. The report, by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, forecast there will be a total of 812,000 skilled migrants living here by 2012. A decade ago there were 400,000.




A whole slew of Telegraph links on the economy. Commentators seem to think either

a) we're reaping what Alan Greenspan sowed - by pumping in money every time a market crisis threatened he introduced moral hazard and dodgy practices of all kinds.

b) given the magnitude of the market crisis, his successor is quite right to do it again.

Some of them, like Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, seem to think both.



Across the water in what was once ould, Catholic Ireland, Ulsterman Seamus Heaney bemoans the cultural collapse which enables the Irish Government to whack a motorway through the Hill of Tara.

Mr Heaney, who is a fixture of the national secondary school curriculum, said that Tara represented “an ideal of the spirit” that was fundamental to what Ireland meant. “Tara means something equivalent to what Delphi means to the Greeks, or maybe Stonehenge to an English person, or Nara in Japan, which is one of the most famous sites in the world,” he said.

“It’s a word that conjures an aura — it conjures up what they call in Irish dúchas, a sense of belonging, a sense of patrimony, a sense of an ideal, an ideal of the spirit if you like, that belongs in the place. And if anywhere in Ireland conjures that up, it’s Tara."

The 1995 Nobel prizewinner, who is believed to account for two thirds of poetry volumes sold in Britain, said that Tara appeared to have enjoyed more protection while under British rule. He said: “I discovered that W. B. Yeats and George Moore, two writers at the turn of the century, and Arthur Griffith [the founder of Sinn Fein], wrote a letter to The Irish Times some time at the beginning of the last century because a society called the British Israelites had thought that the Ark of the Covenant was buried in Tara, and they had started to dig on Tara Hill.

“They talked about the desecration of a consecrated landscape. So I thought to myself, ‘If a few holes in the ground made by amateur archaeologists was a desecration, what is happening to that whole countryside being ripped up is certainly a much more ruthless piece of work’.”

Mr Heaney said that the country’s present rulers had made “a savage choice, they have made a secular choice. The Government is acting under pressure from secular motives”.

And finally - Matthew Parris has a funny kind of feeling :

When weather, wind and currents are on the turn, say yachtsmen, a curious, choppy and deceptive water (they call it “an uncertain sea”) can be the result. Such a sight is troublesome not only to the sailor's calculations, but to his spirit.

I think we in Britain are on such a sea in March 2008. The economic wind seems to be gusting one way, while the optimistic language of politicians gusts another. Most of my countrymen, in the backs of their minds, harbour doubts and worries about the future; yet few are sure enough to let it spoil their Bank Holiday plans.

Just as some animals can detect the approach of a storm, a tsunami, or even an earthquake, Mr Parris' sensitive antennae tell him something's amiss. He doesn't quite ask, like Churchill, 'who is in charge of the clattering train ?', but you get the idea :

Who knows what's happening? Perhaps nothing, after all. Perhaps this will all blow over. But what unsettles me goes deeper than a sense of mystery about the future. At most junctures in history there arises the feeling of a lull before a possible storm. Heck, we were in a worse state in 1945, or 1979. Danger was more imminent in the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 posited bigger unknowns for the future. But at these crossroads the air was full of ideas: strong ideas, competing ideas, confident philosophies, angry dissent. People had policies. Ideologies clashed. Politicians and thinkers jostled to present their plans. Leaders led.

But what distinguishes this hiatus in 2008 from those earlier forks in the road is the impassivity of our politics, and the idleness of political debate, as we wait. There is a sense of vacuum.

There was not in 1979, as there is now, this curious hollowness in the air. Where today is the bold advocacy, the impatience to persuade, the urgency of argument? Where are the shouts of “Here's how!”? It is as though the stage were set for some kind of theatrical climax, but peopled only with stage hands and the rattle and murmur of the scene-shift. Where are the leading actors, the big voices, the great thoughts?

I have a feeling that before he's an old man, some answers to his questions will present themselves. I'm not at all sure he'll like them.

Incredible Hulks

Going north up the A38 from Bristol, just before you get to the Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust turn left, down a long lane through a village, carry on then a right over the Sharpness Canal to a wonderful old pub almost on the Severn, the Berkeley Arms at Purton. And on the riverbank the remains of dozens of abandoned ships ...

A dinosaurs’ graveyard of Britain’s maritime past emerges eerily from a mile and a half of bank along the River Severn.

Bleached blond ribs of once proud schooners, lighters, barges and Severn trows poke from the silt, still stained with pitch and the carmine of rusting iron nails. Above them loom abandoned concrete grain barges built during wartime when steel was in short supply.

The Purton hulks have become a magnet for naval historians, marine archaeologists and photographers enraptured by the weatherworn timbers and the tales they hold. But this unique repository of marine history is disappearing quickly, prompting the launch of a campaign to protect it.

The main problem is not the tidal waters of the Severn that take their toll at every high tide but human scavengers who, for more than 100 years, have been picking over the hulks for timber or valuable metals.

The vessels were abandoned along the Severn between Purton and Sharpness between 1909 and 1963.

In 1906 the bank had been damaged during storms and the Gloucester Sharpness ship canal, which runs parallel to the river, ran dry. The canal was rebuilt and an appeal was started for the owners of unwanted vessels to beach them to prevent the tides from eroding the bank again.

Over the next half-century, more than 80 vessels were run aground at high tide, creating what experts claim to be the world’s largest conglomeration of historic wooden vessels.

Paul Barnett, who first visited the site as a teenager in 1976, has watched the remains disappear as remorselessly as he has researched every vessel, its owners, crews and history. Albums of photographs record the transition from working boat, to stripped-out hulk, to little more than an outline in the grass. All that remains of the Katherine Ellen, seized by the Royal Navy after running guns to the IRA in 1921, is the rusty tube of her bilge pump. Others, such as the Harriett, a Kennet barge built in Pewsey in 1894, are intact, her name just visible on the stern.

You can see a few of the remains on Google Maps. The photo, taken in the 1960s and showing the damaged, and now-demolished, Severn Railway Bridge in the background is taken from Paul Barnett's excellent site. There are more photos at this site.

Paul does guided tours of the hulks - next ones on Sun 6 and 20 April at 2pm. If you're within driving distance and don't know the beautiful Severn Estuary, come and take a look before it all gets drowned.

Scientists Dismiss "Human-Animal Hybrid" Scaremongering

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, head of the genetics division at the Medical Research Council's National Institute For Medical Research, said: "Maybe there's an awful lot in the bill that goes against the strict Roman Catholic view and it's not just these mixtures of animal and human they object to. Perhaps they've decided that they're going to focus on this one particular issue because they can use scary language like 'creating monsters' and make ground on this particular battle, when [other parts of the bill], like IVF treatment, are well accepted in the UK."

The humpbacked deep-sea angler fish.





Ms Jade Goody. I rest my case.

Oh Dear

"Music is an essential part of Western culture and British music dates back centuries. Pop music in particular has played an important role in British culture and the success of ‘Britpop’, which includes influences from several cultures, is an indicator of the multi-cultural nature of Britain today."

Sport also plays an important role in White British culture with many sports enjoying a rich history in the country. Football is the national sport and immensely popular with all ages. Tennis is also considered a national sport with the oldest and most prestigious competition in the World being held in Wimbledon."

Bury Metropolitan District Council explain "White British Culture" to ... who exactly ?

The British also enjoy home-made desserts such as apple pie, rhubarb crumble and bread and butter pudding. Britain is famous for fish and chips which dominate the take-away food sector with a ‘chippy’ on every corner. British cuisine has also been influenced by multi-cultural diversity and curry has become an integral part of British cuisine, so much so that, since the late 1990s, Chicken Tikka Masala has been commonly referred to as the “British national dish”

I try to avoid using four-letter Anglo-Saxon words. In this case, it's a pity. While I deprecate those commenters whose first reaction is to call for a rope and a lamp post every time they read something they don't like, for the perpetrator of this - probably not the actual writer, some poor ex-local paper journalist now doing council media relations - but the guy who commissioned this - not hanging, not quartering, not even drawing will suffice. Perhaps the treatment handed out by William the Bastard to the leading citizens of Alencon, after they shouted the 11th century equivalent of 'yer Mum!' will do.

"You all remember," said the Controller, in his strong deep voice, "you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk. History," he repeated slowly, "is bunk."

He waved his hand; and it was as though, with an invisible feather wisk, he had brushed away a little dust, and the dust was Wessex, was Londinium, was Halidon Hill, was Agincourt and Crecy; some spider-webs, and they were Lincoln and Hastings and York and Worcester and Flanders and Alamein. Whisk. Whisk–and where was Matilda, where was Harold, where were Edwin and Morcar and Cromwell, Kitchener and Montgomery? Whisk–and those specks of antique dirt called Dalriada and Powys, Iona and the Heptarchy–all were gone. Whisk–the place where Ireland had been was empty. Whisk, the cathedrals; whisk, motte and bailey, cruck-frame and shieling, broch and pele tower, whisk, whisk, Beowulf and the Mabinogion. Whisk, Passion; whisk, Requiem; whisk, Symphony; whisk …

Flaying would be an acceptable fallback.

Signs Of The Times

Women's Studies as a distinct undergraduate discipline will disappear this October, when the last institution offering first degrees, London Metropolitan University (formerly Hoxton Working Men's Club) stops taking undergrads. According to this Today report (RealAudio, 15 mins in) it's down to lack of demand.

The number of British teenagers having breast enlargement operations has increased by more than 150% in the past year. Doctors believe girls undergoing the procedure are aping celebrities who have surgically enhanced their figures.

We shouldn't panic too much. The number of teenage girls involved is 600 a year. But I'll bet that's larger than any year's undergraduate intake of Women's Studies undergrads. Straws in the wind and all that.

"Anti-War" Anti-Catholics Attack Easter Mass

Hot Air has the details.

The Empty Shops of Bromsgrove - A Field Guide

Some twenty-five years back the council of Bromsgrove took the decision to close the old High Street to traffic and to pedestrianise it. It was a new, modern, forward-looking, progressive thing to do - and the council liked to think of themselves as new, modern progressive etc. At the same time they put a ring road through Crown Close, the old, quiet lane and associated green space at the back of the High Street, and sold off half the adjoining meadow (on which the Town Fair had been held since King John granted the charter in 1199) for car parking and a large supermarket.

When I retire I think I'll research who the councillors involved were, then start a new career vandalising their graves. I'll knock down the stones, put plain brick up and cover all with gobbets of chewing gum. Any grass will be paved.

Now a statue of A.E. Housman looks out upon gum-spattered pavements and a lot of empty frontage. I dread to think what the sensitive aesthete and classical scholar would make of it all.





I think this one was Scotts the Jewellers (used to have a fine clock) before it became Halfords and then McDonalds. Jack Scott was a stalwart of Bromsgrove Cricket Club. A fine old building with hideous modern frontage. The charity shop to the right is on the market as well.




Not sure what this was - greengrocers ?




Note the modern maisonette style of building in what was a long Georgian/Victorian street.




A nice old place, but the cheap'n'cheerful eaterie next door makes it unlikely that Beatrice von Tresckow will be snapping it up for her next store. The legendary Beau Brummell Coffee House, den of iniquity for a generation of High School students, was up the stairs somewhere round here.





No redeeming features whatsoever. This section of High Street (the top right), from Lloyds Bank up to the Stratford Road (or Alcester Road for you real oldies) was extensively redeveloped in the early Seventies. Crowning vandalism was the destruction of two beautiful old Georgian coaching inns, the Roebuck and the Coach and Horses. The site is now an Argos.



You've seen the top right - this is what they did to the top left.




The very end of the top left. Just round the corner, the Queen's Head was a real old fashioned place, which had extended opening hours on cattle market days and served a decent pint of Ansells Mild. It isn't very old fashioned now, but at least they haven't knocked it down.




They haven't knocked down this beautiful building either - Rainscourts Delicatessen, a Bromsgrove institution for as long as I can remember. Great place for cheese and a pleasure to shop at.

Easter Day, 17 April 1870

The happiest, brightest, most beautiful Easter I have ever spent. I woke early and looked out. As I had hoped the day was cloudless, a glorious morning. My first thought was 'Christ is Risen'. It is not well to lie in bed on Easter morning, indeed it is thought very unlucky. I got up between five and six and was out soon after six. There had been a frost and the air was rimy with a-heavy thick white dew on hedge, bank and turf, but the morning was not cold. There was a heavy white dew with a touch of hoar frost on the meadows, and as I leaned over the wicket gate by the mill pond looking to see if there were any primroses in the banks but not liking to venture into the dripping grass suddenly I heard the cuckoo for the first time this year. He was near Peter's Pool and he called three times quickly one after another. It is very well to hear the cuckoo for the first time on Easter Sunday morning. I loitered up the lane again gathering primroses.

The village lay quiet and peaceful in the morning sunshine, but by the time I came back from primrosing there was some little stir and people were beginning to open their doors and look out into the fresh fragrant splendid morning.

There was a very large congregation at morning church, the largest I have seen for some time, attracted by Easter and the splendour of the day, for they have here an immense reverence for Easter Sunday. The anthem went very well and Mr. Baskerville complimented Mr. Evans after church about it, saying that it was sung in good tune and time and had been a great treat. There were more communicants than usual: 29. This is the fifth time I have received the Sacrament within four days.

After morning service I took Mr. V. round the churchyard and showed him the crosses on his mother's, wife's, and brother's graves. He was quite taken by surprise and very much gratified. I am glad to see that our primrose crosses seem to be having some effect for I think I notice this Easter some attempt to copy them and an advance towards the form of the cross in some of the decorations of the graves. I wish we could get the people to adopt some little design in the disposition of the flowers upon the graves instead of sticking sprigs into the turf aimlessly anywhere, anyhow and with no meaning at all. But one does not like to interfere too much with their artless, natural way of showing their respect and love for the dead. I am thankful to find this beautiful custom on the increase, and observed more and more every year. Some years ago it was on the decline and nearly discontinued. On Easter Day all the young people come out in something new and bright like butterflies. It is almost part of their religion to wear something new on this day. It was an old saying that if you don't wear something new on Easter Day, the crows will spoil everything you have on.

Between the services a great many people were in the churchyard looking at the graves. I went to Bettws Chapel in the afternoon. It was burning hot and as I climbed the hill the perspiration rolled off my forehead from under my hat and fell in drops on the dusty road. Lucretia Wall was in chapel looking pale and pretty after her illness. Coming down the hill it was delightful, cool and pleasant. The sweet suspicion of spring strengthens, deepens, and grows more sweet every day. Mrs. Pring gave us lamb and asparagus at dinner.

(Francis Kilvert, Diary)

Easter Graves

In Bromsgrove today to add some Easter flowers to my mother's grave. The daffodils from St David's Day are still in remarkably good nick.

I like the cemetery. Just as at Christmas, most of the graves have new flowers. It's good to see. Walking the perimeter of the graveyard, I recognise many of the names as old Bromsgrove names, the names of my primary school register - Pinfold, Giles, Banner, Lammas, Chance. There are ornate graves for the Giles family (funeral directors) and the Smith family (travellers), including that of 20 year old Lemintina Smith. Was she as pretty as her name ? And some lump in the throat graves too - mostly children's. A grave with a photograph - a pretty young woman on her wedding day. She died aged 36.

"The sweetest thing I'll ever see
Is my Mummy, smiling at me"


When I started for Cefn y Blaen only two or three people were in the churchyard with flowers. But now the customary beautiful Easter Eve Idyll had fairly begun and people kept arriving from all parts with flowers to dress the graves. Children were coming from the town and from neighbouring villages with baskets of flowers and knives to cut holes in the turf. The roads were lively with people coming and going and the churchyard a busy scene with women and children and a few men moving about among the tombstones and kneeling down beside the green mounds flowering the graves. An evil woman from Hay was dressing a grave (Jane Phillips).

I found Annie Dyke standing among the graves with her basket of flowers. A pretty picture she would have made as she stood there with her pure fair sweet grave face and clustering brown curls shaded by her straw hat and her flower basket hanging on her arm. It is her birthday to-day. I always tell her she and the cuckoos came together. So I went home and got a little birthday present I had been keeping for her, which I bought in the Crystal Palace in January, a small ivory brooch, with the carved figure of a stag. I look the little box which held it out into the churchyard and gave it to her as she was standing watching while the wife of one of her lather's workmen, the shepherd, flowered the grave that she came to dress, for her.

More and more people kept coming into the churchyard as they finished their day's work. The sun went down in glory behind the dingle, but still the work of love went on through the twilight and into the dusk until the moon rose full and splendid. The figures continued to move about among the graves and to bend over the green mounds in the calm clear moonlight and warm air of the balmy evening.

At 8 o'clock there was a gathering of the Choir in the Church to practise the two anthems for to-morrow. The moonlight came streaming in broadly through the chancel windows. When the choir had gone and the lights were out and the church quiet again,
as I walked down the churchyard alone the decked graves had a strange effect in the moonlight and looked as if the people had laid down to sleep for the night out of doors, ready dressed to rise early on Easter morning. I lingered in the verandah before going to bed. The air was as soft and warm as a summer night, and the broad moonlight made the quiet village almost as light as day. Everyone seemed to have gone to rest and there was not a sound except the clink and trickle of the brook.


(Kilvert's Diary, April 16th 1870)

Quote Of The Day

From this Polly Toynbee thread, credited to Larry Elliot :

"Only counter-revolutionary defeatism could explain the failure of the masses to appreciate just how good life was under Labour....the voters greeted the litany of achievements with the same sort of world-weary cynicism characteristic of the Soviet populace under Brezhnev; they assumed the figures were meaningless and that the real beneficiaries of the extra spending were the bureaucrats. They were right on both counts."

I imaigine the quote is from his book. The nearest I can find on the web is this piece, also quotable.


"The sad truth is that nobody in Britain has built a major manufacturing company from scratch since the time of the Attlee Labour government in 1945. All our major manufacturers pre-date the second world war. And yet countries that didn't exist, were only partially literate or were engaged in endless conflict 20, 35 or 45 years ago have managed to build major manufacturing businesses from scratch."

This is not just about competition from low-cost rivals. If globalisation was really to blame for Britain's industrial decline, the same effects would be seen in Finland and Sweden, where costs are even higher. Medium-high technology manufacturing comprises only 3.6% of the UK economy, compared with 9.6% in Germany and 6.5% in Sweden.

How have these countries managed to succeed where Britain has not? My guess is that they are more hard-nosed about it. They probably don't think the development of "soft skills" is a substitute for knowledge; they don't think "emotional intelligence" is a substitute for real intelligence and they don't think whizzy schemes for tax avoidance are on a par with dominance of the global mobile telephone business.

"Supporting Parents"

A senior nurse at a leading public school has been sacked after smacking her 10-year-old son at home.

Susan Pope, 45, was investigated by the police who decided she had done nothing wrong after she hit the boy on his bottom. But the £25,000-a-year boarding school said that because social services remained involved in the case, it could damage the school's reputation. It fired her for alleged gross misconduct. Mrs Pope, who has three children, is taking the school to an industrial tribunal claiming unfair dismissal.

The row is likely to reopen the debate about smacking children. Mrs Pope said she hit her son on the bottom after he was abusive and repeatedly swore at her. Her elder son, who was 15, called the police. Mrs Pope and her husband, Folker, a chartered surveyor, were arrested and held in a cell for 32 hours. They were released without charge and officers contacted them to say no action would be taken. However, Worcestershire social services, called when the couple were arrested, placed the 10-year-old and his younger sister, who was eight at the time, on the child protection register. Malvern St James, one of the country's leading girls' boarding schools, said it could not risk damage to its reputation if word got out that the senior nurse's children were on the register. Mrs Pope said: "I feel I have done absolutely nothing wrong and yet have seen my reputation, career and life shattered by this.

Well, whatever your feelings about West Mercia Police, or Mrs Pope's son (a little English Pavlik Morozov) and daughter, the behaviour of the Malvern St James school makes it plain that the leadership are either moral cowards - why not stand by their staff member ? - or that they have an anti-parent agenda. Rosalind Hayes, BA (Hons), MA, PGCE, FRGS should be damn well ashamed of herself.



It could be worse, however. You could send your daughter to this school.

Alison Hughes, the deputy head of the Queen Elizabeth School in Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria, was so concerned that she detailed the "catalogue of disasters" in a two-page letter to parents, warning them about the sexual activity, violent behaviour and alleged drug abuse that took place.

She wrote: "We have had to help a disturbingly high number of girls through the aftermath of having unprotected sex that evening, most of whom have told us they were too drunk to be in control of themselves. The risks are real. Assume the worst."

Forgive Them, Lord ...

I skimmed over the grimmest of my own experiences. For instance, I said little of how I had been made to watch Japanese soldiers having bayonet practice on live prisoners of war tied between bamboo posts; of how I had been taken to witness executions of persons of all races and nationalities for obscure reasons like "showing a spirit of willfulness" or not bowing with sufficient alacrity in the direction of the rising sun. I had never known there could be so many different ways of killing people--cutting off their heads with swords, bayonetting them in many variations, strangling them, burying them alive. But, significantly, never by just shooting them.

I say "significantly" because the omission of this contemporary form of killing was for me striking evidence of the remote and archaic nature of the forces that had invaded the Japanese spirit. Awareness of this dark invasion actually made it impossible for those of us who were prisoners to have personal feelings against our captors. Even at our worst moments of torment, we generally viewed the Japanese as puppets of such immense impersonal forces that they did not really know what they were doing.

It was amazing how often men would confess to me, after some Japanese excess worse than usual, that for the first time in their lives they had realized the truth, and the dynamic liberating power, of the first of the Crucifixion utterances: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." I found that the moment one grasped this fundamental fact of our prison situation, forgiveness became not an act of will or of personal virtue, but an automatic and all-compelling consequence of understanding. The tables of the spirit strangely and promptly turned, and we found ourselves without self-pity of any kind, feeling instead deeply sorry for the Japanese, as if we were the free men and they the prisoners--men held in some profound oubliette of their own minds.

It's difficult to put yourself in his shoes. I imagine I'd be filled with hate and fear, not pity.

Laurens van der Post on Japan and Hiroshima.


UPDATE - the link's a bit iffy - I think their site's got the bonnet up. If you can't link, go to the home page and search (box is top right) for "Laurens". It's the first returned piece.

Sex And Schopenhauer

Entertaining essay at flatrock, with a surprise piece at the end. Apparently we're really after their minds.

Photographs of two attractive women were accompanied by dating adverts and male readers were asked to vote for the woman they felt most attracted to have a serious relationship with. One woman was selected beforehand to be slightly more attractive than the other and in edition A, both women described more or less the same holiday in the same language. In edition B, however, the slightly less attractive woman was given a wider vocabulary.

Readers of edition A favoured the more attractive woman by 63% to 37%. But in edition B the less attractive woman gained in popularity, shifting the voting balance to 57% against 43%. 1800 readers phoned in their opinions in the survey.

Raj Persaud, of the Maudsley Hospital, London, who devised the experiment, said the 6 percentage point shift was enough to be of statistical significance. "This is the first time that an experiment like this has been conducted and the first test of this controversial theory," he said. "It is a very interesting and counter-intuitive result because it suggests that men are influenced by issues beyond appearance. They are making an assessment of a person's mind.

"A lot of women spend a lot of time on their appearance before a date. This suggests that brushing up on their word power may also be helpful. Men are not as predictable as women think they are."

Dr Persaud designed the experiment to follow up the findings of a study published by psychologists Geoffrey Miller, of University College London, and Robin Dunbar, of Liverpool University, who suggested that sophisticated conversation is a sexual display of brain power, rather like a peacock's tail. Their theory may shed light on why it is that we can express almost anything with 850 words, yet the average person has a vocabulary of 60,000 words.

The End Times Are Upon Us II

The water rises higher :

Pupils who make malicious false allegations about teachers should be placed on a school register to protect other staff, a teachers' union says.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) said these records should be forwarded if a pupil moves. It also wants charges brought against children as young as 10 who make false allegations.

The government has said it will look at whether further legal changes are needed to protect teachers. The issue was raised at the association's annual conference, in Torquay - as it is every year at teachers' gatherings.

The NASUWT union, for example, says it has had 2,316 allegations brought against its members in recent years, of which 2,231 have been concluded. Only 105 or about 5% had resulted in any action being brought against the teacher. If a pupil makes an allegation, the teacher is normally automatically suspended from work and is not permitted to talk to colleagues or pupils while the matter is investigated - which can take months.

We're hoist on our own liberal petard here. On the one hand, "always believe a child" is pretty much an article of faith - yet nearly every teacher has a tale of a false accusation against colleague or self. You end up in the knots of this child protection policy :

"the teacher should always believe what the student has to say"

followed later by

"there is understandable concern amongst many teachers that careers may be irreparably damaged on the basis of flimsy or malicious allegations by others. The school will endeavour to support any member of Staff against whom allegations may be made"



and still higher :

Pupils and parents are increasingly targeting teachers with offensive e-mails and text messages, union leaders have said. Teachers are also alarmed at the emergence of a “big brother” culture in schools, claiming that closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras are being installed in classrooms to spy on them.



and higher still :

In his speech, Dr Dunford told heads and senior staff that for too many children, school was the "only solid bedrock in their lives". He highlighted how schools were now expected to set rules about basic behaviour which once would have been the responsibility of parents and the wider community.

Long working hours, chaotic home backgrounds and a lack of positive adult influences in children's lives, meant schools were being expected to patch up social problems rather than focus on educational issues.

"For some families, the focus of family life has been lost - such as eating a meal together - and the loss of a family conversation," he said.

Expanding on the themes, Dr Dunford warned that many children were not receiving a sense of right and wrong from their home backgrounds. "The old certainties have gone and with them the institutions, such as the church, which articulated those certainties. So for some children, it is only the school that provides a framework that sets the line between what is and isn't acceptable."

The head teachers' leader also said that the fixation with celebrity damaged the efforts of schools to make pupils think they had to work hard to succeed. "Celebrity culture makes the job of schools more difficult, because schools try to inculcate values such as hard work bringing rewards".


We've been here before. Compare Dr Dunford :

Dr Dunford told heads and senior staff that for too many children, school was the "only solid bedrock in their lives". "For some children, it is only the school that provides a framework that sets the line between what is and isn't acceptable."

And the aside by the inner-city Birmingham teacher on 'community schools' :

"The government is desperate to get these going," he said, "because they've realised that in the cities community has collapsed. The school is literally the only place where everyone comes together. It's the only community there is - all we've got."



Dr Dunford's speech (the whole thing is available here - the president's speech is worth a read too) is like an epitaph for the Sixties generation and all their bright hopes. Dr Dunford is a sixties type himself - President of Nottingham Union in '68. But he seems to have looked reality in the face.


Not so Mary Bousted of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, still frantically rearranging the deckchairs - and for good measure, cutting adrift a few of the remaining lifeboats.

Turning to the curriculum, the ATL leader said teachers should have far more control over what was taught. "Our national curriculum should be far more focussed on the development of life skills and ways of working than whether or not we teach the Battle of Hastings," she said. Dr Bousted told reporters she thought the events of 1066 probably were in fact one of the things children should learn about.

But in general there were "very few things which we need to teach everyone to bind us together as a nation". There was far too much prescription and not enough imparting of the sort of skills children and employers needed. There should be "not so much regurgitation but more interpretation of knowledge". "Too much learning that goes on in primary and secondary school is rote learning and that's not learning for the 21st Century," she said.

A sure sign of b-s is someone who talks in the style of 'learning for the new millenium'. Ms Boustead is still worrying about Mr Gradgrind while standards drop all around her.

Most 'rote learning', aka 'learning by heart' has long gone from the curriculum. Children are no longer required to know that seven eights are fifty-six unless they (in theory) understand WHY seven eights are fifty six, something which IMHO is the province of professional mathematicians. Can't we just take their word that it IS so ?

My daughter is in her final year at a primary school which is one of the top half-dozen in the county. Although I say so myself, she's a bright girl - one of the two or three cleverest in her form. And when you throw "Six sevens !" at her she hesitates, goes to seven sevens and knocks seven off to get the answer. Nearly 50 years after I was taught the answer comes out without me having to think about it.

They're preparing for SATs and are relearning all their tables. Two weeks ago she came home with a piece of cardboard certifying that she knew her TWO times table off by heart. It would be funny if it weren't tragic.

One in four adults has difficulty with mental arithmetic, a survey suggests. Women are less confident than men, with one in three struggling to add up sums in their head, compared to 18% of men, the poll of 2,000 adults found. Those aged over 55 were the most confident at 77%, compared to 64% of the 25-34-year-olds who were the least confident.

The oldies learned by heart.

The chairman of charity Every Child a Chance, which is running the campaign, John Griffiths-Jones, said adult innumeracy was one of the greatest scourges facing the country. "The survey shows how essential it is that the business community gets involved in tackling the problem." The charity is working with the government to develop a programme helping primary-age children struggling with numeracy. "Through the programme we aim to find a long-tem solution".

Well, the long term solution could be what's quoted in this Mary Warnock piece.

Through the dead hours of the morning, through the long afternoons, we chanted away at our tables. Passers-by could hear our rising voices in our bottled-up room on the bank; 'Twelve-inches-one-foot. Three-feet-make-a-yard. Four- teen- pounds- make- a-stone. Eight -stone-a-hundred -weight. , We absorbed these figures as primal truths declared by some ultimate power. Unhearing, unquestioning, we rocked to our chanting, hammering the gold nails home. 'Twice-two-are-four. One-God-is-Love. One-Lord-is-King. One-King-is-George. One-George-is-Fifth...' So it was always; had been, would be forever; we asked no questions; we didn't hear what we said; yet neither did we ever forget it. (Laurie Lee, Cider With Rosie)